Zur Konstruktion kollektiver Erinnerung in einem multinationalen sozialdemokratischen Kontext: Triest vor dem Ersten Weltkrieg

Abstract

After giving an overview of recent developments within the international and Trieste-related historiography on workers and social democrat workers' movements, the article introduces the setting of the multinational social democratic milieu in Habsburg Trieste at the turn of the century, i.e. the urbanization process, the national conflict, as well as the reference points of the social democratic movements. What follows is an analysis of how memory was constructed by the local Italian and Slovene social democrats: They referred to specific role models of the past; they separated what they called erroneously constructed memories from more suitable ones; and, importantly, they were particularly successful in tying bonds between the workers of all nationalities through the retrospective enforcement of local events and personalities, which became a lasting baggage of Triestine social democratic identity. As becomes evident, each national group constructed their own set of memories as part of their identity, with the local aspects becoming a patrimony of both Italian and Slovene social democratic workers.