Sublime Trieste, a mosaic of nationalities with haunting Greek remnants

Από: Αλέξανδρο Μπιλλίνη

Anticipating our discussion on March 7, "The Legacy of the Hellenic Diaspora in the Hellenic Revolution," I offer the following piece, the first of several, about my beloved, sublime Trieste:

«Τhere are few cities so sublime as Trieste. It is a work of art, architecture, geography topography and variety. Its people are a mosaic, at once Byzantine, Hapsburg, and Italian, and at all times cosmopolitan.
At the top of the Adriatic Sea, literally hemmed in by the crags of the Alps, which rise, at a clutch-burning grade from its port, lies the city of Trieste, in, but somehow not of, Italy. For nearly seven hundred years, the city served as the Austrian Empire’s key commercial port, the outlet of Central Europe to the Mediterranean and beyond. Like the Austrian Empire itself, Trieste became a mosaic of nationalities.
In this goulash of ethnicities, Greeks and Serbs formed a key element. As the perennial maritime people, it was natural that Greeks would form a major, perhaps controlling, part of the shipping community. In the Austrian Empire, however, the Greek merchant community involved in overland trade with the Ottoman Empire was equally important. Here in Trieste the Austrian Greeks’ two key activities came together and several Greek houses grew to prominence and, in some cases, became members of the Austrian nobility. Here in Trieste the more normatively landbound Serbs are numbered among the largest of the Orthodox shipowners…»
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