Illyrian Provinces
Illyrian Provinces Provinces illyriennes (French) | |||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1809–1814 | |||||||||||||||||||
Illyrian | |||||||||||||||||||
Governor-General | |||||||||||||||||||
• 1809–1811 | Auguste de Marmont | ||||||||||||||||||
• 1811–1812 | Henri Bertrand | ||||||||||||||||||
• 1812–1813 | Jean-Andoche Junot | ||||||||||||||||||
• 1813–1814 | Joseph Fouché | ||||||||||||||||||
Historical era | Napoleonic Wars | ||||||||||||||||||
14 October 1809 | |||||||||||||||||||
5 December 1814 | |||||||||||||||||||
• Congress of Vienna and formal annexation by the Austrian Empire | 9 June 1815 | ||||||||||||||||||
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The Illyrian Provinces[note 1] were an autonomous province of France during the First French Empire that existed under Napoleonic Rule from 1809 to 1814.[1] The province encompassed modern-day Gorizia and Trieste, and parts of Slovenia, Croatia, Austria and Montenegro. Its capital was Ljubljana (German: Laybach, Laibach) in Slovenia. It encompassed six départements, making it a relatively large portion of territorial France at the time. Parts of Croatia were split up into Civil Croatia and Military Croatia, the former served as a residential space for French immigrants and Croatian inhabitants and the latter as a military base to check the Ottoman Empire.
In 1809, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the region with his Grande Armée after key wins during the War of the Fifth Coalition forced the Austrian Empire to cede parts of its territory. Integrating the land into France was Bonaparte's way of controlling Austria's access to the Mediterranean and Adriatic Sea and expanding his empire east. Bonaparte installed four governors to disseminate French bureaucracy, culture, and language. The most famous and influential governor was Auguste de Marmont, who undertook the bulk of Bonaparte's bidding in the area. Marmont was succeeded by Henri Gatien Bertrand (1811–12), Jean-Andoche Junot (1812–13), and Joseph Fouché (1813–14).
Marmont pushed the
Etymology
The name "Illyrian" was probably suggested to Napoleon by Auguste de Marmont, who was influenced by the civic and revolutionary intelligentsia in Dalmatia, Dubrovnik and Carinthia, and wanted to use it to support the sense of commonality of the peoples living in the Provinces, which went beyond Napoleon's basic geostrategic rationale to form the provinces, though historians have discussed the extents of the influence of historical ideas of Illyrism both in France and locally, as well as a Neoclassicist allusion to the ancient names of the Dalmatian coast, known as Illyria in antiquity and Illyricum during the Roman era.[2]
History
The
After the Austrian defeat, the Illyrian Provinces were created by the
The
In August 1813, the Austrian Empire again declared war on France. Austrian troops led by General Franz Tomassich invaded the Illyrian Provinces. Croat troops enrolled in the French army switched sides. Zara (now called Zadar) surrendered to Austrian and British forces after a 34-day siege on 6 December 1813. At Dubrovnik an insurrection expelled the French and a provisional Ragusan administration was established, hoping for the restoration of the Republic. It was occupied by Austrian troops on 20 September 1813. The Cattaro area (now called Bay of Kotor) and its environs were occupied in 1813 by Montenegrin forces, which held it until 1814, when the appearance of an Austrian force caused the Prince of Montenegro to turn over the territory to Austrian administration on 11 June. The British withdrew from the Dalmatian islands as the final part of the handover of these islands to their Austrian allies in July 1815, following the conclusion of the Battle of Waterloo.[4]
Administration
The capital was established at Laybach, i.e. Ljubljana in modern Slovenia. According to Napoleon's Decree on the Organization of Illyria (Decret sur l'organisation de l'Illyrie), issued on April 15, 1811, the Central Government of the Illyrian Provinces (Gouvernement general des provinces d'Illyrie) in Ljubljana consisted of the governor-general (gouverneur-général), the general intendant of finance (intendant général des finances) and the commissioner of the judiciary (commissaire de justice). With two judges of the Appellate Court in Ljubljana they formed the Minor Council (Petit conseil) as the supreme judicial and administrative authority of the Provinces.[6][7]
Subdivision
The area initially consisted of eleven departments, though the subdivision was never completely enacted:
Name | Capital |
---|---|
Adelsberg | Adelsberg (Postojna) |
Bouches-du-Cattaro | Cattaro (Kotor) |
Croatie | Karlstadt (Karlovac) |
Dalmatie | Zara (Zadar) |
Fiume | Fiume (Rijeka) |
Gorice | Gorice (Gorizia) |
Laybach | Laybach (Ljubljana) |
Neustadt | Neustadt (Novo Mesto) |
Raguse | Raguse (Dubrovnik) |
Trieste | Trieste |
Willach | Willach (Villach) |
In 1811, the Illyrian provinces saw an administrative reorganization, when the country was divided initially in four – Laybach (Ljubljana), Karlstadt (Karlovac), Trieste (Trst), Zara (Zadar) – on 15 April in seven
List of provinces
List of provinces (intendances) and districts:
Province (Intendancy) |
Capital | Districts |
Former department |
---|---|---|---|
Carinthie (Carinthia) |
Willach (Villach) | Willach Lienz |
Willach |
Carniole (Carniola) |
Laybach (Ljubljana) | Adelsberg (Postojna) Laybach Krainburg (Kranj) Neustadt (Novo Mesto) |
Adelsberg, Laybach, Neustadt |
Croatie civile (Civil Croatia) |
Karlstadt (Karlovac) |
Karlstadt Fiume (Rijeka) Lussinpiccolo (Mali Lošinj) |
Fiume, parts of Croatie |
Croatie militaire (Military Croatia) |
Segna (Senj) | parts of Croatie | |
Istrie (Istria) |
Trieste | Trieste Gorice (Gorizia) Capodistria (Koper) Rovigno (Rovinj) |
Trieste and Gorice |
Dalmatie (Dalmatia) |
Zara (Zadar) | Zara Spalato (Split) Lesina (Hvar) Sebenico (Šibenik) Macarsca (Makarska) |
Dalmatie |
Raguse | Raguse (Dubrovnik) | Raguse Cattaro (Kotor) Curzola (Korčula) |
Bouches-du-Cattaro and Raguse |
Two
Governors-general
The French administration, headed by a governor-general, introduced
- Auguste de Marmont (8 October 1809 – January 1811)
- Henri Gatien Bertrand (9 April 1811 – 21 February 1813)
- Jean-Andoche Junot (21 February 1813 – July 1813)
- Joseph Fouché (July 1813 – August 1813)
Population
The population (1811) was given at 460,116 for the intendancy of Ljubljana, 381,000 for the intendancy of Karlovac, 357,857 for the intendancy of Trieste and 305,285 for the intendancy of Zara, in total 1,504,258 for all of Illyria. A French decree emancipated the
Political arrangements
Despite the fact that not all French laws applied to the territory of the Illyrian Provinces, Illyrian offices were accountable to ministries in Paris and to the Higher Court of Paris. Inhabitants of the Illyrian Provinces had Illyrian nationality. Initially the official languages were French, Italian and German, but in 1811 Croatian and Slovenian were further added, the latter becoming official for the first time in history.
The French also founded a university (École centrale) in 1810 (which was disbanded in 1813, when Austria regained control, but whose Basic Decree of 4 July 1810, which ordered the reorganization of the former Austrian lycees in Ljubljana and Zara into écoles centrales, is now considered the charter of the University of Ljubljana).
Proclamations were published in the provinces' official newspaper, the Official Telegraph of the Illyrian Provinces (Télégraphe officiel des Provinces Illyriennes). The newspaper was established by Marmont. In 1813, the French author Charles Nodier worked in Ljubljana as the last editor of the journal, significantly renovated it, and published it in French, Italian, and German.[9] The "French gift" of letting Slovene be used at school was one of the most important reforms[7] and it won the sympathy of members of the so-called "Slovene National Awakening Movement". Marmont's school reform introduced, in the fall of 1810, a uniform four-year primary school and an extended network of lower and upper gymnasiums and crafts schools. Valentin Vodnik, author of the poem "Illyria Arise", wrote numerous school books for primary schools and lower gymnasiums; since textbooks (and teachers) were scarce, these books made the realization of the idea of Slovene as a teaching language possible.
Legacy
Although French rule in the Illyrian Provinces was short-lived and did not enjoy great popular support, it significantly contributed to greater national self-confidence and awareness of freedoms, especially in the Slovene lands. The opinion of Napoleon's rule and the Illyrian Provinces changed significantly at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, when liberal Croatian and Slovene intellectuals began to praise the French for liberation from Austrian rule.[4][7][5]
It could also be established today that the short period of the Illyrian Provinces marked the beginning of an enhanced awareness of the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.
The memory of the French and of the
One of the central streets in
See also
- List of French possessions and colonies
- Republican French rule in the Ionian Islands
- Septinsular Republic
- Imperial French rule in the Ionian Islands
- Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy
Notes
References
- ^ a b "Illyrian Provinces | historical region, Europe". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 2018-03-03.
- Hrčak.
- ^ a b c d e Malkovic, Goran (2011). Francuski utjecaj. Sveučilišna knjižnica Split. pp. 17, 21, 38.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ a b c d e f "Illyrian Provinces | historical region, Europe". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2017-04-24.
- ^ a b "Croatian-French relations". Retrieved 2018-03-02.
- ^ a b c Bonaparte, Napoleon I. (1811). "Decret sur l'organisation de l'Illyrie (1811)" (in French). Retrieved 7 March 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o "Croatian-French relations". Retrieved 2017-05-30.
- ^ Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1750–1850, Tallahassee, Fla., University of Florida Press etc, 1990, vol.1, p. 604
- ISSN 0023-4923.
Bibliography
- Bundy, Frank J. (1988). The Administration of the Illyrian Provinces of the French Empire, 1809–1813. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 0-8240-8032-7.
- Bradshaw, Mary Eloise (1928). The Napoleonic Influence on the Illyrian Provinces. University of Wisconsin—Madison Press. OCLC: 54803367.
- Bradshaw, Mary Eloise (1932). The Illyrian Provinces. University of Wisconsin—Madison Press. OCLC: 49491990 .
- Haas, Arthur G. (1963). Metternich, Reorganization and Nationality, 1813-1818: A Story of Foresight and Frustration in the Rebuilding of the Austrian Empire. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag.
External links
- Media related to Illyrian Provinces at Wikimedia Commons