Presnitz in the Piazza: Habsburg Nostalgia in Trieste

This article explores Habsburg nostalgia in the case of Trieste, the former empire’s major Adriatic port. Weaving together strands of the port city’s evolving physical and cultural landscape and taking up recent civic projects, it argues for a distinct Triestine version of Habsburg nostalgia rooted in identification with a perceived cosmopolitan past constructed to reconcile the city’s Central European history with its position on the geographic periphery and cultural margins of the Italian state and western Europe. From this perspective, Triestine Habsburg nostalgia is imagined as association with the monarchy and transnational empire and serves as a means to transcend bitter local ethnic and national divides.