L'adriatico e la ricerca dell'identità nazionale in musica

The author analyses Friedrich Meinecke's concepts of 'Staatsnation' and 'Kulturnation' in relation to tendencies of nationalism and cosmopolitanism in Italian, Slavic and German music in the region of the North Adriatic under the Absburg administration from 1860 to 1918 (Trieste, Istria, Rijeka/Fiume, Dalmazia). With regard to nationalism, the biographies of Ivan von Zajc and Nikola Strmic, both supporters of Italian opera and later proponents of the national Croatian opera (Strmic only for a short period), are useful exemplars.Other composers, such as the Italian Antonio Smareglia and the Slovenian Marij Kogoj, kept faith with the cosmopolitan idea of the Austrian intellectuals (typical also of the non-German Austrians) and were inspired by the supranational music of Wagner and Schoenberg, becoming estranged in their native countries after the fall of the empire (i.e. in Italy and Yougoslavia).