Trieste and the Levant

​This event focuses on the relationship between the Italian city of Trieste and the Levant. From Fernand Braudel onwards, cultural memories of historical cities on the Mediterranean Sea have raised vibrant cultural, historical and anthropological questions, which are of particular relevance in today’s world, when the Sea has become a site of displacement, migrations and fugitive crossings. The trans-disciplinary and inter-cultural vocation of this gathering, focusing on Ottoman legacies in Trieste and across the Mediterranean, from antiquity to the present, addresses issues of cultural diplomacy, as well as bringing together research pursuits and interests across several Institutes in SAS and University of London, and several other institutions such as the Levantine Heritage Foundation and the Hellenic Society. 

Speakers include the distinguished IHR-trained metropolitan and court historian Philip Mansel, author of several best-sellers, including Levant (2010), who will focus on the Habsburgs and Alexandria; Richard Bassett, formerly The Times’ correspondent in Eastern Europe, a long-time resident of Trieste and a renowned author and commentator on Central European affairs, who will speak about Maria Theresa and Trieste; Michael Cottakis, a historian of the  Eastern Mediterranean and former director of the think-tank 89 Initiative, focusing on the great fires at Smyrna and the Narodni Dom in Trieste. The discussion is chaired by Katia Pizzi, of the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, author of several volumes on the literary and cultural history of Trieste.

Katia Pizzi (Chair)
Trieste : A Gateway to the Levant
This overview highlights Trieste’s strategic geo-political positioning in the transition between the Austrian-Hungarian Empire and the radically altered post-war configurations, both after the First and the Second World War. At a time of both enforced and voluntary migrations, Trieste was a magnet of literary, linguistic and intellectual exchanges -one name for all of those attracted by the city’s cultural vitality at this time: James Joyce. The body of this presentation focuses on Trieste’s newly acquired cultural status following Winston Churchill’s renowned Cold War Speech (1946). From then on, the city is both frequently cited or acts as backstage in several feature films in terms of its purported ‘Orientalist’ or Levantine leanings. In other words, Trieste emerges alongside Casablanca, a site of dark traffics and murky intrigue against the backdrop of the Iron Curtain.

Katia Pizzi published extensively in the fields of literature, culture, memory and history of European cities, especially Trieste (see the volumes Trieste Una frontiera letteraria (2019), Cold War Cities: History, Culture and Memory (2016), The Literary Identities of European Cities (2011), Trieste: italianita`, triestinita` e male di frontiera (2007) and A City in Search of an Author (2001). Her research interests also span the international Avant-garde, posthumanism, AI and industrial and machine cultures in the 1920s and 1930s. Between 2020 and 2024, Pizzi was Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in London. She is currently Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

Richard Bassett
Maria Theresa (1717-1780) and Trieste
In Trieste’s long and varied history under Habsburg rule, it enjoyed one of its greatest periods of dynamic development during the 40 years of Maria Theresa’s reign. Fully dedicated to honouring her father’s commitment in 1719 to Trieste as a Free Port, Maria Theresa issued a series of patents from 1747 designed to encourage international commerce in the city. These measures culminated in the Privileges of 1771 which provided a unique institutional framework for the diverse religious-ethnic communities of the city and, in particular, conferred an exceptionally favourable status on the Jews of Trieste. The Theresian Enlightenment not only gave the city its most memorable 18th century architecture in the Borgo Teresiano, it laid the foundations for Trieste’s 19th century commercial dominance of the Adriatic. Under Maria Theresa’s benign eye, the city was able to take full advantage of the new trading opportunities which her reign, after centuries of enmity between Habsburg and Ottoman empires, encouraged with the East.

Richard Bassett is a visiting professor of history at the Central Europe University of Budapest and a Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College Cambridge. For ten years he was a governor of the English College in Prague. He is the author of numerous works on central Europe, including “For God and Kaiser” (Yale 2015), a history of the Habsburg army, and “Last Days in Old Europe” (Allen Lane 2019), a memoir of his time working in Trieste, Vienna and Prague in the closing decade of the Cold War, His biography of Maria Theresa will be published by Yale next spring.

Philip Mansel
Trieste, Alexandria and the Archduke Maximilian
After 1821 the boom in Austria’s trade with the Ottoman Empire, which Austria supported against Greek nationalists, and the foundation of the Lloyd Austriaco line in 1833, helped Trieste become a polyglot international city, resembling other Levantine ports. Business was more important than nationalism. William Deans Howell wrote of its Bourse: ‘all costumes are seen here, and all tongues heard’. After 1850 Trieste’s Austrian loyalties were reinforced by the arrival of the Archduke Maximilian, brother of Franz Joseph, commander of the Austrian navy, and the first Archduke to enjoy swimming and sailing. The castle of Miramar, which he built on the coast nearby, is a shrine to his international , polyglot dynasty the Habsburgs. His travel book On the Wing, praised Trieste, Smyrna, the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Particularly after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Alexandria became a major trading partner of Trieste. Thousands of local women, called Alexandrinske, went to work there. Trieste’s business ethic was so strong that the Governor of the city protected its Greek community, although the two countries were at war in 1916-18. After 1919, however, like other Levantine cities, Trieste was nationalised. It became an Italian city. The Italian language has eclipsed its rivals.

Dr Philip Mansel’s book include Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire (John Murray 1995); Levant (John Murray 2010) on Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut ; and Aleppo; the Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City (I B Tauris 2016), all of which have been translated into Italian. He is a founding committee member of the Levantine Heritage Foundation and the Society for Court Studies, and a Fellow of the Institute of Historical Research and the Royal Historical Society. His latest book is King of the World: the life of Louis XIV (Penguin 2019).

Michael Cottakis
Europe Ablaze: Narodni Dom and the Great Fire of Smyrna
Trieste and Smyrna were cosmopolitan merchant ports on opposite sides of the Mediterranean. As principal emporia for the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, they formed maritime gateways connecting east and west, north and south. For a century, the aquatic highway linking them was the busiest in the Mediterranean. Cotton, tobacco, textiles, fine clothing, and other finished goods zipped between Istria and Anatolia, on Greek, Italian, Austrian, and German ships. This was a multi-ethnic society, one based on commerce. But it was not to last. The First World War, and the ethnic nationalism it was a vessel for, ended the cosmopolitan-commercial life that had hitherto reigned. A series of deliberate arson acts in the early 1920s, first in Trieste, then more devastatingly in Smyrna, set Europe on a cycle of ethnic violence that would culminate in the horrific events of the 1930s and 1940s. In this talk, the burning by Italian Fascists of the Narodni Dom complex (1920), symbol of cosmopolitan life in Trieste, is related to the Great Fire of Smyrna (1922). Both events were driven by a post-war aspiration to ethnic purity, and by a fear that minority groups would undermine the potency of the nation. They were expressions of a new modernism, by whose logic national populations should be cleansed of undesirable elements. The Narodni Dom and the Great Fire of Smyrna are intimately connected in style and substance, while they formed an inspiration for the darker events that would soon blight the European continent. In many ways, their ripple effects continue to be felt today.

Dr Michael Cottakis is an historian of the Eastern Mediterranean. In 2023, he obtained a PhD from the LSE, concentrating on the business history of Thessaloniki and Izmir during the 19th and 20th centuries. His research interests include the financial, business, and political history of the Late Ottoman Empire, with a focus on its cosmopolitan port cities. Michael is also CEO of 89 Global, a public sector advisory firm which provides strategic, policy, and operational advice to governments around the world. He was previously Director of the 89 Initiative, a think tank which he co-founded in 2016. As an historian and analyst, he has written articles and op-eds for publications including the Washington Post, the EU Observer and Kathimerini, and has made various television appearances, including for TRT World and ERT. He speaks seven languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Greek, and Turkish. His academic interests mean he also reads Ottoman Turkish.