A Tale of Two Cities: Rijeka and Zagreb
by Karlo Hainski
March 2, 2020
For the EU’s newest entrant, the beginning of this year was momentous. January saw Croatia’s government take over the Presidency of the Council of the EU in the capital city of Zagreb, while February began with a celebratory baptism of the northern port of Rijeka as the 2020 European Capital of Culture.
Zagreb’s ceremonial opening saw the conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic welcome Council President Charles Michel; the former a sober bureaucrat, the latter ostensibly dressed as an art critic. The prime minister, a former MEP, has a reputation in European circles as a poster child for moderate conservatism in Eastern Europe.
Plenkovic has recently struggled to subdue his party’s more nationalist elements. In attempting to rebrand HDZ as an Adriatic incarnation of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union, he has fallen foul of the party’s more traditional base: god-fearing Croats.
Another facet of the country’s political consciousness was on display in Rijeka’s celebrations. A sleepy port city frozen in time, it has long been the country’s bastion of leftism and the avant-garde. Rijeka’s multicultural history has been characterized by the coming and going of sovereigns; the Hungarians, the French, the Italians, the Yugoslavs, the Croats, and the one and only Gabriele D’Annunzio.
The city’s denizens have long prided themselves on their tolerance and progressive values. To this very day, Rijeka closely resembles its bigger sister, Trieste: a city littered with cafes where a certain Irish novelist scribbling pensively.
The opening celebration in Rijeka was a focus on the city’s storied past and lessons learned on the issues of tolerance and pluralism. The city’s ethos, much like its architecture, harkens back to its zenith as an entrepot for the Hungarian realm of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy.
The ethnic mélange that characterized the region a century ago was a byproduct of the diverse nature of empire. The development of the nation-state required the untangling of an elaborate ethnic weave into neat little boxes — boxes containing only the ethnically and culturally pure.
Cities located on the margins of cultural spheres, generally with diverse populations, ended up in their contemporary nation-states almost by virtue of contingency. The fact that Rijeka is not Italian, while Trieste is, is more a matter of (mis)fortune than historical necessity.
This tale of two cities resembles a tale of two Europes. Zagreb, a Europe that came to be in the 20th century, is the capital of a nation-state. The seat of a government that demands linguistic and cultural uniformity amongst its citizens. It is a place that has gladly forgotten its multicultural history; its once-grand synagogue still serves as a parking lot for shoppers in the city center.
As Prime Minister Plenkovic takes over the Presidency of the Council, parts of his party continue to clamor for more national aggrandizement, more patriotism, and more homogeneity.
I welcome any Brussels bureaucrats visiting Zagreb to drive two hours westward and witness a different version of Europe. Rijeka’s celebration of pluralism is a welcome reprieve from the nationalist head-banging going on in Croatia’s capital. The city has chosen to celebrate its diverse history instead of its uniform present. Through art, Rijeka has managed to establish a link of historical continuity between its diverse past and its European future.
Karlo Hainski is a graduate student at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. His interests include European politics, economics, and history.
A Croatian-language version of this piece appeared in Forum.
