National Indifference, Legibility and Opportunism at the Dawn of Nation States: The Re-Shaping of Habsburg Trieste in the 1860s

The process of Italian unification between 1859 and 1866 triggered an increase in emigrations and renunciations of Austrian citizenship on the part of Triestines with origins in northern Italy. Petitioners explained to local authorities that their links with Trieste were merely due to commercial reasons. In applying for Piedmontese and, after 1861, Italian citizenship, the language these men used often denoted forms of national indifference, rather than fully-fledged Italian patriotism. The inconsistencies that primary sources reveal shed light on applicants’ opportunism, tied to national indifference and indeterminacy, and triggered by the recent national legibility introduced by regime change.