All the changes of statehood, political and administrative interventions in the last century have influenced … the national, demographic, cultural, economic and social composition of Istrian villages as well as the coastal towns they surround. Thus it is not strange that today when Istrians discuss borders what they are really discussing is themselves and their identity, strategies for everyday life and the practices with which they have symbolically and physically interpreted the existence of borders on the multicultural and multiethnic territory of Istria.

In most studies of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, identity politics focuses on nationalism. Unfortunately, very few examine regional identities and how they too are politicized in similar ways for similar reasons. Istria provides a good example of how identity is politicized and how and why individuals adapt it to both internal and external influences. While in the past local and regional identities were politicized in response to colonization, more recently national divisions became more prominent. However, in the very recent past, Istrian identity again became politicized as many natives drew lines between themselves and what they saw as an external national influence emanating from Zagreb. In the 1990s, a renewed Croatian national movement competed with an Istrian regional movement. Istrian regionalists, seeking to justify taking and maintaining regional power and hoping to more quickly bring Croatia into the European Union, used this new political tactic against the nationalizing Croatian government. While both the nationalists and the regionalists claimed the other side's ideology was foreign to Istria, in actuality both have historical roots in the region. Though the competition was not as virulent as in past episodes of nationalist tension between Italians and Croats, it does fit a pattern of continuity in the region.

Most scholars of the recent history of Yugoslavia and its successor states tend to focus on nationalism and its hegemonic role in the region. However, it is prudent to examine the role of subnational regionalism on the politics of the region as well. This article analyzes Istrian regionalism in Croatian politics during the 1990s. It investigates the struggle between the Croatian ruling nationalist party, the Croatian Democratic Alliance (HDZ), and its primary regionalist opponent, the Istrian Democratic Assembly (IDS). While the HDZ generally maintained a hegemonic position in much of Croatia, the IDS resisted with a hegemonic hold on the region of Istria. Ultimately, both parties’ popularity fell in the late 1990s with the upswing in the Croatian economy. The article concludes that in specific regions and under particular circumstances, regionalism can be as hegemonic as nationalism and should be taken into consideration when studying modern politics and the politicization of identities.

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Istrian historiography written throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tends to refl ect the often contentious discourse between Italian irredentists and Slavic nationalists relating to the peninsula’s nature and belonging. On the one hand, Italian historians and polemicists suggest that Istria and Istrianity were primarily Italian, and therefore the region should be part of an Italian state. Until the end of the Trieste Crisis in 1954, many Italians continued to debate the nature of the region and its population, but the frequency of such publications tapered off with most of the peninsula falling to communist Yugoslavia. On the other hand, Croatian scholars and polemicists claimed the region and its population were thoroughly Slavic, and that Italians historically were aggressors and oppressors. However, another group of scholars has entered the debate, suggesting that Istrian identity is a hybrid, and this hybridity has historical roots. Its population, they claim, professes and promotes an Istrian identity, which consists of Slovene, Croatian, and Italian infl uences. The new camp reflects the continued politicization of identity in Istria into the 1990s, by both nation-building Croatian nationalists seeking the construction of a monolithic Croatian identity and regionalists searching for more regional and local autonomy. This illuminates the historic and contemporary political and social struggles to ascribe some kind of belonging to this contested borderland region.