Usidrali smo se na morje (We Anchored Ourselves at Sea)

 

Nadja Terčon
 

The present doctoral dissertation is a result of awareness that much is already known about maritime enterprise as a branch of economy, about the ties of Slovenian coastal area with its hinterland and the broader Northern Adriatic region, and particularly about the ties of man with the sea and the role of an individual as a bearer of maritime events, development and mentality per separate topics that are spatially limited, but that they should be logically and mutually compared, linked, perceived and evaluated, and understood as unique phenomena in combination with elements that existed elsewhere as well.

After World War II, the concept of Slovenia expanded. With the annexation of Primorska and the access to the sea, Slovenia increased in size and became, in comparison to the time after World War I, when cut off from the sea, a coastal country. Owing to its maritime tradition, it was possible to plan maritime enterprise in the national as well as state context much more firmly and ambitiously, although on different bases and in a different territory than desired and planned. After the liberation, the issue of maritime strategy, understood as maritime policy within the framework of general economic and social trends, acquired considerable power. Owing to the strained social-political conditions, this development did not take place without dilemmas of the economic decision-making priorities and without troubles in their coordination, including maritime affairs. In the Republic of Slovenia, no less than nine years had to pass before the Trieste question was solved, which on the one hand impeded the concrete implementation of measures, while in the sense of economic development this period was not lost at all in some idle waiting or even in a total lag compared to other Yugoslav republics. This was a transitional period of different attempts on different bases that were, after the conditions became mature, integrated into a logical whole and were, immediately after the signing of the London Memorandum, ready to be dynamically incorporated into the economic and social space of its hinterland. Specifically, foundations for the development of Slovenian maritime enterprise were laid at that time, in which the enterprise's component parts could find their place. These were not only port operations or maritime transport, but also various maritime industries, maritime administration, maritime legislation, fisheries, fish processing industry, salt-making, etc.