Page 151 - Mellinato, Giulio, and Aleksander Panjek. Eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime Port Cities: The Northern Adriaticin a Comparative Perspective. Koper: University of Primorska Press.
P. 151
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Workers of the Port of Koper and the Economic
Reform Period in 1960s Slovenia
Lev Centrih
University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, Department of History
Institute for Civilization and Culture – ICK, Ljubljana
Introduction
The Luka Koper firm (Port of Koper) was officially founded in May 1957
(Terčon 2015, 293–4). It was a time of deep social, political, and economic
dislocations in socialist Yugoslavia in general, and in the coastal region of
the People’s Republic of Slovenia in particular. The District of Koper was
the administrative unit which took control of this part of the northern
Adriatic region, which was incorporated into Slovenia (Yugoslavia) only
with the London Memorandum of 1954. Virtually the entire Italian eth-
nic community, but also many Slovenes and Croats, abandoned their set-
tlements and moved to Italy (Troha 2000; Gombač 2005; Centrih 2019a).
The District of Koper, once part of the ‘B Zone’ of the Free Territory of
Trieste, had been previously administrated by the Yugoslav Army, and
was now fully integrated into the Slovenian economy. New residents
from the interior of Slovenia and the other Yugoslav republics eventually
moved in. Since thousands had left, in the late 1950s and early 1960s the
region would seem to be a land of opportunity. The substantial fluctua-
tions of the labour force at that time, however, show this was not exactly
the case. In 1963, for example, 2,900 workers came to Koper, followed by
an additional 2,700 the following year, but the same number of workers
left town as well (Centrih 2019a, 159). The Slovenian socialist economy,
and the state in general, was going through serious changes during this
period. The development of socialist workers’ self–management since the
early 1950s in practice meant the gradual development of independent
companies, and later also a market economy, while the decentralization
of the Yugoslav state meant that state investments were slowly evaporat-
Mellinato, Giulio, Aleksander Panjek, eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime
Port Cities: The Northern Adriatic in a Comparative Perspective.
Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem. https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-191-9.151-172
151
Workers of the Port of Koper and the Economic
Reform Period in 1960s Slovenia
Lev Centrih
University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, Department of History
Institute for Civilization and Culture – ICK, Ljubljana
Introduction
The Luka Koper firm (Port of Koper) was officially founded in May 1957
(Terčon 2015, 293–4). It was a time of deep social, political, and economic
dislocations in socialist Yugoslavia in general, and in the coastal region of
the People’s Republic of Slovenia in particular. The District of Koper was
the administrative unit which took control of this part of the northern
Adriatic region, which was incorporated into Slovenia (Yugoslavia) only
with the London Memorandum of 1954. Virtually the entire Italian eth-
nic community, but also many Slovenes and Croats, abandoned their set-
tlements and moved to Italy (Troha 2000; Gombač 2005; Centrih 2019a).
The District of Koper, once part of the ‘B Zone’ of the Free Territory of
Trieste, had been previously administrated by the Yugoslav Army, and
was now fully integrated into the Slovenian economy. New residents
from the interior of Slovenia and the other Yugoslav republics eventually
moved in. Since thousands had left, in the late 1950s and early 1960s the
region would seem to be a land of opportunity. The substantial fluctua-
tions of the labour force at that time, however, show this was not exactly
the case. In 1963, for example, 2,900 workers came to Koper, followed by
an additional 2,700 the following year, but the same number of workers
left town as well (Centrih 2019a, 159). The Slovenian socialist economy,
and the state in general, was going through serious changes during this
period. The development of socialist workers’ self–management since the
early 1950s in practice meant the gradual development of independent
companies, and later also a market economy, while the decentralization
of the Yugoslav state meant that state investments were slowly evaporat-
Mellinato, Giulio, Aleksander Panjek, eds. 2022. Complex Gateways. Labour and Urban History of Maritime
Port Cities: The Northern Adriatic in a Comparative Perspective.
Koper: Založba Univerze na Primorskem. https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-191-9.151-172
151
