Based on the liberal Slovenian newspapers from Trieste (Edinost) and Gorizia (Soča), the paper focuses on the idea of introducing the third state unit in the Habsburg Monarchy before the First World War. The author first presents the broader context in which the concept was formed and then analyses the comments of two newspapers on the reactions of various political groups, their ambitions, and the national tensions that arose in the context of discussing the proposed reform. The author argues that the trialist concept was, foremost, an Austrian attempt to federalize the Habsburg Monarchy in order to reduce the strength of Hungary. At the beginning of the 20th century, the majority of Slovenes and Croats, including the Slovene liberals from Trieste and Gorizia, supported this idea because it implied their political emancipation. On the other hand, Hungarians, Italians, German nationalists, and Serbs saw this concept as a threat to their own national interests. In the further development of the trialist concept, due to Austria's ambitions to satisfy the Italians, Trieste and Gorizia were excluded from the imagined third unit, which led to tensions between the Slovenian liberals and conservatives, and in the Croatian-Slovenian relations as well. The Slovenian liberals from Trieste and Gorizia began to advocate the idea of a broader federalism, where the Habsburg Monarchy would have more than three federal units, while in the context of South Slavic relations they were inclined to Serbian state visions.
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