Most of the theories concerning modernization and a number of trends in the historiography
treat the big city as the most important arena of modernization, an arena which, thanks
to our grasp of an array of social and economic transformations, can be made the ideal
subject of studies on the processes and consequences of modernization. From this perspective,
the small town becomes a kind of abstraction for backwardness, failed attempts to
catch up, or a community that simply has remained unaffected by modernization. Thus,
the study of the dynamics of modernization in smaller urban settlements from a new
perspective which attributes genuine agency to them may well offer new findings and
insights. In the historiography concerning the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the recent
imperial turn has shown a perfectly natural interest in the peripheries of the empire,
as it has striven to untangle the intertwining strands of local, regional, national,
and imperial loyalties found there. The research on which this article is based, which
focuses on Senj (Zengg), a small seaside Croatian city, is shaped by this dual interest.
Senj’s resistance and adaptation to top-down initiatives of modernization can be captured
through its conflict with the city of Fiume (today Rijeka, Croatia), which is not
far from Senj and which before World War I belonged to Hungary. In this story, Fiume
represents the “mainstream” manner of big-city modernization: it became the tenth
most active port city in Europe over the course of a few decades. The area surrounding
the city, however, was not able to keep up with this rapid pace of development. In
this article, I present the distinctive program for modernization adopted by the elites
of Senj, as well as their critique of modernization. Furthermore, the history of the
city towards the end of the nineteenth century sheds light on the interdependencies
among the cities of Austria–Hungary, interdependencies which were independent of legal
or administrative borders. By analyzing relations between Senj and Fiume, I seek to
offer a nuanced interpretation of the conflict between the two cities, which tends
to be portrayed simply as a consequence of national antagonisms.
