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Inner Carniola (Slovene: Notranjska) is a traditional region of Slovenia, the southwestern part of the larger Carniola region. It comprises the Hrušica karst plateau up to Postojna Gate, bordering the Slovenian Littoral (Goriška) in the west. Its administrative and economic center of the region is Postojna, while other minor centers include Logatec, Cerknica, Pivka and Ilirska Bistrica.
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Name
The English name Inner Carniola, like the Slovene name Notranjska, is a translation of German Innerkrain, referring to the southwest part of Carniola. The name was created by analogy with Inner Austria (German: Innerösterreich), referring to the southwestern Habsburg hereditary lands.
History
Inner Carniola was a kreis of the Duchy of Carniola, ruled by the archducal House of Habsburg within the Inner Austrian lands since the 14th century. The territorial arrangement was described by the scholar Johann Weikhard von Valvasor (Janez Vajkard Valvasor, 1641–1693) in his 1689 work The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola. Part of the Napoleonic Illyrian Provinces from 1809, Carniola returned to the Austrian Empire by the 1814 Treaty of Paris. First administrated within the Austrian Kingdom of Illyria, the Carniolan duchy again became a Habsburg crown land from 1849 till 1919.
Part of Italy
After World War One, the western part of the region was occupied by Italian military. In 1920, the Treaty of Rapallo transferred the western part of the region (with around 2/3 of the population) to the Kingdom of Italy. The eastern third was included into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed to Yugoslavia).
Italy was given the districts of Vipava, Postojna, Ilirska Bistrica, Senožeče, and Idrija. The region was divided among the provinces of Gorizia, Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka). With the rise of Fascism, it was subjected to a policy of violent Italianization until the downfall of Fascism in Italy.