engleski

The Brijuni Islands – recreating paradise : media representations of an élite Mediterranean resort in the first tourist magazines

This paper deals with the development of the Brijuni Islands as an exclusive archipelago resort as well as documentation of this process in the first tourist magazines in the Adriatic: from the Illustrierte österreichische Riviera Zeitung (1904–1905) and Adria, Illustrierte Monatsschrift für Landes- und Volkskunde, Volkswirtschaft und Touristik der adriatischen Küstenländer (1908–1914), to the Brijuni Islands' Gazettes: Brioni Insel Zeitung (1910–1914) and Brioni – Rivista Illustrata di Sport e Mondanita' (1929–1940). The appearance of specialised publications that had an important promotional function accompanied the beginnings of modern tourism in Istria and on the Adriatic coast. Apart from Opatija, Veli and Mali Lošinj, the Brijuni Islands had their tourist journals too. Thanks to the visionary project of the Austrian industrialist Paul Kupelwieser (1843–1919), who bought the islands in 1893 and in the course of 20 years transformed a malaria-ridden, uninhabited wasteland into an exclusive spa and tourist resort, Brijuni became a magnet for élites from Europe and beyond. This process is explored through media representations of this ‘terrestrial paradise' in the islands’ gazettes and in the first tourist magazines which at the same time promoted tourism, economic and cultural development along the so-called Austrian Riviera.

Brijuni Islands, tourist magazines, the Austrian Riviera, the Adriatic, tourism

Special Section: Adriatic tputism.