Serbs in Italy

Serbs in Italy are Italian citizens of Serb ethnic descent or Serbia-born people who reside in Italy. According to data from 2024, there were 29,679 Serbia-born people in Italy.

History

The history of Serbs in Italy is intertwinned with the city of Trieste.

At the start of the 18th century, Serb merchants, mostly from Sarajevo, Trebinje, and the Bay of Kotor, established a community in Trieste, which as a free port, served as the Austrian Empire's outlet to the world. The most influential of the wealthy Serbian merchants of the time were the Gopčević, Kvekić, Kurtović, Vojnović, Vučetić, Popović, Teodorović, Nikolić, Škuljević, Opujić, Rajović, Mekša, Kovačević, and Miletić families, who owned most of the structures and dock area of the Porto Vecchio (lit. 'Old Port'). In 1766, Triestine Serbs numbered 50; by 1780, the number had grown to 200.

In 1751, Austrian Empress Maria Theresa proclaimed religious freedom in the city, and the Serbs and Greeks of Trieste built the Saint Spyridon Church that same year. In 1782, the Serbian Orthodox and Greek Orthodox communities of Trieste split due to major disagreements concerning church rituals and language-usage, at which point the Greek community built its own Greek Orthodox Church of San Nicolò dei Greci in the neoclassical style, and the Serbs continued to use the original church of Saint Spyridon. But in 1861, the Serb community demolished the original church, and rebuilt a new, much more grandiose one in its stead, in Serbo-Byzantine Revival style, in order to "stamp their identity architecturally in the midst of a baroque Austro-Italian city". The church's construction was completed seven years later, in 1868.