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"Mining as Maritime History? The Coalmine in Sečovlje from Fascist Beginnings to the Early Cold War": Article by Sabine Rutar

28.10.2026 Publications

New open access article by Sabine Rutar (IOS) in Acta Histriae: "Mining as Maritime History? The Coalmine in Sečovlje from Fascist Beginnings to the Early Cold War". 

Sabine Rutar traces the twentieth-century history of the coalmine in Sečovlje in northwestern Istria, with a focus on the early Cold War. Methodologically, she connects the Lefebvrian concept of place with the territory–place–scale–network (TPSN) framework proposed by Bob Jessop, Neil Brenner, and Martin Jones. During the scarce four decades of the mine’s existence (late 1930s– early 1970s), its history was defined, on the one hand, by volatile political borders, while on the other hand, it was marked by the environmental border between the land and the sea, as the coal was extracted in the immediate vicinity of the saltpans that Sečovlje and Piran are famous for. 

Sabine Rutar: Mining as Maritime History? The Coalmine in Sečovlje from Fascist Beginnings to the Early Cold War. In: Acta Histriae, 34:2, 2026, pp. 151–176. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19233/AH.2026.09