POLITITIANS

• Josip Broz TITO (founder of the Non-Aligned Movement today made up of  118 developing countries with aims to represent the political, economic and cultural interests of the developing countries. The Brioni Declaration was signed on the Brioni islands on July 19th, 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt), Josip Broz Tito (Yugoslavia) and Jawaharlal Nehru (India). Indira Gandhi once said about the rational of the movement that it is not a mere and casual collection of individual States but a vital historical process. It is a commingling of many historical, spiritual and cultural streams. Josip Broz Tito was born in Kumrovec, in Croatia, in 1892)
• Fiorello LA GUARDIA (son of Achille La Guardia and Major of New York in 1933, 1937 and in 1941; he was born in New York, in the USA, in 1882. Fiorello worked for two years in 1904 in the USA consular office in Rijeka)

PAINTER

• Louis Francois CASSAS (French painter born in 1756. Louis Francois Cassas made some very nice paintings of Pula)

SCIENTISTS

• Robert KOCH (physician and medical research scientist born in Clausthal, in Germany, in 1843. Helped Paul Kupelwieser to solve the malaria problem on Brioni Islands)
• Johann PALISA (astronomer born in Troppau, Silesia, now Opava, in Czech Republic, in 1948. Jahann Palisa is known for the discovery of 120 asteroids, including 142 Polana, 143 Adria and 183 Istria. Johann worked at the Austrian Naval Observatory in Pula)
• Josef RESSEL (inventor and forester born in Chrudim, in Austria, in 1793. Josef Ressel became famous for his revolutionary invention of the screw propeller that he patented in 1827 and tested on the ship “Civetta” in the Gulf of Trieste in 1829. Josef married Jakomina Orebich from Motovun in 1821 and after she died he married Tereza Kastelec from Visnja Gora in 1830. After 1838 Josef Ressel was in charge of planting and harvesting wood for the shipbuilding industry and in 1852 he was Naval Forestry official. As a forester, he made significant improvements in conservation of the woods in the Karst region and in Istria, working both in Motovun and Trieste)

ENTREPRENEURS

• Paul KUPELWIESER (a successful manager in the steel industry who bought the Brioni islands in 1893 and created there one of the most exclusive tourist resorts in the World; he was born in Vienna, in Austria, in 1843)

ACTOR

• Rade SERBEDZIJA (actor born in Bunic (Korenica), in Croatia, in 1946. In 2000 Rade Serbedzija, together with Borislav Vujcic, founded.Ulysses Theatre on the Brioni islands where he also directs and acts in most plays)

Reading Istria from Smrikve you will note many family names mentioned in the text. Most of those families have helped with Istrian inhabitants of different periods to produce art works that we can visit today in Istria. They contributed to preserve Istria and its culture over time and would deserve to be on the list above. Most of these family names you will find in the texts of the parts dedicated to the history of each town and village described in Istria from Smrikve.