 During that period, they enjoyed a large degree of autonomy.The Slovenes in this area were annexed to Italy together with the rest of the Venetia region in 1866, that is, half a century before the Slovenes of Gorizia and Trieste, who remained under Austrian rule until after World War I.For long, the identity of the local Slovenes was mostly a linguistic and, to an extent, an ethnic one, but not a national one.