Ionian Islands in Venetian hands since 1238. The islands thus became the only part of the Greek-speaking world to escape Ottoman rule, which gave them both a unity and an importance in Greek history they would otherwise not have had. Corfu was the only Greek island never conquered by the Turks. Under Venetian rule, many of the upper classes spoke Italian (or Venetian in some cases) and converted to Roman Catholicism, but the majority remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously. In the 18th century, a Greek national independence movement began to emerge, and the free status of the Ionian islands made them
Adriatic Ionian Euroregion Adriatic Ionian Euroregion The Adriatic Ionian Euroregion is a Euroregion comprising countries and their subdivisions bordering the Adriatic and Ionian Sea. The president of the organization is Nikola Dobroslavic, President of the Region of Dubrovnik. The Euroregion is formally established as a non-profit organization according to the law of Croatia. The Adriatic Ionian Euroregion was founded on June 30, 2006 in Pula, Region of Istria, Croatia. It represents a model of co-operation that includes trans-national and inter-regional co-operation between regions of the Adriatic and Ionian coastline. The Adriatic Ionian Euroregion is the institutional framework for jointly defining and solving important