The Autonomist Association (; ) was a political party in Fiume, that existed continuously from 1896 to 1914. Its goal was to maintain the autonomy of the corpus separatum of Fiume within the Hungarian Kingdom. Origins It is very difficult to trace the origins of the party, since it appeared as an organised political grouping only in 1896. However, already at the municipal elections in 1887 a party named Partito Autonomo appeared, but nothing is known about its internal composition and goals. Moreover, very similar claims were already in the 1860s when the priority was to gain autonomy from Croatia In its mature form fiuman Autonomists were focused in assuring a greater deal of autonomy for Fiume within the Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen, from the 1880s up to 1914. The First Phase (1896–1902) In 1896 Michele Maylender, claiming greater autonomy from the centralizing Hungarian executive of Dezső Bánffy, founded the Autonomist Party. The initiative was successful and in 1897 Maylender was elected mayor, succeeding to the late Giovanni de Ciotta, who held the position continuously from 1872 to 1897. The election of Maylender was the decisive signal of political change under way in Fiume. It culminated when the Municipal council of Fiume was dissolved and was finally replaced by a Royal Commissioner, the ministerial adviser Antonio de Valentsits in 1898. After that Maylender started a weekly magazine La Difesa where the autonomist claims were made explicit. La Difesa, the official party paper of the Associazione Autonoma, was the first modern political party paper in Fiume, directed and founded by Maylender, who was also probably the owner. The paper started its publication on 1 January 1899, in Sušak on the Croatian side, where the Croatian (Austrian) laws on the press were in force. The Concept of Nation and State La Difesa represented first of all, a defensive movement – as stated by the title of its paper meaning defence. The autonomist interpretation of the Hungarian state was primarily aimed at reducing Hungarian sovereignty and political subjectivity: the Hungarian government was a temporary authority, since the city was not an integral part of Hungary. Although Hungary assured prosperity to the city, in the interpretation of autonomists, Hungarian rule was provisory in the sense that it could always have been receded. As the Croats, they denied the existence of a unitary Hungarian state but instead it was the “Holy Crown