Talk:Dalmatian Italians

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File:Zadar PortaTerraferma.jpg
Venetian Gate of Zara

In the XIX century the cultural influence from Italy originated the creation in Zara of the first dalmatian newspaper, edited in Italian and Croat: Il Regio Dalmata - Kraglski Dalmatin. It was founded and published by the Italian Bartolomeo Benincasa in 1806.

The Regio Dalmata - Kraglski Dalmatin was stamped in the tipography of Antonio Luigi Battara and was the first done in Croat language.

The cultural influence from Italy is clearly evident in the urbanization plans of the main Dalmatian cities in the XIX/XX centuries. One of the best examples is the one of Spalato.

Renaissance in Dalmatia

In Dalmatia flourished a religious and public architecture with clear influences of Italian Renaissance, but a bit original. Three works out of that period are of European importance, and will contribute to further development of Renaissance: Cathedral of St James in Sebenico, Chapel of Blessed John in Trau, and Sorgo’s villa in Ragusa of Dalmatia.

File:Sponza Palace-Dubrovnik-4.jpg
The "Sponza" Palace in Ragusa is one of the many examples of Italian Renaissance architecture in Dalmatia

Only in the kind of environment, free of dogmas and self-governed - far of major governing centers, could it be possible for artisan known as Giorgio da Sebenico to build a church entirely by his own project – Cathedral of St. James in Šibenik, in 1441. Besides mixing of gothic and renaissance style it was also original by unity of stone building and montage construction (big stone blocks, pilasters and ribs were bounded with joints and slots on them - without concrete) in the way that was usual in wooden constructions. This was unique building with so-called three-leaf frontal and half-barrel vaults, first in Europe. The cathedral and its original stone dome was finished by the tuscan Niccolò Fiorentino following the original plans. On the cathedral there is a coronal of 72 sculpture portraits on the outside wall of the apses. Giorgio da Sebenico himself did 40 of them, and all are unique with original characteristics on their faces.

Work on the cathedral of Sebenico (Sibenik) inspired Nicola for his work on the expansion of chapel of Blessed John from Trogir/Trau in 1468. Just like Šibenik cathedral, it was composed out of large stone blocks with extreme precision. In cooperation with a disciple of Giorgio da Sebenico, the albanian Andrija Aleši, Nicola has achieved unique harmony of architecture and sculpture according to antique ideals. From inside, there is no flat wall. In the middle of chapel, on the altar, lays the sarcophagus of blessed John of Trogir.

Surrounding are reliefs of puttos carrying torches that look like they were peeping out of doors of Underworld. Above them there are niches with sculptures of Christ and apostles, amongst them are putties, circular windows encircled with fruit garland, and a relief of Nativity. All is ceiled with coffered ceiling with image of God in the middle and 96 portrait heads of angels. With so many faces of smiling children the chapel looks very cheerful and there isn’t anything similar in European art of that time.

In the entire area of Republic of Ragusa there were numerous villas of nobility, unique by their functionality and space organization - combination of Renaissance villa and government building. Sorgo’s villa in Lapad near Ragusa in 1521 is original by order of building parts in asymmetrical, dynamical balance.

Wordiest Croatian renaissance sculptures are linked to some architecture, and the most beautiful one is perhaps relief Flagellation of Christ by Juraj Dalmatinac on altar of St Staš in Spalato cathedral. Three almost naked figures are caught in vibrant movement.

The most important Dalmatian Renaissance painter is from Ragusa: Nicolò Raguseo. He painted the altar screens with first hints of portraits in characters, linear perspective and even still life motifs.

The most important Dalmatian Renaissance writers are:

File:De Gondola.jpg
Giovanni Gondola, with his typical Italian face, actually called in croat Ivan Gundulic

Historical influence

File:Dalmazia1560.png
The Dalmatian possessions of the Venetian republic in 1560, before the venetian annexation of the Republic of Ragusa

During those years the original Latin population took refuge in the coastal cities and in the islands, whilst other migrated to the mountains (they were later called "Morlachs"). So, in the early Middle ages, the coastal area of Dalmatia retained its original latinised culture, mainly on the islands and cities such as Zara, Spalato, Ragusa and Cattaro. These cities maintained deep cultural and commercial links with the Italian mainland, thanks to intense commerce through the Adriatic sea.[2]

Starting from the tenth century the Republic of Venice imposed its influence on Dalmatia, gradually assimilating the neolatin Dalmatians while the local Slavs maintained their language. In those centuries, the most southern area of Dalmatia was called Albania Veneta, now called coastal Montenegro.

After the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797 to the Napoleon Armies, the Dalmatia was incorporated briefly (1805–1809) in the "Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy". In those years the scholastic system was expanded to all the population (following the ideals of the French Revolution) and the Italian language was instituted as the official language in the schools of Dalmatia.

Furthermore there were in the Governatorato 10000 Italians who took the Yugoslav citizenship after WWI, in order to remain there and be accepted without problems by the new Yugoslavian regime after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.[3]

After WWII Italy lost all the territories in Dalmatia, and more than 22000 Dalmatian Italians exiled mainly in Italy. There are still some Dalmatian Italians in Dalmatia: 300 in Croatia and 500 in Montenegro.

That means that in only one hundred years (from the 1850s to the 1950s) the Dalmatian Italians decreased from 45000 in the 1857 Austrian Census[4] to less than one thousand in the last Croatian and Montenegrin Census.

Actual Dalmatian Italians

The autochtonous population of Dalmatia is represented by the Dalmatian Italians, direct descendants from the romanized Illiryans (they used to have their own language -the Dalmatian language- disappeared at the end of the XIX century) and the Italians who moved to Dalmatia mainly in the centuries of Venetian domination.

The 1816 Austro-Hungarian census registered 66,000 Italian speaking people among the 301,000 inhabitants of Dalmatia, or 22% of the total Dalmatian population.[5], but following the Italian emigration from Dalmatia after World War II, the Dalmatian Italian population was reduced to 300 in Croatian Dalmatia and 500 in Montenegro.[6] Today they reside mostly in the littoral areas of Zara, Spalato, Trau, and Sebenico in Croatia, and Cattaro, Perasto, and Budua in Montenegro. In Croatia, there are 20,000 Italians in total, mostly located in communities in the Istrian peninsula and the city of Rijeka (Fiume).

Actually the most renowned are:

File:Ottavio Missoni.jpg
Ottavio Missoni

a) in Italy:

b) In Croatia:

Notes

  1. ^ in Croatia are called croatian latinists (latinisti croati) those who wrote mainly in latin.
  2. ^ http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Dalmatia#Population_and_National_Characteristics
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ Montani, Carlo. Venezia Giulia, Dalmazia - Sommario Storico - An Historical Outline
  6. ^ Petacco, Arrigo. L'esodo, la tragedia negata degli italiani d'Istria, Dalmazia e Venezia Giulia
  7. ^ [3] "...ha visto poi la presidente della comunità italiana di Zara, Rina Villani e Adriana Grubelić, componente della stessa comunità."

See also

Bibliography

  • Diehl, Charles. La Repubblica di Venezia. Newton & Compton Ed. Rome, 2004.
  • Durant Will. The Renaissance. MJK Books. New York, 1981.
  • Lane, Frederick. Storia di Venezia, Einaudi. Torino, 1978
  • Manno, Antonio. I tesori di Venezia. Mondadori. Vercelli, 2004
  • Martin, John Jeffries. Venice Reconsidered. The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797. Johns Hopkins UP. New York, 2002.
  • Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. Vintage Books. New York, 1989.
  • Randi, Oscar. Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni. Tipografie venete. Venezia 1990.
  • Scaglioni Marzio. La presenza italiana in Dalmazia 1866-1943. Histria ed. Trieste,2000.
  • Zorzi, Alvise. La Repubblica del Leone. Storia di Venezia Euroclub Ed. Milano, 1991

External links

Editing Incidents of Spalato

File:SPLIT-City plan 1912.jpg
Spalato (now called Split) during WWI. In the map can be seen the original four quarters: Borgo Grande, Borgo Luciaz, Borgo Manus and Borgo Pozzobon

Incidents of Spalato refer to a series of ethnic disturbances, revolts and fights that happened in the Dalmatian city of Spalato (now called Split) after WWI. The incidents were between the Italians and the Slavs for the control of the city.

Political background

The incidents of Spalato were a group of violent fights -related to antiitalianism- that happenned in Spalato between 1918 and 1920 and that resulted in the murder of the Italian military ship "Puglia" captain, Tommaso Gulli (and a sailor named Aldo Rossi). He was hit on july 11, 1920 and was dead the next morning.

These fightings belong to a centuries long struggle for the control of the Adriatic eastern coast between Slavs (mainly Croats and Slovenians) and Italians. A struggle that hugely increased during the Austro-hungarian empire, when the Italian irredentism and the jugoslavian nationalism at the end of the XIX century created a bloody confrontation in the Adriatic area.

Indeed, during the second half of the XIX century in Spalato there was the struggle between the "Autonomist Party" pro-Italians and the "National Party" pro-Slavs: the last Italian major was Antonio Bajamonti in 1882 and since then the city had experienced a process of Croatization. Bajamonti, the most prominent Dalmatian Italian in History, once remarked:

Template:Blockquote

Antonio Bajamonti, the last Italian major of Spalato

WWI and the related Italian victory, not welcomed by the Jugoslavians, were the events preceding the incidents of Spalato.

Italians of Spalato

In the city of Spalato there was an autochtonous Italian community, which was reorganized in November 1918 through the foundation of the "Spalato Fascist Party" (led by the fascists Leonardo Pezzoli, Antonio Tacconi, Edoardo Pervan e Stefano Selem) from the ashes of the "Autonomist Party", dissolved by the Austrian authorities in 1915.

There were 2,082 italians in Spalato according to the 1910 Austrian Census and they were only the 9.73% of the total population,[1] but they had the best economic status in the Spalato society.

This census data had understated the number of Italians in the city area and this mistake seems to be confirmed by a series of subsequent events. Indeed -following the Treaty of Rapallo- the Italians of Dalmatia could opt for the acquisition of Italian citizenship instead of the Jugoslavian one, while maintaining residence: despite a violent campaign of intimidation on the part of Jugoslavia, over 900 families of Italian speaking "Spalatini" had exercised the option to be Italians.[2] Furthermore, in 1927 was carried out a Census of Italians living outside Italy: in Spalato and surrounding area were counted 3,337 Italian citizens.[3]

So, given that about 1,000 Italians (with their families) left the city following its incorporation into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and estimating a certain percentage of Italians who accepted the "forced" Jugoslavian citizenship, it is really possible that 7,000 Italians in the Spalato area -as said by Antonio Tacconi- obtained membership in Italian associations of Spalato in 1918/1919: this amount is more than 3 times the data from the 1910 Austrian Census.

History

After the Austrian defeat, in the first half of November 1918 Italian troops occupied the Dalmatian territories assigned to Italy by the 1915 Pact of London.[4] Spalato (the city was officially called "Split" only after the 1919 Paris Peace Conference) was not one of those areas, but the Italians sent some ships and occupied the city as agreed with the Allies.

The jugoslavian nationalists, who controlled the city with their "National Guard", soon showed huge hostility toward the Italian troops, fearing they could remain forever in the city. Even the arrival of slav refugees from the London Pact italian-occupied areas increased the tensions: those refugees were responsible for most of the incidents in the next 2 years.[5]

File:SPLIT-Overall view 1910.jpg
View of Spalato in the 1910s

On November 9, 1918 two French destroyer entered the port of Spalato. The Italians - mostly concentrated within the old city - exposed on the windows of their homes the Italian tricolor and went to the harbor to celebrate the Triple Entente. But the reaction of the Jugoslavian National Guard was immediate: they entered by force in the apartments, tore down the flags, beat some of those present and damaged the furniture. Meanwhile, the Austrian commander of a ship already docked at the port (and now with Jugoslavian flag) ordered with the megaphone to remove the flags, threatening to open fire.[6]

This was the first of a long series of incidents, which also saw the creation of a classic pattern of propaganda that would be found very often in the next months: the Croatian newspapers - and especially the most extreme of them, Novo Doba,[7] denounced the "Italian provocation". The Italians, however, created a complaint report and forwarded it to the Allies.[8] In the following days the municipal Croatian authorities of Spalato were forced to submit a formal apology for the incident.

But other incidents and demonstrations against Italy and the Dalmatian Italians happened in other cities, like Trau and the "Castelli". The worst happened on December 23 when groups of fanatical Slavs destroyed the offices of the main Italian institutions in Spalato (the "Fascio Nazionale", the "Gabinetto di Lettura" and the "Società Operaia") and hit many dozens of Italians on the streets, while destroying a lot of Italian-owned shops. The same happened on january 6, 1919 in Trau.[9]

Italian Admiral Enrico Millo, who was just promoted to Governor of Dalmatia for the area occupied by Italy, quickly sent ships to defend the Italians of Spalato: on January 12 arrived the destroyer "Puglia" in the port of the city, between huge protests from the Slav community.[10]

On February 24, while an "Allies Commission for the Adriatic" (made of US admiral Albert P. Niblack, French admiral Jean-Etienne-Charles-Marcel Ratyè, British admiral Edward Burton Kiddle and Italian admiral Umberto Cagni) was visiting Spalato, a huge group of Slavs -in order to show that they were the majority in Spalato and rejected the Italians- attacked the Italian sailors of the "Puglia": the captain Giulio Menini was hit together with some Italians walking on the nearby streets, and again were damaged some shops owned by the Italian community.[11] The Croatian authorities were forced to do another apology and until summer there were only minor incidents.

But on September 12 Gabriele D'Annunzio occupied Fiume (actual Rijeka) and later went even to Zara. As a consequence the Italian count Fanfogna organized a similar tentative of occupation in Trau [12] and the Slavs of Spalato feared something similar was going to happen in their city: tensions arose and other incidents against the Italians happened in Spalato in November (the "Caffe Nani" was destroyed and many Italian owned shop were damaged.[13])

The murder of captain Tommaso Gulli

Until the beginning of 1920 the Italians of Spalato never attacked the Slavs (even because of obvious numerical inferiority) and were harrassed by Croatian nationalists continuously, as has happened since the end of the XIX century in all Dalmatia[14]

But after the attack of January 27, 1920 in which were damaged nearly all the Italian-owned shops and the offices of Italian institutions, some Italian sailors of the "Puglia" now under the command of captain Tommaso Gulli, started to defend themselves and the Dalmatian Italians menacing to use their guns.

On July 27 another attack against the Italians of Spalato was done and a group of officials of the "Puglia" found refuge in a place near the docks: captain Gulli ordered a boat to rescue them, but it was blocked by some Slavs and was forced to fire "alarm shots" in the sky to get help[15]

File:Narodni dom triest.jpg
The Hotel Balkan (called in Slovenian "Narodni dom") was destroyed in Trieste the day after Tommaso Gulli's murder

Soon Gulli went to the rescue with a MAS, but approaching the docks found a huge crowd of nationalist Slavs. Shots were fired to the Italians and for the first time they returned fire. A hand granade was thrown to the Mas and hit the sailor Aldo Rossi and others.[16]

Another shot hit captain Gulli, while the Italians killed a man on the docks, whose name was Matej Mis. Anyway, many versions about wat happened were done in the next days, by the Jugoslavians and by the Italians.

Captain Gulli was helped in a Hospital but died the next day, while sailor Rossi survived only a few hours.[17]

In the Kingdom of Italy the reaction to what happened in Spalato was of rage and indignation: in Trieste fascists and nationalists attacked the Hotel Balkan (called in Slovenian "Narodni dom" and center of the Slav activities in Trieste) the next day.

In the following years the Italians of Spalato -under the Jugoslavian rule of "Split", as was officially called the city- were continuously harrassed in their institutions, schools and shops & business: they declined in a slow but steady way.[18]

Notes

  1. ^ G.Perselli, I censimenti della popolazione dell'Istria, con Fiume e Trieste, e di alcune città della Dalmazia tra il 1850 e il 1936, Unione Italiana Fiume-Università Popolare di Trieste, Trieste-Rovigno 1993.
  2. ^ Luciano Monzali.Antonio Tacconi e la comunità italiana di Spalato p. 165
  3. ^ Luciano Monzali. Antonio Tacconi e la comunità italiana di Spalato p.167
  4. ^ L. Monzali, Italiani di Dalmazia. 1914-1924(section: Un difficile dopoguerra. L'occupazione italiana della Dalmazia settentrionale) p. 50
  5. ^ G. Menini, Passione adriatica. Ricordi di Dalmazia 1918-1920
  6. ^ The whole episode is described in L. Monzali,Antonio Tacconi e la comunita italiana di Spalato p. 110
  7. ^ Novo Doba. Split in the interwar period of Z. Jelaska.(the oblique Vrste nasilja u Splitu svjetska između dva rata in Istriae Acta, 10, 2002) p.391
  8. ^ L. Monzali,Italians of Dalmatia p.69
  9. ^ Luciano Monzali. Antonio Tacconi e la comunita italiana di Spalato. p. 113-114
  10. ^ Silvio Salza. La marina italiana nella grande guerra p.808
  11. ^ G.Menini, Passione adriatica. Ricordi di Dalmazia 1918-1920 p.82-83
  12. ^ New York Times: Count Fanfogna "Dictator" of Trau
  13. ^ G.Menini, Passione adriatica. Ricordi di Dalmazia 1918-1920 p.187-188
  14. ^ Attacks on Dalmatian Italians before WWI (in Italian)
  15. ^ G.Menini, Passione adriatica. p.207
  16. ^ L.Monzali. Antonio Tacconi e la comunità italiana di Spalato p.137
  17. ^ L.Monzali, Antonio Tacconi e la comunità italiana di Spalato p.208
  18. ^ Read Il lento declino. Gli italiani di Spalato 1922-1935 in L.Monzali, Antonio Tacconi e la comunità italiana di Spalato p. 235

Bibliography

  • Dalbello M.C.; Razza antonello. Per una storia delle comunità italiane della Dalmazia. Fondazione Culturale Maria ed Eugenio Dario Rustia Traine. Trieste, 2004.
  • Lederer, Ivo. La Jugoslavia dalla conferenza di pace al trattato di Rapallo 1919-1920. Il Saggiatore. Milano, 1964.
  • Menini, Giulio. Passione adriatica. Ricordi di Dalmazia 1918-1920. Zanichelli. Bologna, 1925.
  • Monzali, Luciano. Antonio Tacconi e la comunità italiana di Spalato. Editore Scuola Dalmata dei SS. Giorgio e Trifone. Venezia, 2007.
  • Monzali, Luciano. Italiani di Dalmazia. 1914-1924 Le Lettere Firenze, 2007.
  • Salza, Silvio. La marina italiana nella grande guerra (Vol. VIII). Vallecchi. Firenze, 1942.
  • Tacconi, Ildebrando. La grande esclusa: Spalato cinquanta anni fa (in "Per la Dalmazia con amore e con angoscia"). Editore Del Bianco, Udine, 1994

See also

External links

Template:Italian irredentism by region

it:Incidenti di Spalato

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