Italianization
Encyclopedia
Italianization or Italianisation (Italian
: Italianizzazione) is a term used to describe a process of cultural assimilation
in which ethnically non or partially Italian people or territory become Italian. The process can be voluntary or forced. It also refers to the sphere of linguistics
where foreign words are absorbed into the Italian language.
. With the annexation of the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples
, the Papal States
, and the absorption of the Kingdom of Sardinia
into the new Kingdom of Italy
, all areas of modern-day Italy experienced an urgent and immediate Italianization. In order to unite all the various ethnicities, nationalities, language groups, and cultures into a united Italy of real Italians, Italian language
and patriotism was forced upon the population of former Sicilians, Neapolitans, and others. Disenchantment over the new country and rulers led to the eruption of a series of revolts against the Italian state in the Sicilian
countryside during the early 1860s. These riots eventually arrived on the Sicilian capital of Palermo where they were met by Italian military troops. On May 27, 1860, the Italian government sent a naval fleet to stage in the waters outside of Palermo. During the following weeks, thousands of Sicilians were killed as the Italian government heavily bombed Palermo in an attempt to fight the Sicilian people into submission.
Subsequent Italianization of the former independent kingdoms of present-day Italy included the compulsory education in and public use of Italian over languages such as Sardinian
, Sicilian
, Neapolitan
, Venetian
, Lombard, and others.
Fascist Italianization was the violent and systematic process of assimilation by which, between 1924 and 1945, Benito Mussolini
's Fascist government forced minority populations living in Italy to assume the Italian language and culture, and worked to erase any traces of the existence of non-Italian minorities on the territory of Mussolini's Italy.
This program of Italianization aimed to suppress the native non-Italian populations living in Italy, including the Occitan minority in the Piedmont
-Aosta Valley and the Albanians
in Southern Italy, as well as some areas annexed after the First World War
, where Italians were a minority. The program was later extended to areas annexed during World War II
. The affected populations were Slovenes and Croats
in the Julian March
, Lastovo
and Zadar
; between 1941 and 1943 the Gorski Kotar
and coastal Dalmatia
; German
-speakers in the South Tyrol
, parts of Friuli
and the Julian March, French
and Francoprovençal
-speaking peoples in the Aosta Valley, as well as Greeks
, Turks
and Jews
on the Dodecanese
islands.
between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Italy, Italy obtained almost all of Istria with Trieste
. Under the 1924 Treaty of Rome
Italy took Rijeka
as well, which had been planned to become an independent state.
In these areas, there was a forced policy of Italianization of the population in the 1920s and 1930s. Even during the brief preliminary period of occupation (1918–1920) Italy had begun a policy of assimilation of Croats and Slovenes. This resulted in the closure of the classical lyceum in Pazin, of the high school in Voloska (1918), the closure of the Slovene and Croatian primary schools and the exile of some distinguished Croats and Slovenes to Sardinia
and to other places in Italy. In addition, there were acts of fascist violence not hampered by the authorities, such as the torching of the Narodni dom (National House) in Pula and Trieste carried out at night by Fascists with the connivance of the police (13 July 1920). The situation deteriorated further after the annexation of the Julian March, especially after Benito Mussolini
came to power (1922). The official policy of cleansing other nationalities was under no international restraint, as Italy had not given any undertaking about the rights of minorities in either the peace treaties or the Rapallo treaty.
In Istria the use of Croatian
and Slovene languages in the administration and in the courts had already been restricted during the occupation (1918–1920). In March 1923 the prefect of the Julian March prohibited the use of Croatian and Slovene in the administration, whilst their use in law courts was forbidden by Royal decree on 15 October 1925. The deathblow to the Slovene and Croatian school system in Istria was delivered on 1 October 1923 with the scholastic reform of minister Giovanni Gentile
. The activities of Croatian and Slovene societies and associations (Sokol, reading rooms, etc.) had already been forbidden during the occupation, but specifically so later with the Law on Associations (1925), the Law on Public Demonstrations (1926) and the Law on Public Order (1926). All Slovene and Croatian societies and sporting and cultural associations had to cease every activity in line with a decision of provincial fascist secretaries dated 12 June 1927. On a specific order from the prefect of Trieste on 19 November 1928 the Edinost political society was also dissolved. Croatian and Slovene co-operatives in Istria, which at first were absorbed by the Pula or Trieste Savings Banks, were gradually liquidated.
After this complete dissolution of all Slav political, cultural and economic organizations, armed resistance was organized against Italian rule (see TIGR
), followed by new repression, which further embittered relations between the two communities.
In 1927, Italian fascist
minister for public works Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli
wrote in Gerarchia
magazine, a fascist publication, that "The Istrian muse named as foiba
s those places suitable for burial of enemies of the national [Italian] characteristics of Istria".
Under the program non-Italians were forced to attend Italian language
schools and to use only the Italian language in public places including churches. Slovene and Croatian institutions, were vandalized, as were German cultural institutions. Libraries and the media were closed. Croatian, Slovene, German and French toponyms were systematically translated and immigration of Italians from other regions of Italy
was encouraged.
Lojze Bratuž
, a Slovene choirmaster who led several Slovene language church choir
s and resisted the persecution of Slovenes in the area around Gorizia
, was arrested on 27 December 1936, tortured and forced to drink petrol and engine oil.
In 1926, claiming that it was restoring surnames to their original Italian form, the Italian government announced the Italianization of German, Slovene and Croatian surnames, giving this program open legislative form, adding further pressure to these ethnic groups. There was no exception for first names.
School certificates were no longer issued in languages other than Italian, schools in other languages were closed and school programs in other languages were abolished. Use of other languages was systematically forbidden.
The Italian administration encouraged the removal of Slavic populations to Puglia and Calabria
in southern Italy and East Africa. Italians from Southern Italy were encouraged to populate Istria
and Zadar
. Italian teachers were brought to elementary schools and kindergartens.
islands, conquered by Italy in 1912. Although the islands were overwhelmingly Greek
-speaking, with by a relatively small Turkish
-speaking minority and an even smaller Ladino-speaking Jewish minority (with few Italian speakers), schools were required to teach in Italian, and the Greek Orthodox
religion of most of the inhabitants was strongly discouraged. These measures caused a good deal of Greek emigration from the islands, replaced by a moderate amount of Italian immigration.
was inhabited by almost 90% German
speakers. Under the 1939 South Tyrol Option Agreement
, Adolf Hitler
and Benito Mussolini determined the status of the German people living in the province. They could emigrate to Germany
or the Greater German Reich's territory in the Crimea
, or stay in Italy and accept their complete Italianization. As a consequence of this, the society of South Tyrol was deeply riven. Those who wanted to stay, the so-called Dableiber, were condemned as traitors while those who left (Optanten) were defamed as Nazis. Because of the outbreak of the Second World War, this agreement was never fully implemented. Illegal Katakombenschulen ("Catacomb schools") were set up to teach children the German language.
, and the Italian government made stringent efforts to Italianize the region. Among other things, it was forbidden to listen to any radio station in Croatian nor Slovene, and those doing so risked being identified as an enemy of the state and executed. Yugoslavs were not allowed to buy land or property, and drastic measures were enacted to ensure that. The program was implemented by Italo Sauro, son of Nazario Sauro
and personal counselor to Benito Mussolini
for Italianization.
Italian occupying forces were accused of committing war crimes in order to transform occupied territories into ethnic Italian territories.
The Italian government operated many concentration and internment camps
for Slavic citizens, such as Rab concentration camp
and one on the island of Molat. Survivors received no compensation from Italy after the war.
Mario Roatta
was the commander of the 2nd Italian Army in Yugoslavia
and to suppress the mounting resistance led by the Partisans adopted tactics of "summary executions, hostage-taking, reprisals, internments and the burning of houses and villages", for which after the war the Yugoslav government sought unsuccessfully to have him extradited for war crimes. He was quoted as saying "Non dente per dente, ma testa per dente" ("Not a tooth for tooth but a head for a tooth"), while General Mario Robotti, Commander of the Italian 11th division in Slovenia and Croatia was quoted as saying "Si ammazza troppo poco" ("There are not enough killings") in 1942.
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
: Italianizzazione) is a term used to describe a process of cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
in which ethnically non or partially Italian people or territory become Italian. The process can be voluntary or forced. It also refers to the sphere of linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
where foreign words are absorbed into the Italian language.
Italian Unification
The first phase of Italianization occurred with the unification of ItalyItalian unification
Italian unification was the political and social movement that agglomerated different states of the Italian peninsula into the single state of Italy in the 19th century...
. With the annexation of the Kingdoms of Sicily and Naples
Kingdom of the Two Sicilies
The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, commonly known as the Two Sicilies even before formally coming into being, was the largest and wealthiest of the Italian states before Italian unification...
, the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
, and the absorption of the Kingdom of Sardinia
Kingdom of Sardinia
The Kingdom of Sardinia consisted of the island of Sardinia first as a part of the Crown of Aragon and subsequently the Spanish Empire , and second as a part of the composite state of the House of Savoy . Its capital was originally Cagliari, in the south of the island, and later Turin, on the...
into the new Kingdom of Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
, all areas of modern-day Italy experienced an urgent and immediate Italianization. In order to unite all the various ethnicities, nationalities, language groups, and cultures into a united Italy of real Italians, Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
and patriotism was forced upon the population of former Sicilians, Neapolitans, and others. Disenchantment over the new country and rulers led to the eruption of a series of revolts against the Italian state in the Sicilian
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
countryside during the early 1860s. These riots eventually arrived on the Sicilian capital of Palermo where they were met by Italian military troops. On May 27, 1860, the Italian government sent a naval fleet to stage in the waters outside of Palermo. During the following weeks, thousands of Sicilians were killed as the Italian government heavily bombed Palermo in an attempt to fight the Sicilian people into submission.
Subsequent Italianization of the former independent kingdoms of present-day Italy included the compulsory education in and public use of Italian over languages such as Sardinian
Sardinian language
Sardinian is a Romance language spoken and written on most of the island of Sardinia . It is considered the most conservative of the Romance languages in terms of phonology and is noted for its Paleosardinian substratum....
, Sicilian
Sicilian language
Sicilian is a Romance language. Its dialects make up the Extreme-Southern Italian language group, which are spoken on the island of Sicily and its satellite islands; in southern and central Calabria ; in the southern parts of Apulia, the Salento ; and Campania, on the Italian mainland, where it is...
, Neapolitan
Neapolitan language
Neapolitan is the language of the city and region of Naples , and Campania. On October 14, 2008 a law by the Region of Campania stated that the Neapolitan language had to be protected....
, Venetian
Venetian language
Venetian or Venetan is a Romance language spoken as a native language by over two million people, mostly in the Veneto region of Italy, where of five million inhabitants almost all can understand it. It is sometimes spoken and often well understood outside Veneto, in Trentino, Friuli, Venezia...
, Lombard, and others.
Fascist Italianization
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's Fascist government forced minority populations living in Italy to assume the Italian language and culture, and worked to erase any traces of the existence of non-Italian minorities on the territory of Mussolini's Italy.
This program of Italianization aimed to suppress the native non-Italian populations living in Italy, including the Occitan minority in the Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
-Aosta Valley and the Albanians
Arbëreshë
The Arbëreshë are a linguistic and ethnic Albanian minority community living in southern Italy, especially the regions of Apulia, Basilicata, Molise, Calabria and Sicily...
in Southern Italy, as well as some areas annexed after the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, where Italians were a minority. The program was later extended to areas annexed during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The affected populations were Slovenes and Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
in the Julian March
Julian March
The Julian March is a former political region of southeastern Europe on what are now the borders between Croatia, Slovenia, and Italy...
, Lastovo
Lastovo
Lastovo is an island municipality in the Dubrovnik-Neretva County in Croatia. The municipality consists of 46 islands with a total population of 792 people, of which 93% are ethnic Croats, and a land area of approximately . The biggest island in the municipality is also named Lastovo, as is the...
and Zadar
Zadar
Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
; between 1941 and 1943 the Gorski Kotar
Gorski kotar
Gorski kotar is the mountainous region in Croatia between Karlovac and Rijeka. Together with Lika and the Ogulin-Plaški valley it forms Mountainous Croatia. Because 63% of its surface is forested it is popularly called the green lungs of Croatia or Croatian Switzerland...
and coastal Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
; German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
-speakers in the South Tyrol
South Tyrol
South Tyrol , also known by its Italian name Alto Adige, is an autonomous province in northern Italy. It is one of the two autonomous provinces that make up the autonomous region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. The province has an area of and a total population of more than 500,000 inhabitants...
, parts of Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
and the Julian March, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
and Francoprovençal
Franco-Provençal language
Franco-Provençal , Arpitan, or Romand is a Romance language with several distinct dialects that form a linguistic sub-group separate from Langue d'Oïl and Langue d'Oc. The name Franco-Provençal was given to the language by G.I...
-speaking peoples in the Aosta Valley, as well as Greeks
Greeks
The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
, Turks
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
and Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
on the Dodecanese
Dodecanese
The Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the Southern Sporades island group...
islands.
Istria
After the First World War, under the 1920 Treaty of RapalloTreaty of Rapallo, 1920
The Treaty of Rapallo was a treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , signed to solve the dispute over some territories in the upper Adriatic, in Dalmatia and in the region which became known as the Julian March.The treaty was signed on 12 November 1920 in...
between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and the Kingdom of Italy, Italy obtained almost all of Istria with Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
. Under the 1924 Treaty of Rome
Treaty of Rome, 1924
The Treaty of Rome of January 27, 1924 was an agreement by which Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes revoked the parts of the Treaty of Rapallo from 1920, which had created the independent Free State of Fiume...
Italy took Rijeka
Rijeka
Rijeka is the principal seaport and the third largest city in Croatia . It is located on Kvarner Bay, an inlet of the Adriatic Sea and has a population of 128,735 inhabitants...
as well, which had been planned to become an independent state.
In these areas, there was a forced policy of Italianization of the population in the 1920s and 1930s. Even during the brief preliminary period of occupation (1918–1920) Italy had begun a policy of assimilation of Croats and Slovenes. This resulted in the closure of the classical lyceum in Pazin, of the high school in Voloska (1918), the closure of the Slovene and Croatian primary schools and the exile of some distinguished Croats and Slovenes to Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...
and to other places in Italy. In addition, there were acts of fascist violence not hampered by the authorities, such as the torching of the Narodni dom (National House) in Pula and Trieste carried out at night by Fascists with the connivance of the police (13 July 1920). The situation deteriorated further after the annexation of the Julian March, especially after Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
came to power (1922). The official policy of cleansing other nationalities was under no international restraint, as Italy had not given any undertaking about the rights of minorities in either the peace treaties or the Rapallo treaty.
In Istria the use of Croatian
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
and Slovene languages in the administration and in the courts had already been restricted during the occupation (1918–1920). In March 1923 the prefect of the Julian March prohibited the use of Croatian and Slovene in the administration, whilst their use in law courts was forbidden by Royal decree on 15 October 1925. The deathblow to the Slovene and Croatian school system in Istria was delivered on 1 October 1923 with the scholastic reform of minister Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile
Giovanni Gentile was an Italian neo-Hegelian Idealist philosopher, a peer of Benedetto Croce. He described himself as 'the philosopher of Fascism', and ghostwrote A Doctrine of Fascism for Benito Mussolini. He also devised his own system of philosophy, Actual Idealism.- Life and thought :Giovanni...
. The activities of Croatian and Slovene societies and associations (Sokol, reading rooms, etc.) had already been forbidden during the occupation, but specifically so later with the Law on Associations (1925), the Law on Public Demonstrations (1926) and the Law on Public Order (1926). All Slovene and Croatian societies and sporting and cultural associations had to cease every activity in line with a decision of provincial fascist secretaries dated 12 June 1927. On a specific order from the prefect of Trieste on 19 November 1928 the Edinost political society was also dissolved. Croatian and Slovene co-operatives in Istria, which at first were absorbed by the Pula or Trieste Savings Banks, were gradually liquidated.
After this complete dissolution of all Slav political, cultural and economic organizations, armed resistance was organized against Italian rule (see TIGR
TIGR
TIGR, abbreviation for Trst , Istra , Gorica and Reka , with the full name Revolutionary Organization of the Julian March T.I.G.R. was a militant anti-Fascist and insurgent organization active in the 1920s and the 1930s in the eastern Italian border region known as the Julian March.The...
), followed by new repression, which further embittered relations between the two communities.
In 1927, Italian fascist
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
minister for public works Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli
Giuseppe Cobolli Gigli
Giusepppe Cobolli Gigli was an Italian politician, member of Benito Mussolini's fascist government from 1935 to 1939 as minister of Public Works.- The dispute about the origins :...
wrote in Gerarchia
Gerarchia
Gerarchia was a magazine/journal founded in January 1922 by Benito Mussolini.Mussolini was listed on the magazine's masthead as its editor-in-chief. However, the magazine's actual editor, from its founding, was Margherita Sarfatti...
magazine, a fascist publication, that "The Istrian muse named as foiba
Foiba
Foiba is a type of deep natural sinkhole, doline, sink and is a collapsed portion of bedrock above a void. Sinks may be a sheer vertical opening into a cave, or a shallow depression of many acres which are common in the Kras region, a karstic plateau region shared by Italy, Slovenia and...
s those places suitable for burial of enemies of the national [Italian] characteristics of Istria".
Under the program non-Italians were forced to attend Italian language
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
schools and to use only the Italian language in public places including churches. Slovene and Croatian institutions, were vandalized, as were German cultural institutions. Libraries and the media were closed. Croatian, Slovene, German and French toponyms were systematically translated and immigration of Italians from other regions of Italy
Regions of Italy
The regions of Italy are the first-level administrative divisions of the state, constituting its first NUTS administrative level. There are twenty regions, of which five are constitutionally given a broader amount of autonomy granted by special statutes....
was encouraged.
Julian March and Italian Dalmatia
Most non-Italians resisted these policies as far as possible, sometimes with the support of local Catholic clergy of the same origin. Some Slovenes and Croatians willingly accepted Italianization as a compromise required in order to gain full status as Italian citizens and favour upward social mobility.Lojze Bratuž
Lojze Bratuž
Lojze Bratuž, italianized name Luigi Bertossi was a Slovene choirmaster and composer from Gorizia, killed by the Italian Fascist squads...
, a Slovene choirmaster who led several Slovene language church choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
s and resisted the persecution of Slovenes in the area around Gorizia
Gorizia
Gorizia is a town and comune in northeastern Italy, in the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. It is located at the foot of the Julian Alps, bordering Slovenia. It is the capital of the Province of Gorizia, and it is a local center of tourism, industry, and commerce. Since 1947, a twin...
, was arrested on 27 December 1936, tortured and forced to drink petrol and engine oil.
In 1926, claiming that it was restoring surnames to their original Italian form, the Italian government announced the Italianization of German, Slovene and Croatian surnames, giving this program open legislative form, adding further pressure to these ethnic groups. There was no exception for first names.
School certificates were no longer issued in languages other than Italian, schools in other languages were closed and school programs in other languages were abolished. Use of other languages was systematically forbidden.
The Italian administration encouraged the removal of Slavic populations to Puglia and Calabria
Calabria
Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
in southern Italy and East Africa. Italians from Southern Italy were encouraged to populate Istria
Istria
Istria , formerly Histria , is the largest peninsula in the Adriatic Sea. The peninsula is located at the head of the Adriatic between the Gulf of Trieste and the Bay of Kvarner...
and Zadar
Zadar
Zadar is a city in Croatia on the Adriatic Sea. It is the centre of Zadar county and the wider northern Dalmatian region. Population of the city is 75,082 citizens...
. Italian teachers were brought to elementary schools and kindergartens.
Dodecanese
The policy also affected the inhabitants of the DodecaneseDodecanese
The Dodecanese are a group of 12 larger plus 150 smaller Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, of which 26 are inhabited. Τhis island group generally defines the eastern limit of the Sea of Crete. They belong to the Southern Sporades island group...
islands, conquered by Italy in 1912. Although the islands were overwhelmingly Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
-speaking, with by a relatively small Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
-speaking minority and an even smaller Ladino-speaking Jewish minority (with few Italian speakers), schools were required to teach in Italian, and the Greek Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
religion of most of the inhabitants was strongly discouraged. These measures caused a good deal of Greek emigration from the islands, replaced by a moderate amount of Italian immigration.
South Tyrol
In 1919, at the time of its annexation, the southern part of TyrolCounty of Tyrol
The County of Tyrol, Princely County from 1504, was a State of the Holy Roman Empire, from 1814 a province of the Austrian Empire and from 1867 a Cisleithanian crown land of Austria-Hungary...
was inhabited by almost 90% German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
speakers. Under the 1939 South Tyrol Option Agreement
South Tyrol Option Agreement
The South Tyrol Option Agreement refers to the period between 1939 and 1943, when the native German and Ladin speaking people in South Tyrol and three communes in the province of Belluno were given the "option" of either emigrating to neighboring Nazi Germany or remaining in Fascist Italy and...
, Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
and Benito Mussolini determined the status of the German people living in the province. They could emigrate to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
or the Greater German Reich's territory in the Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
, or stay in Italy and accept their complete Italianization. As a consequence of this, the society of South Tyrol was deeply riven. Those who wanted to stay, the so-called Dableiber, were condemned as traitors while those who left (Optanten) were defamed as Nazis. Because of the outbreak of the Second World War, this agreement was never fully implemented. Illegal Katakombenschulen ("Catacomb schools") were set up to teach children the German language.
The Second World War
During the Second World War Italy occupied almost all of DalmatiaDalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....
, and the Italian government made stringent efforts to Italianize the region. Among other things, it was forbidden to listen to any radio station in Croatian nor Slovene, and those doing so risked being identified as an enemy of the state and executed. Yugoslavs were not allowed to buy land or property, and drastic measures were enacted to ensure that. The program was implemented by Italo Sauro, son of Nazario Sauro
Nazario Sauro
Nazario Sauro was an Austrian-born Italian irredentist and sailor.-Life:Born in Capodistria, in what was then the Austrian Littoral , he took to sailing from a very young age, and became the captain of a cargo ship when he was only 20...
and personal counselor to Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
for Italianization.
Italian occupying forces were accused of committing war crimes in order to transform occupied territories into ethnic Italian territories.
The Italian government operated many concentration and internment camps
Internment
Internment is the imprisonment or confinement of people, commonly in large groups, without trial. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the meaning as: "The action of 'interning'; confinement within the limits of a country or place." Most modern usage is about individuals, and there is a distinction...
for Slavic citizens, such as Rab concentration camp
Rab concentration camp
The Rab concentration camp was an Italian concentration and internment camp on the Adriatic island of Rab, now part of the Republic of Croatia, during World War II. The camp was located at...
and one on the island of Molat. Survivors received no compensation from Italy after the war.
Mario Roatta
Mario Roatta
Mario Roatta was an Italian general, Mussolini's Chief-of-Staff, and head of the military secret service.-SIM:From 1934 to 1936, Roatta headed up the Italian Military Intelligence Service .-Spain:...
was the commander of the 2nd Italian Army in Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
and to suppress the mounting resistance led by the Partisans adopted tactics of "summary executions, hostage-taking, reprisals, internments and the burning of houses and villages", for which after the war the Yugoslav government sought unsuccessfully to have him extradited for war crimes. He was quoted as saying "Non dente per dente, ma testa per dente" ("Not a tooth for tooth but a head for a tooth"), while General Mario Robotti, Commander of the Italian 11th division in Slovenia and Croatia was quoted as saying "Si ammazza troppo poco" ("There are not enough killings") in 1942.