Origins , the Corsican hero who made Italian the official language of his
Corsican Republic in 1755 The Corsican revolutionary
Pasquale Paoli was called "the precursor of Italian irredentism" by
Niccolò Tommaseo because he was the first to promote the Italian language and socio-culture (the main characteristics of Italian irredentism) in his island; Paoli wanted the
Italian language to be the official language of the newly founded
Corsican Republic. Pasquale Paoli's appeal in 1768 against the French invader said: Paoli's
Corsican Constitution of 1755 was written in Italian, and the short-lived university he founded in the city of
Corte in 1765 used Italian as the official language. Paoli was sympathetic to
Italian culture and regarded his own native language as an Italian dialect (Corsican is an
Italo-Dalmatian tongue closely related to
Tuscan). After the
Italian unification and
Third Italian War of Independence in 1866, there were areas with Italian-speaking communities within the borders of several countries around the newly created Kingdom of Italy. The irredentists sought to annex all those areas to the newly unified Italy. The areas targeted were
Corsica,
Dalmatia,
Gorizia,
Istria,
Malta,
County of Nice,
Ticino, small parts of
Grisons and of
Valais,
Trentino,
Trieste and
Fiume. Different movements or groups founded in this period included the Italian politician Matteo Renato Imbriani inventing the new term
terre irredente ("unredeemed lands") in 1877; in the same year the movement ''Associazione in pro dell'Italia Irredenta
("Association for the Unredeemed Italy") was founded; in 1885 the Pro Patria
movement ("For Fatherland") was founded and in 1891 the Lega Nazionale Italiana'' ("Italian National League") was founded in Trento and Trieste (in the Austrian Empire). Initially, the movement can be described as part of the more general
nation-building process in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries, when the multi-national
Austro-Hungarian,
Russian and
Ottoman Empires were being replaced by nation-states. The Italian nation-building process can be compared to similar movements in Germany (
Großdeutschland),
Hungary,
Serbia and in pre-1914
Poland. Simultaneously, in many parts of 19th-century Europe
liberalism and
nationalism were ideologies which were coming to the forefront of political culture. In Eastern Europe, where the
Habsburg Empire had long asserted control over a variety of ethnic and cultural groups, nationalism appeared in a standard format. The beginning of the 19th century "was the period when the smaller, mostly indigenous nationalities of the empire –
Czechs,
Slovaks,
Slovenes,
Croats,
Serbs,
Ukrainians,
Romanians – remembered their historical traditions, revived their native tongues as literary languages, reappropriated their traditions and folklore, in short, reasserted their existence as nations".
19th century In the early 19th century, the ideals of unification in a single Nation of all the territories populated by Italian-speaking people created Italian irredentism. The current
Italian Switzerland belonged to the
Duchy of Milan until the
16th century, when it became part of
Switzerland. These territories have maintained their native
Italian population speaking the
Italian language and the
Lombard language, specifically the
Ticinese dialect.
Italian irredentism in Switzerland was based on moderate
Risorgimento ideals, and was promoted by Italian-Ticinese such as . Following a brief
French occupation (1798–1800), the
British established control over Malta while it was still formally part of the
Kingdom of Sicily. During both the French and British periods, Malta officially remained part of the Sicilian Kingdom, although the French refused to recognise the island as such, in contrast to the British. Malta became a
British Crown Colony in 1813, which was confirmed a year later through the
Treaty of Paris (1814). Cultural changes were few even after 1814. In 1842, all literate Maltese learned Italian, while only 4.5% could read, write and/or speak English. However, there was a huge increase in the number of Maltese magazines and newspapers in the Italian language during the 1800s and early 1900s, so as a consequence the Italian was understood (but not spoken fluently) by more than half the Maltese people before
WW1. , a prominent
Niçard Italian The
Kingdom of Sardinia again attacked the
Austrian Empire in the
Second Italian War of Independence of 1859, with the aid of
France, resulting in the liberation of
Lombardy. On the basis of the
Plombières Agreement, the Kingdom of Sardinia ceded
Savoy and
Nice to France, an event that caused the
Niçard exodus, which was the emigration of a quarter of the
Niçard Italians to Italy.
Giuseppe Garibaldi was elected in 1871 in Nice at the
National Assembly where he tried to promote the annexation of his hometown to the
newborn Italian unitary state, but he was prevented from speaking. Because of this denial, between 1871 and 1872 there were riots in Nice, promoted by the Garibaldini and called "
Niçard Vespers", which demanded the annexation of the city and its area to Italy. Fifteen Nice people who participated in the rebellion were tried and sentenced. In the spring of 1860,
Savoy was annexed to France after a referendum and the administrative boundaries changed, but a segment of the Savoyard population demonstrated against the annexation. Indeed, the final vote count on the referendum announced by the Court of Appeals was 130,839 in favour of annexation to France, 235 opposed and 71 void, showing questionable complete support for French nationalism (that motivated criticisms about rigged results). At the beginning of 1860, more than 3000 people demonstrated in Chambéry against the annexation to France rumours. On 16 March 1860, the provinces of Northern Savoy (Chablais, Faucigny and Genevois) sent to
Victor Emmanuel II, to
Napoleon III, and to the Swiss Federal Council a declaration - sent under the presentation of a manifesto together with petitions - where they were saying that they did not wish to become French and shown their preference to remain united to the
Kingdom of Sardinia (or be annexed to Switzerland in the case a separation with Sardinia was unavoidable).
Giuseppe Garibaldi complained about the referendum that allowed France to annex Savoy and Nice, and a group of his followers (among the
Italian Savoyards) took refuge in Italy in the following years. In 1861, with the
proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy, the
modern Italian state was born. On 21 July 1878, a noisy public meeting was held at
Rome with Menotti Garibaldi, the son of Giuseppe Garibaldi, as chairman of the forum and a clamour was raised for the formation of volunteer battalions to conquer the Trentino.
Benedetto Cairoli, then
Prime Minister of Italy, treated the agitation with tolerance. However, it was mainly superficial, as most Italians did not wish a dangerous policy against Austria or against
Britain for Malta. However, after the
Third Italian War of Independence (1866), when the
Veneto and
Friuli regions were ceded by the
Austrians to the newly formed
Kingdom of Italy, Istria and Dalmatia remained part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, together with other Italian-speaking areas on the eastern Adriatic. This triggered the gradual rise of Italian irredentism among many Italians in Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia, who demanded the unification of the
Julian March,
Kvarner and
Dalmatia with Italy. The Austrians saw the Italians as enemies and favoured the Slav communities of Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia. During the meeting of the Council of Ministers of 12 November 1866, Emperor
Franz Joseph I of Austria outlined a wide-ranging project aimed at the
Germanization or
Slavization of the areas of the empire with an Italian presence: were the majority of the population, in orange the areas where
Istrian Italians and
Dalmatian Italians were the majority of the population. The boundaries of
Venetian Dalmatia in 1797 are delimited with blue dots.
Istrian Italians made up about a third of the population in 1900. Dalmatia, especially its maritime cities, once had a substantial local ethnic Italian population (
Dalmatian Italians). According to the Austrian census, the Dalmatian Italians formed 12.5% of the population in 1865. In the 1910 Austro-Hungarian census, Istria had a population of 57.8% Slavic-speakers (Croat and Slovene), and 38.1% Italian speakers. For the Austrian
Kingdom of Dalmatia, (i.e.
Dalmatia), the 1910 numbers were 96.2% Slavic speakers and 2.8% Italian speakers. Before 1859, Italian was the language of administration, education, the press, and the
Austrian navy, and people who wished to acquire higher social standing and separate from the
Slav peasantry became
Italians. In the years after 1866, Italians lost their privileges in
Austria-Hungary, their assimilation of the Slavs came to an end, and they found themselves under growing pressure by other rising nations; with the
rising Slav tide after 1890,
italianized Slavs reverted to being Croats. Austrian rulers found use of the racial antagonism and financed Slav schools and promoted Croatian as the official language, and many Italians chose voluntary exile. In 1909, the
Italian language lost its
status as the official language of Dalmatia in favor of Croatian only, and Italian could no longer be used in the public and administrative sphere. in districts of Dalmatia in 1910, per the Austro-Hungarian census One consequence of irredentist ideas outside of Italy was an assassination plot organized against the
Emperor Francis Joseph in Trieste in 1882, which was detected and foiled. in a historiographical perspective that identifies in the latter the conclusion of the
unification of Italy, whose military actions began during the
revolutions of 1848 with the
First Italian War of Independence. Italy signed the
Treaty of London (1915) and entered World War I with the intention of gaining those territories perceived by irredentists as being Italian under foreign rule. According to the pact, Italy was to leave the
Triple Alliance and join the
Entente Powers. Furthermore, Italy was to
declare war on Germany and
Austria-Hungary within a month. The declaration of war was duly published on 23 May 1915. In exchange, Italy was to obtain various territorial gains at the end of the war. In April 1918, in what he described as an open letter "to the American Nation"
Paolo Thaon di Revel, Commander in Chief of the
Italian navy, appealed to the people of the United States to support Italian territorial claims over
Trento,
Trieste,
Istria,
Dalmatia and the
Adriatic, writing that "we are fighting to expel an intruder from our home". , i.e.
Trentino-Alto Adige, the
Julian March and
Dalmatia (tan), and the
Snežnik Plateau area (green). Dalmatia, after World War I, however, was not assigned to Italy but to
Yugoslavia. The outcome of World War I and the consequent settlement of the
Treaty of Saint-Germain met some Italian claims, including many (but not all) of the aims of the
Italia irredenta party. Italy gained
Trieste,
Gorizia,
Istria and the Dalmatian city of
Zara. In Dalmatia, despite the London Pact, only territories with Italian majority as Zara with some Dalmatian islands, such as
Cherso,
Lussino and
Lagosta were annexed by Italy because
Woodrow Wilson, supporting Yugoslav claims and not recognizing the treaty, rejected Italian requests on other Dalmatian territories, so this outcome was denounced as a "
Mutilated victory". The rhetoric of "Mutilated victory" was adopted by
Benito Mussolini and led to the
rise of Italian fascism, becoming a key point in the
propaganda of Fascist Italy. Historians regard "Mutilated victory" as a "political myth", used by fascists to fuel
Italian imperialism and obscure the successes of
liberal Italy in the aftermath of World War I. The city of
Fiume in the
Kvarner was the subject of claim and counter-claim: Italians claimed it on the principle of self-determination, disregarding its mainly Slavic suburb of Susak. Fiume had not been promised to Italy in the London Pact, though it was to become Italian by 1924 (see
Italian Regency of Carnaro,
Treaty of Rapallo, 1920 and
Treaty of Rome, 1924). The stand taken by the irredentist
Gabriele D'Annunzio, which briefly led him to become an enemy of the Italian state, was meant to provoke a
nationalist revival through
corporatism (first instituted during his rule over Fiume), in front of what was widely perceived as
state corruption engineered by governments such as
Giovanni Giolitti's. D'Annunzio briefly annexed to this
Italian Regency of Carnaro even the Dalmatian islands of
Veglia and
Arbe, where there was a numerous Italian community. , Albania) being detrimental to
Trieste before WWI
Fascism and World War II (in yellow) After the end of
World War I, the Italian irredentist movement was hegemonised, manipulated and distorted by fascism, which made it an instrument of nationalist propaganda, placed at the centre of a policy, conditioned by belated imperial ambitions, which took the form of "forced
Italianizations", in the aspiration for the birth of a
Great Italy and a vast
Italian Empire. Fascist Italy strove to be seen as the natural result of war heroism against a "
betrayed Italy" that had not been awarded all it "deserved", as well as appropriating the image of
Arditi soldiers. In this vein, irredentist claims were expanded and often used in Fascist Italy's desire to control the Mediterranean basin. To the east of Italy, the Fascists claimed that
Dalmatia was a land of Italian culture whose Italians had been driven out of Dalmatia and into exile in Italy, and supported the return of Italians of Dalmatian heritage. Mussolini identified Dalmatia as having strong Italian cultural roots for centuries via the Roman Empire and the
Republic of Venice. The Fascists especially focused their claims based on the Venetian cultural heritage of Dalmatia, claiming that Venetian rule had been beneficial for all Dalmatians and had been accepted by the Dalmatian population. The Fascist regime produced literature on Corsica that presented evidence of the island's
italianità. The Fascist regime produced literature on Nice that justified that Nice was an Italian land based on historical, ethnic and linguistic grounds. '' in the summer of 1942, during
World War II. In green are the territories controlled by the
Italian Navy, in red are the territories controlled by the
Allies. In 1923, Mussolini temporarily occupied
Corfu, using irredentist claims based on minorities of Italians in the island, the
Corfiot Italians. Similar tactics may have been used towards the islands around the
Kingdom of Italy – through the
Maltese Italians,
Corfiot Italians and
Corsican Italians in order to control the Mediterranean sea (his
Mare Nostrum, from the Latin "Our Sea"). In the 1930s Mussolini promoted the development of an initial Italian irredentism in
Durrës, in order to occupy all of
Albania later. Durrës (called "Durazzo" in Italian) has been, for centuries, during the Middle Ages, a city with territory under the control of the Italian states (Naples, Sicily, Venice), and many Italians settled there. The Durazzo section of the Albanian Fascist Party was created in 1938, which was formed by some citizens of the city with distant and recent Italian roots (they started the local Italian irredentism). In 1939, all of Albania was occupied and united to the Kingdom of Italy: Italian citizens (more than 11,000) began to settle in Albania as
colonists and to own land in 1940 so that they could gradually transform it into Italian territory. The
italianization of Albania was one of Mussolini's plans. During
World War II, large parts of Dalmatia were annexed by Italy into the
Governorship of Dalmatia from 1941 to 1943. Corsica and Nice were also administratively annexed by Italy in November 1942. Malta was heavily bombed, but was not occupied due to
Erwin Rommel's request to divert to North Africa the forces that had been prepared for the invasion of the island.
Dalmatia and the World Wars and
Istria with the boundaries set by the
Treaty of London (1915) (red line) and those actually obtained from Italy (green line). The black line marks the border of the
Governorate of Dalmatia (1941–1943). The ancient domains of the
Republic of Venice are indicated in fuchsia (dashed diagonally, the territories that belonged occasionally). Dalmatia was a strategic region during World War I that both Italy and Serbia intended to seize from Austria-Hungary. Italy joined the
Triple Entente Allies in 1915 upon agreeing to the
Treaty of London (1915) that guaranteed Italy the right to annex a large portion of Dalmatia in exchange for Italy's participation on the Allied side. From 5–6 November 1918, Italian forces were reported to have reached
Lissa,
Lagosta,
Sebenico, and other localities on the Dalmatian coast. By the end of hostilities in November 1918, the Italian military had seized control of the entire portion of Dalmatia that had been guaranteed to Italy by the Treaty of London and by 17 November had seized Fiume as well. In 1918, Admiral
Enrico Millo declared himself Italy's Governor of Dalmatia. :
province of Zara,
province of Spalato and
province of Cattaro The last city with a significant Italian presence in Dalmatia was the city of Zara (now called
Zadar). In the Austro-Hungarian census of 1910, the city of Zara had an Italian population of 9,318 (or 69.3% out of the total of 13,438 inhabitants). In 1921, the population grew to 17,075 inhabitants, of which 12,075 Italians (corresponding to 70.76%). In 1941, during the
Second World War,
Yugoslavia was occupied by Italy and Germany. Dalmatia was divided between Italy, which constituted the
Governorate of Dalmatia, and the
Independent State of Croatia, which annexed
Ragusa and
Morlachia. After the
Italian surrender (8 September 1943), the Independent State of Croatia annexed the Governorate of Dalmatia, except for the territories that had been Italian before the start of the conflict, such as Zara. In 1943,
Josip Broz Tito informed the
Allies that Zara was a chief logistic centre for German forces in Yugoslavia. By overstating its importance, he persuaded them of its military significance. Italy surrendered in September 1943, and over the following year, specifically between 2 November 1943 and 31 October 1944, Allied Forces
bombarded the town fifty-four times. Nearly 2,000 people were buried beneath rubble: 10–12,000 people escaped and took refuge in Trieste, and slightly over 1,000 reached Apulia. Tito's partisans entered Zara on 31 October 1944, and 138 people were killed. With the Peace Treaty of 1947, Italians still living in Zara followed the
Italian exodus from Dalmatia and only about 100 Dalmatian Italians now remain in the city.
Post-World War II leave
Pola in 1947 during the
Istrian-Dalmatian exodus in red and the 15 ordinary regions in grey Under the 1947
Treaty of Peace with Italy,
Istria,
Kvarner, most of the
Julian March as well as the
Dalmatian city of
Zara were annexed by
Yugoslavia. The treaty provided for the
right of option of Italian citizens living in the territories that were to be taken over by Greece, France, and Yugoslavia to remain Italian citizens, with the possibility of request by those states that they moved out of the area within a year. The ensuing
Istrian-Dalmatian exodus led to the emigration of between 230,000 and 350,000 of local ethnic
Italians (
Istrian Italians and
Dalmatian Italians), the others being ethnic Slovenians, ethnic Croatians, and ethnic
Istro-Romanians, choosing to maintain Italian citizenship. The Istrian-Dalmatian exodus started in 1943 and ended completely only in 1960. According to the census organized in
Croatia in 2001 and that organized in
Slovenia in 2002, there were 2,258 Italians in Slovenia and 19,636 in Croatia. After World War II, Italian irredentism disappeared along with the defeated Fascists and the Monarchy of the
House of Savoy. After the Treaty of Paris (1947) and the
Treaty of Osimo (1975), all territorial claims were abandoned by the
Italian Republic (see
Foreign relations of Italy). The Italian irredentist movement thus vanished from Italian politics. Today, Italy,
France,
Malta,
Greece,
Croatia and
Slovenia are all members of the
European Union, while
Montenegro and
Albania are candidates for accession. The 1947
Constitution of Italy established five autonomous regions (
Sardinia,
Friuli-Venezia Giulia,
Sicily,
Aosta Valley and
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol), in recognition of their cultural and linguistic distinctiveness. In the early 1990s, the
breakup of Yugoslavia caused nationalistic sentiments to re-emerge in these areas; worthy of note in this regard are the demonstrations in
Trieste on 6 October 1991 "for a new Italian irredentism". These were promoted by the
Italian Social Movement and inspired by rumours about negotiations for the passage through Trieste of the Yugoslav troops expelled from
Slovenia during the
Ten-Day War which saw the participation of thousands of people at the political rally in Piazza della Borsa followed by a long procession through the streets of the city, and on 8 November 1992, again in Trieste. The same Italian Social Movement and
National Alliance asked for the review of the peace treaties signed by Italy after World War II, especially with regard to Zone B of the former
Free Territory of Trieste, given that the qualification of Slovenia and
Croatia as heirs of Yugoslavia was not a given and that the division of
Istria between Slovenia and Croatia contradicted the clauses of the peace treaties which guaranteed the unity of the surviving Italian component in Istria (
Istrian Italians), assigned to Yugoslavia after World War II, proposing the creation of an Istrian Euro-region also including the city of
Rijeka. These claims, which also concerned
Dalmatia (including islands such as
Pag,
Ugljan,
Vis,
Lastovo,
Hvar,
Korčula and
Mljet) and the coast with the cities of
Zadar,
Šibenik,
Trogir and
Split, remained completely unheeded by all the
Italian governments that followed one another in that period. == Claimed territories ==