Dalmatian Italians
| Article is a work in progress. |
Dalmatian Italians are an Italian national minority in the region of Dalmatia (today part of Croatia). In the 1860s, during the Austrian rule of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, the ethnic group started to suffer from a trend of decreasing numbers and only around 1,000 of the group remain.
Early History
Roman Dalmatia
Roman Dalmatia was fully latinized by 476 AD when the Western Roman Empire disappeared, according to scholar Theodor Mommsen in his book "The Provinces of the Roman Empire". More recent theories have suggested that this would only apply to cities and towns, whilst in the country side, this would not have been the case.
During the Barbarian invasions of the 6th and 7th century, [1] Eurasian Avars allied with certain Slavic tribes [2][3] invaded and plundered Byzantine-Roman Dalmatia. This eventually led to the settlement of different Slavic tribes in the Balkans. Modern scholarly research now puts the time of the invasion of the Slavic tribes in the region to be much later.[4] Archaeological evidence found in the old Roman city of Salon and in particularly the artefacts found at the Old Croatian grave sites [5] in Dalmatia (during recent excavations) seems to confirm this. The arrival of the Slavs by some has now been placed to be more in the region of the 8th century or even early 9th century.
The original Roman population endured within the coastal cities[6] and in the inhospitable Dinaric Alps (later known as "Morlachs" or Vlachs). The Dalmatian cities retained their Romanic culture and Latin language in cities such as Zadar (Jadera/Zara), Split (Spalatum/Spalato), Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and Trogir (Trau). These areas developed their own Vulgar Latin, the Dalmatian language,[7] a now extinct Romance language.[8] Many coastal cities and towns or the region (politically part of the Byzantine Empire)[9] maintained political, cultural and economic links with the Italian peninsula through the Adriatic sea. Communications with the mainland were difficult because of the Dinaric Alps. Due to the sharp orography [10] of Dalmatia communications between the different Dalmatian cities occurred mainly through the sea. This helped Dalmatian cities to develop a unique Romance culture, despite the mostly Slavicized mainland.
From the late Middle Ages onwards the population did slowly start to merge with the Slavic peoples of Dalmatia. This process was most evident in the coastal and island regions of Dalmatia. Dalmatia is a region of Europe with a very multicultural and multiethnic history.[11] Croatians in Dalmatia as well as other regions have language remnants of the extinct Romance language-Dalmatian and additionally we have influences of old Venetian in the local dialects. The Republic of Venice controlled most of Dalmatia from 1420 to 1797. During that period, part of its Slavic population was italianised.
Cultural and historical Venetian presence in Dalmatia
Cultural and historical Venetian presence in Dalmatia is related to the northern Italian influences in Dalmatia. The original Roman Dalmatia is now divided between Croatia, Herzegovina and Montenegro. The cultural influence from the Republic of Venice is clearly evident in the urbanization plans of the main Dalmatian cities. One of the best examples is the one of Split (Spalato).
In 1880 Antonio Bajamonti (the last Dalmatian Italian Major of Split under Austrian rule) developed an urbanization project of this city centered on the "Riva", a seaside walkway full of palms based on the Italian Riviera models. Even today the Riva (with cafe bars) is used by the locals to stroll in a typical Italian way from the "Palace of Diocletian" toward an old square called locally "Pjaca" (or square in Venetian).
In Dalmatia flourished religious and public architecture with clear influences of Italian Renaissance. Important to mention are the Cathedral of St James in Sibenik (Sebenico), Chapel of Blessed John in Trogir (Trau), and Sorgo’s villa in Dubrovnik (Ragusa).
Musical styles
In some of the musical styles of Croatia it is quite evident of the merge of Slavic and Italian music. One such musical style is Klapa music (klapa is an a cappella form of music - Venetian: clapa "singing crowd"). Klapa singing dates back centuries. The arrival of the Croatians to Dalmatia and their subsequent settlement in the area, began the long process of the cultural mixing of Slavic culture with that of the traditions of the Roman-Latin population of Dalmatia.
This process was most evident in the coastal and island regions of Dalmatia. In the 19th century a standard form of Klapa singing emerged. The traditional Klapa was composed of up to a dozen male singers (in recent times there are female Klape groups). Church music heavily influences the arrangements of this music giving it the musical form that exists today.
Perspectives on Dalamtia
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (1797 – 1875) was an English traveller, writer and pioneer Egyptologist of the 19th century. He is often referred to as "the Father of British Egyptology". He was in Dubrovnik (then called Ragusa) in 1848, he wrote in his; Dalmatia and Montenegro: With a Journey to Mostar in Herzegovina:
| “ | Italian is spoken in all the seaports of Dalmatia, but the language of the country is a dialect of the Slavonic, which alone is used by peasants in the interior.[12] | ” |
| “ | Their language though gradually falling into Venetianisms of the other Dalmatians towns, still retains some of that pure Italian idiom, for which was always noted. [13] | ” |
Andrew Archibald Paton
Andrew Archibald Paton (1811 - 1874) was a British diplomat and writer from the 19 century. In 1861 he wrote in his; Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic: Or, Contributions to the Modern:
| “ | ...the islands of Dalmatia owe much of their culture ti the near vicinity of Venice and the more extensive use of the Italian language... [14] | ” |
Maude Holbach (a 1910 travel guide)
- Dalmatia-The Land Where East Meets West by Maude Holbach (a 1910 travel guide from COSIMO books and publications New York USA):
| “ | Two hundred years later that, is, early in the tenth century you might have heard Slavish and Latin spoken had you walked in the streets of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), just as you hear Slavish and Italian today ; for as times of peace followed times of war, the Greek and Roman inhabitants of Rausium intermarried with the surrounding Slavs, and so a mixed race sprang up, a people apart from the rest of Dalmatia. [15] | ” |
Zadar (Zara) during and after World War II
The chapter below is taken from the Secret Dalmatia Blog site, it is written by Alan Mandic.
| “ | The Italian majority in Zadar was first hurt by the Allied bombings and then chased away by the communist rule. In those terrible times, many people were looking for all sorts of revenges: from personal to national and many of Zadar’s Italians perished.[16][17][18][19] Some say that bones of many are still in one of the caves of Levrnaka in Kornati, many managed to escape and leave their beloved city for good, some stayed and formed a small Italian community. Among those who went from their homes were Ottavio Missoni (fashion designer born in Dubrovnik). [20] | ” |
External links
References
- ^ A London Encyclopaedia: Or Universal Dictionary of Science, Art, Literature (p48)
- "In the latter ages of the Roman Empire this country suffered frequently from in-roads of Barbarians..."
- ^ The Changing Face of Dalmatia: Archaeological and Ecological Studies in a Mediterranean landscape by John Chapman, Robert Shiel & Sime Batovic
- "In chapters 29 and 30, two similar accounts are given for the fall of nearby Salona to the Avars and Slavs ..."
- ^ The Italians of Dalmatia: From Italian Unification to World War One by Luciano Monzali (p5)
- ^ Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Dalmatia by Danijel Dzino (p212).
- Danijel Dzino states that the 19 century theories of mass movements of people into the old Roman Province of Dalmatia are questionable. Modern Archaeological and Scholarly research seems to be saying that we are looking at much smaller groups of Slavs and Avars invading the region. The term Slav was first used by the Byzantines and was written in the 6th century in Greek (Σκλαβῖνοι-Sklabenoi). Later in Latin it was written Sclaveni. According to Danijel Dzino the term Slavs was first used by outside observers of the day to describe the newcomers. The Slavs used the term to describe themselves at a later stage. Thus began the construct identity of the new arrivals. Later the Slavic peoples started to identify themselves and separated (or were separated by others) into different groups.
- ^ Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Dalmatia by Danijel Dzino (p52).
- ^ The Illyrians by John Wilkes (p269)
- ^ Dalmatian Language-Dictionary
- ^ Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe by Glanville Price (p377)
- ^ University College London, School of Slavonic and East European Studies The Slavonic and East European Review-The Slavonic Latin Symbiosis in Dalmatia during the Middle Ages by Victor Novak
- ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911 Edition): Orography". 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-22. Check date values in:
|date=(help)- "OROGRAPHY: That part of physical geography which deals with the geological formation, the surface features and description of mountains. The terms "oreography," "orology" and "oreology" are also sometimes used.
- ^ The Italians of Dalmatia: From Italian Unification to World War One by Luciano Monzali (p8)
- ^ Dalmatia and Montenegro: With a journey to Mostar in Herzegovina.Volume 1 by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (p4)
- ^ Dalmatia and Montenegro: With a journey to Mostar in Herzegovina.Volume 1 by Sir John Gardner Wilkinson (p362)
- ^ Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic, Volume 1 by Andrew Archibald Paton (p167)
- ^ Dalmatia: The Land Where East Meets West by Maude Holbach (p121)
- "DALMATIA: The Land Where East Meets West is MAUDE M. HOLBACH's second book of travel in Eastern Europe. First published in 1910, this is an anthropological travel journal of an often-overlooked kingdom" Web site: www.cosimobooks.com
- ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>""Yugoslavia." Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 24 Nov, 2010". 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-25. Check date values in:
|date=(help)- "Native German and Hungarian communities, seen as complicit with wartime occupation, were brutally treated; tantamount in some cases to ethnic cleansing. The Volksdeutsch settlements of Vojvodina and Slavonia largely disappeared. Perhaps 100,000 people—half the ethnic German population in Yugoslavia—fled in 1945, and many who remained were compelled to do forced labor, murdered, or later ransomed by West Germany. Some 20,000 Hungarians of Vojvodina were killed in reprisals. Albanian rebellions in Kosovo were suppressed, with prisoners sent on death marches towards the coast. An estimated 170,000 ethnic Italians fled to Italy in the late 1940s and 1950s. (All of these figures are highly approximate.)"
- ^ Ethnic Conflict: Causes, Consequences, and Responses by Karl Cordell & Stefan Wolff (p181)
- ^ Refugees in the Age of Total War by Anna Bramwell. (p 137)
- ^ A Tragedy Revealed The Story of the Italian Population of Istria & Dalmatia by Arrigo Petacco & Konrad Eisenbichler. (p81)
- ^ <templatestyles src="Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css"></templatestyles>"Zadar – The postcards from the past". 2010. Retrieved 2010-11-25. Check date values in:
|date=(help)
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