THE EXTERMINATION OF ITALIANS IN THE DALMATIA ISLANDS (STARTED BY THE HABSBURG & FULLY COMPLETED BY THE CROATS) - PART 2

This august 2023 -as a follow up of the "Part 1"- I want to research about the responsabilities of the Croats in the complete extermination of the romance speaking autochtonous population of the Dalmatian islands. Of course we have to remember that some dozen Italians "survive" in Cherso/Chres and Lussino/Lusinj, because these northen dalmatian islands were officially part of the kingdom of Italy from 1918 until 1947. But -let's pinpoint it- in all the other dalmatian islands there are no more Italians in 2023! The two most "italian" islands of Dalmatia in the first half of the XIX century, Veglia/Krk in the north and Lissa/Vis in the center-south, have no italians at all in 2023!!!!

Since the early 1800s started to appear the Croatian nationalism, soon in fight with the Italian nationalism: in one century and half of wars and political battles of every kind the Dalmatian Italians disappeared (being reduced in the Croatian census of 2011 to a few hundreds in an area that has nearly one million inhabitants!). This fact has originated the suspicion that the disappearance of the Dalmatian Italians could be related to an "ethnocide" (read in Italian: http://www.mlhistria.altervista.org/storiaecultura/testiedocumenti/tesiscaglioni/tesi.htm).

The cities on the Adriatic's coast (mainly Zara/Zadar & Spalato/Split) were populated by the most educated and instructed Dalmatia's Italians and so are the only that still have Italians residents living there in 2023. But the islands were populated by poor sailors and farmers and now have no more Italians living there, because all have been reduced to emigrate or to be "assimilated" by the croatian majority (let's remember that it is very difficult to force a "graduated" to change ethnicity for him/her and/or for his/her descendants!). This is the case -for example- of Lissa/Vis, a central dalmatian island that -according to the Lieutenant Colonel George Duncan Robertson, who occupied Lissa in 1812 for the British empire- was "populated by very friendly but also extremely poor venetian speaking people" (please read https://www.jstor.org/stable/44229394): now the island has no more romance speaking inhabitants.

The natural borders of Italy include the Dalmatia islands, according to the italian irredentism (to the map should be added the islands of Saseno and Corfu in front of Albania)

First of all, allow me to dedicate this issue to a Croat named "Neno", who -as he wrote, but I am not 100% sure- has some roots in the dalmatian Italians who lived in Lissa (actually called "Vis" in croatian language). He is very well informed about the Lissa history during the XIX & XX century and writes in a perfect italian language (to the point that sometimes I think he "is" italian!)

So, let's start remembering that, as we all know, the full Dalmatia was romanised when started the first barbarian invasions around the VII century, according to Theodore Mommsen (in his masterpiece "The Provinces of the Roman Empire"). The dalmatian islands were the main refuge (from these early Slav attacks) of many romance speaking inhabitants during these early Middle Ages centuries. However the first Croats who settled in the Dalmatian islands were a minority that was "assimilated" by the majority of the neolatin population (called "Dalmatian latins") before the X century. Only in the south dalmatian islands there was a huge presence of Croats (who were only partially assimilated): the "Narentane pirats", mainly in the Brazza/Brac, Lesina/Hvar and Curzola/Korcula islands.

It is indicative - in order to reject the many lies and exagerations written by the croatian propaganda, mainly during the Tito years- what wrote the arab Al Idrisi about the ethnic composition of the Dalmatian islands in the late Medioeval years:

The population of Dalmatia in the XII century

(The following is a description of Dalmatia from the famous “Book of Roger” (Tabula Rogeriana), written by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi at the court of King Roger II of Sicily in 1154)

In his descriptions Al Idrisi made a clear distinction between the Slavs and the Dalmatians – the term ‘Dalmatian’ refers to the autochthonous Latin-speaking population who descended from the original Roman inhabitants.

Al-Idrisi wrote which towns and cities were inhabited by Slavs and which were inhabited by Dalmatians. The Dalmatians predominated in almost all the major towns and cities of Dalmatia (Zara, Spalato, Traù, Lissa, Ragusa, Cattaro), while the Slavs inhabited only one city (Antivari) and a couple of minor towns.

According to Al Idrisi, this was the ethnic composition (of autochthonous Dalmatian latins and immigrated Croats) of the Dalmatia islands in the XII century:

Castelmuschio (Veglia/Krk) - Populated by Dalmatians
Lussino/Lusinj - Populated by Dalmatians and a few Croats
Cherso/Chres - Populated by Dalmatians
Arbe/Rab - Populated by Dalmatians
Zaton-Aenona/Nin - Populated by Dalmatians
Spalato/Split - Populated by Dalmatians and a few Croats
Traù Vecchia/Trogir old - Populated by Dalmatians
Traù/Trogir - Populated by Dalmatians
Lissa/Vis - Populated by Dalmatians
Brazza/Brac - Populated by Croats and a few Dalmatians
Lesina/Hvar - Populated by Croats and Dalmatians
Curzola/Korcula - Populated by Dalmatians and a few Croats

Additionally, his contemporary William of Tyre, in his chronicle Historia, described Dalmatia this way: “Dalmatia is inhabited by a very fierce people, given over to plunder and murder. ...with the exception of those who live on the coast and who differ from the rest in customs and language. Those on the coast use the Latin language, while the others (in the hinterland) use the Slavonic tongue and have the habits of barbarians.”

Furthermore, in these centuries after the year 1000 AD, the Dalmatian language started to disappear, assimilated by the Venetian dialect. Dalmatian was spoken on the Dalmatian coast from Fiume (now Rijeka) as far south as Cottorum (Kotor) in Montenegro. Speakers lived mainly in the coastal towns of Jadera (Zadar), Tragurium (Trogir), Spalatum (Split), Ragusium (Dubrovnik), and also on the islands of Curicta-Veglia (Krk), Crepsa-Cherso (Cres), and Arba-Arbe (Rab). Almost every city developed its own dialect, but the most important dialects now known were "Vegliot", a northern dialect spoken on the island of Curicta-Veglia KrK), and "Ragusan", a southern dialect spoken in and around Ragusa (Dubrovnik). The last speaker of this romance language -Tuone Udaina- died in Veglia/Krk in 1898, after being interviewed by yhe italian linguist Matteo Bartoli.

It is noteworthy to remember that in those centuries there was a huge influence in all Dalmatia from southern Italy (mainly because of commerce): if interested , please read: http://istria-fiume-dalmatia.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-cultural-ties-between-dalmatia-and.html .

After the XII century the terrible epidemies ("Black death". etc..) that hit Europe depopulated the Dalmatian islands and with the Ottoman invasion of the Balkans many Slavs settled in these depopulated Dalmatian islands, changing forever the local ethnic composition that has been always with a romance speaking majority.

When the Republic of Venice ended in 1797 there were only a few dalmatian islands with a majority of romance speaking inhabitants: Cherso (Chres), Veglia (Krk) and Lussino (Lusinj) in the north with Lissa (Vis) in the center of Dalmatia. But a huge minority was still present in the islands of Arbe (Rab), Ugliano (Uglian) and Pago (Pag) in the north & Lesina (Hvar) in the south, while Trau (Trogir), Brazza (Brac) Curzola (Korcula) and Lagosta (Lastovo) had some small minorities. The french occupied the region and united all Dalmatia to their kingdom of Italy. In all Dalmatia nearly one third was italian speaking in those years of the Napoleon's kingdom of Italy, according to the famous linguist Bartoli (Bartoli, Matteo. "Le parlate italiane della Venezia Giulia e della Dalmazia". p.46).

The XIX century and the beginning of the disappearance

The croatian historian Pericic (Š.Peričić, "O broju Talijana/talijanaša u Dalmaciji XIX". stoljeća, in Radovi Zavoda za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zadru, n. 45/2003, p. 342) wrote that in 1809 there were 75000 native speakers of italian in Dalmatia, a region that had 250000 inhabitants: that means that in the region nearly 30% were italians and 70% croatians.

In the middle of the XIX century the historian F. Pagliacco wrote that "A.Schmidl in «Koenigreich DalmatienJJ (Stuttgart, 1842) su una popolazione della Dalmazia di 375.000 anime dà 320.000 slavi e oltre 45.000 italiani.........Schmidtl in 1842 published in his Koenigreich Dalmatien that the population of Dalmatia was 375000 with 320000 Slavs and more than 45000 italians". That means that the romance speaking population was only about 20% after some decades of austrian rule. Indeed, he also wrote that since the Dalmatian islands were occupied by the Austrian empire with the Napoleon defeat, the romance population started to be harassed, with a reduction that started in great percentages mainly after 1861 when was created the kingom of Italy.

The reason of this initial reduction of the romance speaking population in the dalmatian islands during the first seven decades of the XIX century: the higher fertility rate (and immigration from the poor Dinaric Alps) of the Croats, the emigration of the Italians to the more rich northern Italy (and to the Americas), but also the beginning of the nationalism in the croatian society. Nationalism that was initially promoted by the croatian clergy (as can be understood in the following excerpts)

The following are sections from a book written by Nino Bracco about Lussino island (and his town Neresine/Nerezine):

In Cherso and Lussino, the first political problems began to arise after the annexation of Istria and Dalmazia by Austria, after the fall of Napoleon, but especially after the outbreak of Italian revolutionary independence movements, (and other parts of Europe) in the first half of 1800. In this period the central government of Vienna began to fear the spread of the legitimate national aspirations of the various subjected peoples, especially fearing the extension of irredentism in their Italian territorial possessions, where the Italian language, and prevailing culture was Italian as in the territories of Trento, Trieste, Istria, and Dalmatia. In these regions, then began an intense policy of "deitalianization", with the intensification of police controls, and strong political restrictions with discrimination against Italioan speaking people, to which was added, in areas of lower Italian cultural prevalence (like in the Dalmatian islands), even a strong policy of Slavenisation, based on the ancient teaching of the Romans "divide et impera", and on the supposed easier subjugation of Slavic peoples, less acculturated, and less contaminated with "germs" of the French Revolution.
......Drastic measures in Istria, and Dalmatia: The first drastic action given by this anti-italian policy was the decision of the Government of Vienna, taken in 1825, to separate administratively and politically the three islands of Quarnero (Cherso, Lussino and Veglia) from the rest of Dalmatia, which was already at an advanced stage Slsvenisation. This was done also for natural reasons and territorial ethnicity, by passing the new northern boundary of Dalmatia between the islands of Veglia (Krk), and that of Arbe (Rab), and between the islands of Cherso and Lussino with the island of Pago. Simultaneously, in 1825 was formed the Captaincy of Lussino which joined the Mangraviato of Istria, from which depended these three main islands of Quarnero: Veglia, Cherso and Lussino. This separation was dictated by the will of the government of Habsburg: croatize the stubbornly "Italian" Dalmatian possessions. Not by chance was chosen as the focus of this policy the most Italian of the three islands, namely that of Veglia, where was also established the new bishopry for the region, removed from Ossero, with the clergy pertaining to it assuming the role of a bridgehead for deitalianizzation of the region by introducing the ancient religious rites in the Old Slavonic language, the "Glagolitic", and removing the Latin.
.......To better understand these events, it is useful to report the data on the population of the island of Veglia taken from a census conducted in the early nineteenth century: the entire island population was 11,500, including 3,393 in the capital city, including 3,215 Italian speaking only Italians, 100 of Serb Croatian speaking also Italian and 78 foreign (Slovenians, Fiume/Rijeka people, Italians, Austrians, and others). The Croatian-Serbs were virtually all members of the clergy, and employees of the Bishop's seat. A subsequent survey in December 1900 gave the following result: residents of the city of Veglia 1,598, of which 1,450 Italians, 132 Croatian-Serbs and 31 foreigners. In the census of 1925, i.e. after the passage of the island under the sovereignty of the newly formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the inhabitants turned out 3,600 including 1,200 in the town of Veglia. As you can see these political changes have resulted in the exodus from the island's most ancient inhabitants, a dramatic change if you put in the account the number of new immigrants from the Slavic regions of the hinterland. In essence, in the hundred years of Austrian rule, the inhabitants of the island of Veglia decreased by more than one third, while in other islands of the Quarnero Bay, and surrounding areas, the population continued to grow regularly: this was the first great exodus, and political ethnic cleansing of the Quarnero region.
......The December 1 of 1866, should be considered as the official date for the beginning of "Dalmatia croatisation", when the Imperial Royal Government of Vienna issued the decree, which ordered the replacement of the Italian language in all public administrations, a legacy of more than four centuries of Venetian administration, with the Serbo-Croat. The decree provided that no State official should be hired unless he can demonstrate in front of a committee, that he knows, besides Italian the Serbian-Croatian language. This important policy shift was considered as the consequence of the disastrous defeat of the Italian fleet at the Battle of Lissa (July 20, 1866). The first alleged presence of Croatian population in Neresine has begun to materialize, not coincidentally, during this period, despite the total absence of Croatian culture in town. The Croatian language was completely unknown from the same population as it spoke a language predominantly Slavic-romanised, this did not contain significant elements of language similar to the SerbCroatian, from the personal names of the inhabitants. The first operational Istrian territory change, and therefore also in newly annexed islands of Quarnero, of the new policy was the closure of the Italian schools, and the establishment of Croatian schools wherever possible (in Neresine this attempt, as we have seen, created serious problems, and disorders), and the promotion, and support, including financial, of Slavic nationalism (Slovenian in Trieste, and Croatian in the rest of the region).
......In Neresine the croatisation policy was promoted by the Franciscan Catholic clergy dependent on the new Diocese of Veglia, by the Franciscan friars of the convent of San Francesco, gradually replaced by other more ideologically oriented, with the task of awakening, or even create from scratch in the country, Croatian nationalist sentiments, but also instill in the population feelings against Italians. The croatian friars, who were also "Franciscans", simply bring in a few slavic prayers in their church, and started to promote Croatian nationalism, in view of the fact that the local native language of Neresine was of partial Slavic origin. The political problems were furthermore accentuated around 1870, when, after the end of the Italian wars of independence, the Austrians were driven out from Italy, that was unified under the Savoyard monarchy, who incorporated also Rome, and the States of the Church.
.......The commitment of nationalistic friars: but in the main centers of the islands of Cherso and Lussino (i.e. Cherso, Lussinpiccolo, Lussingrande) and in the same Ossero, this policy had not borne fruit, because there were no vehicles suitable for the purpose, since the population of these towns was native Italian speakers...... As already mentioned, one of the tools used was sending in the Franciscan friars committed to spreading the Croatian nationalism. The culmination of this policy was reached in 1894, when in Neresine arrived as a catholic guardian Father Francis Smolje. This croatian Smolje, impregnated more with nationalistic fanaticism that charitable Franciscanism, began an intensive political indoctrination by relying on women's religiosity and abolishing the Latin and Italian in religious ceremonies, such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals (while introducing in their place the Croatian language).

There were numerous public denunciations against the actions of the Slavic clergy, who were carrying out their work with the open support of the Habsburg authorities. In 1877 Francesco Sbisà, an Istrian deputy of the Parliament in Vienna, presented a query denouncing the Slavicization of Italian names and surnames. In 1897 the Istrian linguist Matteo Bartoli mentioned that 20,000 names were changed by croatian & austrian authorities, especially on the islands of Cherso, Lussino and Veglia (later officially called in croatian language Chres, Losinj and Krk), which were almost entirely inhabited by Italians. In 1905, during a meeting of the Istrian Diet, the Istrian deputy and attorney Pietro Ghersa, using extensive documentation derived from extensive research, denounced the government's conniving work of Slavicizing approximately 20,000 Italian names in the Istrian Province.

It should be noted that the research of Bartoli and Ghersa took place independently of each other: the former dealt primarily with the islands of the Quarnaro (now called "Kvarner"), while the latter instead dealt with the Istrian peninsula. Moreover, these findings took place in two different periods. The figure of 20,000 Slavicized Italian surnames, reported by both men, must therefore be referring to two different areas and therefore represents only a fraction of the total amount of names that were Slavicized in the regions of Istria and the Quarnaro.

Probably the number was over 50000 in these two areas, according to historian Della Volpe. It should be noted that the data indicated above, regarding Italian surnames forcibly Slavicized in Istria, are largely incomplete for this region itself, since many others in Istria were modified without being restored to their original form. Additionally, these practices also occurred in other parts of Julian Venetia, in all Dalmatia (mostly in the Dalmatia islands), and in the Trentino and Alto Adige (where they engaged in Germanization).

The Dalmatia's full croatisation

As written above by Nino Bracco, the Dalmatia's croatisation started officially in 1866, after the austrian emperor made a shameful decree against the "survival" of the italians in Julian Venetia and Dalmatia: he ordered that the romance speaking population had to be replaced by the Croats (and possibly by the Germans in some northern areas)!

The welcome given by the italian population to the Italian sailors that landed in Lissa/Vis in October 1866 (just before the italian disaster at the navy-battle of Lissa) pushed the austrian authorities to behave harshly with those Lissa's Italians, promoting huge harassment against them while also using the croatian fanatics in the island for this "vengeance". As a consequence the italians in Lissa diminished drastically in the next years: in the 1880 austrian census they were in Lissa city 3292 but in the 1890 census they were only 300, according to Federico Pagnacco ("Italiani di Dalmazia", p. 174).

The Lissa population welcomed the Italian sailors in 1866, when they started to land in the island and brought food (as in the above image)

It is interesting to note that the italian academic Bartoli in the last decades of the nineteenth century calculated that the Italians were nearly 12.5% of the Dalmatian population (according to Austro-hungarian census) and he even did a classification of the Dalmatian cities based on an index of 3 groups related to the "italian language spoken": first group of fully italian (Zara, Veglia, Ossero, Arbe, Lussinpiccolo, Lesina); second group of partially italian with a minority of slavs (Cherso, Pago, Lussingrande, Cittavecchia di Lesina, Curzola, Sebenico, Traù, Spalato, Almissa, Cattaro); third group of italian minority (Nona, Scardona, Macarsca, Stagno Grande, Ragusa, Lissa, Castelnuovo di Cattaro, Perasto, Budua). So, without doubts this index showed that Zara, Veglia and Arbe were the only original "Neolatin city states" (read my https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2013/09/dalmatias-neolatin-city-states.html) where the neolatin society had totally survived centuries of "attacks" from the croatian assimilation in Dalmatia.

But during the XX century, with the two world wars, even these cities lost their neolatin characteristics! Please read for complete info: "A tragedy revealed" of Arrigo Petacco https://books.google.com/books?id=hhD0R8DBr_UC&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc_r&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=true

Furthermore -in order to understand this process of full croatisation - please read the following excerpts from "Esodi di Italiani dalla Dalmazia" of Carlo Cipriani:

"A decree of the Austrian Government of 8• November 1866 transforms numerous Dalmatian schools from Italian into Croatian. Another Austrian decree, dated 1st December 1866, obliges the employees of the province to the knowledge of the Slavic language. Then begins the collapse of the Municipalities: that of Gelsa falls into the hands of the Croatians in l868. In 1873 the Municipality of Sebenico/Šibenik was demolished which, amid violence and abuses of all kinds, it falls into the hands of the Slavs. In the 1875 the Municipality of Curzola/Korčula falls; in 1876 the Municipality of Sìgna (Sinj) was taken away from the Italians; Ragusa'Dubrovnik fell in 1878; in 1881 fell Trau/Trogir; in 1882, amid unheard-of violence and with the menacing predominance of Austrian warships in the port, the glorious Municipality of Spalato/Split, fiercely defended, fell, says Antonio Bajamonti; Lissa/Vis falls in the hands of the Croats in 1886 and 1887 ca, de Cittavecchia. In the round less than twenty years nine municipalities - the main ones in Dalmatia - they pass from an Italian administration to an administration of Croatians. Only Zara resists."

"1865. Kingdom of Dalmatia/ Province of the Austrian Empire: Mostly Italian diet. The ten main municipalities are Italian: Zara, Spalato, Sebenico, Ragusa, Traù, Lissa, Korčula, Signa, Cittavecchia, Gelsa. Language used by the offices,: Italian. Middle schools, all Italian. Primary schools, 9 Italian, 125 Italian-Slavic, 23 Slavic. Population: Slavs 384,180 and Italians 55,020 (12.5% of the total)...........1910. Kingdom of Dalmatia/Province ofthe Austrian empire: Eleven deputies, all Slavs. Provincial Diet, 39. Slavs and 6 Italians. All Communes to the Slavs, except Zara. All the schools of the Province, and of the State, Slavic. Official language, Slavic. Population 610,669 Slavs and 18,028 Italians (2.8% of the total)."

On 14 June 1867 another austrian decree ordered the croatisation of the gymnasium-lyceum of Zara/Zadar; in the same year the first anti-Italian street riots caused by masses of croatian peasants; italian speaking citizens were forbidden to enter the countryside; the Italian landowners had their vines cut down, their trees felled, their crops stolen; at Signa/Sign the Croatian friars refused to administer the holy sacraments to the Italian population.

This austrian policy against the Italian component found particular application in Dalmatia, especially after the announcement of the 1896 marriage of the Prince hereditary Vittorio Emanuele III with Princess Elena of Montenegro who, according to Vienna's suspicions, she would have brought the Italian nationalities even closer and closer to Serbia in the region, in an anti-Croat and consequently anti-empire key (please read http://www.assdiplar.it/documentprogr/costantinonigraambasciatoreavienna.pdf).

Indeed in Sebenico on July 31, 1869, the Croatian mob attacked and seriously injured 14 sailors of the royal Italian ship Monzambano at anchor in the port of the Dalmatian city. On February 15, 1870, an attempt was made to set fire to the Teatro Verdi in Zara, the temple of Italian art. All these episodes led to a first beginning of the exodus of the Dalmatian populations towards Zara, Istria and the motherland. The Croatian Slavic irredentism which claimed to annex Dalmatia to Croatia thus managed to destroy in a short time centuries of peaceful coexistence guaranteed by the good governance of the Republic of St. Mark.

Hundreds of attacks on the italians and their properties were done before and during WW1 by croatian nationalist in all Dalmatia.....and the austrian government never tried to block all these harassments! As a consequence more and more dalmatian Italians emigrated, mainly from the dalmatian islands (where they were a small community without any defense)

The attacks and harassments by the croats continued in all Dalmatia in the next years after the end of the first world war. And there was also "the war of numbers", linked to the falsification of the number of Italians still living in Dalmatia. Furthermore, in 1919 the Spalatini (native neolatin citizens of Spalato/Split) had affixed 8,000 signatures - authenticated - to a petition sent to the Italian Delegation to the Peace Conference to demand the annexation of the city to Italy. That is, in the city of Spàlato/Split alone there were at least 8,000 Italians able to sign., but the Croats never admitted this amount.

The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in order to have more precise data, had to ask the Consular Representatives for information on the spot that they answered with a series of notes between February and April 1921.The Italian Vice Consul in Cùrzola reported the "huge number of citizens of Cùrzola/Korcula - 118 families with 564 members - who announced themselves to this civil commissioner with the intention of leaving the city and moving to the Kingdom". And he added: "Excluding the regnicoli here domiciled and the officials of the ceased Austrian regime entered our service [who are almost all Italians] and not even calculated the Italians of fresh date, declared such after our occupation, still remain between Cùrzola and the neighbor Petrara Village as many as 189 families with 835 members ". Overall, therefore, the Italians were more than a thousand.

From Sebenìco"Sebenik, that Consul informed that in the city lived 190 Italian families with 650 people and, with the surrounding territory, they would have been at least 800. Data for defect, since when the so-called "second zone" (Sebenìco) was evicted - as far as we know - 20 families left on 20 April 1921. A week after 300 people, and on June 13 another 653.

In Lissa/Vis, April 17, 1921, the Italian flag was lowered. The minutes of the handover were countersigned by the mayor Lorenzo Doimi of de Lupis and 30 Italian family leaders.

In relation to Ragusa/Dubrovnik, the Consul General of Spàlato, reported on the existence of about 100 families of "Regnicoli" (Italians born in the Italian Peninsula), and added: "Italian Dalmatian families who will opt will be fifty".

In this search for data, the list of names of the Dalmatian magistrates and chancellors who were displaced in the Peninsula can be of some interest. These are 74 former Austrian employees placed in the roles of the Italian judiciary in Dalmatia since 1919.The Consul General Umilta, in his book of memories, would have written that, "Including Zara, remained annexed to Italy, the Italians were certainly not inferior to 50/60 thousand." And he added: "Then we must mention those who, isolated in the countryside and in small villages, were to be called Slavs not to be slaughtered by the "Croatian energumens", then the indifferent who, while they wished that their country was annexed to Italy, did not dare to demonstrate openly their aspiration, so as not to see any possibility of life precluded ". Finally, a more political than statistical consideration: "In short, among Italians proper and sympathizers, there were no less than one hundred thousand people in Dalmatia, who did not expect anything good from the union of Dalmatia to Yugoslavia.

This first slow and constant ethnic cleansing created the premises for that policy of re-Italianisation which in the years following the First World War affected those few lands of Dalmatia, which passed to the Italian state after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The croatisation of Dalmatia and the gradual expulsion of the Italian element were now accomplished facts in 1918-1920. All of this took place before the advent of the fascist regime, before the attempt by the Italians to re-Italianise those lands (1921-1941).

Indeed the disappearance of the Italians of Dalmatia was nearly complete in 1930, when Federico Pagnacco ( https://www.openstarts.units.it/server/api/core/bitstreams/83f515c0-b586-4f2f-9eea-5747dbc4f2ee/content) wrote in his "Italiani di Dalmazia" that: << According to the position of June 1, 1929 there are all over the Jugoslavia shores of Dalmatia 5,609 Italians and according to the position of 1st June 1930, only 4,900, because 709 people emigrated in the last year. In front of the total population of our shores that count 764,699 inhabitants, Italians represent 0.64%>>. Of course there were the nearly 20000 italians living in the enclave of Zara and those in Cherso, Lussino and Lagosta, but soon they were exterminated during WW2.

Finally, here it is the ethnic extermination in percentages for the two dalmatian islands that were the most "italian", according to the french Marmont in 1810:
* Veglia/Krk: 1790:98% Italians-02% Croats; 1890: 71% Italians-29% Croats; 1990: 0.01% Italians-99.9% Croats
* Lissa/Vis: 1790:80% Italians-20% Croats; 1890: 3% Italians-97% Croats; 1990: 0% Italians-100% Croats

N.B.: For further info about the extermination totally completed by the Croats (mainly during the Tito years), please read my issues:1)https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2022/12/julian-dalmatian-exodus-diaspora-1944.html; and 2)https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-disappearance-of-dalmatian-italians.html

Bibliography

1) Neresine:Cherso & Lussino. ([http://www.neresine.it/Neresine%20last.pdf])

2) Il primo esodo dei Dalmati (https://secolo-trentino.com/2020/02/11/primo-esodo-dalmati-1870-1880-1920/)

3) Banca d'Italia in Jugoslavia tra il 1941 ed il 1945 https://www.academia.edu/20551087/Prima_e_dopo_l8_settembre_Lamministrazione_della_Banca_dItalia_in_Jugoslavia_1941_1944_?email_work_card=view-paper

4) Capris- Croatia is stealing our history and heritage in Dalmatia ( https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2014/01/croatia-is-erasing-falsificating-and.html )

THE EXTERMINATION OF ITALIANS IN THE DALMATIA ISLANDS (STARTED BY THE HABSBURG & FULLY COMPLETED BY THE CROATS) - PART 1

During the second half of this July month I want to continue my article written 3 months ago and research in detail the extermination of the Italians in the Dalmatian islands (Lissa, Lagosta, etc...), an ethnocide started by the Habsburg and completed by the Croats.

Historically the disappearance started with the barbarian invasions (of the Avars and Slavs) of the eight century, that forced the autochthonous population of the Roman Dalmatians to take refuge in the Dalmatian islands and in some city-islands near the coast (like Ragusa, Trau and Zara, now called Dubrovnik, Trogir and Zadar). These "Adriatic" areas were nearly all romance-speaking until the "Duecento" (XIII century), when started the Ottoman invasion of the Balkan peninsula. Since then the Republic of Venice -that ruled the region until the Dinaric Alps for many centuries- was forced to accept many refugees (mostly Slavs, but also a lot of Slavicized Vlachs called "Morlachs") from the Muslim conquered regions of the western Balkans and soon the newly arrived become majority in the coastal region. When Napoleon conquered the Republic of Venice in 1797, the Italian linguist Bartoli calculated that in the "Dalmatian Venetia" more than two thirds of the population was Croatian speaking (with pockets of Serbian speaking areas): the Dalmatian Italians were a minority of less than 33% of the total Dalmatian population and were concentrated in the main cities. Because of higher fertility rate and further emigration toward the relatively rich and developed Dalmatian coast from the poor inland mountain regions, the Slavs in the first half of the XIX century become more than 80% of the Dalmatian population. The Austrian census done in 1857 registered -south of the Quarnero islands (Cherso, Lussino, Veglia and Arbe, now called Chres, Losinj, Krk and Rab)- 45,000 Dalmatian Italians (nearly all in the islands and in the main cities, where they were the majority in some towns like Zara and Veglia) and 369,310 Slavs: the romance speaking population of coastal Dalmatia & its islands was reduced to less than 20%! ((https://books.google.cl/books?id=r60EAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA38&dq=%C3%96sterreichisches+K%C3%BCstenland&as_brr=1&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false ) Since then started to appear the Croatian nationalism, soon in fight with the Italian nationalism: in one century and half of wars and political battles of every kind the Dalmatian Italians disappeared (being reduced in the Croatian census of 2011 to a few hundreds in an area that has nearly one million inhabitants!). This fact has originated the suspicion that the disappearance of the Dalmatian Italians could be related to an "ethnocide" (read in Italian: http://www.mlhistria.altervista.org/storiaecultura/testiedocumenti/tesiscaglioni/tesi.htm).

The exodus of Dalmatian Italians during WW2: the photo shows Dalmatian Italian families from the outskirts of Spalato going toward the ship that will bring them to Venice in September 1943.

SOUTHERN-ITALY'S NORMAN IFRIQIYA (1135-1160 AD)

The "Norman Southern-italian kingdom" in north Africa (1135-1160 AD)

We all know that the mediterranean coast of Africa has been under christian-european control during some centuries, from the roman-byzantine centuries to the colonial era in the XIX & XX centuries. But in some circumnstances there has been some periods when the rule lasted only a few decades, like when the Normans of Southern Italy created their "kingdom of Ifriqiya" from 1135 to 1160 AD.

Map I have created in wikipedia, showing the Norman Kingdom of Africa (that lasted only 25 years) between red points.

I am going to research -this month of July- what has happened in those 25 years:

First of all, let us remember that from the times of the berber Saint Augustine all north Africa was a christian country that has been -more or less, of course- fully romanised (mainly in the area that is now Eastern Algeria/Tunisia/Western Libya), until the arab invasion of the VIII century.

The long muslim domination of the north Africa region started with the bloody defeat of the christian berber queen Kahina and the deportation as slaves of nearly half a million christian berbers to be sold as slaves in the Damascus & middle-east markets (it was one of worst massacres in human history! they were forced to walk from southern Tunisia until Syria, while crossing desert areas and consequently dying by the many dozen of thousands before arriving to the markets).

Only in southern Tunisia and in the Nile delta survived some christian communities: in the year 1000 AD there were christians (speaking the romance language called "African Latin") in the coastal and southern areas of Tunisia, like in Gafsa - according to the arab Al-Idrisi.

Indeed amongst the Berbers of Ifriqiya, African Romance was linked to Christianity, a religion which survived until the 14th century in North Africa outside of Egypt (where it it is still existing with the Copts). Spoken Latin or Romance is attested in Gabès by Ibn Khordadbeh; in Béja, Biskra, Tlemcen, and Niffis by al-Bakri; and in Gafsa and Monastir by al-Idrisi, who observes that the people in Gafsa "are Berberised, and most of them speak the African Latin tongue." There is also a possible reference to spoken Latin or African Romance in the 11th century, when the Rustamid governor Abu Ubayda Abd al-Hamid al-Jannawni (who lived in the Nafusa Mountains of northwestern Libya) was said to have sworn his oath of office in Arabic, Berber and in an unspecified "town language", which might be interpreted as a Romance variety.

It is noteworthy to pinpoint that in their quest to conquer the Kingdom of Africa in the 12th century, the Normans were aided by the remaining Christian population of Tunisia, who some linguists - among them Vermondo Brugnatelli - argue had been speaking a Romance language for centuries since the end of the eastern roman empire rule of the region.

Indeed in 1135 AD the norman king Roger II made his first permanent conquest (if Pantelleria in 1123 is not counted African): the isle of Djerba. This little island, according to Arabic sources, "acknowledged no sultan" and was a den of pirates, was captured by Roger, who carried off many of its inhabitants. Sicilian Muslims participated in the conquest of Djerba, but it is unknown what happened to the ancient Jewish community on the island, which was still there (or re-established) in the early thirteenth century. Djerba gave Roger a base from which to exert more influence over Mahdia, which, unable to pay for its grain, was forced to become a protectorate of Sicily by 1142. Its foreign affairs fell to Roger, who forbade alliances with other Muslim states inimical to Sicily, and probably received its customs revenues in lieu of payment for the grain needed to feed it.

Roger II conquered all the coast of northern Africa from eastern Algeria to Tripolitana in Libya. But he died in 1154 AD and soon his kingdom started to be attacked by the Arabs, who reconquered it in a few years: in 1160 the capital Mahdia was lost by the Normans of southern Italy and the kingdom was "history" after only a quarter of a century.

Only the islands of Gabes and Kerkenna were reconquered for more than a century by the southern Italian kingdom of Sicily from 1284 to 1392 (while Libya's Tripoli was conquered for a few years from 1510 to 1551), as can be seen in the following map:

Here there are some excerpts from a very well written and detailed book: Bridging Europe and Africa:Norman Sicily’s Other Kingdom, by Charles Dalli of the University of Malta.

The Norman conquest of Sicily detached the island from its North African framework, and a century of Latin Christian rule effectively transformed its society. But the island was not completely disconnected from the southern Mediterranean, as long term trade contacts, political links and military ambitions intervened to cast relations between the two sides. A Norman thalassocracy in the mid-12th century created a short-lived political bridge between Europe and Africa.

A variety of factors contributed to step up Sicilian ambitions to formalize their regional hegemony. Sicily under Roger II was steered towards an adventurous but ultimately misguided foreign policy by the ruler and his admirals, including cAbd ar-Rahmān or Christodoulos, and George of Antioch. In particular, George of Antioch, a political exile who rose to serve as chief minister to Roger II, and to become a major exponent ofthe Sicilian thalassocracy20. In a sense, the new generation of leaders ater Roger I and Temīm were drawn into the dominant political-religious discourse which governed the Muslim-Christian conlict around the Mediterranean. The regional balance of power which had rested on peaceful commercial exchange was challenged on the drawing board with stillborn plans in Ifrīqiya to regain Sicily, and upset in fact with a partlyrealized programme in Palermo to establish a Norman kingdom of Africa.

The Normans learned how to exploit to their own advantage the factional divisions which weakened the control of the Zīrid prince of al-Mahdīya in other parts of Ifrīqiya. Sicilian-African hostilities broke out in 1117-18 when Roger II was called to assist the governor of Gabes against the emir of al-Mahdīya. Signiicantly, the conlict was triggered by a plan to attract foreign commerce to the port of Gabes, thereby challenging al-Mahdīya’s monopolist pretensions. According to Ibn al-Athīr, Roger exchanged bitterly-worded letters with the ambitious prince at al-Mahdīya, Alī, leading the latter to invoke Almoravid help for the Muslim reconquest of Sicily22. Roger demanded the release of his trading agents, and the immediate renewal of the Sicilian-African agreement, but it became increasingly clear that the Sicilians were determined to draw more political advantages as regional power brokers.

An ill-thought provocation soon provided the pretext for war when an Almoravid squadron attacked the Calabrian town of Nicotera in 11, sailing away with captive women and children. Knowing that Norman retribution was only a matter of time, the terriied rulers at al-Mahdīya contacted the Fātimid court in Egypt to intercede with Roger II on behalf of Ifrīqiya. George of Antioch was dispatched as Roger’s envoy to Egypt, but the diplomatic exchange did not halt the Sicilian war plans. In 1123 Roger II dispatched a leet of three hundred ships, carrying an army led by ‘a thousand and one knights’, to capture al-Mahdīya. he Sicilian armada was dispersed by a storm; some ships reached Pantelleria. A large number of its men were killed, while the women and children were captured, and the island was annexed to Sicily. According to Ibn al-Athīr, when the Sicilian forces reached the African coast and took control of the castle of ad-Dīmās, they were surprised by the determined Muslim resistance. Galvanized with cries of Akbar Allāh, the Muslims fell on the invaders, forcing the enemy troops to kill their own horses and lee to their ships. he Christian garrison of the castle of ad-Dīmās, lacking provisions and exhausted from constant battling, inally surrendered and were killed to the last man. Abandoning the siege of al-Mahdīya, the remainder of the Sicilian forces sailed away. Underlining the new discourse legitimating violence, Ibn al-Athīr remarked that this victory was celebrated around the Muslim world in verse by several poets. Four years later, another Almoravid force sacked Syracuse after making landings at Patti and Catania.

All the same, Muslim audacity did not bring an end to the Sicilian ruler’s role as regional power broker. he internal divisions of Ifrīqiya played in the hands of the Sicilian thalassocrats. he emir of al-Mahdīya enjoyed little efective authority outside his capital, and the provincial governors could not be expected to show loyalty towards the Zīrid prince. In an ironic twist, the same prince, al-Hasan ibn cAlī, who triumphed against the Sicilian invaders in 1123, was forced to invoke Roger’s protection in 1135 to ward of a Hammādid invasion. Reportedly, it was the discontented subjects of the Ifrīqiyan vassal king who had appealed for the intervention of Yahyā, Hammādid emir of Bougie, in 1134. Following a successful intervention by the Sicilian leet, Roger II obtained from al-Hasan extensive rights in Ifrīqiya, including the control of all customs revenues generated through trading activities, purportedly to ensure the regular collection of the Sicilian tributes. From 1135 onwards, al-Mahdīya was virtually Roger’s protectorate. Forced to accept ignominious terms, al-Hasan efectively agreed to partition Ifrīqiya with Roger II by recognizing the latter’s right to impose Sicilian authority over those parts of Ifrīqiya which were not under direct Zīrid government. Moreover, Muslim communities which were to rise in revolt against Norman rule were to get no help from al-Mahdīya.

George of Antioch captured the island of Djerba in 1135 ater surrounding it with his ships. In a letter addressed to the Fātimid caliph in Egypt, Roger II explained that he had occupied Djerba to destroy its pirates, thereby protecting Sicilian shipping. George of Antioch’s occupation of Djerba, marked by the pillage of the island and the deportation of captive women and children to Sicily, confirmed his thalassocratic ambitions. Roger granted the surviving Djerban community the "amān" (or safe conduct) to ransom their relatives and friends.

Roger II, the "King of Southern Italy and Africa" (Statue in front of Napoli's Royal Palace)

Al-Idrīsī remarked, almost in justification of the Sicilian occupation, that the Berber kharijite inhabitants of Djerba were generally “brown-skinned, inclined towards evil and of a hypocritical character. [Both] the upper classes and the rest of population speak only Berber. They are wont to rebel and disobey”. Following their rebellion against Norman occupation in 1153, the Djerbans were “reduced to slavery and transported to Palermo”.

A Norman-held Djerba, with a royal governor installed there, opened the way for further expansion along the North African coast. It was also a consequence of a marked shit in policy, from peaceful commercial cooperation to military intervention, already signalled in the failed Sicilian attack on al-Mahdīya. From 1123 to its capture by George of Antioch in 1148, the Zīrid capital was transformed into an economic and political satellite. Despite the consideration that the risks would outweigh the beneits, and that gains would be made at too heavy a price, the Christian rulers of Sicily embarked on an expansionist programme in the Maghrib, formalizing the advantages. The programmes assumed the ability to establish, and manage in the long run, profitable forms of overlordship as had been achieved in the wake of the Sicilian conquest. They must have known that the making of a Christian realm in Sicily was still very much a work in progress. Naturally, this expansionist policy entailed administrative and inancial restructuring at home.

Allowing for the fact that al-Maqrīzī was writing in the 15th century, his biographical sketch of George of Antioch provides vital insight on Roger II and his chief minister. The ‘orientalization’ of Roger II’s image, court, and trilingual administration, and the extension of Norman lordship to parts of Ifrīqiya, were, in a sense, an acknowledgment of the strategic location of the Norman kingdom as a bridge between civilizations. Whilst nourishing wider ambitions in the Latin East – claiming, unsuccessfully, the principality of Antioch ater Bohemond II’s death in 1130 – Roger’s best opportunity for Mediterranean expansion seemed to lie southwards. These ambitions had immediate international reverberations – in 1135 it was reported at a German imperial meeting by alarmed Byzantine and Venetian envoys that Roger had taken “Africa, which is known to be a third part of the world”.

The 1140s were very difficult years for Ifrīqiya, which was troubled by large scale famine, as well as the plague. According to Ibn al-Athīr, the “great mortality” struck the country in 1142-3, killing many people, while those with means led to Sicily, “where they met with cruel suferings”

Recurring famines which alicted Ifrīqiya constrained al-Mahdīya to depend increasingly on Sicilian grain shipments, forcing the emir al-Hasan to sink deeper in debt with Roger. In a show of force, in 1141/2, George of Antioch appeared with his fleet of Ifrīqiya, seizing shipments sent from Egypt to alleviate al-Mahdīya’s plight, to enforce payment3. Despite the renewal of the protectorate, in 1142/3 the Sicilian fleet attacked several coastal areas of the kingdom, claiming to act on behalf of al-Mahdīya against rebellious communities. he town of Tripoli “of the West”, which had asserted its autonomy from al-Mahdīya under the Banū Mātrūh chiefs, was attacked in June 1143, but Arab help enabled the Libyan town to repel the Sicilian attack36. Rearming in Sicily, the leet went out again, this time burning down the Hammādid town of Djidjel, between Bougie and Bône. In 1144/45 the port of Bresk was taken. According to Ibn al-Athīr, its inhabitants were massacred, while women and children were enslaved and sold in Sicily “to the Muslims”.

The same fate met the inhabitants of the Kerkenna islands north of Djerba, which were captured in 1145/46; al-Hasan wrote to Roger to remind him of their bond, but Roger justiied his action by claiming that the islanders were disobedient towards al-Mahdīya. Ibn al-Athīr noted the following under the year 541 (= 13 June 1146-1 June 1147) “This year the Franks, may God curse them, took possession of Tripoli of the West”. “Roger the Frank, king of Sicily”, prepared a great fleet and sent it to Tripoli, which was surrounded by land and by sea on the third day of Muharram (15 June). The Tripolitanians came out to combat the invaders, and the battle lasted for three days. Exploiting internal divisions in Tripoli, where a town faction had expelled the Banū Mātrūh and brought it an Almoravid militia (the Mulattāmīn), the Sicilians took possession of Tripoli. Following the usual pillage of goods and capture of women, a universal amān was issued, allowing those who had led the town to return. Soon they delegated authority to the Banū Mātrūh. Under Roger’s overlordship, Tripoli prospered. According to al-Idrīsī, who recorded the slaughter of the townsmen and the enslavement of their women, the town lourished under Roger, and its district was “without equal in the products of the land, unlike any other inhabited place in the world”. Nevertheless, Roger’s geographer was careful to refer to Tripoli’s earlier period of splendour as a trading centre, blaming tribal attacks for its decline.

In 542 (= 2 June 1147- 21 May 1148) it was the turn of Gabes to be taken by a Sicilian force, exploiting a chaotic situation in that town resulting from the disputed succession to the late governor al-Rashīd. A scheming freedman named Yūsuf threatened al-Mahdīya to submit Gabes to Roger of Sicily, as the governors of Tripoli had done, unless he was allowed to place Muhammad, a minor in his inluence, in the governor’sseat. Roger II duly dispatched Yūsuf his robe and charter as wālī or governor. The emir al-Hasan sent an army from al-Mahdīya to quell the rebellion in Gabes, and Yūsuf met an ignominious death. Following this incident at Gabes, where Norman expansion was checked, Roger was determined to eliminate Zīrid rule at al-Mahdīya, taking advantage of the widespread famine which continued to ravage the Maghrib. Indeed, if Ibn al-Athīr is to be trusted, “the worst came in the year 542, so that the notable families abandoned the towns and the countryside [of Ifrīqiya], and in their majority crossed over to Sicily; while the others ate each other, and there was a great mortality”.

The Sicilian fleet – which, according to al-Maqrīzī, included two hundred galleys, and one hundred oared horse-carriers – passed by Pantelleria, where it encountered a ship coming from al-Mahdīya. Taking carrier pigeons from the Ifrīqiyan ship, George tried to deceive al-Hasan by sending him news that the Sicilian leet was sailing eastwards to attack the Byzantine islands. Nevertheless, a terrible wind “unleashed by God” wrecked George’s plan to take al-Mahdīya by surprise. he Sicilian commander requested alMahdīya’s help to defend the rights of the young Muhammad at Gabes. Realizing that this was just a pretext for capturing the capital, the Zīrid ruler declared that he could not join the Christian force to ight against fellow Muslims at Gabes. At the same time, he could not stay behind to defend his capital, because the Norman force was superior and it would block the city’s access to provisions. Preferring “the salvation of Muslims more than [his] kingdom”, the ruler and his household abandoned the city and found refuge in the ruins of ancient Carthage. Many of his subjects also led the city, while other Muslims hid in Christian churches. By the time the wind had abated, permitting the Norman ships to drop their anchors inside the port, many inhabitants were already gone. George entered the royal castle and took possession of the Zīrid treasure and the prince’s numerous concubines. Following a two-hour sack of al-Mahdīya, the pillage was stopped and a general amān was decreed, extending to the militiamen of the city, and the large numbers of inhabitants who had managed to escape. George was even reported to provide transports for the women and children. Having taken possession of al-Mahdīya, George sent armies to occupy Sfax and Sousse, treating the populations there with similar moderation.

There can be little doubt that Rome looked favourably at the Norman annexation of coastal Ifrīqiya; an “Archbishop of Africa” was consecrated in 114841. According to Ibn al-Athīr, Roger would have conquered “the whole of Africa” were it not for his conlict with Byzantium. Towards the end of his life, there are signs that Roger wished to be seen as a great Christian ruler. A Norman leet commanded by George of Antioch’s successor in the admiralty, the eunuch Philip of al-Mahdīya, captured the city of Bône in 1153. Upon his return, Philip was arrested and accused of having shown excessive clemency towards the Muslim population. Moreover, he was charged with practising Islam in secret, and condemned to death. In a public display of Christian zeal, Roger had his former admiral burned at the stake. he story, which was recorded by Ibn al-Athīr, was noted in great detail by a later editor of the chronicle of Romuald of Salerno, but the emphasis in the latter text is on Roger’s unimpeachable credentials as a Christian king – a man “consumed by love for the Christian faith” – who would not desist from punishing his closest servants for their sins43. A blow to Sicilian Muslims, Philip’s execution marked a traumatic ending to Roger’s reign – for “God allowed Roger to live for onlya short time afterwards”.

Photo of pages from a french book ("Mahdia.Notes historiques et archeologiques", of J.J. De Smet) about the Normans in Mahdia

The network established by the Sicilian thalassocracy across parts of Ifrīqiya seems to have extended to the important city of Tunis – the modern-day capital – only in a secondary way. For a time, according to a Venetian source, Tunis was forced to pay tribute to the Norman rulers of Sicily44. he project of Norman Ifrīqiya involved the resettlement of immigrant Christians across new areas under Norman lordship. It also brought about new hopes for surviving Christian communities in Ifrīqiya. Very recently, a major study has revealed some of the complexities of the evolving relationship between the Norman rulers of Sicily and the papacy45. The beneits accruing from the extension of Christian rule in the eastern Maghrib were not lost on Rome. Norman Africa, and the prospect of Christian expansion there, may have provided an additional motive for Rome’s reapprochement with Palermo in 1156. William I’s chief minister, Maio of Bari, a chief broker of the Siculo-Roman peace, may have shited the focus from African to Italian politics in this crucial period, and was popularly blamed for the loss of Norman Africa in 1160. The ammiratus ammiratorum Maio was assassinated later that year in a revolt lead by Matthew Bonello; and Maio’s character was likewise assassinated by ‘Hugo Falcandus’ in the pages of his "Liber de Regno Sicilie".

The present contribution has underlined the medieval historian’s role in tracing the evolution of the relationship across the Mediterranean waters from one of commercial cooperation, to one of unequal exchange, to the establishment of a Sicilian protectorate over al-Mahdīya, and the Norman military interventions leading to a short-lived overlordship. It has been claimed that “Norman rule in Africa aimed to be benign”.

Nevertheless, a benevolent form of government, including the delegation of administrative tasks to local notables, could hardly mask the reality of subjection to a Christian overlord. he accounts of the uprisings in 1158-59 leave no room for doubt; in the minds of Sicily’s African subjects, the beneits of living under a restored Muslim rule vastly outweighed any consideration of mild Christian government. Sporadic signs of resistance to Christian rule emerged in the early 1150s, notably the Djerban revolt in 1153, which was crushed thanks to a major naval expedition, leading to the Norman re-conquest of the island, together with the subjection of the Kerkenna archipelago. In William I’s early years of rule Sicily’s leets ranged across the Mediterranean, in a campaign in the Nile Delta (1155), as well as expeditions against Byzantine Negropont and Muslim Ibiza (1157). At the approach of the Almohad army, a series of revolts spread quickly to bring the Norman presence to an end. Town ater town rapidly subjected themselves to the Almohads. he Muslim reconquista of Ifrīqiya was accelerated, according to Ibn al-Athīr, when the Almohads created two huge mountains of wheat and barley. The politics of grain were not lost on the Almohads, it seems.

The campaign culminated in the triumphal entry of the Almohads into al-Mahdīya in January 1160; the Almohad caliph cAbd al-Mucmin is said to have wondered why the last Zīrid ruler of the city, who had become his protégée, had surrendered the fortress to Roger in 1148. Although a formal peace was not reached with Sicily before 1180, it has been shown how Genoese merchants were actively involved in linking Sicily and its former Ifrīqiyan domains under the new Almohad princes.

The formalization of Sicilian regional hegemony in the establishment of a Norman Ifrīqiya was the inal stage of a process which originated in commercial cooperation across the Christian-Muslim divide in the central Mediterranean. Radically redrawn with the Norman conquest of Sicily, the divide was shown to be bridgeable through peaceful commercial exchange. By the early 12th century, Sicily and Ifrīqiya were linked through their economic interdependence. From 1135, al-Mahdīya became a de facto Sicilian protectorate, and in the 1140s much of coastal Ifrīqiya was subjected to Roger II’s overlordship while the Zīrid state ceased to exist. By 1160 it was the turn of Roger’s African dominion to meet the same fate. Ironically, the inal Muslim victory saved Norman Ifrīqiya from historiographical extinction – by drawing Muslim chroniclers to write at length about the developments that would lead to a inal Muslim victory. In doing so, they also recorded the degeneration of a relationship which, at irst, avoided confrontation and turned to commercial cooperation to bridge the Christian-Muslim divide. Seizing on an excellent example, which foreshadowed the Muslim defeat of the Latin East and marked the prestigious success against a notable Christian thalassocracy, they became its chief narrators.Exploiting the beneits of hindsight, the Muslim historians reconstructed with meticulous detail the chain of events marking the rise and fall of Norman Ifrīqiya, relaying precious information on the making of a short-lived policies which, for hardly 3 decades, bridged the Mediterranean.

Another photo of pages from the same book of De Smet, related to what happened with christians in Mahdia in the next centuries after the end of the Norman Ifriqiya

CHAKAVIAN LANGUAGE (RESEARCH)

This month I want to do a research about the most "italian" of the slav dialects/languages in the eastern Adriatic sea: the CHAKAVIAN (called "Ciacavo" in italian). I want to pinpoint that one of the main features of Chakavian is the strong influence of Romance languages in its lexicon and phonology (especially from Italian, Dalmatian and Venetian).

Furthermore, Italian linguist Matteo Bartoli wrote in 1919 that more than one half of the Chakavian spoken in Istria was loanworded from Neo-Latin (Romance) languages, a percentage similar to the one in the "Gheg" albanian dialect of northern coastal Albania. But in southern Dalmatia the percentage of Italian loanwords is only around 2/5, while in northwestern Istria is around a huge 4/5.

However it is noteworthy to remember that prof. Balestrino of the "Universita' di Genova" wrote that there are languages that are not-neolatins, but are called "Sub-Romance languages" -like English and Maltese- because have more than half of their words loanworded from latin & neolatin languages and Chacavian can be included in this group.

It is also well known that the Chacavian has given to Croatian many romance maritime words and terms, missing in the Croatian standard language.

Map showing the areas where is spoken the Chakavian and its sub-dialects. According to the reflex of the Common Slavic phoneme yat */ě/, there are five varieties: A) Ekavian (northeastern Istria, Rijeka/Fiume and Cres/Cherso island): */ě/ > /e/; B) Ikavian–Ekavian (islands Lošinj/Lussino, Krk/Veglia, Rab/Arbe, Pag/Pago, Ugljan/Ugliano): */ě/ > /i/ or /e/, according to Jakubinskij's law; C) >Ikavian (southwestern Istria, islands Brač/Brazza, Hvar/Lesina, Vis/Lissa, Korčula/Cursola, Dalmatian coast at Zadar/Zara and Split/Spalato): */ě/ > /i/; D) Ijekavian (Lastovo/Lagosta island): */ě/je/ or /ije/; E} Ikavski */ě/ > /e/ (northwestern Istria) > )

Actually the Chakavian speech still has many expressions, sentences and technical words (approximately 60%, according to academics like Della Volpe) that originate from Italian and autochthonous Dalmatian romance, e.g.: bicerin/bicchierino/little cup, bocûn/boccone/bite (confirmed in the dictionary of G. Boerio), ćƖkara/cup, damìžana/damigiana/dishware, katrîga/chair, mudante/mutande/underwear, kogûma/coffee kettle, posada/posata/cutlery, vesta/vestito/dress.

And also there are some expressions that come from the italian dialect of Trieste, e.g. bokâl/boccale and fíbra/fibra, kolȅt/colletto/collar (lexemes whose confirmation we find in "Grande Dizionario del Dialetto Triestino" by Maria Dorie).

Furthermore, according to Matasović, most of the Romanesque in Croatian comes from Venetian (thanks mainly to Chakavian), because, as previously mentioned, Venice ruled much of Dalmatia and Istria until the end of the 18th century. Therefore, in Croatian & Chakavian standard language there are many Venetian words, such as rúža (rosa/rose), brȉga (briga/concern), kùverta (coperta/envelope), mòrnār (marinaio/sailor).

Indeed, many slav topographical names in Istria and Dalmatia have roots in romance languages, because assimilated to slav languages as a kind of special "loanwords" durig the early Middle Ages. To give an example, the actual croatian name of the island of "Losinj" (exactly the same in Chakavian and standard Croatian) comes from the italian "Lussino" (and the word "Dalmacija" is nearly the same like in latin, while the word "Istra" is very similar to the Italian!)

Map with Italian names of cities/villages in the historical Dalmatia

Historically the Chakavian was spoken not only in the Dalmatian islands (like happens now) but also in all coastal Dalmatia; however now it is reduced to areas around Fiume/Rijeka, Zara/Zadar and Spalato/Split (exactly the same that now have italian-speaking communities).

This Chakavian was originally classified as a dialect, but has been "upgraded" to language a couple of years ago with ISO language ID code: "ckm"; please read the following interesting essay related to this improvement:

CHAKAVIAN OFFICIALLY DECLARED A LANGUAGE IN 2020, CROATIA PAYS NO ATTENTION, by Lauren Simmonds

As R. Danas/M. Tudor wrote, back during the pandemic-dominated year of 2020, without much fanfare and completely unnoticed by local media, Chakavian became a language which was officially recognised by the main international academic organisation that deals with the classification of all languages spoken by mankind. Chakavian thus received its own special ISO language ID code: ckm

This significant (at least linguistically) historical event paves the way for Chakavian speakers to receive much greater local and national recognition, which has been totally lacking until now because Chakavian was considered to merely be yet another dialect.

American professor of linguistics from the prestigious University of California, Kirk Miller, known in the academic world as a successful field linguist responsible for the research and popularisation of the lesser-known languages spoken by mankind, thought about the need to perpetuate Chakavian as one of the languages of our world.

Seeing that nobody had remembered to classify and identify Chakavian as an official language, Miller himself decided to send a painstakingly thought out and written request on September the 2nd, 2019, for the recognition and documentation of the Chakavian language to an organisation called SIL International.

The Summer Institute of Linguistics International is the full name of an international non-profit organisation based in Dallas, Texas, whose main purpose is to study, develop and document all languages used throughout the world, with the aim of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting literacy in all languages, and ensuring the language development of linguistic minorities.

Once a year, SIL International publishes the prestigious academic magazine Ethnologue. It is a reference publication available both in print and online that provides statistics and other information about the world’s living languages. What is actually perhaps an even more important responsibility of SIL International is to issue ISO type 639-3 codes for comprehensive coverage on behalf of the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO, based in Geneva – of which Croatia is a member).

It is interesting to note that Professor Miller based a part of his request on the previous request of the main association of speakers of the Kajkavian language, which already managed to win the recognition of Kajkavian as an independent language back in 2014. SIL International then recognised Kajkavian as an independent language, but only in the literary form that was used in the period from the 16th to the 19th century and in some works from the 20th century.

Miller’s entire argument was already confirmed as valid by SIL International back in 2020. Owing to his efforts, the Chakavian language was given the highest possible linguistic recognition that exists: it was recognised as a living (independent) language of its own, and not merely a dialect.

Who actually invented the word ”narjecje” – the term the Croatian language mixes up with ”dialect”?

Chakavian and Kajkavian have long been considered languages in the international world of linguistic science, and not a mere branch of the Croatian standard language, that is, the Shtokavian Croatian language as we know it. Of course, both languages are actually much older languages than the standardised version of Shtokavian (in the first few centuries, all Croatian dictionaries were actually written only in Chakavian), which continued to exist and develop even after the creation of that standard, so, they in fact cannot be dialects of that standard at all. Chakavian might even be considered an international language of sorts, because it is spoken in Croatia and in four other member states of the European Union (in Slovenia, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia).

Despite this, former Yugoslavian (and later a significant number of Croatian linguists) placed both Chakavian and Kajkavian in the category of “dialects” (narjecje) for decades.

The very term “narjecja” has always been a disputed concept when it comes to linguistics outside the vague borders of the Balkans. It’s enough to know that there is no direct translation for this word in any other language of the world, nor is there one for the concept that we encompass within that word. In international linguistics, only the terms “language”, “dialect” and “sub-dialect” are known. That is why Croatian and ex Yugoslavian linguists were forced to invent a rough English translation for the word themselves – “supradialect” (i.e. super-dialect) – in the desire to explain to the whole world the local concept of something that has all the linguistic, social and historical characteristics of a language, but we for some reason or another have the need to consider less than a language.

As is often the case, this approach is the product of the fact that in Croatia, political circumstances heavily directed science, and it wasn’t that science gave the main direction to politics: the Croatian people fought frantically for their place under the sun for almost a century and a half. Being recognised by the world as an independent national community required enormous effort, dogged determination and deep desire of more than six generations of Croats. That meant that entire generations of Chakavian and Kajkavian intellectuals and scientists preferred to neglect their mother tongue and native culture in favour of the greater good of the entire Croatian nation, of which they strongly felt a part throughout history. It was a logical and noble move at the time, but it has left its scars.

Map showing the original extention of the Chakavian (blue color), before Ottoman conquests

Language – the soul and heart of any culture

“If a culture were a house, then language would be the key to the front door, and to all the rooms in it,” says Khaled Hosseini, an American writer and doctor born in Afghanistan, who was also New York Times’ bestseller three times.

Language is indeed the very essence of culture, because its soul begins and ends with language. It shapes the way people think, dream, communicate with each other, build relationships and create a sense of community. It’s the main guardian of a value system, because it directly transmits a set of symbols, meanings and norms.

It is that first form of communication with the universe, those first children’s words that initiate verbal contact between people. Knowing one’s linguistic roots so well automatically enables one to more easily identify with the community around them and to keep the welfare of that community close to their hearts in the deepest sense.

Language is a technology that enhances and expands the capacities of categorisation that we share with those around us and those who came before us, and therefore plays a key role in the transmission of human culture to those who will come after us.

All of this of course also applies to that part of Croatia where Chakavian is the autochthonous language. Croatian culture will disappear when and if the languages on which it is based are lost to the hands of time. This isn’t such an incredible possibility: if we continue with today’s trends, it is quite likely that in two generations, Chakavian will more or less have the status of an extinct language. When it disappears, native Croatian culture will also disappear with it.

Unfortunately, the statesmen and strategists of Croatia’s national branding failed to use the independence of our country, nor the next three decades of freedom, to valorise the linguistic and cultural specificities of its native people. If the Republic of Croatia and its representatives believe that culture is at least somewhat important, then they will have to activate themselves and work much harder to promote the Chakavian (and Kajkavian) languages.

Map showing in blue color the "Ikavski" area of the Istria's Chakavian, that has 4/5 of its words that are loanworded from romance languages (mainly Italian). The "Ikavian" pink area (southwestern Istria) was the second most romance speaking area of Chakavian, with 2/3 of its words loanworded from neolatin & latin.

Chakavian’s future

This international recognition for the Chakavian speaking world is not only significant, but a truly epochal event. At the global level, the Chakavian language will be studied more seriously and more study and learning of the Chakavian language will be promoted at Slavic departments of universities outside of Croatian borders. A small boom in academic and non-academic literature on the Chakavian language is also to be expected over the next few years.

But above all, this brand new status will really open the door wide for Chakavian speakers to request official recognition of their language where it most needs to be recognised, that is, in the countries where Chakavians have lived for almost 1,500 years and maybe for even longer. It would indeed be a very sad and perversely ironic historical turning point if, after surviving all kinds of enemy invasions, legal prohibitions and changes in language fashions for at least twelve long and arduous centuries, the Chakavian language dies out precisely in the era of the first truly independent and free state of the Croatian people.

The international recognition of the Chakavian language and Croatia’s next steps will thus surely become an important cultural factor on the European path of this proud little country and Croatian civilisation itself, because in Europe, local and minority languages have been lovingly nurtured for decades, and unique languages have some very efficiently (and profitably) regional and national brands built on them, and through these, the true respect of the people towards their local communities is promoted.

All municipalities and counties in which Chakavian is the original autochthonous language are now given the opportunity to recognise Chakavian at the very highest level, as a parity language alongside the standard one, and it is now the turn of Croatia to launch some proper initiatives and political guidelines to first preserve the language, and then to help the Chakavians to standardise it all to some extent and effectively promote it at both the local and global level.

Of course, this requires a lot of work and the orchestrated multi-year work of all participants in the Chakavian speaking world, but the goal is a worthy one and one which is definitely achievable (especially with the help of all the instruments and means offered by the European Community for these purposes). If it is possible to revive languages that have completely died out in Cornwall and the Isle of Man under the constant pressure of the most heavily spoken language in the world (English), or to revive the unwritten Maori language in New Zealand, then reversing the negative trend of a language that is still fluently and daily used by hundreds of thousands of people in a modern European country can’t be that hard at all. It only requires good will, diligence and, of course, love. Things that were never missing among Chakavian speakers.

THE EXTERMINATION OF ITALIANS IN DALMATIA ISLANDS (STARTED BY THE HABSBURG)

This month I want to research in detail what has happened -initially because of the Habsburg- to the Italians who lived in the Dalmatian islands in the XIX century. And also what happened -according to the historian Bortoluzzi- with the Italians in the dalmatian island of Lagosta (that was an island of the Kingdom of Italy from 1918 until -officially- 1947, the year when changed its name in the croat word "Lastovo") and in other areas of Dalmatia.

Of course we must remember that in 1804 all Dalmatia was united to the Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy and the Italians -according to the french Marmont, ruler of Italian Dalmatia between 1805 and 1809- were nearly 1/3 of the total population while were concentrated in the main cities (where they were the majority). After the Congress of Vienna in 1814 started a small reduction of their presence in Dalmatia -now ruled by the Austrian empire- while their percentage went down to just 20% around 1848 (when started the Italian Wars of Independence). Their reduction increased furthermore after 1866 when started also their disappearance, as I am going to explain in this essay (if interested in further info, please read -with "google translate"- this nice essay written by Maria cipriano: http://www.tuttostoria.net/documenti/DALMAZIA_LA_REGIONE_LONTANA.pdf)

The following are excerpts on this research, taken from Italian books & magazines about Dalmatia, Lagosta and other nearby localities":

Coat of arms of Dalmatia as used during the Habsburg Monarchy

The Habsburg genocide in Dalmatia

(Written by Marco De Turris; taken from “L'Italia e' la mia Patria”, September 13, 2010)

The so-called Austrian Empire (Austria-Hungary after 1866) was responsible for a great deal of persecution, abuse and violence against the Italian nation. We know how this decisively contributed to perpetuating the long state of division of Italy, the colonial possession of its vast territories under foreign rule, the condition of economic exploitation, cultural repression, political oppression and ethnic discrimination of its Italian subjects.

However, what is less known is how the Empire planned and accomplished after 1866 a true genocide (in the sense of forced denationalization) to the detriment of the Italian residents in their possessions. An objective and truthful assessment of the Habsburg Empire, founded on the principle of the hegemony of the ethnic Austrian element, can be introduced by recalling the minutes of the decision expressed in the Imperial Council of Ministers on November 12, 1866, held under the presidency of Emperor Franz Joseph. The minutes of the meeting reads as follows:

“His Majesty has expressed the precise order that we decisively oppose the influence of the Italian element still present in some Crown lands, and to aim unsparingly and without the slightest compunction at the Germanization or Slavicization – depending on the circumstances – of the areas in question, through a suitable entrustment of posts to political magistrates and teachers, as well as through the influence of the press in South Tyrol, Dalmatia, and the Adriatic Coast.”

[See Luciano Monzali, "Italiani di Dalmazia", Florence 2004, p. 69; Angelo Filipuzzi (edited by), “La campagna del 1866 nei documenti militari austriaci: operazioni terrestri”, Padua 1966, pp. 396.]

The Imperial decision of Franz Joseph to carry out an ethnic cleansing against the Italians in Trentino-Alto Adige, Venezia Giulia, and Dalmatia, can be found in Die Protokolle des Österreichischen Ministerrates 1848-1867. VI Abteilung: Das Ministerium Belcredi. Band 2: 8. April 1866-6. Februar 1867, Österreichischer Bundesverlag für Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst (Wien 1973); the quote appears in Section VI, vol. 2, meeting of November 12, 1866, p. 297. The quotation in German appears in a section titled "Measures against the Italian element in some territories of the Crown", or rather "Maßregeln gegen das italienische Element in einigen Kronländern":

“Se. Majestät sprach den bestimmten Befehl aus, daß auf die entschiedenste Art dem Einflusse des in einigen Kronländern noch vorhandenen italienischen Elementes entgegengetreten und durch geeignete Besetzung der Stellen von politischen, Gerichtsbeamten, Lehrern sowie durch den Einfluß der Presse in Südtirol, Dalmatien und dem Küstenlande auf die Germanisierung oder Slawisierung der betreffenden Landesteile je nach Umständen mit aller Energie und ohne alle Rücksicht hingearbeitet werde. Se. Majestät legt es allen Zentralstellen als strenge Pflicht auf, in diesem Sinne planmäßig vorzugehen.”

This was followed by a call to all the central offices, giving them the strict duty of carrying out the order according to the will of the emperor. This government decision, made at the highest level by Emperor Franz Joseph and his council, to proceed with the Germanization and Slavicization of the regions with Italian population, Trentino, Venezia Giulia and Dalmatia, "unsparingly and without the slightest compunction", attests unequivocally to the discriminatory and oppressive nature of the Habsburg Empire against the Italian minority: remember however that this is only one example among many of the anti-Italian policy of Austria. This act of the government, directly ordered by the emperor himself, expresses a clear intention to perpetrate an anti-Italian genocide (not in the sense of physical extermination, but in the sense of eradicating national and cultural identity, that would lead precisely to the "death of a people"), which was then actually realized in Dalmatia (Austrian censuses report the reduction of the Italian ethnic group from nearly 20% to just over 2%) and undertaken in Venezia Giulia and Trentino: only the war and the Italian victory prevented the same from happening in these last two regions that happened in Dalmatia, where the Italian presence was eliminated.

This project, consciously elaborated by the highest authorities of the Habsburg Empire and by the manifest will of Franz Joseph himself, was then carried out against the Italians in a plurality of ways. The rear measures against the Italians were carried out from 1866 until 1918 and were different according to the place, the time, and the authorities (civil or military, central or local) that promoted it.

However, they all followed the pattern laid down by a substantial hostility of the Austrian ruling class against the Italians:
1)Mass expulsions (in the first years of the 20th century alone more than 35,000 Italians were expelled from Venezia Giulia);
2)Deportation to concentration camps (over 100,000 Italians deported during World War I);
3)Use of Slavic nationalist squads to exercise massive amounts of violence against Italians (with countless acts of violence, bombings, assaults, murders, etc. These actions were often substantially tolerated by the authorities or were not effectively suppressed);
4)Police repression;
5)Immigration of Slavs and Germans into Italian territories favored by the imperial authorities, to promote the gradual "submersion" of the native Italians;
6)Educational and cultural Germanization and Slavicization (Italian school closed, elimination of Italian place names and proper names, prohibition of Italian culture in all its forms: the question of education in Dalmatia in particular was very serious);
7)Deprivation or restriction of political rights (elections in Dalmatia saw very heavy vote rigging in favour of Slavic nationalists;
8)communes ruled by Italians were dissolved by the Austrian authorities, etc.);
9)Restriction of civil rights (dissolution of political associations, cultural associations, trade unions, people were arrested or convicted for trivial reasons, etc).

Lagosta's Italians

(Written by Mario Bortoluzzi, taken from the magazine “Il Borghese”, May 2004)

Unlike most of the other Dalmatian islands which were given to Yugoslavia after World War I despite being promised to Italy in the Treaty of London, the small Dalmatian island of Lagosta, which had been occupied by Italian troops since 1918, was formally acknowledged as Italian territory by the Treaty of Rapallo, signed in 1920 between Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.

Lagosta (now called "Lastovo") thenceforth would belong to the Kingdom of Italy for the next thirty years, or thereabouts, forming part of the Province of Zara together with the islands of Cazza, Pelagosa and Saseno.

According to the 1921 census, the island's population counted some 1400 inhabitants, of which 208 (about 15%) were Dalmatian Italians. In the following years, several hundred other Dalmatian Italians – fleeing from the nearby Dalmatian territories which had been annexed to Yugoslavia – would settle on the island, so that by 1939 the Italian Dalmatian population had risen to 933 (38%). Many of them came from the nearby islands of Lissa, Curzola, Lesina, and from the Dalmatian city of Traù, which had been subject to Yugoslav rule since the Treaty of Rapallo.

The Italo-Dalmatian refugees preferred to live under Italian administration, rather than face difficulties or potential persecution under the Yugoslavs. The island of Lagosta thus became their new home.

The living standards of Lagosta improved significantly under the Kingdom of Italy. As in the rest of Italy during this period, many public works were initiated, and in 1939 the island reached its peak population with 2,458 inhabitants. A small fish farming industry was established in the village of San Pietro by fishermen from Puglia in 1941, aiding in the economic productivity of the island.

In August 1943 the island counted nearly 3000 inhabitants – including civilians and some military personnel – and was enjoying economic prosperity despite the ongoing war. The Italians numbered some 1500 people, or about half the island's population.

The extermination of the Italian population began on September 14, 1943, when Josip Broz Tito's Yugoslav Partisans occupied the island. The ethnic cleansing initially took the form of forced expulsion. In September 1943 about 100 Italians were expelled from Lagosta. These consisted of Italian citizens who were resident in Lagosta, but who were not born on the island.

Between October and December 1943, nearly 200 Italians were killed or disappeared. Tito's men began by killing the local governor Tomasin. They continued the terror by murdering Don Nicola Fantela, a priest of the Diocese of Ragusa, on October 25, 1944; the Communist Partisans tied a stone around his neck and drowned him in the sea between Ragusa and Lagosta.

Don Nicola Fantela was born on September 9, 1880 in Lagosta. After studying in Ragusa and Zara, he entered the priesthood in Zara in 1904. In September 1905 he became an assistant to the parish priest of Curzola. Later he served in Toppollo, Stagno Piccolo, Sarajevo and Sebenico. From 1930 to 1932 he was the parish priest and dean of Stagno. In 1934-1935 he was rector of San Biagio in Ragusa. After retiring as a military employee in 1935, he lived in Castelnuovo. In 1943 he happily returned to Lagosta, his native land.

However, after only four months, on February 6, 1944, he was subject to interrogation by the Yugoslav Partisan Kommissar, during which time he was harshly tortured, disfigured and mutilated. He was transferred to the partisan boat PC-62 “Ivo” in the bay of San Michele, just north of Lagosta, where, on the night of February 7, 1944 (other sources say October 25, 1944), a stone was tied around his neck and he was was thrown into the sea.

Aurora Corsano, a native of Lagosta, was shot to death on March 1, 1944 following a show trial by the Yugoslav Partisans. In 1944 and early 1945 the Yugoslavs conducted many such show trials and summary executions, murdering many Italians on the island and generally terrorizing the Dalmatian Italian population. Through these methods, they forced almost all of the Dalmatian Italians to completely abandon their homes by mid-1945.

After World War II, Lagosta was annexed to Communist Yugoslavia – made official by the Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 – and its name was officially changed to "Lastovo". In the same year the government proclaimed that only Yugoslav military personnel were permitted to live on the island. The few Dalmatian Italians who still remained – about 200 in number – were forced into exile.

So, in the span of only four years (from 1943 to 1947) an entire population and ancient community was wiped out: a perfect genocide, as happened in other Dalmatian islands - like in Lissa! (if interested about Lissa, please read my https://researchomnia.blogspot.com/2014/09/lissa-perfect-ethnic-cleansing-of-local.html)

Indeed, following the same fate as neighboring Lissa, the island of Lagosta became a Yugoslav militarized region immediately after the war, which led to economic stagnation and the depopulation of the island. This sealed the island's fate for the next several decades up to the present day.

Today the island has only 792 inhabitants, almost all Croats. According to the 2011 census, the Italian community has been reduced to just five people.

As a result of Yugoslav policy and the ethnic cleansing of the Dalmatian Italians – who comprised the productive element of the population – the island today remains one of the most impoverished and underdeveloped areas of southern Dalmatia.

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The following are excerpts from the B. D'Ambrosio essay on "Lagosta:a perfect ethnic cleansing":

As early as 996 the Venetians ruled the islands of Lagosta and Lissa, and, though they retired for a time before the Ragusans, their power was effectually established in 1278. Vecia Issa in Lissa, then the chief settlement, was destroyed by Ferdinand of Naples in 1483 and by the Turks in 1571. The present city of Lissa arose shortly afterwards and was mostly populated by the local Dalmatian italians (while Lagosta was partially -66%- populated by Slavs). During the Napoleonic wars, the French held Lissa and Lagosta from 1805 until 1811, and during this period the islands prospered greatly, its population increasing from 4000 to 12,000 between 1808 and 1811 (with many Slavs settling in the islands).


Visiting the island, you can still see traces of twenty five years of Italian administration (theoretically Lagosta was Italian for almost thirty years since November 1918, when landed in the island some sailors of the Italian Royal Navy, until February 1947 when Italy gave officially the island to Tito). After the Second World War, the Treaty of Paris of 1947 assigned the island to the former Yugoslavia (with the croatian name "Lastovo") and is now part of Croatia.

Currently there are no Italians in the island: all survivors of the massacres made by Tito -initiated in September 1943 with the execution of Italian governor Tomasin and continued even with the drowning in the sea between Ragusa and Lagosta with a millstone around the neck of Don Nicola Fantela, canon of the Diocese of Ragusa/Lagosta in October 1944 - were forced to exile in 1947. The eradication of the Italians was started on September 14, 1943, when Tito occupied the island and immediately sent away the "regnicoli", as were called the Italians not born in Lagosta. In the months following the Tito partizans killed many Italians of the island, executing someone even with false trials in 1944 that terrorized the whole small Italian community: the Italians of Lagosta were forced by these methods to exile almost completely before summer 1945. As an example we should remember Aurora Corsano, born in Lagosta, shot 1-3-1944 in the cemetery of Lagosta, after a fake trial.

After the end of the war the few remaining were forced to leave in 1947, when the island was declared by Tito a "militarized territory" where only the Croats could remain.

Here it is a resumen of the ethnic cleaning in Lagosta:
1) August 1943: there were nearly 1500 Italians in the island of Lagosta. They were half the population of the island
2) September 1943: In the second half of this month happened the Tito occupation of the island and the expulsion of the Italians (nearly one hundred, called "Regnicoli") not born in Lagosta.
3) October-December 1943: nearly two hundred Italians -mostly linked to fascist or Italian government organizations- were killed (someone drowned) or "disappear", so the Italians in Lagosta were reduced to nearly 1200.
4) January 1944-April 1945: nearly 1000 Italians were forced to "exile", after a continuous climate of terror was created by Tito's partizans in the island with fake trials against Italians (like the one when Aurora Corsano was put on trial with false accusations, and executed in the Lagosta cemetery in March 1944).
5) May 1945-summer 1947: the remaing 200 Italians were all forced to go away from the island because Tito declared Lagosta (from February 1947 officially called Lastovo) a "military territory" of Yugoslavia. Only Croatians were allowed to remain in the island, because of security reasons.
6) August 1947: There were no more Italians in Lagosta.

In simple words: all the 1500 Italians of Lagosta "disappeared" in just 4 years, from August 1943 to August 1947. What a perfect ethnic cleansing!

The island of Cazza during the Venetian rule was inhabited by over 200 people (most of them venetian speaking), and live there today only the family of the lighthouse keeper and a pastor. On the island of about 5 km2 there are the remains of two churches. The oldest dates from the fourth century. Cazza remained depopulated after the Second World War

In addition we would like to remind once again that the Italian province of Zara between the two world wars was formed with the territory of Zara and also with the island of Lagosta. So we wonder when we will have in Lagosta something similar to what we have in Zara (now Zadar) as an "Italian organization" heir and/or result of that province? Perhaps a small branch of the Italian community of Zara (or even of Lesina) could be created in Lagosta?

On the other hand there are many in Lagosta who have kinship (far away, but sometimes even close) with the 40% of the population of the island that was Italian in 1940, and someone -may be because of tourism- still speaks a little bit of "veneto da mar" (venetian dialect).... Furthermore a friend of mine, who has visited the island five years ago, argued that some of the actual inhabitants of Lagosta (now called Lastovo) would like to have in the island something like the Italian kindergarten "Pinocchio" of Zara, but bilingual Italian-Croatian (or Croatian but with courses in Italian). We must remember that in 1941 arose a village in Lagosta (now called Uble), in which many Italian fishermen had moved from Puglia: they created a small industry of fish conservation (destroyed later by Tito), but they even were making the Italian the most spoken language of the island.

Indeed Lagosta in summer of 1943 enjoyed a certain economic well-being and had almost 3000 people (about half Italian speaking), while from 1945 in the hands of Tito's Yugoslavia the island has been depopulated and impoverished

Dalmatia in the XIV century (in pink color the territories of the Republic of Venice)

The population of Dalmatia in the XII/XIII centuries

(The following is a description of Dalmatia from the famous “Book of Roger” (Tabula Rogeriana), written by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi at the court of King Roger II of Sicily in 1154)

In his descriptions Idrisi makes a clear distinction between the Slavs and the Dalmatians – the term ‘Dalmatian’ refers to the autochthonous Latin-speaking population who descended from the original Roman inhabitants.

Al-Idrisi wrote which towns and cities were inhabited by Slavs and which were inhabited by Dalmatians. The Dalmatians predominated in almost all the major towns and cities of Dalmatia (Zara, Spalato, Traù, Lissa, Ragusa, Cattaro), while the Slavs inhabited only one city (Antivari) and a couple of minor towns.

According to Idrisi, this was the ethnic composition of Dalmatia in the 12th century:

Segna - Populated by Slavs
Castelmuschio (Veglia) - Populated by Dalmatians
Arbe - Populated by Dalmatians
Zatton - Populated by Dalmatians
Zara - Populated by Dalmatians
Zaravecchia - Populated by Dalmatians and Slavs
Traù Vecchia - Populated by Dalmatians
Traù - Populated by Dalmatians
Spalato - Populated by Dalmatians
Lissa - Populated by Dalmatians
Stagno - Populated by Slavs
Ragusa - Populated by Dalmatians
Antivari - Populated by Slavs
Cattaro - Populated by Dalmatians
Dulcigno - Populated by Latins (Dalmatians)

His contemporary William of Tyre, in his chronicle Historia, described Dalmatia this way: “Dalmatia is inhabited by a very fierce people, given over to plunder and murder. ...with the exception of those who live on the coast and who differ from the rest in customs and language. Those on the coast use the Latin language, while the others (in the hinterland) use the Slavonic tongue and have the habits of barbarians.”

Also in the 13th century the chronicler Raymond of Aguilers, in his "Historia Francorum", described Dalmatia in the same way. He makes a distinction between the civilized Latins who inhabit the cities and urban centres of the Dalmatian coast and speak a Latin language, and on the other hand the rural Slavs who live in the countryside, whom he describes as “primitive people, barbaric robbers, ignorant of God” (“rudes, latrones, aggrestes hominem qui deum ignorabant”).

These testimonies make clear that the Dalmatian coast in the 12th and 13th centuries was not Slavic, but overwhelmingly Latin and belonged to Latin civilization. The cities of Zara, Spalato, Traù, Ragusa, Cattaro and Arbe, among others, were Latin cities whose population spoke Latin and later Italian. These Latin cities would remain Italian-speaking until the modern period.

ADDENDUM: further info can be found in the books of "RIVISTA MILITARE" (https://issuu.com/rivista.militare1)