At an elevation of 2911 metres, the summit of Vetta d’Italia stands at the northernmost extremity of present-day Italy on its border with Austria. The mountain’s name – which translates into English as ‘Peak of Italy’ - has been in use since 1905, when it was christened thus by Ettore Tolomei, an Italian nationalist, who claimed to have made its first ascent. However, this was no mere peak-bagging exercise: Tolomei was standing on the great Alpine divide, extending a thousand and one hundred kilometres, from Nice in the west to Rijeka in the east, which marked what he believed were the limits of the Italian realm. Today, this might not seem entirely implausible: after all, the current boundaries of Italy follow this crescent-shaped watershed – more or less – all the way from the Ligurian to the Adriatic coast.
Significantly however, up until 1905 the
mountain had never had an Italian name. It had always been known as
Klockerkarkopf and lay at the centre of the County of Tyrol which extended 70 km northwards to Bavaria and 120 km southwards to Trentino.
It was very much part of the German-speaking world and formed part of the
Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire. In fact, the very first ascent of the Klockerkarkopf
was documented as having been achieved 9 years previously by two Austrian
climbers, Franz Hofer and Fritz Kögl. At the turn of the 20th
century, Italian linguistic and cultural influence in the region was almost
non-existent: 90% of the population in that part of Tyrol
south of the Alpine watershed was German-speaking, the remaining 10% being
divided almost equally between Italian and Ladin speakers.
Since the time that Italy became united in 1866, a movement known as
Italian irredentism had evolved whose aim was to annex territories which were
deemed to be ‘Italian’, however flimsy these claims may have been. The
irredentists set their sights on areas such as the County of Nice, Corsica,
Ticino, Dalmatia and Malta, but also all the territory that extended as far
north as Vetta d’Italia and the continental divide. Tolomei was one of the most
fervent advocates of this territorial expansion.
When Archduke Franz-Ferdinand, the heir
presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated in Sarajevo a hundred years
ago, it sparked off a chain of events that led to the Great War of 1914-18 and
ultimately to the break-up of the Hapsburg Empire. Initially, Italy entered the war on the side of the Central
Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman
Empire). As part of a strategy to get the Kingdom of Italy to
change sides, in 1915 a
secret pact known as the Treaty of London was signed by the Triple Entente
(United Kingdom, France and Russia) which pledged that Italy would, on
cessation of hostilities, “obtain
Cisalpine Tyrol with its geographical and natural frontier (the Brenner
frontier)”.
In the intervening years between his ascent
of the Klockerkarkopf and the start of the First World War, Tolomei had been
hard at work developing arguments for the Italian annexation of the southern
half of Tyrol. Even before 1915 Tolomei had
conceived a plan to Italianise its place names. By 1916 he had published the Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige, a translation into Italian of over 10,000
names for villages, hamlets and geographical features in the region, the vast
majority of which had hitherto had only German toponyms. But to add real substance
to his pretensions for Italian expropriation of the region, he presented
this list as the ‘re-Italianisation’ of names which, he claimed, had been
Germanized not many generations before. Legend has it that Woodrow Wilson, the
American president, was so convinced by these claims that this was one of the
key determining factors in the future of the territory.
In 1919,
after the war had ended, the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye was signed by the victorious
Allies (including Italy)
on the one hand, and by the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian powers on the
other. Significant territorial losses were suffered by Austria, not least the
southern German-speaking half of the County of Tyrol south of the Brenner Pass,
known as South Tyrol (German: Süd-Tirol). The promises made in the Treaty of
London had been kept.
When South Tyrol was ceded to Italy
in 1919, self-determination and the preservation of linguistic and cultural
institutions were still firmly on the agenda. In 1921, free and democratic
elections were held, with the Deutscher Verband winning close to
90% of the votes in the newly formed Provincia di Venezia Tridentina. Nevertheless,
events were overtaken in 1922 when the fascists came to power in Rome. One of the first
actions of the new government was to withdraw the special privileges that had
been given to the South Tyrolese and an Italianisation programme for the region
was started in earnest by none other than Ettore Tolomei. This went much
further than the ‘mere’ Italianisation of place names and included 32 measures,
such as the introduction of Italian as the official language, dismissal of
German-speaking officials, the use of Italian only in trials and courts and the
establishment of Italian-only schools throughout the region. An assimilation
programme was introduced by Mussolini who established an industrial zone on the
outskirts of the capital of South Tyrol,
Bozen/Bolzano, which led to the influx of thousands of Italians into the region.
By 1939, their numbers had risen to 25% of the overall population.
With the
rise of the Third Reich and the annexation of Austria by Germany (Die
Anschluss), Hitler surprisingly did nothing to assuage the concerns of the German-speaking
population of South Tyrol and he made a pact with Mussolini in which they were
given the “option” of either leaving their 1300-year homeland to resettle in the
Reich, or staying and accepting complete assimilation (=Italianisation). And
although 80% opted to leave, most of them returned at the end of the Second
World War.
The
South Tyrolese had hoped that the borders would be redrawn at the end of the
Second World War and the region returned to Austrian control, but this was
heavily contested by Italy
in the negotiations that followed. Ultimately, it was agreed that South Tyrol
would be given much greater autonomy within Italy. Amongst other things German
speakers were granted the right to elementary and
secondary teaching in their mother-tongue. The degree of self-government was
limited however, not least by the fact that South Tyrol became conjoined with Province of Trentino to the south to form the Region
of Trentino-Alto-Adige, with Italian being the majority language of the
combined provinces. With regard to education, for instance, German schools were
obliged to make Italian-language teaching compulsory, but not the other way
round. And Italian remained the de jure language of public office.
In 1972 a new autonomy agreement was signed which
virtually severed the administrative links between South
Tyrol and Trentino. The province would be given a greater degree of self-determination within the region and Austria
would not interfere in its internal affairs. Nowadays, South Tyrol - in terms of GDP per capita - is one of the richest
provinces of Italy.
The majority of its citizens are quite happy to enjoy the special status they have with Rome rather than waste their time demanding a return to Austria. An importnat bone of contention today remains the language however. Whilst 60% of the province's current
population have German as their mother tongue, the vast majority of Italian speakers in the
region are concentrated in the major urban centres such as Bozen/Bolzano and
Meran/Merano. This means that cultural and linguistic fabric of South Tyrol is still overwhelmingly ‘German’.
Surprisingly however, the topographical names for settlements and geographical features which
- to all intents and purposes - have been German for a thousand years or so are still not officially recognised, but
simply ‘tolerated’. Only Italian place names are accepted by the authorities,
this having been laid down in law by decrees in 1923 and 1940. For the greater
part, these Italianised place names date only as far back as the time of
Tolomei, the inventor of ‘Alto Adige’, whose contrived contention was that
since the Italians were the direct descendants of the Romans who conquered the
region in the first century BC, it was only right for Italian names to hold
precedence. So today, the hundreds of thousands of tourists crossing the
Brenner every summer might be forgiven for thinking that they had entered a truly ‘mixed’
language region.
Of
course, sizeable settlements (such as Bozen/Bolzano, Brixen/Bressanone, Meran/Merano),
major lines of communication (Eisacktal/Val d’Isarco, Pustertal/Val Pusteria),
and prominent geographical features (Die Drei Zinnen/Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Rosengarten/Catinaccio)
would have always had their Italian equivalents. The vast majority of Tolomei’s
Italianised toponyms however, were simply made up or given a literal
translation. Villages, isolated valleys and mountain peaks (including Vetta
d’Italia) which had been untouched by Italian culture suddenly found themselves
with an Italian name.
Take Bletterbach, for example. In Italian
the name is Rio delle Foglie or ‘river of leaves’,
since ‘leaves’ is a direct translation of Blätter, the German equivalent.
However, Bletterbach has nothing to do with leaves: the hydronym (river name)
comprises the Tyrolean verb ‘plettern’, which means ‘to flow swiftly’. The
example here is just one of countless which are highlighted on toponomastik.com,
a site which lays bare the illogicality of Tolomei’s Prontuario.
Since
the mid-nineties there has been a movement in South Tyrol
to redress the balance. The aim of the Arbeitsgruppe der Vereine für Ortsnamengebung – a mix of German-speaking community-based and cultural
organisations – has been to repeal the decrees of 1923 and 1940 which stipulate
that Tolomei’s Prontuario is the only valid register of place names in
the province. What the Arbeitsgruppe wants is for toponyms to reflect
the historical character of the places they represent. This means that place
names should only be bilingual where there is a truly bilingual community with
a significant linguistic minority. It is based on a internationally recognised
system which is applied in bilingual regions throughout Europe, such as Catalonia, Wales,
Belgium and Friesland.
Be that
as it may, the movement has only met with limited success. One organisation that
supports the initiative, the Alpenverein Südtirol (Alpine club), has
been replacing waymarking signs for hikers in mountain areas to reflect the
local and historic toponomy. But this has led to counter-protests, since
Italian-only speakers - so the argument goes - might conceivably get lost in the hills because
the names on the signposts no longer tally with the names on the topographic
maps.
As it
happens, Rome seems dead set against making any concessions. As far as the government
is concerned, Tolomei’s Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige remains the toponymic be-all and end-all for South
Tyrol and any challenge to demean Italian national integrity is likely to fall
on deaf ears - at least for the time being.
