Corfiot Italians
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Corfiot Italians (or "Corfiote Italians") are a population from the Greek island of Corfu (Kerkyra) with ethnic and linguistic ties to the Republic of Venice. Their name was specifically established by Niccolò Tommaseo during the Italian Risorgimento. During the first half of the 20th century, Mussolini (whose fascist regime promoted the ideals of Italian irredentism) successfully used the Corfiot Italians as a pretext to both occupy and twice annex Corfu to the Kingdom of Italy.
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[edit] Origins
The origins of the Corfiot Italians can be found in the expansion of the Italian States toward the Balkans during and after the Crusades. In the 12th century, the Kingdom of Naples sent some Italian families to Corfu to rule the island. From 1204 onward, the Republic of Venice sent many Italian families to Corfu. These families brought to the island the Italian language of the Middle Ages.[1]
When Venice ruled Corfu and the Ionian islands during the Renaissance, all the nobility of the islands was Venetian and the dominant presence of this community lasted until the first half of the 19th century.
Under Venetian rule, most of the Corfiote upper classes spoke Italian (or Venetian in many cases) and converted to Roman Catholicism, but the mass of people remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously before and after the Ottoman sieges of the 16th century.
Corfiot Italians were mainly concentrated in the city of Corfu, which was called "Città di Corfù" by the Venetians. More than half of the population of Corfu city in the 18th century was Venetian-speaking.[2]
The re-emergence of Greek nationalism, after Napoleonic times, contributed to the disappearance of the Corfiot Italians. Corfu was ultimately incorporated into Greece in 1864. The Greek government abolished all Italian schools in the Ionian islands in 1870, and as a consequence (when the Kingdom of Italy occupied the island from 1941 to 1943) there were only four hundred Corfiote Italians left.[3]
[edit] Venetian heritage
The Republic of Venice dominated Corfu for nearly five centuries and many Venetians moved to the island. By the end of the 15th century, the Italian language and culture (including in some ways the Roman Catholic church) came to predominate.
Kerkyra (the Greek name of Corfu) remained in Venetian hands until 1797, though several times assailed by Turkish naval and land forces and subjected to four notable sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716, in which the great natural strength of the city and its defenders asserted itself time after time. The effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications of the island was a great factor that enabled Corfu to remain the last bastion of free, uninterrupted Greek and Christian civilization in the southern Balkans after the fall of Constantinople.
Will Durant, a French historian, claims that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the moslem Turks.[4] The Turks occupied the other Ionian islands, but were unsuccessful with their four sieges of Corfu. This fact gave Corfu and Malta the title of Bastions of Christian Europe during the late Renaissance.
Corfu Town looks very different from most Greek towns because of Corfu's unique history. From 1386 to 1797, Corfu was ruled by Venetian nobility and much of the town itself reflects this particular era when the island belonged to the Republic of Venice and multi-storied buildings on narrow lanes were established.
Many Venetian-speaking families settled in Corfu during those centuries and until the second half of the 20th century the Veneto da mar was spoken in Corfu. During this time, the local Greek language assimilated a large number of Italian and Venetian words, many of which are still common today.
The Venetian feudal families pursued a mild but somewhat assimilating policy towards the natives, who began to adopt many segments of Venetian customs and culture. The Corfiotes were encouraged to enrich themselves by the cultivation of the olive, but were debarred from entering into commercial competition with Venice.
Before the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, most of the population in Corfu spoke the Veneto da mar. However, a huge influx of Christian refugees from Greece and Albania along with the mortality of the Black Death and the Turkish deportations of the original Corfiotes from Corfu (when unsuccessfully attempted to re-conquer the island three times), changed the ethnic, linguistic, and religious composition of the island's population. From predominantly Venetian Catholic before the 14th century the island of Corfu became Greek Orthodox by the 17th century, with the exception of Corfu city that maintained a majority of venetian speaking population (with the Italkian of the Jewish community). This was a process, provoked mainly by the Ottoman invasions, similar to what happened in the Venetian Dalmatia (where only the cities like Zara, Spalato and Cattaro maintained a majority of Venetian-speaking people).[5]
The island served even as a refuge for Greek scholars, and in 1732 became the home of the first Academy of modern Greece. Many Italian Jews took refuge in Corfu during the venetian centuries and spoke their own language (Italkian), a mixture of Hebrew and Venetian with some Greek words.
The Venetian influence was important in the development of the Opera in Corfu. During Venetian rule, the Corfiotes developed a fervent appreciation of Italian opera, and many local composers, such as the Corfiot Italians Antonio Liberali and Domenico Padovani developed their career with the theatre of Corfu, called Teatro di San Giacomo.
The internationally renowned photographer Felice Beato was born in Corfu of a Venetian family in the 19th century. The architecture of Corfu remains much more Italian than anywhere else in Greece.
Venetians promoted the Catholic Church during their four centuries of rule in Corfu. Today, the majority of Corfiots are Greek Orthodox Christians(following the official religion of Greece). However, there is still a percentage of Catholics (5%) who owe their faith to their Venetian origins. These contemporary Catholics are mostly families who came from Malta, but also from Italy during the Republic of Venice. Today, the Catholic community consists of about 4000 people, (2/3 of Maltese descent) who live almost exclusively in the Venetian "Citadel" of Corfu City, living harmoniously with the Orthodox community.
Venetian rule significantly influenced many aspects of the island's culture. Corfu's cuisine, for instance, maintains some Venetian delicacies, cooked with local spicy recipes. Dishes include "Pastitsado" (the most popular dish in the island of Corfu, that comes from the Venetian dish Spezzatino), "Strapatasada", "Sofrito", "Savoro" , "Bianco" and "Mandolato". Some traditions in Corfu were introduced by the Venetians such as the Carnival (Ta Karnavalia).
Italian influence is evident even in Corfu's spacious squares such as the popular "Spinada" and its narrow cobblestone alleys known as "Kantounia". The Italian Renaissance is best represented on Corfu by the surviving structures of the old Fortezza Vecchia on the eastern side of the town by the Veronese military engineer Michele Sanmicheli and the Venetian Ferrante Vitelli, who designed the later fortress on the west, the Fortezza Nuova.
During the Venetian period, the town of Corfu began to grow on a low hillock situated between the two forts. In many respects, Corfu typifies the small Venetian town, or borgo, of which there are numerous other surviving examples in the former Venetian territories of the Adriatic Sea, such as Ragusa and Spalato in Dalmatia. As in Venice itself, the "campi" developed haphazardly in the urban fabric where it was natural for residents to congregate, especially around churches, civic buildings, fountains, and cisterns. The best example of such a space is Plateia Dimarcheiou, or Town Hall Square, overlooked on its north side by the 17th century Loggia dei Nobili (which today serves as the seat of local government) and on the east side by the late sixteenth century Catholic Church of St. Iakovos, or St. James.
[edit] Teatro di San Giacomo
During Venetian rule, the Corfiotes developed a fervent appreciation of Italian opera, which was the real source of the extraordinary (given conditions in the mainland of Greece) musical development of the island during that era. The opera house of Corfu during 18th and 19th centuries was that of the Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo, named after the neighbouring catholic cathedral, but the theatre was later converted into the Town Hall. A long series of local composers, such as the Corfiot Italians Antonio Liberali and Domenico Padovani contributed to the fame of the Teatro di San Giacomo.
The first opera to be performed in the San Giacomo Theatre had been as far back as 1733 ("Gerone, tiranno di Siracusa"), and for almost two hundred years between 1771 until 1943 nearly every major operatic composition from the Italian tradition, as well as many others of Greek and French composers, were performed at the stage of the San Giacomo theatre. This impressive tradition, invoking an exceptional musical past, continues to be reflected in the mythology supporting the opera theatre of Corfu, a fixture in famous opera singers' itineraries. Operatic performers who found success at the theatre were distinguishd with the accolade applaudito in Corfu ("applauded in Corfu") as a tribute to the discriminating musical sensibility of the island audience.
[edit] Corfiot Italians and the Risorgimento
The Italian Risorgimento was initially concentrated in the Italian mainland with the surrounding continental areas (Istria, Dalmatia, Trentino, Nizzardo, etc.) and did not reach Corfu and the Ionian islands. One of the main heroes of the Italian Risorgimento, the poet Ugo Foscolo, was born in Zante from a noble Venetian family of the island, but only superficially promoted the possible unification of the Ionian islands to Italy.
The first newspaper of Corfu was in Italian: the official weekly newspaper (Gazzetta degli Stati Uniti delle Isole Jone) was first published in 1814. First in Italian, then in both Greek and Italian, finally from 1850 in Greek and English; and it continued for the entire duration of the English Protectorate until 1864.
According to historian Ezio Gray, the small communities of Venetian-speaking people in Corfu were mostly assimilated after the island became part of Greece in 1864 and especially after all Italian schools were closed in 1870.[6]
However, the Italian language maintained some importance, as can be seen by the fact that poets like Stefano Martzokis (Marzocchi was the surname of the father, an Italian from Emilia-Romagna) and Geranimos Markonos, the first from Corfù and the second from Cefalonia, wrote in Italian some of their poems in the second half of the 19th century.
The island of Corfu was a refuge for many Italians in exile during the Wars of Independence of Italy, like Niccolò Tommaseo (who married Diamante Pavello-Artale, a Corfiot Italian).[7]
After WWI, however, the Kingdom of Italy started to apply a policy of expansionism toward the Adriatic area and saw Corfu as the gate of this sea. Mussolini developed an extreme nationalistic position in accordance to the ideals of Italian irredentism and actively promoted the unification of Corfu to Italy.
The Corfiote Italians, even if reduced to a few hundreds in the 1930s, were strongly supported by fascist propaganda and in the summer of 1941 (after the Italian occupation of the Ionian islands) Italian schools were reopened in Corfu city.[8]
[edit] Italian occupation of Corfu
Italy occupied Corfu two times: the first for a few months only in 1923 by Mussolini, after the assassination of Italian officers; the second during WWII, from April 1941 to September 1943.
- The Corfu incident was used by Italy to occupy temporarily Corfu from august to September 1923.
- After the german invasion in Greece, Corfu was occupied by the Italians in April 1941. They administered Corfu and the Ionian islands as a separate entity from Greece until September 1943, following Mussolini's orders of fulfilling the Italian Irredentism and make Corfu part of the Kingdom of Italy.
[edit] Detailed chronology of the occupations
Corfu Incident of 1923
At the end of December 1915, Italy sent a military force to Corfu under the command of General Marro. They established Post Offices with the French occupation troops there. In 1915-1919, the Italian and French forces (as well as Serbian forces) remained on the island of Corfu. The Italians did not have any intention to pull out, but the British and the French government forced them to displace.
In 1923, the Italians tried to occupy Corfu again. The morning of the August 27, 1923, unknown people (probably Greeks) murdered General Enrico Tellini and three officers of the Italian engrave deputation on the Greek–Albanian border.
Italy made an announcement asking within 24 hours the following demands: the apology of the Greek people; the commemoration of the dead in the Catholic Church of Athens, with all the members of the Greek government to participate; the honor of the Italian flag in the Italian naval squadron, which would have shipping in Faliro; the investigation of the Greek authorities adjoined by the Italian military attendant carnal Perone di San Martino, which should end within 5 days; the death penalty of the guilty people; the Greek government should pay the amount of 50 million Italian pounds in 5 days, as a penalty; the dead should be honored with military honors in Preveza.
The Greek government responded accepting only the following demands: the Greeks accepted to present the apologies; the commemoration; the honor of the Italian flag at the Embassy; the honor of the dead in Preveza.
Consequently, the Italian Army suddenly attacked Corfu on August 31, 1923. Commander Antony Foschini asked from the prefect of Corfu to surrender the island. The prefect refused and he informed the government. Foschini warned him that the Italian forces would attack at 17:00 and the Corfiots refused to raise the white flag in the fortress. Seven thousand refugees, 300 orphans plus the military hospital were lodged in the Old Fortress, as well as the School of Police in the New Fortress. At 17:05 the Italians bombarded Corfu for 20 minutes. There were victims among the refugees of the old Fortress and the Prefect ordered the raising of the white flag. The Italians besieged the island and set the forces ashore. From the beginning of their possession, they started to inflict hard penalties on the people who had guns, and the officers declared that their possession was permanent. There were daily requisitions of houses and they censored the newspapers. Greece asked for the interference of the Society of the Nations, in which Greece and Italy were members, and demanded the solution of the problem through arbitration. The Italian government of Mussolini refused, declaring that Corfu will be possessed until the acceptance of the Italian terms. On September 7, 1923, the ambassador’s conference in Paris ended with the evacuation of the Italian forces from Corfu, which finally occurred on September 20, 1923 and ended on the 27th of the same month.
World War II
During the Second World War Mussolini wanted to possess the Ionian Islands, which he succeeded with the help of the Germans during the Greco-Italian War. The Italians occupied Corfu from March 28, 1941. They implemented a process of italianization, with creation of Italian schools, centered around the small surviving community of the Corfiote Italians, who still spoke the Venetian dialect.[9]
The first reaction to the Italian occupation happened on the first Sunday of November 1941. During the procession of the Saint Spyridon, the fascist young Corfiot Italians participated and provoked the students of the Greek high schools. When the procession arrived in the Upper Square, the students started to leave whilst singing the national Greek songs. The “Carbinaria” and the “Finetsia” fascist groups attacked and arrested many Greek students, beating them and exiling some of them to the island of Othonous. After that episode there was a relative calm in Corfu until the surrender of Italy in September 9, 1943.
From the 10th to the 14th of September, the Germans tried to force to surrender the Italian garrison in Corfu, while the political prisoners were set free from the small island of Lazaretto. The morning of 13th of September, Corfiots woke up to the disasters of the war. The German air raids continued the whole day bombarding the port, the Fortresses and strategic points. During the night of 14th of September, huge damages happened in the Jewish parts of Saint Fathers and Saint Athanasios, the Court House, the Ionian Parliament, the Ionian Academy, in which the Library was lodged, the Schools of Middle Education, the Hotel "Bella Venezia", the Custom Office, the Manor-Houses and the Theatre. Finally the next week the Germans occupied the island with huge losses between the Italians, forcing successively the nearly 5000 Jews (speakers of the Italkian) of the island to concentration camps in Germany.
The small Corfiot Italian community numbered nearly 500 people, living mainly in Corfu city, when Mussolini occupied the island in 1941-1943.[10] Actually there are no more Corfiot Italians in the island since the last peasant speaking the Venetian language died in the 1980s.
The long Venetian domination had a very strong influence on local Greek language which absorbed a wide range of Italian words. One third of the words in the local Greek dialect of Corfú city are loanworded from the Italian language.
There are only a few Jews in Corfu city who speak today the Italkian, a Jewish language mixed with many Venetian words.
[edit] Italkian with Venetian/Apulian influences
The better class of the Jewish community of Corfu speaks a Venetian dialect with some modifications (due to the influence of the Greek) called Italkian.
The Venetian of the Corfiote Jews accordingly differs from the same venetian dialect as spoken by non-Jews in the same town. A characteristic of this dialect is the formation in "ò" of the plural of nouns ending in "à," a formation which originated in the Hebrew ending , simplified, according to the Italian laws of phonology, into "ò," e.g., the Italianized plural of "berakah" is "berakhò" (for "berakot"); hence "novità," "novitò"; "cittò," "cittò." There has presumably been no Jewish literature in this dialect, since Venice herself very early adopted pure Italian as her official language, and all documents of the Corfu Jewish community were written in that language, which served too in Hebrew schools as the means of translating the Bible.[11]
Permanent residence was found in Corfu even by the Apulians Jews, who brought from the Italian coast their vernacular and a few specimens, still preserved, of their literature. The dialect from Apulia is still spoken by the lower section of the Jewish community. Two Apulian love-songs, seemingly original, exist in manuscript, of which one is an independent composition of a rather scurrilous purport, while in the second each stanza is preceded by one of a religious Hebrew poem on a quite different subject. Both are written in Hebrew characters, as is a semioriginal composition containing the rules for the Passover supper, of which the following paragraph (with Italian words retransliterated) may be cited:
Pigiamu la cu li doi signali, e la spartimu a menzu, edizzimu: Comu spartimu chista , cussi spardiu lu Mari Ruviu, e passàra li padri nostri intra di issu e fizzi cun issi e . Cussì cu fazza cu nùi; chistu annu accà, l'annu che veni a la terra di omini liberi.—Menza mintimu sotto la tovaggia pir , e l'altva menza infra li doi, pir cu farrimu.
The simple past tense ("vitti," "vidisti," "vitti") is the only one in use among the Apulian Jews, who agree in this respect with the Apulians of the Italian coast; they differ from the latter, however, in forming the future, which is expressed by means of the auxiliary "anzu" (= "I have"), as on the Continent, and a following infinitive, which is always, as in modern Greek, resolved. Such resolution occurs quite frequently in the area of Bari (with the particles "mu" or "mi"), but not as regularly as in Corfu, where with the exception of the substantivized forms "lu manzari," "lu mbiviri," and a few others, the unresolved infinitive is absolutely unknown. So to-day "dirò," "aggiu diri" and "aggiu mu dicu" occur on the Continent, but only "anzu cu dicu," in Corfu.
This dialect has brought all borrowed words under its own laws of accidence; but its original vocabulary has been hopelessly impoverished and deprived of its finest elements. A Corfiote Jew visiting any part of Apulia would find difficulty in understanding the spoken vernacular or the songs of the natives, although the grammatical structure is exactly the same as that of his own dialect.
The Jews can boast of having preserved the oldest text in the Apulian dialect, a collection of translations of Hebrew dirges dating from the thirteenth century and now in the British Museum (MS. Or. 6276). It contains many obsolete terms which are very close to the Latin and many of the older and fuller grammatical forms. Among its points of interest are words and phrases such as "tamen sollicitatevi" (="mind"), "etiam Ribbi Ismahel," "lu coriu" (="skin"), "di la carni sua," "la ostia" (="army"), and "di li cieli." In the fourteenth century the decay of Apulian in Corfu had so far advancedthat readers were no longer able to pronounce correctly the words of this Hebrew manuscript or to grasp their meanings. Vowel-points were accordingly inserted, but very inaccurately; and later an incompetent scribe incorrectly substituted "duzzini" (= "dozens"), "douzelli" (= "young men"), "macchina" (= "machine") for "magina" (= "image"), and attempted to erase the superlative termination of "grandissima." It was perhaps owing to the influence of the Venetian Veneto da mar that he spared all the simple futures; but in four or five places where the pronoun of the first person was erased the substituted words have so thoroughly obliterated the original readings that it is impossible to discover what was the old form of the peculiar "joni" which is now used side by side with "jò."
In actuality, there are less than one hundred Corfiote Jews in the island of Corfu, after the Nazi deportations of WWII.
[edit] Maltese Italians in Corfu
There it a large community of descendants from Maltese Italians in Corfu.[12]
During the 19th century, the British authorities brought many skilled workers from Malta. They needed married man so that their work would be continued by their children. Because of this the British took from Malta 80 people (40 families from 1815 until 1860) and they stayed at Corfu till today.
In 1901, there were almost one thousand people in Corfu who considered themselves as ethnic Maltese. In Cephalonia the number was 225. There were another hundred Maltese spread among the other lesser islands of the Ionian Group. Maltese emigration to these islands practically ceased when they were returned to Greece in 1864. Because of the union with Greece a number of Maltese families abandoned Corfu and settled in Cardiff, Wales (their descent still live in that city).
The Maltese colony in Corfu did not vanish. Two villages on the island bear name a Maltese derivative: Maltezika is named after Malta and Cozzella got its name from Gozo. In Cozzella the Franciscan Sisters of Malta opened a convent and a school in 1907. Those two institutions still flourish.[13]
In 1923, there were some 1,200 ethnic Maltese left in Corfu, but many of them spoke either Greek or the local Corfiot dialect which still bore traces of the Venetian occupation of the island. Because of this Venetian connection, fascist propagandists tried, to build up an irredentist case for Corfu. Guido Puccio wrote in "Tribuna", a leading Roman newspaper on September 12, 1923, that the Maltese element in Corfu could be used as an instrument to further Italian claims on that island.
In 1930, the Maltese in Corfu had their own priest who looked after their welfare while he kept useful contacts with the ecclesiastical and civil authorities in Malta. The priest was the Rev Spiridione Cilia. He had been born in Corfu of Maltese parents and was then the parish priest of the Maltese community.
From these 80 people who moved in the 19th century from Malta to Corfu, there are now 3500 people in the island. They constitute the center of the Catholic community of Corfu, but no one among them speaks the Maltese language anymore.
[edit] Renowned Corfiot Italians
- Felice Beato, famous photograper of the XIX century.
- Antonio Liberali, opera musicist and composer
- Domenico Padovani, opera musicist and composer.
- Spiridione Cilia, priest of the Maltese community in Corfu.
- Diamante Pavello-Artale, wife of Niccoló Tommaseo.
[edit] See also
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[edit] References
- ^ Tagliavini, Carlo. Le origini delle lingue neolatine, p. 149.
- ^ Gray, Ezio. Le terre nostre ritornano...Malta, Corsica, Nizza, p. 92.
- ^ Vignoli Giulio. Gli Italiani Dimenticati. Minoranze Italiane In Europa, p. 132.
- ^ Will Durant. The Renaissance, p. 684.
- ^ Randi, O. Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni, p. 49.
- ^ Gray, Ezio. Le terre nostre ritornano...Malta, Corsica, Nizza, p. 118.
- ^ Seton-Watson. Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1870-1925, p. 236.
- ^ Vignoli Giulio Gli Italiani Dimenticati. Minoranze Italiane In Europa, p. 143.
- ^ Gray, Ezio. Le terre nostre ritornano... Malta, Corsica, Nizza, p. 162.
- ^ Gray, Ezio. Le terre nostre ritornano...Malta, Corsica, Nizza, p. 47.
- ^ Fortis, Umberto and Zolli, Paolo. La parlata giudeo-veneziana, p. 73.
- ^ Malta Migration
- ^ Price, Charles. Malta and the Maltese: a study in nineteenth century migration, p. 128.
[edit] Bibliography
- Antonicelli, Franco. Trent'anni di storia italiana, 1915-1945. Mondadori Editore. Torino, 1961.
- Durant, Will. The Renaissance. MJF Books. New York, 1981 ISBN 1-56731-016-8
- Fortis, Umberto and Zolli, Paolo. La parlata giudeo-veneziana. Assisi/Rome, 1979 ISBN 88-85027-07-5
- Gray, Ezio. Le terre nostre ritornano... Malta, Corsica, Nizza. De Agostini Editoriale. Novara, 1943
- Martin, John Jeffries. Venice Reconsidered. The History and Civilization of an Italian City-State, 1297–1797. Johns Hopkins UP. New York, 2002.
- Norwich, John Julius. A History of Venice. Vintage Books. New York, 1989.
- Price, Charles. Malta and the Maltese: a study in nineteenth century migration. Georgia House. Melbourne, 1954.
- Randi, O. Dalmazia etnica, incontri e fusioni. Tipografie venete. Venezia, 1990.
- Seton-Watson, Christopher. Italy from Liberalism to Fascism, 1870-1925. John Murray Publishers. London, 1967.
- Tagliavini, Carlo. Le origini delle lingue neolatine. Patron Ed. Bologna, 1982.
- Vignoli, Giulio. Gli Italiani Dimenticati. Minoranze Italiane In Europa. Saggi E Interventi. Editore Giuffrè. Roma, 2000.
