Italy's Right to Her Natural Boundaries (1918)

Italian Oriental Defense According to the Roman Plan

God, with the immortal

writing of mountains and waters,

has traced mother countries.

Aleardi

I. THE ROMAN CONCEPTION OF THE BOUNDARY OF ITALY.

Since when — parallelly and contemporaneously to the political and military expansion of republic Rome — the designation « ITALY » became extended, from the peninsula part to the entire geographic Italian region, it at once appeared to the practical minds of the Romans that the logic natural boundary of this region was to be the complete circle of the Alps.

The bitter experience of the Carthaginian invasion, led by Hannibal, the threatening raid of the Cimbri and Teutons, overcome only by the strategical genius of Marius, indeed the Romans to fix their attention on the Alpine bulwark which alone could hinder the plains of the River Po from becoming the natural battle field of the invaders breaking in from the north and from the east.

With the constitution of the Empire, the Alpine circle appeared always more clearly to the Romans as being the natural barrier against the threats of the barbarians. In the historical and political writings of the late republic and empire times numerous references to this geographic and military function of the Alps are to be found. Without calling to mind the lesser writers, mention of the above is made by Polibius, and later on by Titus Livius, Velleius Patercolus, Anneus Flavius and also Diogenes of Alicarnassus besides Pomponius Mela of Rheims.

Although there is wanting, in the expressions of these writers, a precise indication of a « geographic or political-administrative boundry », and although their knowledge of the alpine system could be only slight, they already considered the « Infames frigoribus Alpes », as Titus Livius called them, a real natural limit.

And, though the Alpine region presented but slight interest to the Romans, the importance of the great alpine vallies as ways of communication and invasion certainly did not escape them. So much so, that under Augustus they carried out the occupation of the Trentino, which became a colony of the Empire, and in a very short time, Trent, on the highway of Lamagna, assumed great importance.

In the 3rd Century, when the Empire was reorganized administratively on firm foundations in order to oppose the Germanic danger which was becoming more apparent, full of disastrous consequences for the structure of the Roman Empire, the political and military boundaries of Italy were progressively extended, even to the external slopes of the Alps.

With the arrangements made in the times of Diocletianus and of Constantinus, when the Germanic danger more closely threatened Latin civilization, the occupation was extended to the Vindelicia and the Rezia, thus enclosing within the boundaries the greatest part of the Alpine region.

Analogously, the eastern part of the Illiricus (Carniola) was united by firm administrative and political bounds to Italy, as being part of the government of Upper Italy; Aemona (Laibach) and Nauporto (Ober-Laibach) were also considered in Italian territory.

Istria — conquered by Rome two centuries before the birth of Christ — was always closely connected with Italy, being considered as an integrating part of Venetia, and Roman civilization reached such a high point there as to leave indelible traces in the beauty of the monuments, which can still be admired in the coastal cities (Triest, Pola, Parenzo), in the juridic institutions of private rights, and in the popular traditions jealously preserved by the peoples there in spite of the brutal and violent invasions of the Germans, Slavs and Hungarians.

Though the Roman Empire collapsed as a political and military organism- the treasure of its culture was always maintained by these peoples of Italic conscience. Through every vicissitude, notwithstanding Barbaric domination, the Roman tradition was maintained vigorous and alive and from it, even in the dark ages, manifestations of Roman Italian sentiments sprung forth.

Nor did the constitution of Roman-Barbaric kingdoms, appearing as new branches on the great felled trunk of the Roman Empire, succeed in destroying what there was of eternal in the civilization of Rome, for both the « Regnum Longobardorum » and the « Regno Italiae » created by the Carlovingians, carrying out the traditions of Imperial Rome, included within their boundaries the Dukedom of Trent and also Venetia and Istria, not only for defensive reasons, but also because the Barbarians themselves felt that these provinces, for the common character of the language, the institutions and the traditions, formed, with the remainder of Roman Italy, an inseparable and insoluble whole.

With reference to this we may remember the act of the Longobard king, Alboino, who, looking towards the Italian region from Mount Re (Mt. Nanos), fixed the boundaries of the new kingdom of Italy there.


II. THE EASTERN DEFENCE OF ITALY ACCORDING TO THE IDEAS OF ROME.

Should these historic precedents, in the valuation of a military and political problem, seem to some to have but relative value, a direct interest instead will be presented by the example of the military criteria which inspired Rome for defence of the threatened eastern entrance to Italy.

The thought of fortifying the eastern boundary of Italy, to defend it from the threat of the barbaric trans-Alpine peoples, came to the Romans as soon as Istria was conquered.

The defences built by them aimed essentially at closing up the traditional roads of communication and invasion of Nauporto, Postojna and of the Liburnica coast.

In the first period (even in the year 128 B.C.) it seems that a line of entrenchments was built from Quarnero to Longatico (Loitsch), along the external arch of the Carso heights in which the gap of Nauporto, the road of the defiles of Clana, and the coastal road, were the only accesses then practicable.

The « Limes » meanwhile included not only the Adelsberg basin, but also the Ober-Laibach and Zirknitz basins.

In a second period, perhaps about in the second century after Christ, an internal « vallum » appeared which from the basin of Aidussina probably reached the strong-point of Mt. Catalano, which seems to have been reinforced by a « castrum ». This internal « limes », though militarily it had the advantage of being shorter, less winding and nearer to the supply depots, had on the contrary to defend a larger number of ways of access.

The barrier defences were prepared with particular care, especially those along the most dangerous and well known way of invasion, which from the gap of Nauporto led to the basin of Aidussina. In front of the eastern ridge of the Piro Woods and of the highest point of elevation (Hill 882) two « valli » were built, the one in the rear being reinforced by a « castle » dominating both slopes. Another solid « castle » dominated the basin of Aidussina.

It seems that the coastal road was guarded by two « castles »: one overlooking Fiume, the other on the height of Castua.

The « valli » in the accompanying map are marked according to the riconstruction made by scholars. It seems however that its trace was discontinued according to the greater or lesser difficulties of access apposed internal « vallum » and of the two « valli » of the Piro Woods, remains of unanimously and concordantly through the medieval and modern periods by the ground in front. The « valli » marked indicate, not so much continued entrenchments, as the line on which the Romans considered it necessary to base the eastern defence of Italy.

Of the « valli » and castles shown, scholars have frequently found traces (excavations and reconnaissance have ascertained: portions of the internal « vallum » and of the two « valli » of the Piro Woods, remains of a defensive wall to the north west of Fiume, ruins of the « castri » in the neighbourhood of « ad Priuin », Aidussina, Fiume): in the local folk lore also they are still remembered (1).

At any rate, whatever opinion one may have on the existence of this complete fortified military system, the fundamental fact results certain that the Romans themselves recognized the military necessity of placing the eastern defence of Italy on the external arches of the Julian Alps.


III. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONCEPTION OF THE BOUNDARIES OF ITALY.

If the Roman tradition is a splendid proof of the vital necessity of validly closing up that eastern entrance to Italy which from the most remote times had been barred against the danger of invasions, it is not work done in vain to remember how the conception — that the boundary of Italy must be the circle of the Alps, from the Brenner to the Quarnero — passed unanimously and concordantly through the medieval and modern periods to reach us adorned by the thoughts of poets, enriched by historic testimony and strengthened by the opinions of statesmen and scientists.

The testimony of poets and men of letters, considered in itself and for itself, in a political problem, cannot assume the value of an absolute and irrefutable testimony, but it constitutes the surest and most eloquent index of the currents of thought and the convictions of their ages (2).

Not only Dante, who fixed admirably the boundaries of Italy on the north, east and west, but ancient poets and medieval chronicle writers clearly say that our Peninsula is defended by the arch of the Alps.

Petrarca and Fazio degli Uberti in the XIV Century; Cammelli, called Pistoia, and Galezzo di Tarsia in the XV and early XVI centuries lament that the Alps are not a sufficient defence for Italy against the greed of the new barbarians: « Insecure barrier to your beloved shores » sings Gaelazzo di Tarsia.

And so also in the successive centuries up to Pindemonte who calls the Brenner the extreme boundary of Italy towards Germany: « The heights of the Brenner arise between you and Italy ».

« A right sanctioned by God and by nature » is the expression running through the Italian poets even also when, in the XVII and XVI II centuries, the conscience of nationality seems to have grown feeble.

But, as already said, the poets only manifest a vital and deep current of thought, of which we find pure and clear expression in all the series of historians and statesmen. The idea appears limpid even in most obscure, and often anonymous, medieval chronicle writers. Through numberless vicissitudes and historical crises, the Roman tradition never perishes and in all geographic descriptions, often in the midst of the dark ages, the tradition of the Roman boundaries are maintained unaltered. « Venetiae et Histriae pro una provincia habentur » (Venice and Istria are one province) writes the Longobard historian Paolo Diacono, and he gives great importance to the eastern boundary as a defence against the aggressiveness of the Avari and Slavs.

Istria was always considered by all medieval chronicle writers to be Italian: not the slightest doubt was admitted on this point.

Flavio Biondo da Forli, a humanist of great fame, and Guicciardini, the historian, considered Nauporto (now Ober-Laibach) as belonging to the Italian region.

When chartography arose as an art in itself, the chartographic represtations of the boundaries of Italy corresponded to the ancient and classic tradition both Roman and Italian, Italy is therein enclosed in the crown of the Trentino, Carnia and Julian Alps which separate her from Germany, Carniola, Croazia (or Pannonia). In a word, the boundary falls on the edge of the basin of Lubiana, generally including the region of Postojna (Adelsberg).

But it was really the reawakening of a national conscience, due to the influence of the French revolution. Which vividly gave rise to the question of the boundaries of the future country. And every writer, every statesman who studied the question, clearly conceived the boundaries of Italy as marked out by the necessity of closing the doors of Italy against the rapacity of the neighbouring peoples and rulers.

Two thousand years of bitter historical experience could not be passed over in vain by these thoughtful men of ours who, at the dawn of the « Risorgimento », expressed the new conscience of Italy.

For all of them, the Brenner and the chain of mountains which send towards the east the waters of the Sava, and fall on the Quarnero, are the sacred limits which nature has fixed for Italy and beyond which the foreigner is to be driven. And the Brenner and the Kauporto Gap are indicated as the doors which New Italy must essentially guard.

In 1806, in a letter of C. Testi to the minister Marescalchi in Paris, we read of the desire, ardent and diffused, in political and Milanese circles, to have Triest and Fiume and to place the boundary on the ancient line of the Alps (3).

Napoleon himself, in 1813, considered Istria as necessary to the defence of Venice (4); and in his « Memoires », dictated on St. Helena, he refers to the natural boundary of Italy constituted by the line which passes on the mountains between Lubiana and the Isonzo and touches the Adriatic and Fiume.

From 1815, among writers and statesmen, the conception of the real frontier of Italy became determined always more clearly. « The Romans conquered Triest for the political necessity of establishing there a barrier against the transalpine peoples » writes Domenico De Rossetti, solicitor to the commune of Triest in 1815. And in a memorandum presented by the Czar Alexander to the Piedmont Ambassador, the Count of Brusasco, reference is made to the constitution of an Italian state strong enough to close the doors of Italy in the face of the foreigner. Here we read « The limits of this state are traced, by nature, from the slopes of the Moncenisio to the Mountains of Carniola ».

And after these manifestations still isolated, there arose a numerous array of historians and political men who guided and determined the public opinion of the « Risorgimento ». There was no hesitation in their minds with regard to the north eastern boundaries of Italy; in all was clear, limpid, the perception that there could be no sure peace in the new Italian state if the openings to invasion were not well closed. And this thought formed from then, a lively and constant preoccupation.

Terenzio Mamiani when, in 1848, inciting the Italians to cross the Isonzo also at the cost of much blood, to reach the ancient natural frontiers of Italy, wrote « To the Julian Alps, Soldiers! I would cry out to them », (Political Writings, page 264). And elsewhere the same writer says « And it is necessary that the Alps be followed everywhere marking the bounds of Italy as mother nature in the first place created them ».

And Cavour, in 1851, said that « as long as the Austrians are on this side of the Alps, he could not give up his policy ».

A distinguished group of historians, with Cesare Balbi at their head, extended the frontier to the east as far as the Mount Bittorai, basing themselves on a well defined strategic geographic criterion.

The patriot, Alberto Cavalletto, in 1862, wished to render popular the idea that the real Venetia embraced all the territory included within the Po, Mincio, Adriatic, Raetic, Carnic and Julian Alps, from the Brenner to the Quarnero.

Joseph Mazzini, in 1866, thus spoke « Istria is the key to our eastern frontier, the door of Italy on the Adriatic side: the Trentino is ours as far as the chain of the Raetic Alps ».

Francesco Crispi was anxious, in 1877, on account of Italy's wanting an eastern frontier and did fail to make Bismark note that this deficiency exposed Italy to aggressions from the East.

Aurelio Saffi, Paolo Fambri, Prospero Antonini, S. Bonfiglio, and P. Borghi all examined the question of the Italian frontier with regard to political and military matters: for all of them it was clear that the defence of Italy was to be placed on the external arches of the Julian Alps.

The detailed work by P. Antonini « Eastern Friuli » (Vallardi, Milan 1865) especially shows as being necessary, from a military point of view, besides the rectification which returns to us the defile of Saifnitz (Tarvis), both the basin of Adelsberg and the basins of Ober-Loitsch-Planina and of Zirknitz.

Finally, it is necessary to recall to mind the careful study made by the Sardinian General Staff in 1815, which considers the Trentino and Julian Alps as the only and real boundary, the bulwark of Italy against the dangers from the East.

If the question of the boundaries of Italy arose, after the Roman period, in such a vital form only after a great interval of time, and that is, at the beginning of the XIX Century, it is because the Middle Ages, breaking the sovereignty of the state into small feudal and municipal fragments, caused to be lost to view the importance of the political frontier of Italy, considered as a sole and inseparable nation.

And yet, from the fall of Rome to the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte (which coincides with the ripening of a new Italian national conscience) the political problem of the unity of Italy is never forgotten: it is in the minds of writers and statesmen, it takes form in the Roman tradition that Italy must have her boundaries on the Alpine watershed and at the Quarnero.

But, when a great Italian national conscience was formed and the tendency to unite became manifest, the unanimous agreement of writers, historians, political men, military specialists arose and clearly demonstrated the necessity of placing the frontier of New Italy where nature marked it and that is, on the north, on the Brenner and, on the east, at mount Tricorno, mount Nevoso as far as the Quarnero confuting, as did Cesare Correnti and Pietro Maestri, in 1864, the absurd German theory that Italy on the east should have no frontier.

And thus — and it is certainly a thesis which does not require further demonstration — it is of no use to illustrate the persistence of Italian sentiments in each of the territories through the particular vicissitudes of history.

Let us remember only — as a proof how deeply the beneficial dominion of Venice was rooted in the regions on the other shore — the demonstrations of grief and affection for the Venetia republic which, even in the Slav districts of Istria, as also in the Dalmatian districts, took place when the « Serenissima » ended with the Pact of Campoformio in 1796), and the continual manifestations of Italian sentiments expressed in every way by the inhabitants of Istria during all the XIX Century.

The ardent appeals of Triest and Fiume, in the present days, and the enthusiastic welcome received by our troops, have, on the other hand, consecrated the fact that centuries of struggle and oppression have not succeeded in destroying or bribing the Italian soul of the people of our « irredente » lands, who have arisen happy in their sacred enthusiasm, as soon as the chains which kept them slaves were broken.


(1) The information referred to is taken from the well known studies of P. Kandler's Istrian Diplomatic Code, Trieste, Lloyd, 1864, G. Sacchi, Ancient boundaries of Italy.

Reports of the Lombard Literature and Science Institute 1864.

A. Müllner and A. Puschi, Archeografo Triestino. 1902.

(2) What a profetic accent resounds in the limpid verses of Petrarca: « Nature provided well for our state when she placed the Alps as a defence between us and German ire ».

(3) Milan — Napoleonic Archives — Drawer 305.

(4) Sorel — L'Europe et la revolution francaise 1904 Vol. 8-19-174.

Quotes on the Birthplace of St. Jerome

Here we have numerous observations of modern authors that St. Jerome was born in Istria and not in Dalmatia as is often mistakenly believed, taken from English and other non-Italian sources:

“His birthplace, Stridon, has at last been definitely located in the region of Aquileia. Hence Jerome was an Italian, not a Dalmatian or a Slav.”

—The Commonweal, Volume 18, 1933

“As for Jerome's origin, much ink together with a not inconsiderable amount of irascibility has been expended in contentions that would nationalize him as an Istrian, Slav, Bohemian, and even as a Spaniard; whereas, quite simply, he was an Italian, born, as he himself tells us, “in the town of Stridon, which has since been destroyed by the Goths, but which was located on the confinium of Dalmatia and Pannonia.” ... Jerome's Stridon, then, was an outlying part of the province of Venetia-Histria, formerly the tenth region of Italy, wedged in between Dalmatia and Pannonia, close by the towns of Hemona and Aquileia.”

—The Problem of St. Jerome (The American Ecclesiastical Review, Volume 117), 1947

“It may be taken as certain that Jerome was an Italian, coming from that wedge of Italy which seems on the old maps to be driven between Dalmatia and Pannonia.”

—Maisie Ward, Saint Jerome, 1950

“More recently opinion generally has rallied round F. Cavallera's thesis that Stridon should be located somewhere between and a little to the south of Aquileia, the huge city (as it then was) at the head of the Adriatic, and Emona (Ljubiljana), the fortress town lying at the foot of the Julian and the Karavanke Alps to the west and north respectively. Today the area in question lies in north-western Yugoslavia, but in the fourth century it was Italian, an outlying part of the province of Venetia-Istria.”

—John Norman Davidson Kelly, Jerome: His Life, Writings, and Controversies, 1975

“St. Jerome was born in 347 at Stridon, a town near Aquileia in the extreme northeast of Italy in the border area near the outlying Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia.”

—Jane M. Hatch, The American Book of Days, 1978

“Jerome was an Italian, born in 345 at Stridon, a town in the northeast of Italy above the boot near the Adriatic Sea.”

—Mary Reed Newland, The Saint Book, 1979

“He was born in Stridon, Italy.”

—Don S. Armentrout, An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church, 2000

“Jerome was born at Stridon, near Aquileia, now part of the Veneto, but then regarded as part of Dalmatia.”

—R. W. Lightbown, Carlo Crivelli, 2004

“Born at Stridon in Dalmatia, then eastern Italy...”

—Barbara Sher Tinsley, Reconstructing Western Civilization, 2006

“Jerome was probably born in 347. He names his hometown as Stridon, a village in the western Balkans under northern Italian influence. It was near Emona, between the Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia.”

—Commentary on Matthew (The Fathers of the Church, Volume 117), 2008

“Jerome describes it as oppido Stridonis, quod a Gothis eversum Dalmatiae quondam Pannoniaeque confinium fuit, “the town of Stridon, now destroyed by the Goths, which once stood on the boundaries of Dalmatia and Pannonia,” that is, in the western Balkans, probably to the north and thus within the sphere of North Italian influence.”

—Megan Hale Williams, The Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship, 2008

“Jerome was born in the north Italian town of Stridon about 347, and was converted and baptized during his student days in Rome.”

—Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints, Church Publishing, 2010

“Jerome was born around 340 AD at Stridon, a town in northeast Italy at the head of the Adriatic Ocean.”

—Tom Streeter, The Church and Western Culture, 2012

“Jerome was born to a Christian family in Stridon, a northwestern region of what was then Italy and later northwestern Yugoslavia.”

—Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius, 2012

“Jerome was born Eusebius Hieronymus of a Christian family in Stridon, Italy.”

—Lavinia Cohn-Sherbok, Who's Who in Christianity, 2013

Dalmatia: Alessandro Dudan Responds to Arthur Evans

(Written by Alessandro Dudan, taken from “The Saturday Review”, Volume 123, 1917.)

To the Editor of the Saturday Review.

Sir, — As practically all the Italians from Dalmatia who have been able to escape from that unfortunate country, after having suffered as few other nationalities have ever suffered through the Austro-Croatian work of denationalisation, are now serving in the Italian Army, not a single one of those “Italianissimi” has been given the opportunity, I am afraid, to answer the most extraordinary attacks which Sir Arthur Evans and his few friends have been pleased repeatedly to make against them. May I be, therefore, allowed as a Dalmatian Irredento of Spalato, who for ten months has already done his duty in the Army, to raise my voice in protest?

I shall do so without abuse.

I feel entitled, however, to inform him that the “noisy and ignorant” little clique of extremists who are claiming Italy's right to Dalmatia are the best part of the Italian nation, from the Supreme Command and the Government to the extreme Radical and Socialist reformist parties, to which latter Signor Bissolati belongs. Anybody stating the contrary deceives naively himself and his readers.

I do not want to repeat the many and too much already quoted national, historical, and strategic arguments which have been advanced to prove the rightfulness of these claims.

To answer some of Sir Arthur's and his friends' favourite statements it is sufficient to compare the flourishing Dalmatian civilisation before 1797 (Campoformio) with the semi-barberous conditions obtaining to-day in those regions of the Adriatic coast which are under Austro-Croatian or Austro-Slovene rule. I would refer Sir Arthur Evans to Mr. T. J. Jackson's “Dalmatia, Histria, and Montenegro” (Oxford, 1884), which is certain to appeal to Sir Arthur's archaeological instincts. In the meanwhile I will quote some passages of this work, which may serve to illuminate him on the real and impartial facts of the case:

“In the maritime cities of the mainland and on most of the islands the traveller may well imagine himself in Italy, for the language, architecture, manners, and dress of the citizens are the same as on the other side of the Adriatic.” (Vol. I., page 200)

“Zara, Spalato, Traù, and Ragusa were Latin cities when as yet Venice was not existent, and they remained Latin cities throughout the Middle Ages with very little help from her influence until the fifteenth century. The Italian spoken in Dalmatia before that time was not the Venetian dialect; in some parts it had a distinct form of its own; in others it resembled the form into which Latin had passed in the South of Italy or Umbria, and it was only after 1420 that it began to assimilate itself to the Italian of Lombardy and Venetia. At Ragusa it never became Venetian at all, and to this day it resembles rather the Tuscan dialect than any other, while the patois of the common people is a curious medley of Italian and Illyric, with traces of rustic Latin, Vlak or Rouman.” (Vol. I., page 183)

This uninterrupted Latin and Italian character of the country, which existed long before any Slav immigration, was already proved in 1673 by the greatest Dalmatian historian, Giovanni Lucio, whose works ought to be well known to any self-constituted authority on the subject. In the preface to Lucio's “Historia di Dalmatia, et in particolare delle città di Traù, Spalato et Sebenico” (Venezia : Curti, 1674), it is stated:

“Having now to write the memoirs of Traù, my birthplace, I have wished to use the modern or vulgar tongue, which may be called Dalmatian no less than Italian.”

If Sir Arthur would like to know how Austria “Croatised” the Dalmatian municipalities, which had until then (1797) been Latin and Italian, let him turn to Vol. II., page 83, of Jackson's work:

“The late podesta of Spalato (an Italian) was, however, ejected with the whole municipality from office (1882) by the Austrian Government to make way for a new corporation of strictly Croatian sympathisers, which after an interregnum of two years was elected under the guns of a man-of-war stationed in the harbour, and which one may therefore assume was forced upon an unwilling people. Spalato has hitherto been no less strongly attached to the Latin or autonomous party than Zara herself, but nothing is now being left undone to give it the character of a Slovene town and to put an end to the Latin tradition of twelve centuries, during which the Croat has borne no rule within its walls.”

If Sir Arthur, notwithstanding these clear evidences of ancient and modern history of Dalmatia, prefers his fantastic political interpretation of historical facts, we cannot help being amused. Ne sutor ultra crepidam! He would be well advised, however, to remember that Austro-Croatian statistics, apart from the proved falsifications, do not represent the scientific principle of nationality, because they are merely based on the principle of the “language in use“. It is thus, therefore, that a very large number of Italians have been registered as Croats by the Croatian municipalities. In the elections under universal suffrage which took place in 1911 it was proved that the Italian national political party amounts to at least 10 per cent. of the population. It is equally well known, however, that at least a third of the 600,000 Dalmatians are acquainted with and speak Italian. To these must be added at least 150,000 Morlacchi, who, while speaking Slav, are Latin by race (Moro-Valachians: see Porphyregenitus's and Lucio's works).

Sir Arthur Evans and his Jingo-Slavs like to quote certain isolated passages (always the same) of Mazzini and of Tommaseo without regard to the context or to the general trend of the writings of these two patriots, who would certainly to-day be the first to protest against such an unfair and false use of their words.

If one reads the correspondence between Mazzini and Kossuth, published in the “Oesterreichische Rundschau” of Vienna, 1883 (see pages 695-714), it will appear that Mazzini dreamed of a Balkan Confederation headed by the Magyars, and directed against Russia and Russian influence in the Balkans. Who would think to-day, after the Magyars' behaviour and that of the Croats, to reward them by giving them Italian cities and Italian provinces?

To say that Tommaseo, who after 1848 dedicated all his political writings (over twenty volumes between books and pamphlets) to fighting the Austro-Croatians in his native Dalmatia, and who to do this started learning Croatian when he was thirty-nine, wished the Slavization of his country, is to insult and to libel his memory. Tommaseo was the official leader of the Italian autonomistic party in Dalmatia, but to protect it from Austrian persecution he could not call them “Irredentisti”, which would have been tantamount to declaring the Italians traitors to the Austrian State. He was therefore obliged to say that then they did not wish for the impossible—i.e., the separation of Dalmatia from Austria, but that they were contented with a state of autonomy which, however, was never granted them.

Sir Arthur's misinterpretation of Tommaseo's lines, “Alla Dalmazia”, must be noted. In order to get the right sense of these lines, referring to the future of Italo-Serbian relations in Dalmatia, let him refer to Senatore Isidoro Del Lungo, Arciconsolo of the Accademia della Crusca, the highest philological authority in Italy, who has already dealt with the question.

One last point I should like to correct in Sir Arthur's statements. Among the authorities which he calls to his aid in order to convince his readers of the preposterous character of Italian aspirations is Camillo Cavour. On page 14-15 of Vol. VIII. of “Storia Documentata della Diplomazia Europea in Italia” (Turin, 1872), written by Nicomede Bianchi, the following document is quoted:

“In November 1858 Vincenzo Salvagnoli was charged by Cavour to go to Compiègne, and after a long conversation with the Emperor Napoleon he consigned to him an important Note, in which is was stated that: ‘Northern Italy will include the whole of Piedmont, Savoy and the county of Nice excepted, Lombardy, Venetia, the Italian Friuli and the coasts of Dalmatia.’ . . .”

I don't suppose that even Sir Arthur will be pleased to place Cavour among the “noisy and ignorant” little clique which is fighting most bravely with the Allies for that great Italian statesman's never-forgotten ideal of a united Italy.

I beg to remain,

Your obedient servant,

Alessandro Dudan, Dr. Jur.,

Special Correspondent of the “Messaggero”, Rome.

The Exodus of Istrians in the First World War

Italian deportees at Wagna Refugee Camp, c. 1915

(Written by Lorenzo Salimbeni, taken from the newspaper “Il Giornale d'Italia”, November 20, 2017.)

Italians living around the base of Pola were transferred to internment camps

At the outbreak of the First World War the Austro-Hungarian Empire issued evacuation measures for their strongholds, with obvious reference to those that were close to the border with Russia, the scene of the first battles, but also the city of Pola was part of this measure. The Istrian city, in fact, was the main naval base of the imperial war fleet and therefore a call was issued that urged the population to prepare for any special measures. In the spring of 1915, when the movements of the Kingdom of Italy signaled its entry into the war against Austria, the first calls for the evacuation of civilians were made. Some organized themselves with their own means, moving in with friends and relatives residing in other places of the Empire; as regards the Italian citizens residing in the Adriatic Coast, the so-called "regnicoli", those fit for military service were collected in special internment camps, while women, children and the elderly were gradually able to return home through Switzerland.

The exhortation to evacuate first pertained to Pola and southern Istria, then expanded to Rovigno and central Istria, so it is estimated that about 50,000 people (out of a population of 100,000) were loaded onto trains and taken to barracks camps built in Styria or near Vienna. Those destined to live in these Barackenlager first had the traumatizing experience of the interminable journey (in memoirs we often find the word "invaginated", i.e. enclosed or turned inside out, which gives a good idea of how these people had been crammed into cattle cars), after which they experienced the shock of the structures in which they would be forced to live. Wagna, for example, the most famous of these camps, was created from the hasty expansion of a military training camp, in which the buildings were full of drafts and each barrack contained a hundred people gathered in precarious hygienic-sanitary conditions and in extremely close proximity. The Habsburg authorities guaranteed a daily allowance to everyone, but if someone could find work in the area or preferred to settle in a better structure outside the camp, he would lose this small pay. The poor living conditions of the internees of Italian nationality were in vain brought to the Parliament of Vienna by the Deputies Alcide De Gasperi, with special reference to the Trentino, and Valentino Pittoni, who sought to protect the displaced Italians from the Adriatic Littoral. During the so-called "Events of Wagna" the troops stationed to guard the camp (managed in such a way as to resemble more a prison than a shelter for refugees) suppressed a protest demonstration so forcefully that they killed a victim.

When the Italian army was forced to retreat to the Piave, the Adriatic Littoral regained security and the refugees began to return, but so slowly that, in the strikes that shook the Empire at the end of January 1918, workers and military demonstrators in Pola also demanded the immediate return of their relatives. The local administrators did not make significant efforts to help the reintegration of refugees, appealing to the technicality that Pola, Rovigno and the county had never been officially "evacuated", since the authority was limited to "advising" people to leave. Those who were still living in the Barackenlager experienced the national conflicts that were shaking the foundations of the Empire, since the committee that had arisen among the refugees of the Littoral to report to the administrators of the camps lost its solidarity. This committee had always been presided over by representatives of Italian nationality, as Italians were the majority component of displaced persons of the Province and in any case the other ethnic groups were never discriminated against; however, the Slavic and German elements in the first months of 1918 created alternative structures of representation in order to highlight their own specificity in the presence of the Habsburg administration.

Due to the convulsive final phase of the Empire, the return of the displaced Istrians ended only in the first months of 1919, under the Italian military authorities that had in the meantime taken up positions in Julian Venetia.

Overview of Lidia Bastianich's Autobiography

Lidia Bastianich is a world famous Italian chef and author. She is also an Istrian exile. In 2018 Lidia published an official autobiography or memoir, detailing the story of her life—beginning with her origins in Istria to her life as a celebrity chef in the United States.

Overview: ‘My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food’ by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich

From the best-selling cookbook author, beloved and award-winning television personality, and hugely successful restaurateur—a heartwarming, emotional, revelatory memoir told with all her hallmark warmth and gusto.

Lidia's story begins with her upbringing in Pola, a formerly Italian city turned Yugoslavian under Tito's communist regime. She enjoys a childhood surrounded by love and security—despite the family's poverty—learning everything about Italian cooking from her beloved grandmother, Nonna Rosa. When the communist regime begins investigating the family, they flee to Trieste, Italy, where they spend two years in a refugee camp waiting for visas to enter the United States—an experience that will shape Lidia for the rest of her life. At age 12, Lidia starts a new life in New York. She soon begins working in restaurants as a young teenager, the first step toward the creation of her own American dream. And she tells in great, vivid detail the fulfillment of that dream: her close-knit family, her dedication and endless passion for food that ultimately leads to multiple restaurants, many cookbooks, and twenty years on public television as the host of her own cooking show. An absolute must-have for the millions of Lidia fans.

The book is available for purchase at Barnes & Noble: My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food


See also:
Excerpt From Lidia Bastianich's Autobiography

Excerpt From Lidia Bastianich's Autobiography

Here is a brief excerpt from the first chapter of Lidia Bastianich's new autobiography or memoir, My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food, published in 2018:

Few people outside of my immediate family know this, but for the first five years of my life, my name was not Lidia, it was Giuliana. My mother had chosen this name for me as a way to remember her homeland, which was then part of the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northern Italy. The Second World War had ended, and communism was coming to Pola, the small city on the southern tip of the Istrian Peninsula, overlooking the Adriatic Sea, where my family lived. The Yugoslav Partisans, who were communist-led, had fought as guerrillas against the Nazis and Fascists and had taken over the government of Yugoslavia when the Germans were defeated. As part of the 1947 Treaty of Paris, our city, and most of the Istrian Peninsula, which had become part of Italy after World War I, was given to communist Yugoslavia. 

The redrawing of borders sparked a mass exodus from the area, with more than three hundred thousand people fleeing to Italy to reclaim their Italian citizenship. Many of them had deep Italian roots; they spoke Italian, and their families were Italian. Many of them migrated on to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States. My parents planned to join the migration, but my mother was pregnant with me, and they knew that travel would be difficult. There was also the question of where to go once we crossed the border. Refugees were being placed in camps, and my father was not comfortable with the idea of my mother's giving birth and caring for an infant in such a place. They also had my three-year-old brother, Franco, to consider. The war was still raging when my mother gave birth to him in July 1944. With the collapse of Fascist Italy in 1943, the Germans occupied the city and used it as a U-boat base, making it a target for Allied bombardments. (...) When he was five months old, two bombs were dropped on Pola. The minute the siren sounded, alerting residents to the bombardment, my father assumed his role as driver of the fire truck for the Pola town arsenal, Cantiere Navale di Scoglio Olivi. My mother awoke to see pieces of the ceiling falling onto her baby's cradle, and she hurried to his side, grabbed the [wooden cradle] with Franco inside, and ran to the bomb shelter. 

At the end of the war, Pola was under the Allied forces when my mother became pregnant with me. The exodus of Italian Istrians was still open, and many of my mother's friends and relatives were moving to Italy, because Istria was soon to be under the Yugoslavian rule.

(...) on February 21, 1947, she gave birth to me at the hospital in Pola, and seven months after that, on the fifteenth of September, the day the provisions of the Treaty of Paris were put into place, the border between Italy and Yugoslavia was officially closed. My parents—and Franco and I—were now stuck in Yugoslavia.

Change came to Pola (“Pula” in Croatian) almost immediately under communism. The names of streets, towns, and monuments were changed to reflect the area's new official language [Serbo-Croatian]. Everybody's last name was changed as the new documents and identification cards were issued. Ours was changed from the Italian “Matticchio” to the Slavic “Motika”. Churches across the peninsula were ordered closed. Suddenly, people weren't allowed to go to church or even practice religion openly. It was a sharp blow to many—both Italian and Croatian—who lived in the city and had practiced Catholicism for generations. (...)

“Giuliana” had a deep meaning for my mother. Friuli-Venezia Giulia is still a region of Italy, and Istria before the war was part of that region. Istria was in the Giulia part of the region, and we were Giuliani, as the emigrants from the area were referred to. (...) For the first five years of my life, I was known as Giuliana by everyone who knew me—friends, family, and everyone in town. I was Giuliana. Then, suddenly, I wasn't. Suddenly, I was Lidia.

The book is available for purchase at Barnes & Noble: My American Dream: A Life of Love, Family, and Food

Response to “Croatians That Make Croatia Proud”

On Slavorum.org, a Pan-Slavism forum popular among Slavic nationalists and identarians, a Croatian user posted a list of “Croatians That Make Croatia Proud”, purportedly containing the names of Croatian inventors, scientists, authors and notable people.

The list was originally posted in February 2012, but was most recently edited in March 2016.

The main problem with the list is that it cites several people who are not Croatian. In fact, out of the first 16 names on the list, only half of them are Croatian. Furthermore, the inclusion of some of these names are patently absurd and even offensive.

Take for example the inclusion of Mario Andretti, an Italian born in what was then the Kingdom of Italy, whose family was forced into exile from their homeland of Istria following an ethnic cleansing against ethnic Italians by the Yugoslavs at the end of World War II. How could such a man possibly be defined as “Croatian”, let alone “make Croatia proud”?

If anything, Croatia should be ashamed at the way in which Croats treated the indigenous Italian population of Istria and Dalmatia, including Mario Andretti and his family. Genocide and expulsion of ethnic Italians from their historical homeland is nothing to be proud of.

It is completely absurd and dishonest, not to mention highly insulting and offensive, for the Croats to persecute an ethnic group, expel that ethnic group from their own land, occupy their territory, and then, a few decades later, claim the members of that same ethnic group as part of the Croatian nation, merely to bolster Croatia's list of supposed “accomplishments”!

Instead of “making Croatia proud”, this list should make Croatia blush with shame, because it is yet another example of how Croatia is a country which has fostered and continues to foster a gross historical revisionism among the masses of its citizens, and continues to perpetuate a mentality which has frequently led to wars and genocide in the Balkans.

Among the first 16 men cited on this list, we find names such as Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich, Marco Polo, St. Marinus and Nikola Tesla, whose names are all written, unsurprisingly, in their falsified Croatian forms.

Non-Croats That Make Croatia Proud: Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich

The first non-Croat to appear on the list is Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich, an Italian Jesuit scientist who was born in Ragusa to an Italian mother and a Bosnian immigrant father. His name is falsely written on the list as Rudjer Boskovic, a neologism frequently used by Croats. In reality his birth name was Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich; he was named after his Italian uncle and godfather Ruggiero Bettera. Boscovich was born and raised in an Italian cultural environment in Ragusa; his mother tongue was Italian and he used Italian in his private correspondence; he spent almost his entire life in Italy, self-identified as Dalmatian and Italian, and signed his own name as Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich. He was not Croatian.

Marco Polo: Venetian, Not Croatian

The next non-Croat to appear on the list is the famous Venetian explorer Marco Polo. The list claims that Polo was born on the island of Curzola in 1251. This claim is rejected by all reputable historians, who unanimously maintain that Polo was born in Venice. However, even if he was born in Curzola, this still would not make him a “Croat”. At the time of Marco Polo, Curzola was a Venetian island populated by Italians and Dalmatian-speakers. Until 1900, Italians still comprised more than half of the population of Curzola's main city. The island had no connection to Croatia or Slavdom until it was annexed by the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) in 1921. Marco Polo had nothing to do with Croats or Croatia.

Giorgio Orsini, Not “Juraj Dalmatinac”

Next on the list is Giorgio Orsini da Sebenico, a 15th century Italian sculptor from Dalmatia who has been ridiculously renamed Juraj Dalmatinac by the Croats – a name which did not exist until it was coined by Croatian nationalist writers several decades ago. Giorgio was born into the Orsini family, a noble Italian family of Roman origin. He spent his entire life in Italy and the Venetian cities of Dalmatia. He was not Croatian.

St. Marinus: Roman, Not Croatian

Next is St. Marinus, the famous monk and saint who founded the Republic of San Marino. Born on the island of Arbe to a Roman family in the 3rd century AD, St. Marinus lived and died several centuries before the Croats arrived in this territory. In fact, the first Croats did not begin to settle in Arbe until the 10th century AD, some 600 years after Marinus' death. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that the urban center of Arbe remained exclusively Italian-speaking until the early 20th century, and during World War I the population voted unanimously in favour of being united to Italy. It was not until 1921 that Italy was forced to cede the island to Yugoslavia, which led to a persecution and exodus of the ancient Italian population. Only in a fantastically illusory world in which all facts of history are ignored could St. Marinus be called “Croatian”.

Nikola Tesla: Not Croatian

Not at all surprising, the next man on the list is the famous inventor Nikola Tesla. Tesla is frequently claimed by the Croats for the mere reason that he was born in a village which is today part of Croatia. While the author of this list admits that Tesla was of Serbian descent, he nonetheless argues that being born in Croatia also makes him a Croat. However, the village in which Tesla was born – Smiljan, in the Austro-Hungarian military district of Krajina – was at the time inhabited by ethnic Vlachs and Serbs. Tesla's father and maternal grandfather were both Serbian Orthodox priests and Tesla himself was raised as a Serb, although there is evidence that his family originally descended from Morlachs or Vlachs, an indigenous Latin population of the Balkans which over the centuries became culturally and linguistically slavicized. One thing however is certain: he was not Croatian.

Fausto Veranzio, Not “Faust Vrancic”

Next we arrive at Fausto Veranzio, a 16th century Italian bishop and polymath from Dalmatia credited with inventing the parachute. The Croats have renamed him Faust Vrancic and cite him as a “Croatian inventor”, despite the fact that he was born to an Italian noble family, with an Italian name, in an Italian city, whose only connection to Croatia is having his birthplace annexed to Croatia three centuries after his death.

Giovanni Biagio Luppis, Not “Ivan Lupis”

Next on this list we find Giovanni Biagio Luppis, an Italian inventor from Fiume, listed under the fake name Ivan Lupis. Giovanni – which was his real birth name – invented the self-propelled torpedo, originally called the Salvacoste (Italian for ‘coast-saver’), which was the first modern torpedo. He was a member of the noble De Lupis family, which originated in Puglia, Italy and settled in Dalmatia in the 13th century, before finally settling in Fiume in the 18th century. His father Ferdineo Carlo Ermenegildo de Luppis was born in Parenzo, Istria. His mother Donna Giovanna Margherita Parich was an Italian noble from Ragusa. He was not Croatian.

David Schwarz: Jewish Inventor, Not Croatian

Next on the list is David Schwarz, a Jewish man from Hungary whose name is clearly not Croatian. The author of the list credits Schwarz with inventing the airship and asserts that the German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin copied the idea from Schwarz. This narrative is highly disputed by historians, who generally recognize that Zeppelin's airship was radically different from the one invented by Schwarz. However, even if it could be proven that Zeppelin indeed copied Schwarz, it would make no difference in regards to Croatia, because Schwarz's parents were Hungarian Jews, not Croats.

Republic of Ragusa: Italian Maritime Republic, Not Slavic

After this, the author discusses national health insurance and credits its establishment to “Dubrovnik”, which is a reference to the Republic of Ragusa, an Italian maritime republic founded by Romans who had escaped the medieval invasions of the Slavs and Avars. Ragusa was an ancient Roman city which inherited its language and culture from Rome, and modeled its institutions on Venice. The official language was Italian; the nobility and representatives were Italian; the names were Italian; and the culture itself was Italian. Slavic was initially spoken only by immigrants and refugees who began to pour into Ragusa's territory following the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the 15th century; the Ragusan Senate banned their language in 1472 in a desperate attempt to preserve the Italian character of the country. For a millennium Ragusa belonged to the Latin and Italian cultural sphere and had nothing to do with Croatia or the Slavic world.

Dalmatian Italians Secretly Croats?

Next the author says that many Croatian architects, sculptors and painters had great careers in Venice, and that they “took Italian names and are therefore only known under these names”. The author thus subtly reiterates the Croatian nationalist revisionist claim that all the notable Italian Dalmatian historical figures were secretly “renegade Croats”, despite having Italian names, despite coming from Italian cities, despite being born to Italian parents, and despite speaking the Italian language.

Unfortunately for Croatian revisionists, there will always remain this pesky and inconvenient fact: the fact that, aside from a handful of minor authors who wrote in Slavic dialect, all the illustrious men from Dalmatia – whom the Croats seek to steal for themselves – were born into known Italian families and their names were always recorded in Italian and Latin. The Croatian variants of their names did not exist until the 19th and 20th centuries, when Croatian and Yugoslav authors began to translate and slavicize the Italian names of all historical figures of Istria and Dalmatia, slavicizing not only the names of those few insignificant figures who were known to be ethnic Slavs, but even men who were purely Italian and born into Italian families, who formed the majority of the population in all the Dalmatian coastal cities until the 19th century.

If these men were all truly Croats or Slavs, then such gross historical distortions and intellectual dishonesty would not be necessary.

The 'Adriatic' is a Slavic Sea?

The author then goes on to say that the Adriatic Sea derives its name from Adria, a city located in the region of Veneto, in Italy. That the Adriatic derives its name from the city of Adria is undoubtedly true, and is attested to by the Roman author Pliny the Elder. However, since this list is purported to be about Croatian achievement, the author seems to be implying that Adria has some sort of connection to the Croats or Slavs, which is completely false. The first settlements in the area of Adria were created by the Veneti, an Italic tribe closely related to the Latins. The city itself was founded by the Etruscans, and later it became a Roman colony. The city has no historical link whatsoever to the Croats or Slavs.

Mario Andretti: An Italian Targeted For Genocide

Further down on the list we find Mario Gabriele Andretti, the famous Italian-born racing driver already discussed earlier. As already mentioned, Andretti was born to an Italian family in Montona, Istria, which was then part of the Kingdom of Italy. At the end of World War II, his homeland was occupied and annexed to Communist Yugoslavia (and today it is part of Croatia). Ever since the latter stages of the war ethnic Italians in the region were targeted for ethnic cleansing by the Yugoslavs; many thousands of Italian civilians were slaughtered in the Foibe Massacres, while some 350,000 Italians were forced into exile. The Andretti family was among them: they left Istria in 1948 and ended up in a refugee camp in Lucca, Italy for the next seven years.

In a 2016 interview, Mario Andretti said:

“We were basically refugees in our own country. We were stripped of everything because we sacrificed to maintain Italian citizenship. But nobody understood us because nobody talked about it. The press didn't talk about it, and the government was basically ashamed of it in a sense because of the Geneva pact.”

It is truly disgusting, perverse, atrocious and really something to marvel at, that a man who lived in a refugee camp and whose family was targeted by the Yugoslavs due to their Italian national origin, would today be claimed as belonging to the same Slavic people that persecuted him and his family! At this rate, Bobby Sands will be remembered as a “proud Englishman”, alongside that great “Turkish” hero Aeneas and the “Russian” philosopher Immanuel Kant!

Diego Maradona: Italo-Dalmatian Ancestors, Not Croatian

Diego Maradona, an Argentine footballer, was born in Lanús, Argentina. Anyone who has ever seen Maradona would immediately realize that he has a significant amount of Native American ancestry, although he also has Italian ancestry. It is also presumed that he may have Spanish ancestry as well; the surname Maradona is most often a Spanish surname, although some speculate that in this case, Maradona's family surname may derive from Madonna, a surname which is diffused throughout southern Italy. In any case, it is certain that he has both Italian and Native American ancestry. It is the Italian ancestry that interests us here, because this is where the Croats are engaging in monumental fraud, dishonesty and manipulation.

Some of Maradona's Italian ancestors came from Dalmatia. Maradona's maternal great-grandfather, Matteo Carioli (also spelled Cariolichi), was born in Curzola, an island off the Dalmatian coast which was formerly inhabited by Italians, but which today is part of Croatia. In 1994 the journal Studia Croatica, a Croatian-Argentine journal founded by Croatian immigrants, published an article in which they referred to Maradona's great-grandfather Matteo Carioli by the fake name Matej Kariolić, a purely invented name not found in any historical records or birth registers.

The Croatian revisionists also referred to Matteo Carioli's father (Diego Maradona's maternal great-great grandfather, born in Curzola in 1820) as Gašpar Polić, another name which is not found in any birth records. In fact, at that time Croatian diacritics were not invented yet! The letters š and ć did not enter the Croatian alphabet until 1830, ten years after the birth of “Gašpar Polić”. Obviously this could not have been his real birth name, since those letters did not yet exist; but these pesky facts are evidently irrelevant for the revisionists. They further asserted that this non-existent “Gašpar Polić” was a descendant of Marco Polo, the Italian explorer whom they also claim was a “Croat”. A fantastic story with no basis whatsoever in reality.

In this way, the Croatian community in Argentina began to spread the claim that Diego Maradona's Italian Dalmatian ancestors were Croatian. This false claim has now been spread by Croatian revisionists on various Internet sites, such as Wikipedia, EthniCelebs and Geni.

Joseph Haydn: The Austro-German Becomes An Austro-Slav

Another interesting man on the list is Franz Joseph Haydn, the famous Austrian composer. Haydn was born in the village of in Rohrau, in Austria, to Mathias Haydn and Maria Koller. Both were ethnic Germans, as their German surnames and historical records both demonstrate.

Ever since the late 19th century, however, Croatian revisionists have claimed that Haydn was a Croat. The theory originated with Franjo Kuhač, an ethnic German from Slavonia whose birth name was Franz Xaver Koch. He became interested in Croatian folk music and in 1871 he changed his name to Franjo Ksaver Kuhač. After studying Croatian folk music and comparing it to the music of Joseph Haydn, Kuhač arbitrarily concluded without any tangible evidence that Haydn must have been Croatian. Kuhač further claimed, again without any evidence, that the name “Haydn” was of Croatian origin. From that point forward, Haydn has been usurped by Croatian revisionists who, disregarding records and history, still today pretend that the Austrian composer was a Croat.

Nor is this claim limited merely to a nationalist fringe; mainstream Croatian historiography also maintains that Haydn was Croatian. This can be seen in Haydn's biography on the Croatian-language Wikipedia website and in numerous Croatian-language encyclopedias, which assert in no uncertain terms that Haydn was “of Croatian origin”.

The Mythical “Croatian Popes”

The list also claims there were two Croatian popes, without citing any specific names. However, based on other Croatian revisionist websites and common Croatian claims, it can be assumed that the author of this list is most likely referring to Pope John IV and Pope Sixtus V.

Pope John IV was born in Dalmatia in the 6th or 7th century to a Roman family. His father was the Roman advocate Venantius. After witnessing the Avar and Slavic invasions of Istria and Dalmatia in the 7th century, he fled with his father to Italy. In 641 he sent the Roman abbot Martin to Dalmatia to ransom local Christians who were kidnapped, enslaved and held hostage by the invading Slavs. Today he is often considered the “first Croatian pope” by Croats. According to this warped and deranged argument, this Roman who was fleeing from the Slavs was himself a “Slav”, merely because the land in which he was born is today occupied by the descendants of those same Slav invaders whom he was fleeing from.

Pope Sixtus V is universally recognized as an Italian. According to the first and official biography of the pope, written by his secretary Antonio Maria Graziani (1537-1611) and personally edited by Pope Sixtus himself, both parents of the pope were born in the Marche region of Italy (his father being from the village of Montalto; his mother being from the village of Frontillo), and therefore were of Italian origin. Despite Croatian pretenses, he was not Croatian.

Concluding Remarks

All of this once again demonstrates the blind nationalism and extremely low level of scholarship that infects the ex-Yugoslav countries, a situation which is both pitiful and tragic. These distorted claims and historical falsifications so widespread in the Balkans are precisely the kind which foster a mentality and sentiment which has led to numerous wars and genocides in the region in this past century. The perpetuation of this mentality will only lead to further alienation, war and destruction.


See also:
Croatia is Manipulating the History of Dalmatia, Istria and the Quarnero
Croats Using Wikipedia to Rewrite Dalmatian History
Education and Revisionism in the Balkans
German Saints Stolen by the Slovenes
Why do Some Countries Steal History and Heritage from Other Nations?
Italian Literature in Dalmatia: A Falsified History
Croatia Kidnaps Marco Polo
Marco Polo a Croat? A Ridiculous Thesis
So Now Marco Polo Was “Croatian”: Someone Failed Their History Test!
Pope Sixtus V: Another Victim of Slavic Revisionism
The Unfounded “Croatian” Origin of Pope Sixtus V
Ivan Golub Claims Pope Sixtus V was “Croatian”
St. Jerome and Slavic Myth-Making (Revisionism)
The Myth of the “Croatian Renaissance”
Rampant Croatization