Two countries for the price of one
Posted on Samstag, September 06, 2008 at 4:25 PM by rhukari@rolmail.net"title="Send email to Reka the site author">Reka
If you've looked at my site title, maybe you have noticed the words in gray below it and to the right. "Is this really Italy?" These might very well be words you would hear from a new visitor to this area. Traveling south from Austria, the signs along the Brenner toll road welcome you to the province in both German and Italian, but the buildings still look very similar to those in Austria. On the other hand, an Italian visitor arriving from the south may be quite surprised at the architecture, very different from the towns only minutes behind him on his way.
This is because the province of Bozen, or Südtirol, as it is called here, was formerly a part of Austria. The province was ceded to Italy through the Treaty of St. Germain after the end of WWI. Fascism in the early 20th century forced many of the inhabitants to deny their German heritage in public, adopt Italianized names and organize underground schooling in their native tongue, often ending in imprisonment and sometimes death for the teachers. New hope came with Hitler's rise, only to be crushed when he and Mussolini agreed that Italy should retain the area and the German-speaking peoples were forced to decide if they would stay as Italians or relinquish all they had to be moved to a distant area of the German Reich. This was a decision that led to much strife and sometimes bloodshed within villages and even within families.
Since then, the German speaking peoples of South Tyrol have held to their roots. In spite of a period of turmoil in the 60s with bombings by South Tyrolean activists, a treaty protecting their cultural identity was signed between Austria and Italy in 1971. Now the province enjoys autonomy, with separate schools and allotments of public jobs for the peoples of each of their three official languages (German, Italian and Ladin). Today, 70% of the inhabitants still speak the South Tyrolean dialect, and though there is still some animosity between the cultural groups, it is a peaceful place.
So a visitor actually gets two countries or, better said, two cultures, for the price of one. South Tyrol combines the climate of the Mediterranean, right down to palm trees, with the Alpine nature of the Dolomites. The dolce vita of Italy is strengthened by German efficiency. Pasta al ragù appears on the menu side by side with Spätzle. My children grow up trilingually, speaking English and German as mother tongues and learning Italian in school.
This is the world I live in. A diverse one, sometimes pleasant, sometimes exasperating, but always challenging.
Posted in South Tyrol (RSS)