Italianità

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The term Italianità ("Italianity") emerged in the ranks of the pan-Italian movement during the 19th century during the Risorgimento . He postulated a genuine all-Italian identity. Italianità encompasses the essence, manner, nature and character of Italy and the Italians.

The term was important in the first half of the 20th century, among other things, in the fields of art and architecture with the development of an Italian approach to modernism .

The catchphrase Italianità played a special role in the era of fascism in the compulsory Italianization of the areas with a non-Italian majority that were incorporated after the First World War (for example South Tyrol with a German-speaking and Ladin population).

A discussion about Italianità was also held in the Italian-speaking population of Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century ; it arose because of the feared loss of culture due to the massive influx of German-speaking Swiss and German-Germans who ran their own schools and their own newspaper, and from bakers to to set up a lawyer’s own infrastructure in Ticino . One reaction to this were the Rivendicazioni ticinesi (Ticino claims).

In post-war Italy the use of the catchphrase has decreased. However, it was used more frequently again by the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi . Among other things, during the restructuring and sale of the airline Alitalia , he had repeatedly emphasized that it was important for Italy to have a national airline. Berlusconi used the term Italianità . In the 2008 election campaign, he prevented, among other things, a complete takeover of the airline by Air France .

In marketing and everyday culture outside of Italy, Italianità has gained a positive meaning. It has become an expression of the Italian way of life and joie de vivre, the Dolce Vita , which have been introduced by the immigrant Italians since 1960 and through holidays in Italy. Typical examples of everyday Italian culture are dishes such as pasta and pizza , drinking coffee ( espresso , cappuccino ) and wine, music by Eros Ramazzotti , Zucchero , Laura Pausini , Tiziano Ferro and Gianna Nannini , motorbikes like the Vespa from Piaggio and cars from Fiat and Alfa Romeo .

literature

  • Gualtiero Boaglio: Italianità. A conceptual story. Vienna, Praesens 2008, ISBN 978-3706905138 .
  • Reinhold R. Grimm, Peter Koch, Thomas Stehl, Winfried Wehle : Italianità. A literary, linguistic and cultural identity pattern. Gunter Narr Verlag 2003, ISBN 978-3-8233-5853-4 .
  • Klaus Tragbar: 'Romanità', 'italianità', 'ambientismo' - continuity and recollection in Italian modernism . Lecture in: Report on the 42nd Conference for Excavation Science and Building Research from May 8 to 12, 2002 in Munich, pp. 72–83 ( PDF , 8.4 MB).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Silvano Gilardoni: Italianità. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . April 2, 2009, accessed June 23, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Silvano Gilardoni: Rivendicazioni ticinesi. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland. February 10, 2012, accessed June 23, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Italianità in Switzerland - Caffè, Vespa or Bagnino: Six Swiss photographers with Italian blood show what makes them feel at home. In: Migros magazine . August 3, 2015, accessed August 9, 2020 .