Young Italy
Young Italy ( Italian Giovine Italia , also Giovane Italia ) was the name of a political, radical democratic association of the Risorgimento (the period of the Italian unification process in the 19th century) founded by Giuseppe Mazzini in Marseille in 1831 , which resolved the Italian question at the time of the Metternich system wanted to solve the creation of a unitarian and independent republic. According to one contemporary, the movement never had more than 1,000 active members, but it was indirectly supported by significantly more people, for example by reading its forbidden scriptures. On May 5, 1848, the association was finally dissolved and Mazzini founded the Associazione Nazionale Italiana in its place .
Italy after the Congress of Vienna
Like almost all European countries and Italy was affected by the territorial and political restructuring of Europe, the European powers under significant influence of the Austrian foreign minister Klemens Wenzel Lothar Prince von Metternich after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte 1814/15 on the Congress of Vienna worked out and on the Was based on principles of restoration , legitimacy and solidarity. The old, on particularism and foreign rule -based order was restored, in essence, was split so Italy to 1815 in several states, and especially four great power factors determined the Italian map: the Bourbon Kingdom of the Two Sicily in the south, the Papal Papal States in central Italy, in the north, the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont , which was ruled by the Savoy and which was expanded to include Liguria, and Lombardy, which was expanded to include Valtellina and Veneto, and which had been assigned to the Austrian Habsburg monarchy as the Kingdom of Lombardy-Veneto . There were also a number of smaller duchies, such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany as a Habsburg satellite state or the duchies of Parma and Modena .
As in Germany, a national movement emerged in the following decades in opposition to the existing system, which spoke out against state fragmentation and in favor of a unified nation-state. This demand was often combined with the desire for constitutional reforms in the spirit of liberalism . The democratic movement, on the other hand, went even further and postulated a democratic change in conditions through a “revolution from below” based on the French Revolution . An early proponent of republicanism was Filippo Buonarroti . During the Napoleonic era, the secret society of the Carbonari came into being , which also embodied national and liberal ideas, albeit in an unclear form. Early uprisings that broke out in Naples and Piedmont in 1820 and 1821, as well as the revolts that flared up in the Papal States in 1831 as a result of the Paris July Revolution , were put down.
The founding of "Young Italy" and "Young Europe"
In the tradition of the now shattered Carboneria, but at the same time differentiating himself from it and with the intention of avoiding its mistakes in the future, the Genoese lawyer Giuseppe Mazzini, himself a former member of the Carbonari, founded the association "Giovane Italia" in Marseille in July 1831 . The movement's fighting motto was the saying L'Italia farà da sé ( Eng .: Italy liberates itself). Upon joining the movement, each member had to swear the following oath: “In the name of God and Italy - in the name of all martyrs who fell under the blows of foreign and native tyrants for the holy cause of Italy - in faith in those of God the Italian Mission entrusted to the people and the duty of every Italian to work towards its fulfillment - [...] I join the "Young Italy", the union of men, [...] and swear to devote myself entirely and always to the task, together with to make Italy a united, independent republic for them [...]. "
A little later the newspaper of the same name was founded as the mouthpiece of the movement. The aim was also to collaborate with other national movements within Europe, above all “Young Germany” and “Young Poland”, which was reflected in the establishment of the “ Young Europe ” association in Bern in 1834 . All these movements were unanimous in the fight against the reactionary and absolutist "System Metternich", which sought to violently oppose democratic approaches in Europe.
Breaking up, reorganizing and ending the movement
The "Giovane Italia" movement was persecuted by the governments, whereby it should be noted that some members of the association also considered assassinations and riots to be just means in the struggle for national self-determination . The attempt to create a starting point in Savoy ended in 1833/1834 with a series of lawsuits and the de facto breaking up of the association. This was newly formed in Great Britain in 1838. Mazzini, who dissolved the association on May 5, 1848 and founded the "Associazione Nazionale Italiana" in its place, participated in 1849 as one of the triumvirs in the government of the short-lived Roman Republic . However, like almost everywhere else in Europe, the revolution initially failed to achieve its essential goals, the papal state was recaptured by French troops, and Austria emerged victorious from the battles in Northern Italy after the battles of Custozza and Novara and was thus able to maintain the status quo rejected by the movement First cement again.
The initiative subsequently passed to the Kingdom of Sardinia- Piedmont, which under Victor Emanuel II and Prime Minister Camillo Benso Graf von Cavour initially undertook a liberal reform of its state, and in the course of the renewed wars against Austria (1859/1869) with the French Help drive the Austrians out of Lombardy and bring about the unification of Italy. The unity of Italy demanded by the movement had become a political reality with the annexation of Rome in 1871 at the latest , but not as a result of a pure popular movement “from below”, as desired, but also with significant participation “from above”. In this respect Mazzini, the founder of the movement, had to admit at the end of his life that his goals had not really been achieved - he once said: “Avevo creduto di evocare l'anima dell'Italia, ma non mi trovo di fronte che ad un cadavere. "(Eng .:" I had thought to animate the soul of Italy, but I am facing nothing more than a cadaver. ")
literature
- Salvo Mastellone: Mazzini e la Giovine Italia (1831–1834). 2 vols, Domus Mazziniana, Pisa 1960.
- Giuseppe Mazzatinti: Storia della Giovine Italia. Un episodio del 1833 narrato ed illustrato con documenti inediti da Giuseppe Mazzatinti , Luigi Bertelli Edit., Florence 1905.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The term stands for the democratic camp (ital .: democratici ) and is to be understood as a distinction to the moderate, liberal forces (ital .: moderati ), which stand for evolutionary instead of revolutionary change, for deliberate, slow "reforms from above" advocated for a constitutional monarchy instead of a democratic republic through collaboration with the current rulers instead of sudden change through a “revolution from below”.
- ↑ The contemporary was Metternich. (Cf. Mike Rapport: 1848. Revolution in Europe. Theiss 2011, p. 32.)
- ↑ See Rudolf Lill : History of Italy in the modern age . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 4th ed. 1988, pp. 92-96.
- ↑ Lill, pp. 101-110.
- ↑ See for example Alberto Mario Banti: Il Risorgimento italiano. Laterza, 2nd ed. 2004, p. 63.
- ↑ See Lill, p. 112.
- ↑ German translation of the Italian slogan, cf. for example Banti, p. 191 f.
- ↑ See Lill, p. 114.
- ↑ See Denis Mack Smith: Soria d'Italia dal 1861 al 1969. Laterza, Bari 1972, p. 32.