Lusern

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Lusern
Luserna
coat of arms
Lusern Luserna (Italy)
Lusern Luserna
Country Italy
region Trentino-South Tyrol
province Trento  (TN)
Coordinates 45 ° 55 '  N , 11 ° 19'  E Coordinates: 45 ° 55 '23 "  N , 11 ° 19' 19"  E
height 1333  m slm
surface 8.24 km²
Residents 260 (Dec. 31, 2019)
Population density 32 inhabitants / km²
Post Code 38040
prefix 0464
ISTAT number 022109
Patron saint Saint Anthony
Website www.lusern.it
Entrance signs and street signs in Lusern are consistently bilingual, Cimbrian and Italian

Lusern (also written Lusérn ; the stress of the word is on the second syllable), Italian Luserna , is a municipality with 260 inhabitants (as of December 31, 2019) in northern Italy , province of Trento , region of Trentino-South Tyrol . It belongs to the valley community Magnifica Comunità degli Altipiani Cimbri .

Lusern is one of the best-known and best-preserved German- speaking islands of the Cimbri in Northern Italy; 90% of the population speaks the Bavarian variety Cimbrian .

geography

Lusern is located about 1,350 meters above sea level on an eastern branch of the Lavarone plateau (German: Lafraun, Cimbrian: Lavròu) about 600 meters above the Astico Gorge, south of the upper Valsugana and Lake Caldonazzo .

The Lusern plateau covers about 20 square kilometers, of which only about eight belong to the municipality of Lusern (Cimbrian: Kamou vo Lusern). Parts of the Lusern plateau are part of the municipalities of Lavarone, Levico Terme and Caldonazzo . The plateau is slightly undulating, the mountains on the northern edge of the plateau do not quite reach 2,000 meters (highest mountain: Cima Vezzena, 1908  m slm ).

Lusern can be characterized as a street village, and there are also a number of isolated little hamlets known as baite (huts). The largest group of these hamlets is Bisele (Oberhäuser, Unterhäuser, Galen). Over the centuries, slopes have been leveled and a greater number of terraced fields and vegetable gardens have been created.

The climate is characterized by the high mountains: precipitation approx. 1200 millimeters per year, long winters with lots of snow. The forests are mixed forests. Dominant are white fir , spruce , beech trees and larches . The abundance of mushrooms in the forests attracts many mushroom pickers in summer and autumn, which the Luserner do not always like to see.

The place can be reached either from the southeast via Asiago (Cimbrian: Sleghe) and the very easy-to-drive Vezzena Pass (Cimbrian: Vesan / German: Wiesen) or from the northwest via Pergine , Calceranica and Lavarone (Cimbrian: Lavrou / German: Lafraun) (the easiest, but somewhat inconvenient route) or from Levico Terme via the Kaiserjägersteig (Italian: Monterovere) laid out by the Austrian military in the 19th century , a very narrow (with only a few alternative points) and steep, paved mountain road with narrow, unlit tunnels, but with a breathtaking view of the Valsugana and Lake Caldonazzo: the shortest, but most adventurous and only suitable route for those with a head for heights.

history

At the “Pletz von Motze”, a location about 500 m north of the Lusern district of Tetsch (Tezze), archaeologists found ceramic shards and the remains of old copper smelting furnaces dating back to about 1200 BC. Were dated. Even older, Neolithic traces can be found in the form of menhirs and an altar or sacrificial stone above the houses of Bisele, near the Malga Costesin mountain pasture, on the nearby Vesan plateau (Altipiano di Vezzena). Until the beginning of the 13th century, there are no other archaeological or written evidence that would testify a settlement of the area between the Asticotal in the south and the Valsugana in the north.

Folgaria , ten kilometers to the west, is mentioned for the first time in 1208 in the “Codex Wangianus”, the document book of the Hochstift Trento . Therein it is noted for February 16, 1216 that “Bishop Friedrich von Trient ... awarded Odolricus and Henricus de Posena (Ulrich and Heinrich von Bozen ) the heights from ... Folgaria to Centa , ... around there at least 20 new courts to found and to call workers to divide the whole area, make it arable and pay interest to the bishop ”. In this context, the settlement Lavarone arose on the plateau of the same name between the Sommo Pass and Centa. The current area of ​​Lusern was in turn populated by people from Lavarone, who used the sunny southern slope of the Costa Alta as summer pasture before they settled there permanently. The settlement of Lusern is mentioned for the first time in 1442 in a document in which a certain Biagio from Asiago declares that he had received 55 gold ducats, which Duke Friedrich owed him for the purchase of four farms in Lusern. In 1487 the Republic of Venice occupied the area of ​​Luserna, whereupon the municipality of Lavarone asked, "di poter godere ancora il monte di Luserna", ie "to continue to use the mountain of Luserna". A list of the parish Brancafora (near Piedemonte) in the Asticotal, to whose district Lusern belonged for a long time, lists the names Nicolussi, Gasperi and Oseli in 1698. These indicate identical farm names in the eastern part of Lavarone. The family name Nicolussi or Gasperi - with different surnames to distinguish them - still carry around 90% of the population today. The family name Pedrazza, which continues to occur, came later, probably through marriages from Terragnolo .

While almost all field names in the municipality and on adjacent areas can be traced back to Bavarian-Middle High German or Cimbrian terms, the name Lusern or Luserna is clearly Romanesque. In Venetian documents the place is always referred to as Liserna (emphasis on the second syllable). In Ladin, lize means , in Italian liscio , smooth, slippery ground. In Tyrolean lizum (emphasis on the second syllable) stands for high alpine floor at the head of the valley. Smooth, slippery alpine soil exactly matches the conditions on site.

Square / Piazza Guglielmo Marconi

On October 7, 1715, the first church in Lusern was consecrated. However, a separate parish was not granted until 1745; the Luserner baptismal registers begin on October 7, 1745. Until then, all church customs and necessities, from baptism to burial, had to be dealt with in Brancafora in the Asticotal. That is over 800 m difference in altitude on steep, difficult paths - in any weather, in summer and winter. On August 4, 1780, following border disputes, the administrative separation between the “Magnifica Comunità di Lavarone” (Magnificent Community of Lavarone) and the “Onoranda Vicinia” (Honored Neighborhood) Lusern took place. The place had around 250 inhabitants at that time. Since then, Lusern has been an independent community. In 1911 a large part of the village, the houses of which (like today) were covered with wooden shingles, was destroyed by fire. The village was quickly rebuilt with Austrian help (appeal for donations).

The Austro-Hungarian military had the Lusern plant built above the town as one of seven heavy fortifications between Monte Maggio in the south-west and Pizzo di Levico (Spitz Verle) in the north-east at strategic points along the then imperial border. The construction of the Lusern plant was a good source of income for the residents of Lusern: between 1908 and 1912, all working and helping hands in the town were called upon to carry out this construction project. When Italy entered the First World War on May 23, 1915 , Lusern was right on the border and thus on the front between Italy and Austria-Hungary . “On May 25th, Whit Tuesday, around three-thirty in the morning”, Pastor Josef Pardatscher wrote in his diary, “the cannons began to thunder, ours and those from the other side, Verena and Campolongo”. "Our cannons" - these were the guns of the Lusern tank factory.

In the three days from May 25 to 28, 1915, the Lusern plant was hit by around 5000 Italian grenades with a projectile caliber of up to 28 cm and shot almost ready for a storm. Intensive bombardment of the work was also recorded from August 15 to 28, 1915 and from April 9 to May 20, 1916. The village of Lusern, only one kilometer away, was not spared from these fighting. The population had to leave the village immediately and could only take the bare essentials with them. In Lusern and the surrounding area only the conscripted soldiers (Standschützenkompanie Lusern) and workers as well as, as field curate, the last German pastor of Lusern, Josef Pardatscher from Salurn remained.

The Luserner found accommodation in various villages near Aussig in northern Bohemia and were only able to return to their completely destroyed village in January 1919. The only remaining building was the former Austrian customs office, which still stands on the edge of the village today. With the Treaty of Saint-Germain , South Tyrol came to Italy. Financial resources from the now Italian government facilitated the reconstruction and a new beginning. The originally in the center of the village and destroyed church (St. Antonius) was rebuilt below the village, towards the Tetsch district (1920–1923 the church building; 1928–1929 the tower). As a result of the reconstruction and a certain prosperity in the 1920s, the population of Lusern grew to 1200 inhabitants. a. due to the global economic crisis and emigration to 850 residents in 1935.

On October 21, 1939, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini concluded an agreement called " Option in South Tyrol " for the resettlement of the non-Italian-speaking population of Northern Italy to countries and areas under the rule of the German Reich. If you wanted to stay in Italy, you had to accept the consequent Italianization with the abandonment of culture and mother tongue. Many Luserner living in poverty also believed in the promises of a better life and were relocated to Tyrol-Vorarlberg, to Salzburg, but above all to the Budweiser Basin on the edge of the Bohemian Forest in what was then the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . At the end of the war, the Luserner fled from the area around Budweis (together with resettled Fersentalern ) back to Italy completely penniless. Their re-naturalization and, above all, the return of their property dragged on until 1967.

As guest workers in Switzerland, Germany and above all in the economic centers of northern Italy, the Luserner have been able to achieve a modest level of prosperity over the past few decades. Most of the Lusernians who work abroad stay in close contact with their home community and many return to Lusern after they leave their jobs.

Lusern is now more and more oriented towards tourism and is practically the last bastion of the Cimbrian language. The location of the high plateaus of Folgaria, Lavarone and Lusern / Vezzena offers (still) a high level of snow reliability for piste and cross-country skiers in winter; the visible destruction of the landscape by lifts and cable cars, especially in the Folgaria area, is remarkable. In summer, the rather mild climate invites you to hike and mountain bike tours through the historical heights, meadows and forests. In addition, Lusern is already thinking of “mild” and sustainable tourism offers such as wellness or hay baths. The Lusern Documentation Center continuously initiates exhibitions and publications on the eventful history of the plateaus as well as on the Cimbrian culture and language.

Population development

year 1921 1931 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011
Residents 906 846 640 642 561 456 386 297 279

Source: ISTAT

Language and Cimbrian Tradition

Documentation center Lusern (museum, information and meeting place)

In Lusern, a Cimbrian dialect is spoken by a total of around 1000 speakers, which is of particular interest for linguistics and narrative research due to its very good preservation in the centuries of isolation .

The Lusernian Cimbrian belongs to the dialect group of South Bavarian . The German linguist Hans Tyroller researched the dialect intensively in the 1970s when the student was researching the region of Trentino for material for his master's thesis. In 1997 the parishes commissioned him to write a grammar which he presented in 2002. He has also written textbooks for Cimbrian courses and schools.

The Tyrolean pastor Franz Zuchristian set up the German elementary school in 1866, which was supported by the Vienna School Association. A lace school was set up in 1882 and a German kindergarten in 1893.

The Italian Lega Nazionale (later Pro Patria ) founded an Italian school in 1890 with 20 to 30 students, which also offered lunch free of charge. The vast majority of families nonetheless continued to send their children (approx. 120) to German school despite the poverty. The South Tyrolean pastor Josef Bacher published the book Die deutsche Sprachinsel Lusern in Innsbruck in 1905 .

After the First World War, the German school was no longer opened. From the 1970s, German and Cimbrian were taught again in addition to Italian. In 2006, however, the Lusern primary school had to close due to insufficient number of students. Since then, the Lusern children have attended the elementary school in Lavarone. Here the Cimbrian language is taught as an optional subject. An Italian law on minority protection from 1999 makes it possible. Many children from Lavarone and the neighboring villages, where the Cimbrian language has been extinct for decades, also take advantage of this offer.

The well-equipped, voluntarily supervised Lusern Documentation Center, which also publishes publications in German, Italian and Cimbrian and regularly organizes cultural-historical exhibitions, and the influence of the German-language media represent a bridge to the German-speaking area.

During Italian fascism (1922-1943), all Cimbrian traditions and the language in the public and private spheres were suppressed and forbidden as a result of the policy of Italianization by Mussolini and Ettore Tolomei . In the decades after the Second World War and into the 1980s, the Cimbrian language led a niche existence in Lusern and was threatened with slow emaciation due to the high level of emigration due to a lack of infrastructure and poor economic opportunities. For a few years now, the Cimbrian traditions and, above all, economic development (primarily tourism) have been supported by the Province of Trento, the Region Trentino-Alto Adige, the Italian state and the EU . In August 1993 the then Austrian Foreign Minister Alois Mock visited Lusern and assured the support of the language islands of the Zimbri.

Lately there has also been a lively literary life in Luserna: songs and stories in the Cimbrian language are sung or written and published by the Documentation Center. At the beginning of 2005 the Lusern cultural institute was founded, whose main task is the preservation and consolidation of the Lusern Cimbrian. In particular, Adolfo Nicolussi Zatta and the mayor of Lusern, Luigi Nicolussi Castellan, promote and spread the Cimbrian traditions of Lusern regionally, nationally and internationally very confidently and aggressively.

The Cimbrian Choir (Coro Polifonico Cimbro) , founded in 1992, has meanwhile become a nationally and internationally renowned cultural ambassador for the Lusern Cimbri.

Today, the Lusernians attach great importance to maintaining their mother tongue and tradition: the local newspaper regularly prints parts in the Cimbrian language and every visitor to Lusern is greeted at the entrance to the village by a sign in Italian, Cimbrian and German.

In the towns of Lavarone and Folgaria (German: Vielgereuth, Cimbrian: Folgrait), which are closest to Lusier, Cimbrian was still spoken until a few decades ago, but it has been extinct since the fascist era (1922–1943) at the latest . The last speakers in the Folgaria municipality lived in the Carbonare and San Sebastiano fractions in the 1950s. Numerous field names and local names still reveal the Cimbrian history of the places.

Today there are also close contacts to the other Upper German language islands, in particular to the closest ones in the Fersental (province of Trento) and in the seven municipalities with the capital Asiago ( province of Vicenza ), but also to the thirteen municipalities ( province of Verona ) in the southwest and to the linguistic islands of Sappada ( Belluno province ), Sauris and Timau ( Friuli-Venezia Giulia region ) further east in the Carnic Alps .

Above all, Lusern's close contacts with South Tyrol as well as with Austria and Germany help the community in the long term and create positive prospects for the Cimbrian language island of Lusern.

tourism

In the meantime, summer, winter and spa tourism, which is currently still in its infancy, but will be expanded in the near future, is opening up income and economic prospects for Lusernians and enables more young Lusernians to stay in the town, so that the exodus, which threatens Luser's existence, is stopped can be. The majority of visitors are currently from other regions of Italy, but the municipality would also like more visitors from German-speaking countries.

Town twinning

There has been a community partnership with Tiefenbach near Landshut since 2001 .

Others

Culinary specialties such as Vezzena cheese are now known and in demand nationwide.

The best- known son of the community is the lawyer and politician Eduard Reut-Nicolussi (1888–1958).

literature

  • Karin Heller, Luis Thomas Prader and Christian Prezzi (eds.): Lebendige Sprachinseln. 2nd edition, Bozen 2006. Online to Lusern.
  • Josef Bacher : From the German border post Lusern in the wälschen South Tyrol. In: Journal of the Society for Folklore , 1900 pp. 151ff , 306ff , 407ff , 1901 pp. 28ff , 169ff , 290ff , 443ff , 1902 pp. 172ff .
  • Josef Bacher: The German language island Lusern. Wagner'sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, Innsbruck, 1905.
  • Carina Braun: The last Bavarians in Italy. In Luserna people speak Cimbrian, a centuries-old dialect. In: Donaukurier Ingolstadt from September 20, 2011, p. 33.
  • Max von Prielmayer: German language islands. In: Journal of the German and Austrian Alpine Club. Born in 1905. Volume XXXVL. Innsbruck 1905, pp. 87-112
  • Hans Tyroller: Grammatical Description of the Cimbrian by Lusern. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-515-08038-4 .
  • RA Trentino - Alto Adige, Istituto Cimbro (ed.): Bar lirnen z'schraiba un zo reda az be biar. Grammar of the Cimbrian language by Lusérn. (Italian / German - Cimbrian). Lusern, 2006, ISBN 978-88-95386-00-3 .

Web links

Commons : Lusern  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Statistiche demografiche ISTAT. Monthly population statistics of the Istituto Nazionale di Statistica , as of December 31 of 2019.
  2. ^ Website of the municipality of Lusern , accessed on July 22, 2014
  3. ↑ see:
    Ori delle Alpi exhibition (http://new.buonconsiglio.it/index.php/it/Ori-delle-Alpi, link not available) in Castello del Buonconsiglio, Trento, 1997.
    KOMPASS hiking and cycling tour map No. 631 .
    Ulrich Mößlang's travel report and pictures of menhirs, dolmens and sacrificial stones .
  4. ↑ see:
    Codex Wangianus: Document book of the Hochstift Trento, No. 132, Folgaria and Centa , pp. 304-306
    Reich, Desiderio: Notes e documenti su Lavarone e dintorni , Trient, 1910, pp 127/128, p 216, p 222, note 159.
    KOMPASS hiking and cycling tour map No. 631 .
    Terragnolo: hamlet of Pedrazzi in the Terragnolo valley south of Serrada.
    Bacher, Josef: Die Deutsche Sprachinsel Lusern , Innsbruck, 1905, p. 25.
  5. ↑ see:
    Reich, Desiderio: Notes e documenti su Lavarone e dintorni , Trient, 1910, p 160.
    Tyroller, Hans: Grammatical Description of the Cimbrian by Lusern , Stuttgart, 2003, p 6.
  6. ↑ see:
    Bacher, Josef: Die Deutsche Sprachinsel Lusern , Innsbruck, 1905, p. 25.
    Prezzi, Christian: Luserna Isola Cimbra , Lusern, 2002; The population of Lusians rose to 940 by 1910.
    Reich, Desiderio: Notes e documenti su Lavarone e dintorni , Trient, 1910, pp 228-229.
  7. ↑ see:
    Diary of the pastor of Lusern , Josef Pardatscher, in: Dar Foldjo (magazine of the parish of Lusern), December 2008, p. 16.
    Fortifications in the areas Folgaria, Lavaone and Lusern: work Serrada , work Sommo , work Sebastiano , Gschwent , Luserna , work Verle and the observation post on the Pizzo di Levico (Spitz Verle) .
    Kulturinstitut Lusern: Lusern in the First World War  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Toter Link / lnx.kulturinstitut.it   .
    On the construction time of the Lusern plant: Grestenberger names a construction time from 1907 to 1910 in: Grestenberger, Erwin Anton: KuK Fortifications in Tyrol and Carinthia 1860–1918 , Vienna 2000, p. 152.
    Documentation Center Lusern: The Zimbrische Sprachinsel Lusern, insight into the southernmost of the German-speaking communities , 2nd edition, 2002, p 39, p 71.
    Lusern Documentation Center: Folgaria, Lavarone, Luserna 1915–1918, Tre anni di guerra sugli Altipiani nelle immagini dell 'archivo fotografico Clam Gallas Winkelbauer . Lusern, 2005, pp 97/98 and p 135.
    On the new political division after the First World War: Treaty of St. Germain .
    History of the Zimbern ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / user.uni-frankfurt.de archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
  8. ↑ see:
    Documentation Center Lusern: The Cimbrian language island of Lusern. Insight into the southernmost of the German-speaking communities. 2nd edition, 2002, p. 71.
    Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 5, 1996, No. 232, p. B4.
    Wedekind, Michael: National Socialist Occupation and Annexation Policy in Northern Italy 1943 to 1945. Munich 2003, p. 17.
    Regarding the number of repatriates: The number of "optants" / repatriates from Luserna is differently named in the sources - either 280 or 408. It is possible to distinguish between families and individuals.
  9. ↑ see:
    100 km from Forti. Experience history, discover nature and be active in sports. .
    Sentiero della Pace .
    Bulletin of the municipality of Lusern: Dar Foldjo , September 2007, p. 16.
  10. ↑ Helmuth Luther: We are the last, but not a museum. faz.net, May 21, 2014, accessed May 21, 2014
  11. ↑ Bruno Schweizer: Cimbric overall grammar. Edited by James R. Dow. Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2008.