Padania

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Padania ( Italian Padania ) is a propaganda term used by the Lega Nord party since the 1990s : The right-wing populist party uses it to designate the regions of northern and central Italy that are supposed to split off from the “ Roman ” southern part.

Concept history

The Po Valley in the satellite image

Ital. padano (derived from the historical Latin river name “Padus” for Po ) is an adjective with originally only geographical meaning: belonging to the Po . Pianura padana or Val padana (valley of the Po) describes the Po Valley .

Historically, the term goes back to the Gallia Transpadana and Gallia cispadana before the Roman conquest in antiquity. In modern times, a similar term was first used in 1796, when Napoleon's French revolutionary armies founded the Cispadan Republic . It and the also founded Transpadani Republic (Lombard Republic) were merged as early as 1797 as the Cisalpine Republic, which was designated as the Italian Republic from 1802.

The term was also used sporadically in linguistics to denote the area of ​​the Gallo-Italic dialects , which is not limited to the Northern Italian Plain , but includes the entire area of Northern Italy including the Alps and Liguria .

Probably the first to use the term Padania poetically in the 1960s was the Milanese sports journalist Gianni Brera , who roughly meant the cisalpine Gaul Catos .

In the 1960s and 1970s, Padania was just a geographical synonym for Pianura padana , which became the most industrialized major region in Italy after the Second World War .

In 1975, Guido Fanti , then President of the Emilia-Romagna region , first used the word in the La Stampa daily newspaper in the sense of a regional political concept. Then Giuseppe De Rita and the journalist Indro Montanelli used the term. All of these uses, limited to the Po Valley, did not correspond to the meaning the Lega was supposed to give the catchphrase.

Padania and the Northern League

Padania according to the ideas of the Lega Nord .
"State flag" of the Padan separatists

In the 1990s, the term Padanien was used by Gianfranco Miglio , the chief ideologist of the then secessionist Lega Nord party , to designate the economically strong north of Italy and to underpin its independent identity. This also includes the elaboration of an ideology, the basis of which is the invention of a “Padan nation”, a. the Celts calls.

Padania was later expanded internally to the regions of central Italy, with the exception of Lazio . According to the ideas of the Lega Nord, Padania should include the following regions (called "nations"):

Region or
"nation" 		2009 residents
 Area (km²)
Lombardy 9,781,682 23,863
Veneto 4,899,371 18,399
Piedmont 4,440,226 25,402
Tuscany 3,720,366 22,994
Emilia 3,261,959 17,354
Liguria 1,615,441 5,422
Brands 1,573,445 9,366
Friuli Venezia Giulia 1,232,291 7,858
Romagna 1,095,205 5,092
Umbria 897.611 8,456
Trentino 519,800 6,207
South-Tirol 500.030 7,400
Aosta Valley 127,430 3,263
Padania as a whole 33,665,857 161.076

Together, the regions of Padania have a gross domestic product of € 930,245 million, which corresponds to a per capita income of € 28,565 (year 2005; for comparison Germany € 27,219 and France € 27,348).

On September 15, 1996 Umberto Bossi "officially" proclaimed the "independence of the Federal Republic of Padania" in Venice. Soon afterwards a parliament of Padania was established, but it is not recognized by the Italian or other governments or international organizations.

"Houses of Parliament"

In 1997 the Lega Nord organized the "first elections for a Padan parliament", in which, according to the party, nearly 5 million northern Italians participated. The city of Mantua was designated as the seat of the new parliament.

Results of the "first elections for a Padan parliament"

The voters could choose between a large number of Padanian parties:

Parliament quickly vanished into insignificance. However, it was reactivated in 2007 under the new name “Parliament of the North” ( Parlamento del Nord ) and now functions more as an internal organ of the Lega Nord. Until 2011 it was in Vicenza , since 2012 in Sarego .

"National Anthem"

The Lega Nord is trying to claim the song Va, pensiero , sull'ali dorate , the prisoner 's choir from Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco , as the so-called “ National Anthem of Padania”. The song is also played at all party events. Party leader Umberto Bossi proposed several times to make Verdi's choir the new Italian national anthem instead of Fratelli d'Italia , with reference to its (controversial) importance as a symbol of the Italian national movement in the 19th century.

development

Padania's secession from Italy was put on hold in the run-up to the 2001 Italian parliamentary elections.

Since then, the Lega Nord has been working as a regular part of the Italian party system, from 2001 to 2006 and again from 2008 even as a governing party, on the implementation of a federalist order in Italy with great power for the individual regions and thus indirectly also for the autonomy of Padania. Officially, the party referred to itself as the “Northern League for the Independence of Padania”, since the parliamentary elections in 2018 the “Nord” has disappeared from the name, the party only calls itself “Lega” in order to get votes in southern Italy as well.

In December 2011, Lega Nord boss Umberto Bossi again called a meeting of the “Parliament of the North” in Vicenza . At this meeting Bossi presented a map that illustrated the Padania of his ideas. According to this, Padania should become a multi-ethnic state, to which both Italians and French ( Savoy , which was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont until 1860 ), Swiss , Austrians and Germans ( Free State of Bavaria ) belong. He also called on every member of his party to join the affluent separatist struggle. According to the Italian media, Bossi's idea is “folkloric” and more wishful thinking, but his construction of an affluent state that is on par with the big euro countries reflects the wishes and hopes of some northern Italians. Especially in view of the euro crisis and the austerity measures taken by the Monti government under pressure from Germany and other “ northern euro ” countries to improve the budget situation, Bossi promised himself opportunities to found his new state. However, these utopian demands were also controversial within the Lega.

Furthermore, the Lega Nord not only cherished the idea of ​​secession, but also wanted its own Padan currency instead of the euro .

Others

In 1999 a computer virus called "Padania" was in circulation, the source of which contained messages that were pro-Padan. It is not related to the older and less significant MS-DOS virus of the same name.

The British weekly The Economist painted its own map of Europe in April 2010 to illustrate the political and economic conditions on the continent as a result of the financial crisis. In it, Italy was divided into north and south. The capital of the northern state was to be Venice , the head of state a doge .

In 2011 and 2012 the road bike race Giro di Padania was held, the first edition of which was the reason for in part tangible disputes between supporters of the unity of Italy and participants in the competition.

Web links

Commons : Padanien  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gianni Brera, Invectiva ad Patrem Padum , Guerin Sportivo , 28 ottobre 1963
  2. ↑ Padania , Enciclopedia Treccani.
  3. ^ Keyword Italia , Enciclopedia Universo, De Agostini, 1965; Volume VII, pp. 196-197
  4. ^ Dizionario Devoto-Oli, 1971 edition
  5. ↑ www.corriere.it of September 12, 1996: Fanti: la Padania l 'inventammo noi 20 anni fa
  6. ↑ article "Fanti spiega la sua proposta per una grande << lega del Po >>, La Stampa, 6 November 1975, pagina 9
  7. ↑ Indro Montanelli e Mario Cervi, L'Italia dell'Ulivo (1995–1997)
  8. ↑ See Italians # Separatism
  9. ^ History of the Lega Nord, 1996–1998 ( Memento from May 25, 2010 on WebCite ): An extensive documentation on the Padania project from internal party sources
  10. ↑ sueddeutsche.de of January 26, 2012: Dreaming of a new state
  11. ↑ derstandard.at of December 13, 2011: Lega Nord wants its own Padania currency instead of the euro
  12. ↑ Redrawing the map. The European map is updated and illogical. Here's how it should look , The Economist, April 29, 2010
  13. ↑ In the Economist's Fantasy Europe, the South is a “brothel” and together with Greece , Corriere del Mezzogiorno, May 5, 2010
  14. ↑ repubblica.it of September 7, 2011: Giro di Padania a Salso Botte, insulti e coop rosse ...
  15. ↑ radsport-news.com of September 8, 2011: Basso and Co. attacked at the Giro di Padania