Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T07:33:49.944Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cultural Dissonance in the Italian Alps*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Eric R. Wolf
Eric R. Wolf
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Through the Eastern Alps runs one of the great cultural frontiers of Europe, the zone of contact between the cultural sphere of the Mediterranean and the transalpine cultures to the north. This frontier has shifted back and forth over time, as have the boundaries of language and of various dominant political units. One of the present foci of culture contact in a zone of dispute and discord is the present-day Italian region of Alto Adige or Tiroler Etschland (still called the South Tirol by unreconstructed defenders of the traditional unity of the Tyrol) and the Trentino. Unified in the first part of the 13th century under the Counts of the Tyrol, the region passed into the hands of the Habsburgs in 1363, where it remained until 1918 but for a brief interlude during the Napoleonic period. The Napoleonic occupation divided the region, yielding to Bavaria the largely German-speaking province of Bozen (Bolzano), together with the North Tyrol, while grouping the Romancespeaking portions with Italy. This division became the prototype of later efforts to divorce the Romance Tyrol from the German Tyrol, a division effected again in the provincial separation between Province Bozen and Province Trento after the entire region was yielded by Austria to Italy at the end of World War I. Except for a brief period near the end of World War II (1943 to 1945), when both provinces were grouped as Operationszone Alpenvorland with Gau Tyrol of the Greater German Reich, the region has remained politically part of Italy. It remains also, however, an area of conflict in which Italian political hegemony and cultural influence has been combatted by the German-speaking population, impelled by a desire for greater autonomy or complete separation from the Italian state.

Type
Research Article
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , October 1962 , pp. 1 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 deBlock, Mathilde, Südtirol (Groningen, 1954) is an attempt at an impartial summary of the political problem.Google Scholar

2 Bertagnolli, Lino, “Bacino del Noce”, Lo spopolamento montano in Italia, Instituto Nazionale di economia agraria, Studi e monografie n. 16, part 3, vol. 2: Le Alpi Trentine (Roma, 1935), pp. 1–60.Google Scholar

3 Battisti, Carlo, “Die Nonsberger Mundart (Lautlehre)”, Sitzungsberichte der Philosophisch-Historischen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaf ten, CLX (1909), pp. 75–183.Google Scholar

4 See Schatz, Josef, WÖrterbuch der Tiroler Mundarten, Schlern-Schriften 119–120 (Innsbruck, 1955–1956).Google Scholar

5 mama, Vigjlio, Fondo e la sua storia (Rovereto, 1931).Google Scholar

6 See Stolz, especially Otto, Die Ausbreitung des Deutschtums in Südtirol im Lichte der Urkunden (Munich, 1927), II,Google Scholar chapt. 9: “Die Deutschen Gemeinden am Nonsberg”. The history of Unser Frau and St. Felix is discussed in Gasser, P. Vinzenz, “Geschichte des ehemaligen Klosters, der Wallfahrt und Pfarre Senale—Unsere Liebe Frau im Walde am Nonsberge”, Ferdinandeum Zeitschrift, third series, no. 45 (1901), pp. 81–126Google Scholar and Trafojer, P. Ambros, Unsere Liebe Frau im Wald (Bozen, 1947).Google Scholar

7 See Tameller, J., “Die Hofnamen im Burggrafenamt und in den angrenzenden Gebieten”, Archiv für Österreichische Geschichte, 1910, pp. 1–308; 1911, pp. 185–572.Google Scholar

8 Bertagnolli, op. cit., p. 33.

9 Dizionario Geografico Statistico del Trentino (Trento, n.d.), p. 198. The publication stems from the mid-19h century.Google Scholar

10 Leidlmaier, Adolf, Bevölkerung und Wirtschaft in Südtirol, Tiroler Wirtschaftsstudien, VI (Innsbruck, 1958), p. 156.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., p. 166.

12 On the contrast between German Tyrolese and Romance settlement patterns, see DÖrrenhaus, Friedrich, Wo der Norden dem Süden begegnet: Südtirol (Bozen, 1959), pp. 21–26, 61–75.Google Scholar

13 Leidlmaier, op. cit., p. 134.

14 deBar, Le Duc (Otto Habsburg), Coutumes et Droits Successoraux de la Classe Paysanne et L'Indivision de la Classe Paysanne et L'lndivision des Propriétés Rurales en Autriche (Louvain, 1935), pp. 15, 43, 44, 48–52, 102.Google Scholar

15 Schreiber, Walter, “Die Lage des bäuerlichen Besitzstandes in Siidtirol and im Trentino”, Tiroler Heimat, XII (1948), pp. 93–112.Google Scholar

16 Shils, Edward A., “Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties”, British Journal of Sociology, VIII (06, 1957), pp. 130–146.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Naroll, Raoul, Tyrolese Military Spirit (Manuscript, n.d.).Google Scholar

18 Bavelas, Alex, “Communication Patterns in Task-Oriented Groups”, in Dorwin Cartwright and Alvin Zander, Group Dynamics (Evanston, 1953), pp. 493–494Google Scholar

19 On the traditional privileges of the Tyrolese, see Wopfner, Hermann, Bergbauernbuch (Innsbruck, 1960), I, pp. 445–552, esp. pp. 450–474.Google Scholar

20 Anton Dörrer, “Hochreligion und Volksglaube. Der Tiroler Herz-Jesu-Bund (1796 bis 1946) volkskundlich gesehen”, Volkskundliches aus Österreich und Südtirol. Hermann Wopfner zum 70. Geburtstag dargebracht (= Österreichische Volkskultur, Forschungen zur Volkskunde, I) (Wien, 1947), pp. 70–100.Google Scholar

21 See in support of these points Kluckhohn, Paul, Die Idee des Volkes im Schrifttum der deutschen Bewegung von Möser und Herder bis Grimm (Berlin, 1934),Google Scholar and his Das Ideengut der Deutschen Romantik (Tübingen, 1953),Google Scholar esp. chapt. 6: “Volk und Geschichte;” also Frauendorfer, Sigmund V. and Haushofer, Heinz, Ideengeschichte der Agrarwirtschaft und Agrarpolitik im Deutschen Sprachgebiet (Munchen, 1957–1958), I, pp. 250–285; II, pp. 29–34, 89–103, 143–175.Google Scholar

22 Croce, Benedetto, “Poesia popolare e poesia d'arte”, Scritti di storia letteraria e politica, XXVIII (Bari, 1933), 28–29.Google Scholar

23 Arendt, Hannah, The Human Condition (Chicago, 1958), p. 12.Google Scholar