The following are excerpts translated in English from the article in Italian written by b. D'Ambrosio about the island of Lissa (now called "Vis" in Croatian) when was Italian:
First of all we have to remember that after the end of WW1 the US president Wilson (who based his territorial decisions on ethnicity) wanted to give Lissa to Italy. In those years there were many Italian speaking inhabitants in this Dalmatian island who wished a "Redenzione" (redemption with union to Italy) of their island . This Redenzione was made clear by the brave tumults that happened in October 30, 1918 in the islands of Lissa and Comisa when these remaining Italians of Lissa showed their wish to be united to the Kingdom of Italy.
Indeed Lissa was the island of central Dalmatia with the highest percentage of Italian population, even if the Croats were the majority mainly outside of the cities and villages.
It should also be remembered that the testimonies on the massive spread of violence against Italians by Croatian nationalists -in the Habsburg Dalmatia of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries- are numerous and detailed, describing a context in which even the police men were conniving with Italian-speaking aggressions, sometimes mortal, as described by historian Monzali and others:
"The public administration was terrified; the police of the various municipalities was a Croatian party instrument. In Spalato (actual Split) a policeman from the Municipality killed a Chioggia fisherman with a pistol shot; and the murderer was saved by the psychiatrist; in Sebenico (actual Sibenik) , a policeman from that commune cut off an Italian citizen's head; in Trau (actual Trogir), a policeman, certain Macovan, killed a poor Italian worker (supporting a party against that of the Croatian Commune), who was in a state of complete drunkenness. The Croatian party excused these persecution by saying that the Italians refused to recognize the Croatian national character of Dalmatia. "
The historical archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs indeed stores extensive documentation on the many incidents that occurred in the early twentieth century not only in Dalmatia, but also in Trentino and Venezia Giulia. The aim was to extinguish all autonomous Italian political and cultural life and oblige the Dalmatian Italians to croatize.
Obviously, the impact of this combined series of measures against Italians was devastating, resulting in a very rapid decrease of the Italian ethnic group of Dalmatia.
Partial data referring to single locations very well exemplify the overall demographic trend described above and the collapse of the Italian population. We can refer briefly to the case of Lissa in the following excerpts:
This small island (latinized in Roman times) remained for long centuries populated exclusively by native Dalmatians and successively by a neo-Latin population during the early Middle Ages. Lissa become one the territories of Venice after the year 1000, to which it belonged continuously for many centuries. The first Slavic settlements of importance took place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when some Croatians and Slavic Fugitives fled from the Turks sought refuge on the island, but these were very few families. Until 1797 when the Republic of Venice was made "disappear" at Campoformio by Napoleon, the inhabitants of Lissa all spoke and understood the so-called "Veneto da mar"; and probably the ancient "Dalmatico" was still spoken by some of the descendants of the native Dalmatians.
But after only twenty years the Italians of Lissa appeared almost disappeared. According to the Hapsburg census of the year 1900 the inhabitants of Lissa were 97% Slavic and only 2.4% Italians.
The Habsburg census of 1910 confirmed that the Italian ethnic group was reduced to a few families on the island, since it had only 2.5% of the inhabitants. To sum up, the Italians of Lissa had passed from around 80% at the beginning of the nineteenth century to 64% in 1880, and finally to 2.4% in 1900. The difference between the size of the Italian ethnic group in 1880 stands out with 3,292 units (64%) and those of only twenty years later reduced to only 199 (2.4%), with an astonishing decrease of 94%. HISTORY OF ITALIAN LISSA Lissa and the nearby islands of central-southern Dalmatia have the characteristic of being the most distant from the Croatian mainland (see:http://www.sandroferuglio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/IMG_1784.jpg and http://www.sandroferuglio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/IMG_1786.jpg, so they are the ones that have kept the neo-Latin element over the centuries. In fact in the Middle Ages before the 1000 AD practically there were almost no Slavs in the outer belt of the Dalmatian islands, from Lussino to Lissa and Lagosta. Only the raids of the Slavic pirates called "Narentani" brought some Croats - in large quantities - to these islands, starting a few decades before the thirteenth century.
Lissa, however, for a long time remained populated almost exclusively by native Dalmatians, who stopped speaking the Dalmatian language around the thirteenth/fourteenth century when the "Veneto da mar" prevailed on the island (favored by the immigration of Venetian and Veneto/Friuli families). Even in the first half of the nineteenth century the Italians of Lissa were 2/3 of the population of the island, but after the Italian wars of independence a shameful ethnic cleansing against them began, subtly promoted by the Habsburg Austrians and reinforced by the newborn Croatian nationalism. Here it is a brief historical summary (reminding the reader that at the beginning of the nineteenth century - when the island was part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy - the Italians were about 80% of the inhabitants of Lissa, while now there is not even one in the island!):
LISSA and the ethnic cleansing of its Italians
The island of Lissa (now officially called "Vis") is the furthest distant of the Dalmatian islands from the mainland, has an area of 90.3 km² and had about 3700 inhabitants (all Croats) in 2007. The main towns of island are the town of Lissa and the villages of Comisa, Porto Manego and Porto San Giorgio. Together with the nearby islands Busi (today called Biševo), Pomo and Sant'Andrea it forms a small archipelago (located about 50 km from the Dalmatian coast and about 120 km from the Italian one), which for centuries was a stronghold in the Adriatic of the Republic of Venice. After having belonged to the Serenissima, Lissa was politically united with Italy on two other occasions: during the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805-1810), and during the Second World War in the Governorate of Dalmatia (1941-1943). Moreover Lissa until the beginning of the twentieth century was the most Italian, as a population percentage, of the central-southern Dalmatian islands.
The Italian destroyer "Mirabello" in Lissa in November 1918 taking possession of the island for Italy (according to the Pact of London) and delivering flour and other food items to the few remaining Italian civilians of Lissa
THE ETHNIC CLEANSING:
 |
| Lissa in 1686 |
Indeed Lissa was the island of central Dalmatia with the highest percentage of Italian population, even if the Croats were the majority mainly outside of the cities and villages.
It should also be remembered that the testimonies on the massive spread of violence against Italians by Croatian nationalists -in the Habsburg Dalmatia of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries- are numerous and detailed, describing a context in which even the police men were conniving with Italian-speaking aggressions, sometimes mortal, as described by historian Monzali and others:
"The public administration was terrified; the police of the various municipalities was a Croatian party instrument. In Spalato (actual Split) a policeman from the Municipality killed a Chioggia fisherman with a pistol shot; and the murderer was saved by the psychiatrist; in Sebenico (actual Sibenik) , a policeman from that commune cut off an Italian citizen's head; in Trau (actual Trogir), a policeman, certain Macovan, killed a poor Italian worker (supporting a party against that of the Croatian Commune), who was in a state of complete drunkenness. The Croatian party excused these persecution by saying that the Italians refused to recognize the Croatian national character of Dalmatia. "
The historical archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs indeed stores extensive documentation on the many incidents that occurred in the early twentieth century not only in Dalmatia, but also in Trentino and Venezia Giulia. The aim was to extinguish all autonomous Italian political and cultural life and oblige the Dalmatian Italians to croatize.
Obviously, the impact of this combined series of measures against Italians was devastating, resulting in a very rapid decrease of the Italian ethnic group of Dalmatia.
Historian Monzali writes: "In the first unofficial Austrian statistical studies carried out in the 1860s and 1870s, the number of Dalmatians Italians ranged between 40 and 50,000; in the official census of 1880, their number dropped to 27,305, only to fall drastically in the following decades to 15,279 in 1900 (on a total Dalmatian population of 593,784 people in 1900 and of 645,646 in 1910) ». Moreover, the Austrian census of the mid-nineteenth century (see
https://books.google.cl/books?id=r60EAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA38&dq=%C3%96sterreichisches+K%C3%BCstenland&as_brr=1&hl=de#v=onepage&q&f=false) officially records a Dalmatian population of 369,310 inhabitants with 45,000 Italians.
Partial data referring to single locations very well exemplify the overall demographic trend described above and the collapse of the Italian population. We can refer briefly to the case of Lissa in the following excerpts:
This small island (latinized in Roman times) remained for long centuries populated exclusively by native Dalmatians and successively by a neo-Latin population during the early Middle Ages. Lissa become one the territories of Venice after the year 1000, to which it belonged continuously for many centuries. The first Slavic settlements of importance took place in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when some Croatians and Slavic Fugitives fled from the Turks sought refuge on the island, but these were very few families. Until 1797 when the Republic of Venice was made "disappear" at Campoformio by Napoleon, the inhabitants of Lissa all spoke and understood the so-called "Veneto da mar"; and probably the ancient "Dalmatico" was still spoken by some of the descendants of the native Dalmatians.
The census held in the Napoleonic era calculated, even if roughly, that the Italians were nearly 80% of the population of Lissa. Compared to this figure, the first accurate Hapsburg census, that of 1880, already saw a clear decline of the Italian ethnic group, which however remained clearly majority: it was valued at 64% of the total.
The Habsburg census of 1910 confirmed that the Italian ethnic group was reduced to a few families on the island, since it had only 2.5% of the inhabitants. To sum up, the Italians of Lissa had passed from around 80% at the beginning of the nineteenth century to 64% in 1880, and finally to 2.4% in 1900. The difference between the size of the Italian ethnic group in 1880 stands out with 3,292 units (64%) and those of only twenty years later reduced to only 199 (2.4%), with an astonishing decrease of 94%. HISTORY OF ITALIAN LISSA Lissa and the nearby islands of central-southern Dalmatia have the characteristic of being the most distant from the Croatian mainland (see:http://www.sandroferuglio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/IMG_1784.jpg and http://www.sandroferuglio.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/IMG_1786.jpg, so they are the ones that have kept the neo-Latin element over the centuries. In fact in the Middle Ages before the 1000 AD practically there were almost no Slavs in the outer belt of the Dalmatian islands, from Lussino to Lissa and Lagosta. Only the raids of the Slavic pirates called "Narentani" brought some Croats - in large quantities - to these islands, starting a few decades before the thirteenth century.
Lissa, however, for a long time remained populated almost exclusively by native Dalmatians, who stopped speaking the Dalmatian language around the thirteenth/fourteenth century when the "Veneto da mar" prevailed on the island (favored by the immigration of Venetian and Veneto/Friuli families). Even in the first half of the nineteenth century the Italians of Lissa were 2/3 of the population of the island, but after the Italian wars of independence a shameful ethnic cleansing against them began, subtly promoted by the Habsburg Austrians and reinforced by the newborn Croatian nationalism. Here it is a brief historical summary (reminding the reader that at the beginning of the nineteenth century - when the island was part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy - the Italians were about 80% of the inhabitants of Lissa, while now there is not even one in the island!):
LISSA and the ethnic cleansing of its Italians
The island of Lissa (now officially called "Vis") is the furthest distant of the Dalmatian islands from the mainland, has an area of 90.3 km² and had about 3700 inhabitants (all Croats) in 2007. The main towns of island are the town of Lissa and the villages of Comisa, Porto Manego and Porto San Giorgio. Together with the nearby islands Busi (today called Biševo), Pomo and Sant'Andrea it forms a small archipelago (located about 50 km from the Dalmatian coast and about 120 km from the Italian one), which for centuries was a stronghold in the Adriatic of the Republic of Venice. After having belonged to the Serenissima, Lissa was politically united with Italy on two other occasions: during the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805-1810), and during the Second World War in the Governorate of Dalmatia (1941-1943). Moreover Lissa until the beginning of the twentieth century was the most Italian, as a population percentage, of the central-southern Dalmatian islands.
The Italian destroyer "Mirabello" in Lissa in November 1918 taking possession of the island for Italy (according to the Pact of London) and delivering flour and other food items to the few remaining Italian civilians of Lissa
THE ETHNIC CLEANSING:
The Cleansing of the Italians of Lissa
Historically Lissa was a naval base of the Venetian Republic until 1797, later it passed to Austria. Between 1805 and 1810 he was part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, with Italian as the official language and the school language. Virtually all (even the Croatian minority) spoke then "Veneto da mar", as a first or second language. It was then occupied by the English from 1811 to 1816 (who adopted Italian and English as the island's language) before returning to the Austrians, as a district of the "Capitanato of Lesina". In 1811 the first naval battle of Lissa took place (when Italian-Venetian and French ships clashed with British ships to control the island). In 1866 the famous battle of Lissa took place (the Italians of the island in particular were famous then as fishermen called "Venturini" - among the most skilled of Dalmatia with their boats called "GA (L) ETA FALCATA", and they greeted with joy Italian sailors who tried to land in the island): this naval battle negatively marked the fate of the Italian Dalmatians. In fact, Austrian policy towards Lissa was at first neutral but, after the founding of the Kingdom of Italy and the war of 1866, it took a clear-cut pro-slav policy (https://books.google.com/books?id=kMXURN7sxh4C&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc_r&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Luciano Monzali: Italians from Dalmatia).
Gradually all that was Italian on the island was clearly opposed; in particular the Italian schools were closed, despite the petitions of the local people (even brought to the emperor of Austria). Historian Andrea Olmo summarized all this in these phrases related to the whole of Dalmatia: "... Then began closures of Italian schools and associations, serious census manipulations, massive immigration of Slavic populations in the Italian cities and islands, persecutions against our compatriots, often forced to emigrate forcibly, riots by the Croatians artfully constructed by the Hapsburg police, with assaults and beatings of Italians, which caused dozens of deaths, and finally a policy of calumnies and lies, aimed at discrediting the "podestàs" (mayors) of the Dalmatian cities, until then all of Italian ethnicity .... " ( http://istria-fiume-dalmatia.blogspot.com/ ).
The French census of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy recorded about 80% of Italians on the island (but it was a generic census, based mainly on the heads of families). On the other hand, the relatively precise Austrian census in 1880 had 3292 Italians in Lissa and 1197 in Comisa, out of a total of 7871 inhabitants in all the island (about 64%). During the last decades of the nineteenth century the use of the Italian language rapidly declined: the Austrian census of 1900 found that 97.0% of the population was using the Serbo-Croat language and only 2.4% in Italian, with peaks of 3, 9% in the municipality of Lissa and 4.6% if we consider only Lissa city (the different percentages reflect the fact that the Italians lived concentrated only in the urban centers of Lissa city and Comisa). A similar result occurred in 1910, when the Italian language was spoken by 2.5% of the inhabitants of the island. After the Treaty of Rapallo, which made Italian preference for the island of Lagosta appear (given its better strategic position) by assigning Lissa to Yugoslavia, a good part of the local Italian population gradually migrated into Italian territory. Some chose, similarly to some of their countrymen from Korcula, the nearby Lagosta which, despite being (ethnically speaking) one of the least Italian of the Dalmatian islands, came to count, starting especially from 1921, a considerable number of Italians (about 40%). However, Lissa was part of Italy between 1941 and 1943, when it was part of the province of Split in the Dalmatian Governorate. Some Italian Dalmatians returned there in those two years: in that dramatic period (April 1941-September 1943) numerous Dalmatian exiles returned to their native cities and islands to perform their functions as functionaries, clerks, judges, officers of the various weapons, with the will to contribute with their knowledge of languages and local mentalities to the success of the Italian administration and its acceptance by the Croatian and Serbian population (http://www.coordinamentoadriatico.it/?option=com_content&task=view&id=1392&Itemid=61).
In a nutshell: the Italians were 2/3 of the inhabitants of Lissa in 1880 (or 64%), but in 1900 - after only twenty years - they were reduced to just two percent! A huge ethnic cleansing, shamefully authorized in a subtle form by the Habsburg Austrians ....... Suffice it to recall that in 1871 the Italians of Lissa sent a request (obviously rejected) to the same emperor of Austria in order not to eliminate the Italian languageand not to close their Italian schools on the island. Also between 1880 and 1900 the Italians officially disappeared in the Austrian registry offices from the nearby islands of Ulbo, Meleda, Pasmano, Isto, Sestrugno, Zirona Grande and Bua (http: //xoomer.virgilio.it/histria/storia ...) .
Italy entered the war in 1915 also to get Lissa back, as established in the "Pact of London", but - as we all know - this secret pact after the Great War was not validated in the Paris Peace Treaty.
However, it should be remembered that Italy occupied the island of Lissa in November 1918 and that the few Italians left on the island welcomed the destroyer Mirabello happily and cheering, carrying sacks of flour for the local population (see photo). Unfortunately the local Croats on that occasion wanted the union to their newborn Yugoslavia. In fact it appears written by Lorenzo Colombo (http://conlapelleappesaaunchiodo.blogspot.com/2015/07/carlo-mirabello.html) that ".... on November 9th 1918 The Mirabello (captain of vessel Giuseppe Genoese Zerbi) and the twin Carlo Alberto Racchia take part in the operations for the occupation of the island of Lissa. Following the armistice between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the disintegration of the latter and the end of the war, in Lissa the situation is not favorable to Italy: the majority of the island's population is Croatian, and on their arrival in Porto San Giorgio, at 4 am on 9 November, the Italian ships find that the flag of the newborn state of Yugoslavia has been hoisted everywhere, a Yugoslavian welcoming committee has been set up (later on the Mirabello), which has ousted the only representative of the Italian component of the island and has already taken possession of the former Austro-Hungarian fortifications. Mirabello and Racchia, welcomed with ill-concealed hostility, leave Lissa without leaving shortly afterwards. to take actual possession of it (except with a purely formal act), in order to avoid accidents. Later, in his report, Genoese Zerbi wrote that if we want to maintain the occupation of Lissa, it will take "troops and tact and large donations to capture the soul of the people" ... ".
With the passage of the island to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, there was a further exodus of the Italians and the very few remaining clung around the figure of the noble Dr. Lorenzo Doimi-Delupis (http://www.amha.hr/2011_02/PDF/ 189_206_J ...), whose father Pietro was the last Italian mayor/podesta' of Lissa in 1870. In 1927 there were 177 Italians throughout the island, down to only 50 in 1930.
Lissa became Italian again in April 1941 and some "Italians of Dalmatia" returned to administer it. The Italian returned to be the official language and teachers of Italian (who came from Italy) taught the language of Dante in the schools of the island, which became part of the Italian province of Spalato in the "Governorate of Dalmatia". Various public works were carried out on the island, which had remained under Yugoslavia without hospitals and even -in many internal areas- of sewers and electricity.
Especially in the second half of 1941 and in the first months of 1942, the Italian presence was judged positively even by almost all the local Croats. In fact, the island of Lissa remained Italian until September 1943, without being the theater of a guerrilla war in these two "Italian" years. Indeed, the Croats of Lissa thanked the Italian troops on several occasions for the relative tranquility that occurred on the island in those terrible years -while massacres took place in the adjacent Dalmatian mainland between Ustascia, Tito partisans and Cetnics.
But with September 8th 1943 the end came for all the Italians of Lissa. Furthermore Lissa had the headquarters of the same Tito with his General Staff in 1944: at the beginning of June 1944, Tito's headquarters - together with the British and Soviet military missions - had moved from the interior of Yugoslavia to the Dalmatian island of Lissa, due to a violent German military offensive against the heart of the partisan forces (the so-called "Operation Rösselsprung", in which Tito himself was wounded). The presence in Lissa of the worst Tito fanatics was the coup de grace for the few dozen Italians on the island: in fact, during and after 1945 all the very few Italian survivors exiled from Lissa. That is, in Lissa in 1946 there was not even one Italian left: perfect ethnic cleansing!
Historically Lissa was a naval base of the Venetian Republic until 1797, later it passed to Austria. Between 1805 and 1810 he was part of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy, with Italian as the official language and the school language. Virtually all (even the Croatian minority) spoke then "Veneto da mar", as a first or second language. It was then occupied by the English from 1811 to 1816 (who adopted Italian and English as the island's language) before returning to the Austrians, as a district of the "Capitanato of Lesina". In 1811 the first naval battle of Lissa took place (when Italian-Venetian and French ships clashed with British ships to control the island). In 1866 the famous battle of Lissa took place (the Italians of the island in particular were famous then as fishermen called "Venturini" - among the most skilled of Dalmatia with their boats called "GA (L) ETA FALCATA", and they greeted with joy Italian sailors who tried to land in the island): this naval battle negatively marked the fate of the Italian Dalmatians. In fact, Austrian policy towards Lissa was at first neutral but, after the founding of the Kingdom of Italy and the war of 1866, it took a clear-cut pro-slav policy (https://books.google.com/books?id=kMXURN7sxh4C&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc_r&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Luciano Monzali: Italians from Dalmatia).
Gradually all that was Italian on the island was clearly opposed; in particular the Italian schools were closed, despite the petitions of the local people (even brought to the emperor of Austria). Historian Andrea Olmo summarized all this in these phrases related to the whole of Dalmatia: "... Then began closures of Italian schools and associations, serious census manipulations, massive immigration of Slavic populations in the Italian cities and islands, persecutions against our compatriots, often forced to emigrate forcibly, riots by the Croatians artfully constructed by the Hapsburg police, with assaults and beatings of Italians, which caused dozens of deaths, and finally a policy of calumnies and lies, aimed at discrediting the "podestàs" (mayors) of the Dalmatian cities, until then all of Italian ethnicity .... " ( http://istria-fiume-dalmatia.blogspot.com/ ).
The French census of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy recorded about 80% of Italians on the island (but it was a generic census, based mainly on the heads of families). On the other hand, the relatively precise Austrian census in 1880 had 3292 Italians in Lissa and 1197 in Comisa, out of a total of 7871 inhabitants in all the island (about 64%). During the last decades of the nineteenth century the use of the Italian language rapidly declined: the Austrian census of 1900 found that 97.0% of the population was using the Serbo-Croat language and only 2.4% in Italian, with peaks of 3, 9% in the municipality of Lissa and 4.6% if we consider only Lissa city (the different percentages reflect the fact that the Italians lived concentrated only in the urban centers of Lissa city and Comisa). A similar result occurred in 1910, when the Italian language was spoken by 2.5% of the inhabitants of the island. After the Treaty of Rapallo, which made Italian preference for the island of Lagosta appear (given its better strategic position) by assigning Lissa to Yugoslavia, a good part of the local Italian population gradually migrated into Italian territory. Some chose, similarly to some of their countrymen from Korcula, the nearby Lagosta which, despite being (ethnically speaking) one of the least Italian of the Dalmatian islands, came to count, starting especially from 1921, a considerable number of Italians (about 40%). However, Lissa was part of Italy between 1941 and 1943, when it was part of the province of Split in the Dalmatian Governorate. Some Italian Dalmatians returned there in those two years: in that dramatic period (April 1941-September 1943) numerous Dalmatian exiles returned to their native cities and islands to perform their functions as functionaries, clerks, judges, officers of the various weapons, with the will to contribute with their knowledge of languages and local mentalities to the success of the Italian administration and its acceptance by the Croatian and Serbian population (http://www.coordinamentoadriatico.it/?option=com_content&task=view&id=1392&Itemid=61).
In a nutshell: the Italians were 2/3 of the inhabitants of Lissa in 1880 (or 64%), but in 1900 - after only twenty years - they were reduced to just two percent! A huge ethnic cleansing, shamefully authorized in a subtle form by the Habsburg Austrians ....... Suffice it to recall that in 1871 the Italians of Lissa sent a request (obviously rejected) to the same emperor of Austria in order not to eliminate the Italian languageand not to close their Italian schools on the island. Also between 1880 and 1900 the Italians officially disappeared in the Austrian registry offices from the nearby islands of Ulbo, Meleda, Pasmano, Isto, Sestrugno, Zirona Grande and Bua (http: //xoomer.virgilio.it/histria/storia ...) .
However, it should be remembered that Italy occupied the island of Lissa in November 1918 and that the few Italians left on the island welcomed the destroyer Mirabello happily and cheering, carrying sacks of flour for the local population (see photo). Unfortunately the local Croats on that occasion wanted the union to their newborn Yugoslavia. In fact it appears written by Lorenzo Colombo (http://conlapelleappesaaunchiodo.blogspot.com/2015/07/carlo-mirabello.html) that ".... on November 9th 1918 The Mirabello (captain of vessel Giuseppe Genoese Zerbi) and the twin Carlo Alberto Racchia take part in the operations for the occupation of the island of Lissa. Following the armistice between Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the disintegration of the latter and the end of the war, in Lissa the situation is not favorable to Italy: the majority of the island's population is Croatian, and on their arrival in Porto San Giorgio, at 4 am on 9 November, the Italian ships find that the flag of the newborn state of Yugoslavia has been hoisted everywhere, a Yugoslavian welcoming committee has been set up (later on the Mirabello), which has ousted the only representative of the Italian component of the island and has already taken possession of the former Austro-Hungarian fortifications. Mirabello and Racchia, welcomed with ill-concealed hostility, leave Lissa without leaving shortly afterwards. to take actual possession of it (except with a purely formal act), in order to avoid accidents. Later, in his report, Genoese Zerbi wrote that if we want to maintain the occupation of Lissa, it will take "troops and tact and large donations to capture the soul of the people" ... ".
With the passage of the island to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, there was a further exodus of the Italians and the very few remaining clung around the figure of the noble Dr. Lorenzo Doimi-Delupis (http://www.amha.hr/2011_02/PDF/ 189_206_J ...), whose father Pietro was the last Italian mayor/podesta' of Lissa in 1870. In 1927 there were 177 Italians throughout the island, down to only 50 in 1930.
Lissa became Italian again in April 1941 and some "Italians of Dalmatia" returned to administer it. The Italian returned to be the official language and teachers of Italian (who came from Italy) taught the language of Dante in the schools of the island, which became part of the Italian province of Spalato in the "Governorate of Dalmatia". Various public works were carried out on the island, which had remained under Yugoslavia without hospitals and even -in many internal areas- of sewers and electricity.
Especially in the second half of 1941 and in the first months of 1942, the Italian presence was judged positively even by almost all the local Croats. In fact, the island of Lissa remained Italian until September 1943, without being the theater of a guerrilla war in these two "Italian" years. Indeed, the Croats of Lissa thanked the Italian troops on several occasions for the relative tranquility that occurred on the island in those terrible years -while massacres took place in the adjacent Dalmatian mainland between Ustascia, Tito partisans and Cetnics.
But with September 8th 1943 the end came for all the Italians of Lissa. Furthermore Lissa had the headquarters of the same Tito with his General Staff in 1944: at the beginning of June 1944, Tito's headquarters - together with the British and Soviet military missions - had moved from the interior of Yugoslavia to the Dalmatian island of Lissa, due to a violent German military offensive against the heart of the partisan forces (the so-called "Operation Rösselsprung", in which Tito himself was wounded). The presence in Lissa of the worst Tito fanatics was the coup de grace for the few dozen Italians on the island: in fact, during and after 1945 all the very few Italian survivors exiled from Lissa. That is, in Lissa in 1946 there was not even one Italian left: perfect ethnic cleansing!
 |
| Map of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy (1805-1810) showing Lissa (just nortwest of Ragusa) inside the Italian Dalmatia |
ORIGINAL TEXT IN ITALIAN LANGUAGE:
-------------------------------------------------------
La fine di Lissa italiana
Va prima di tutto ricordato che dopo la prima guerra mondiale a Versailles il presidente americano Wilson propose la cessione di Lissa all’Italia; in quel periodo erano ancora presenti molti Italiani speranzosi della “Redenzione”, speranza evidenziata dai tumultuosi avvenimenti del 30 ottobre del 1918 a Lissa e Comisa in cui essi manifestarono la volontà di far parte del Regno d’Italia. Infatti tra tutte le isole dalmate centro-meridionali, Lissa fu quella dove maggiore era la comunità di lingua italiana rispetto a quella croata.
Del resto anche la linea Wilson, basata sui principi etnici ed elaborata dal Presidente degli Stati Uniti d’America alla Conferenza di Pace di Versailles del 1919, includeva Lissa come unico territorio dalmato che sarebbe dovuto passare al Regno d’Italia.
Va anche ricordato che le testimonianze sulla diffusione massiva della violenza contro gli italiani da parte dei nazionalisti croati nella Dalmazia asburgica dell'Ottocento e primi del Novecento sono numerose e dettagliate, descrivendo un contesto nel quale anche la polizia era connivente con le aggressioni italofobe, talora mortali, descritte dal Monzali ed altri:
«La pubblica amministrazione era terrorizzata; la polizia dei vari municipi era un congegno di partito. A Spalato un poliziotto del Comune ha ucciso con un colpo di rivoltella un pescatore chioggiotto; e l'omicida fu salvato dallo psichiatra; a Sebenico, un poliziotto di quel Comune ha tagliata, netta, la testa a un cittadino; a Traù un poliziotto, certo Macovan ha freddato con due sciabolate un povero operaio, di partito avverso a quello del Comune, che si trovava in istato di completa ubbriachezza. II partito croato scusava la persecuzione col dire che gli italiani rifiutavano di riconoscere il carattere nazionale croato della Dalmazia.»
«La pubblica amministrazione era terrorizzata; la polizia dei vari municipi era un congegno di partito. A Spalato un poliziotto del Comune ha ucciso con un colpo di rivoltella un pescatore chioggiotto; e l'omicida fu salvato dallo psichiatra; a Sebenico, un poliziotto di quel Comune ha tagliata, netta, la testa a un cittadino; a Traù un poliziotto, certo Macovan ha freddato con due sciabolate un povero operaio, di partito avverso a quello del Comune, che si trovava in istato di completa ubbriachezza. II partito croato scusava la persecuzione col dire che gli italiani rifiutavano di riconoscere il carattere nazionale croato della Dalmazia.»
L’archivio storico del Ministero degli Esteri italiano infatti serba un’ampia documentazione sui moltissimi incidenti che avvennero ad inizio Novecento non solo in Dalmazia, ma anche in Trentino e Venezia Giulia. La finalità era quella di spegnere ogni vita politica e culturale autonoma ed obbligare gli italiani dalmati a croatizzarsi.
Ovviamente, l’impatto di questa serie combinata di misure contro gli italiani fu devastante, determinando una rapidissima diminuzione del gruppo etnico italiano di Dalmazia.
Scrive il professor Monzali: «Nei primi studi statistici austriaci non ufficiali compiuti negli anni Sessanta e Settanta, il numero dei dalmati italiani variava fra i 40 e i 50.000; nel censimento ufficiale del 1880, il loro numero scendeva a 27.305, per poi calare drasticamente nei decenni successivi; 16.000 nel 1890, 15.279 nel 1900, 18.028 nel 1910 (su una popolazione dalmata complessiva di 593.784 persone nel 1900, di 645.646 nel 1910)». Del resto il censimento austriaco di meta' Ottocento (vedasi https://books.google.cl/books?id=r60EAAA... ) registra ufficialmente una popolazione della Dalmazia di 369.310 abitanti con 45.000 italiani.
Dati parziali riferiti a singole località esemplificano egregiamente l’andamento demografico complessivo sopra enunciato ed il tracollo della popolazione italiana. Si può riferire brevemente del caso di Lissa a continuazione:
Questa piccola isola, latinizzata in epoca romana, rimase per lunghi secoli popolata esclusivamente da Dalmati autoctoni, quindi da una popolazione neolatina, prima d’entrare a far parte dei territori di Venezia dopo il Mille, a cui appartenne ininterrottamente per molti secoli. I primi insediamenti slavi avvennero nel Trecento e Quattrocento, quando alcuni Croati e Morlacchi slavizzati fuggendo dai Turchi cercarono rifugio nell'isola, ma si trattava di pochissimi nuclei familiari. Sino al 1797 ed a Campoformio, gli abitanti di Lissa parlavano e capivano praticamente tutti il cosiddetto “Veneto da mar". E probabilmente l'antico "Dalmatico" vi era ancora parlato da qualcuno dei discendenti dei Dalmati autoctoni (come sembrerebbe essere il caso dei nonni di una mia nonna, citati sopra).
Il censimento tenutosi nell’epoca napoleonica calcolava, anche se in maniera approssimativa, che gli italiani erano l’80% della popolazione di Lissa. Rispetto a tale cifra, il primo censimento asburgico accurato, quello del 1880, vedeva già un netto declino dell’etnia italiana, che però rimaneva nettamente maggioritaria: essa era valutata al 64% del totale.
Ma dopo solo vent’anni gli italiani di Lissa apparivano quasi scomparsi. Secondo il censimento asburgico dell’anno 1900 gli abitanti di Lissa erano per il 97% slavi e solo per il 2,4% italiani.
Ma dopo solo vent’anni gli italiani di Lissa apparivano quasi scomparsi. Secondo il censimento asburgico dell’anno 1900 gli abitanti di Lissa erano per il 97% slavi e solo per il 2,4% italiani.
Il censimento asburgico dell’anno 1910 confermò che il gruppo etnico italiano era ridotto al lumicino nell’isola, poiché contava solo un 2,5% degli abitanti. Riassumendo, gli italiani di Lissa erano passati dall’80% circa all’inizio del XIX secolo al 64% del 1880, infine al 2,4% del 1900. Spicca particolarmente la differenza fra le dimensioni del gruppo etnico italiano nel 1880, con 3.292 unità (il 64%) e quello di soli vent’anni dopo ridotto a sole 199 (il 2,4%), con un calo del 94%.
Storia di Lissa italiana
Lissa e le vicine isole della Dalmazia centro-meridionale hanno la caratteristica di essere le piu' lontane dalla terraferma croata (vedere: http://www.sandroferuglio.com/wp-content... e http://www.sandroferuglio.com/wp-content... ), per cui sono quelle che hanno conservato maggiomente l'elemento neolatino attraverso i secoli. Infatti nel Medioevo prima del mille praticamente non vi erano quasi slavi nella fascia esterna delle isole dalmate, da Lussino fino a Lissa e Lagosta. Solo le incursioni dei pirati slavi detti "Narentani" portarono alcuni croati -in quantita' consistenti- in queste isole a partire da poco prima del Duecento.
Lissa comunque rimase a lungo popolata quasi esclusivamente da Dalmati autoctoni, che smisero di parlare la lingua dalmata intorno al Duecento/Trecento quando il "Veneto da mar" si impose nell'isola (favorito dall'immigrazione di famiglie veneziane e venete). Ancora nella prima meta' dell'Ottocento gli italiani di Lissa erano i 2/3 della popolazione dell'isola, ma dopo le guerre d'indipendenza italiane inizio' una vergognosa pulizia etnica contro di loro, promossa subdolamente dagli austriaci asburgici e rinforzata dal neonato nazionalismo croato. Eccone un riassunto (ricordando al lettore che all'inizio dell'Ottocento -quando l'isola fece parte del Regno napoleonico d'Italia- gli italiani erano circa l'80% degli abitanti di Lissa, mentre ora non ne resta nemmeno uno nell'isola!):
LISSA e la pulizia etnica dei suoi italiani
L’isola di Lissa (ora ufficialmente chiamata "Vis") e’ la piu’ lontana dalla terraferma delle isole dalmate, ha una superficie di 90,3 km² e contava circa 3700 abitanti (tutti croati) nel 2007. Le principali localita' dell'isola sono la cittadina di Lissa ed i villaggi di Comisa, Porto Manego e Porto San Giorgio. Assieme alle vicine isolette Busi (oggi detta Biševo), Pomo e Sant'Andrea forma un piccolo arcipelago (situato a circa 50 km dalla costa dalmata ed a circa 120 km da quella italiana), che per secoli fu roccaforte nell’Adriatico della Repubblica di Venezia. Dopo essere appartenuta alla Serenissima, Lissa fu unita politicamente all'Italia in due altre occasioni: durante il Regno napoleonico d'Italia (1805-1810), e durante la seconda guerra mondiale nel Governatorato di Dalmazia (1941-1943). Del resto Lissa fino all’inizio del novecento era la piu’ italiana, come popolazione, delle isole dalmate centro-meridionali.
Storicamente Lissa fu base navale della Repubblica Veneta fino al 1797, in seguito passò all’Austria. Tra il 1805 ed il 1810 fece parte del Regno napoleonico d'Italia, con l'italiano come lingua ufficiale e lingua scolastica. Praticamente tutti (finanche la minoranza croata) parlavano allora il "Veneto da mar", come prima o seconda lingua. Fu poi occupata dagli Inglesi dal 1811 al 1816 (che adottarono come lingua dell’isola l’italiano e l’inglese) per poi tornare in mano agli austriaci, come distretto del Capitanato di Lesina. Nel 1811 vi avvenne la prima battaglia navale di Lissa (quando navi italiano-venete e francesi si scontrarono con navi inglesi per il controllo dell'isola). Nel 1866 ebbe luogo la famosa battaglia di Lissa (gli italiani dell'isola in particolare erano famosi allora come pescatori -chiamati “Venturini”- tra i più abili della Dalmazia colle loro imbarcazioni dette "GA(L)ETA FALCATA", e salutarono con gioia i marinai italiani che tentarono di sbarcarvi): questo scontro navale segno’ negativamente le sorti dei Dalmati italiani. Infatti la politica austriaca nei riguardi di Lissa fu dapprima neutrale ma, dopo la fondazione del Regno d’Italia e la guerra del 1866, prese una netta piega filoslava ( https://books.google.com/books?id=kMXURN7sxh4C&pg=PA3&source=gbs_toc_r&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false Luciano Monzali: Italiani di Dalmazia ).
A mano a mano tutto ciò che era italiano nell’isola venne palesemente avversato; in particolare furono chiuse le scuole italiane, nonostante le petizioni della gente locale portate addirittura all’imperatore d’Austria. Andrea Olmo ha sintetizzato tutto questo in queste frasi relative a tutta la Dalmazia: "...Iniziarono quindi chiusure di scuole e associazioni italiane, gravi manipolazioni dei censimenti, immigrazioni massicce di popolazioni slave nelle città e isole italiane, persecuzioni nei confronti dei nostri connazionali, spesso costretti ad emigrare forzatamente, sommosse dei croati architettate ad arte dalla polizia asburgica, con aggressioni e pestaggi di italiani, che provocarono decine di morti. Ed infine una politica di calunnie e bugie, volta a screditare i podestà delle città dalmate, allora ancora tutti di etnia italiana...." http://www.jourdelo.it/numeri/12_gennaio... )
Il censimento francese del Regno napoleonico d'Italia registrava circa un 80% di italiani nell'isola (ma era un censimento generico, basato principalmente solo sui capofamiglia). I censimenti austriaci -relativamente precisi- contavano invece nel 1880 3292 italiani a Lissa e 1197 a Comisa, su un totale di 7871 abitanti (cioe’ circa il 64%). Nel corso degli ultimi decenni dell' Ottocento l'utilizzo della lingua italiana declinò rapidamente: il censimento austriaco del 1900 rilevò che il 97,0% della popolazione era di lingua serbocroata e il 2,4% di lingua italiana, con punte del 3,9% nel comune di Lissa e 4,6% se si considera solo Lissa città (le differenti percentuali rispecchiano il fatto che gli italiani vivevano concentrati unicamente nei centri urbani di Lissa città e Comisa). Analogo risultato si ebbe nel 1910, quando la lingua italiana risultò parlata dal 2,5% degli abitanti dell'isola. Dopo il Trattato di Rapallo, il quale fece apparire la preferenza italiana per l’isola di Lagosta (vista la sua migliore posizione strategica) assegnando Lissa alla Iugoslavia, una buona parte della popolazione locale emigrò gradualmente in territorio italiano. Alcuni scelsero, parimenti a qualche loro corregionale di Curzola, proprio la vicina Lagosta la quale, malgrado fosse (etnicamente parlando) una delle meno italiane delle isole dalmate, arrivò a contare, a partire specialmente dal 1921, un considerevole numero di connazionali (circa il 40%). Lissa comunque fece parte del l’Italia tra il 1941 ed il 1943, quando fece parte della provincia di Spalato nel Governatorato della Dalmazia. Alcuni dalmati italiani vi tornarono in quei due anni: in quel drammatico periodo (aprile 1941-settembre 1943) tornarono nelle città ed isole natali numerosi esuli dalmati per svolgere le loro funzioni di funzionari, impiegati, giudici, ufficiali delle varie armi, con la volontà di contribuire con la loro conoscenza delle lingue e delle mentalità locali alla buona riuscita dell’amministrazione italiana e alla sua accettazione da parte della popolazione croata e serba ( http://www.coordinamentoadriatico.it/?option=com_content&task=view&id=1392&Itemid=61).
In poche parole: gli italiani erano i 2/3 degli abitanti di Lissa nel 1880 (ossia il 64%), ma nel 1900 -dopo soli vent'anni- erano ridotti ad appena il due per cento! Una pulizia etnica enorme, vergognosamente autorizzata in forma subdola dagli austriaci asburgici.......Basti ricordare che nel 1871 gli italiani di Lissa mandarono una richiesta (ovviamente rigettata) allo stesso imperatore d'Austria per non eliminare la lingua italiana burocraticamente e per non fare chiudere le loro scuole italiane nell'isola. Inoltre tra il 1880 ed il 1900 gli Italiani scomparvero ufficialmente nelle anagrafi austriache dalle vicine isole di Ulbo, Meleda, Pasmano, Isto, Sestrugno, Zirona Grande e Bua ( http://xoomer.virgilio.it/histria/storia... ).
L'italia entro' in guerra nel 1915 anche per riavere Lissa, secondo quanto stabilito nel "Patto di Londra", ma -come tutti sappiamo- questo patto segreto dopo la Grande Guerra non fu validato nel Trattato di Pace di Parigi.
Comunque va ricordato che L'Italia occupo' l'isola di Lissa nel novembre 1918 e che i pochi italiani rimasti nell'isola accolsero felici e festanti il cacciatorpediniere Mirabello che portava sacchi di farina per la popolazione locale (vedasi foto). Purtroppo i croati locali in quell'occasione volevano l'unione alla loro neonata Iugoslavia. Infatti appare scritto da Lorenzo Colombo http://conlapelleappesaaunchiodo.blogspo...) che "....il 9 novembre 1918 Il Mirabello (capitano di vascello Giuseppe Genoese Zerbi) ed il gemello Carlo Alberto Racchia prendono parte alle operazioni per l’occupazione dell’isola di Lissa, a seguito dell’armistizio tra Italia ed Impero Austro-Ungarico, della disgregazione di quest’ultimo e della fine della guerra. A Lissa la situazione non è favorevole all’Italia: la maggioranza della popolazione dell’isola è croata, e al loro arrivo a Porto San Giorgio, alle 4 del 9 novembre, le navi italiane trovano che ovunque è stata issata la bandiera del neonato stato di Jugoslavia; si è costituito un comitato di accoglienza jugoslavo (poi salito sul Mirabello), che ha estromesso l’unico rappresentante della componente italiana dell’isola ed ha già preso possesso delle fortificazioni ex austroungariche. Mirabello e Racchia, accolti con malcelata ostilità, lasciano poco dopo Lissa senza prenderne effettivo possesso (se non con un atto meramente formale), onde evitare incidenti. Genoese Zerbi scriverà poi nella sua relazione che, se si vorrà mantenere l’occupazione di Lissa, occorreranno «truppe e tatto e larghe elargizioni per cattivarsi l’animo delle popolazioni»...".
Con il passaggio dell’isola al Regno di Jugoslavia, si ebbe un ulteriore esodo degli italiani ed i pochissimi rimasti si strinsero attorno alla figura del nobile Dott. Lorenzo Doimi-Delupis ( http://www.amha.hr/2011_02/PDF/189_206_J... ), il cui padre Pietro era stato l'ultimo sindaco/podesta' italiano di Lissa nel 1870. Nel 1927 si contavano in tutta l'isola 177 italiani, scesi a solamente 50 nel 1930.
Lissa ridivenne italiana nell'aprile 1941 ed alcuni "Italiani di Dalmazia" vi tornarono per amministrarla. L'italiano torno' ad essere lingua ufficiale e docenti d'italiano (venuti dall'Italia) insegnarono la lingua di Dante nelle scuole dell'isola, diventata parte della provincia italiana di Spalato nel "Governatorato di Dalmazia". Furono attuate varie opere pubbliche nell'isola, che era rimasta sotto la Iugoslavia priva di ospedali e finanche -in molte aree interne- di fogne e luce elettrica.
Specialmente nella seconda meta' del 1941 e nei primi mesi del 1942, la presenza italiana fu giudicata positivamente finanche da quasi tutti i croati locali. Infatti isola di Lissa rimase italiana fino al settembre 1943, senza essere teatro di guerriglia titina nei due anni "italiani". Anzi, i croati di Lissa ringraziarono in varie occasioni le truppe italiane per la relativa tranquillita' che si ebbe nell'isola in quei terribili anni mentre avvenivano massacri nell'attigua terraferma dalmata tra Ustascia, Titini e Cetnici.
Ma con l'otto settembre 1943 arrivo' la fine per tutti gli italiani di Lissa. Addirittura a Lissa si insedio' lo stesso Tito col suo Stato Maggiore nel 1944: agli inizi di giugno del 1944, il quartier generale di Tito - assieme alle missioni militari britanniche e sovietiche - si era spostato dall'interno della Jugoslavia nell'isola dalmata di Lissa, a causa di una violenta offensiva militare tedesca contro il cuore delle forze partigiane (la cosiddetta "Operazione Rösselsprung", nella quale lo stesso Tito era rimasto ferito). La presenza a Lissa dei peggiori fanatici titini fu il colpo di grazia per le poche decine di italiani dell'isola: infatti durante e dopo il 1945 tutti i pochissimi Italiani sopravvissuti esularono da Lissa. Ossia a Lissa nel 1946 non restava nemmeno un italiano: una perfetta pulizia etnica!
