Corfiot Italians
Corfiot Italians are a population from the Greek island of Corfu with ethnic and linguistic ties to the Republic of Venice. Their name was specifically established by Niccolò Tommaseo during the Italian Risorgimento. During the first half of the 20th century, Mussolini successfully used the Corfiot Italians as a pretext to occupy Corfu twice.
Origins
The origins of the Corfiot Italian community can be found in the expansion of the Italian States toward the Balkans during and after the Crusades. In the 12th century, the Kingdom of Naples sent some Italian families to Corfu to rule the island. From the Fourth Crusade of 1204 onwards, the Republic of Venice sent many Italian families to Corfu. These families brought the Italian language of the Middle Ages to the island.When Venice ruled Corfu and the Ionian Islands, which lasted during the Renaissance and until the late 18th century, most of the Corfiote upper classes spoke Italian, but the mass of people remained Greek ethnically, linguistically, and religiously before and after the Ottoman sieges of the 16th century.
Corfiot Italians were mainly concentrated in the city of Corfu, which was called "Città di Corfu" by the Venetians. More than half of the population of Corfu city in the 18th century spoke the Venetian language. The blend of Italian and Greek, originally known as the Dialetto Corcirese and comprising archaic Venetian with Greek syntax ultimately led to the Corfiot dialect of Greek known locally as Corfiatica.
The re-emergence of Greek nationalism, after the Napoleonic era, contributed to the gradual disappearance of the Corfiot Italians. Corfu was ultimately incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece in 1864. The Greek government abolished all Italian schools in the Ionian islands in 1870, and as a consequence, by the 1940s there were only fourteen hundred Corfiote Italians left.
Venetian heritage
The Republic of Venice dominated Corfu for nearly five centuries until 1797. Although assailed several times by Ottoman naval and land forces and subjected to four notable sieges in 1537, 1571, 1573 and 1716, in which the great natural strength of the city and its defenders asserted itself time after time. The effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications of the island was a great factor that enabled Corfu to remain the last bastion of free, uninterrupted Greek and Christian civilization in the southern Balkans after the fall of Constantinople. Will Durant, an American historian, claims that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the Muslim Turks. The Ottomans occupied briefly some of the other Ionian islands, but were unsuccessful with their four sieges of Corfu. This fact gave Corfu and Malta the title of "Bastions of Christian Europe" during the late Renaissance.Language
During these centuries, many Venetians moved to the island. Because of its association with the ruling elite, by the end of the 15th century, the influence of the Italian language and culture assumed a predominant role in the island. Until the second half of the 20th century the Veneto da mar was spoken in Corfu, and the local Greek language assimilated a large number of Italian and Venetian words, many of which are still common today. Indeed, even before the fall of the Byzantine Empire much of the population in Corfu spoke the Veneto da mar or the Mediterranean Lingua Franca Sabir as a second, or first, language.Corfu passed as a dowry from the Greek Despot of Epirus to Manfred of Sicily in 1259, and was not ruled by Greeks again until the 19th century. It became Venetian in 1386 although, with the exception of Corfu city which maintained a majority of a Venetian-speaking population, most of the peasants retained Greek as their first language.
According to historian Ezio Gray, the small communities of Venetian-speaking people in Corfu were mostly assimilated after the island became part of Greece in 1864 and especially after all Italian schools were closed in 1870. However, the Italian language maintained some importance, as can be seen by the fact that poets like Stefano Martzokis and Gerasimos Markoras, the first from Corfù and the second from Cefalonia, wrote some of their poems in Italian during the second half of the 19th century.
Culture and learning
Venetian rule significantly influenced many aspects of the island's culture. The Venetian feudal families pursued a mild but somewhat assimilating policy towards the natives, who began to adopt many aspects of Venetian customs and culture. The Corfiotes were encouraged to enrich themselves by the cultivation of the olive, but were debarred from entering into commercial competition with Venice. The island served even as a refuge for Greek scholars, and in 1732 became the home of the first Academy of modern Greece. The first newspaper of Corfu was in Italian: the official weekly newspaper was first published in 1814. First in Italian, then in both Greek and Italian, finally from 1850 in Greek and English; and it continued for the entire duration of the English Protectorate until 1864. Many Italian Jews took refuge in Corfu during the Venetian period and spoke their own language, a mixture of Hebrew and Venetian with some Greek words.Venetian influence was also important in the development of the opera in Corfu. During Venetian rule, the Corfiotes developed a fervent appreciation of Italian opera, and many local composers, such as the Corfiot Italians Antonio Liberali and Domenico Padovani developed their career with the theatre of Corfu, called Teatro di San Giacomo.
Corfu's cuisine also maintains some Venetian delicacies, cooked with local spicy recipes. Dishes include "Pastitsada", "Strapatsada", "Sofrito", "Savoro", "Bianco" and "Mandolato". Some traditions in Corfu were introduced by the Venetians such as the Carnival.
Architecture
The architecture of Corfu City still reflects its long Venetian heritage, with its multi-storied buildings, its spacious squares such as the popular "Spianada" and the narrow cobblestone alleys known as "Kantounia". The town began to grow during the Venetian period on a low hillock situated between the two forts. In many respects, Corfu typifies the small Venetian town, or borgo, of which there are numerous other surviving examples in the former Venetian territories of the Adriatic Sea, such as Ragusa and Spalato in Dalmatia. As in Venice itself, the "campi" developed haphazardly in the urban fabric where it was natural for residents to congregate, especially around churches, civic buildings, fountains, and cisterns. The best example of such a space is Plateia Dimarcheiou, overlooked on its north side by the 17th century Loggia dei Nobili and on the east side by the late sixteenth century Catholic Church of St. Iakovos, or St. James. The Italian Renaissance is best represented on Corfu by the surviving structures of the Fortezza Vecchia on the eastern side of the town, built by the Veronese military engineer Michele Sanmicheli and the Venetian Ferrante Vitelli, who also designed the later fortress on the west, the Fortezza Nuova.Venetians promoted the Catholic Church during their four centuries of rule in Corfu. Today, the majority of Corfiots are Greek Orthodox Christians. However, there is still a percentage of Catholics who owe their faith to their Venetian origins. These contemporary Catholics are mostly families who came from Malta, but also from Italy during Venetian rule. The Catholic community almost exclusively resides in the Venetian "Citadel" of Corfu City, living harmoniously alongside the Orthodox community.
Teatro di San Giacomo
During Venetian rule, the Corfiotes developed a fervent appreciation of Italian opera, which was the real source of the extraordinary musical development of the island during that era. The opera house of Corfu during 18th and 19th centuries was that of the Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo, named after the neighbouring Catholic cathedral, but the theatre was later converted into the Town Hall. A long series of local composers, such as Antonio Liberali, Domenico Padovani or Spyridon Xyndas contributed to the fame of the Teatro di San Giacomo.The first opera to be performed in the San Giacomo Theatre had been as far back as 1733, and for almost two hundred years between 1771 until 1943 nearly every major operatic composition from the Italian tradition, as well as many others of Greek and French composers, were performed at the stage of the San Giacomo theatre. This impressive tradition, invoking an exceptional musical past, continues to be reflected in the mythology supporting the opera theatre of Corfu, reputed to be fixture on famous opera singers' working travel itineraries. Operatic performers who found success at the theatre were distinguished with the accolade applaudito in Corfu as a tribute to the discriminating musical sensibility of the island's audience. The opera house and its historical archives were destroyed during a German Luftwaffe bombing raid in 1943.
Corfiot Italians and the Risorgimento
The Italian Risorgimento was initially concentrated in the Italian peninsula with the surrounding continental areas and did not reach Corfu and the Ionian islands. One of the main heroes of the Italian Risorgimento, the poet Ugo Foscolo, was born in Zante from a noble Venetian family of the island, but only superficially promoted the possible unification of the Ionian islands to Italy.The first newspaper of Corfu was in Italian: the official weekly newspaper was first published in 1814. First in Italian, then in both Greek and Italian, finally from 1850 in Greek and English; and it continued for the entire duration of the British protectorate until 1864.
According to historian Ezio Gray, the small communities of Venetian-speaking people in Corfu were mostly assimilated after the island became part of Greece in 1864 and especially after all Italian schools were closed in 1870.
However, the Italian language maintained some importance, as can be seen by the fact that poets like Stefano Martzokis and Geranimos Markonos, the first from Corfù and the second from Cefalonia, wrote some of their poems in the second half of the 19th century in Italian.
The island of Corfu was a refuge for many Italians in exile during the Wars of Independence of Italy, like Niccolò Tommaseo.
After World War I, however, the Kingdom of Italy started to apply a policy of expansionism toward the Adriatic area and saw Corfu as the gate of this sea. Benito Mussolini developed an extreme nationalistic position in accordance to the ideals of Italian irredentism and actively promoted the unification of Corfu to Italy.
The Corfiote Italians, even if reduced to a few hundreds in the 1930s, were strongly supported by fascist propaganda, and in the summer of 1941 Italian schools were reopened in Corfu city. During World War II, Mussolini promoted Italian irredentism in Corfu, similar to the one being promoted in Savoy.