The Fascist view of the ‘allogeni’ in the border regions

ABSTRACT The Fascist policy towards linguistic minorities has sometimes been compared to that practised in the colonies, using the categories of racism and internal colonialism. According to some interpretations, Fascism considered members of minorities as something foreign, potentially hostile, if not actually inferior, starting from a clear dividing line between who could be considered Italian and who not. It has also been argued that the ‘allogeni’ were the first targets of radical measures to exclude them from Italian citizenship, the forerunners of the later racist laws implemented against colonial subjects and Jews. This article has three aims: to verify whether severe discriminatory actions really were taken against members of linguistic minorities with regard to citizenship rights; to understand whether these persons were perceived as completely alien to the nation on the basis of clear, shared demarcation lines between those who could consider themselves Italian and those who could not; and, finally, to determine whether the view of such minorities was always radically negative and disdainful to the extent that it could justifiably be called racism. The analysis of forms of representation focuses in particular on the German-speaking population of South Tyrol, using various sources (newspapers, institutional correspondence, political speeches, literary accounts). The answer to the first question posed is negative; as regards the other two, in the first place there is a considerable degree of uncertainty on the part of the Fascists in defining the members of the German-speaking minority, who were sometimes presented as being completely outside the perimeter of Italianità, i.e. Italianness, while more often as being on the margins but undoubtedly capable of integration thanks to their unshakably Italian core. This seems to reveal a certain difficulty in defining who could be considered Italian and who could not when clearly drawing the boundaries of Italianness. Secondly, judgements were made about the South Tyroleans that were in no way characterized by a lack of appreciation or by contempt. The descriptions of the South Tyrolean peasant are, to say the least, flattering: full of exaggerated praise for his many virtues, from his religiosity to his obedience to institutions, from his strong ties to the land to his conservatism. The views regarding the Slovenian and Croatian-speaking populations of Venezia Giulia and Istria were very different, expressing and amplifying the most scornful stereotypes of anti-Slavism developed during the national struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.