South Tyrol. The Other Italy

Chapter Eight.
Peace Already?

“Here at the border of the fatherland set down the banner. From this point on we educated the others with language, law and culture”, reads the inscription on the triumphal arch, the Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen). The inscription was supposed to look a little different, but at the last moment it was decided to replace the word “barbarians” in the original version with the less specific word “others”. It was officially reported that the phrase on the monument is an imaginary dialogue between a legionary of the Roman Legio X (15 BC) and an infantryman during the Battle of the Piave River, where the Italians blocked the Austrian army’s advance in 1918. The German-speaking residents of South Tyrol did not believe in the story of this imaginary dialogue; for them, the inscription on the Victory Monument was offensive, as it demonstrated the repressive policy of Italy towards their region. Given the historical context in which the ceremonial unveiling of the monument took place, South Tyroleans had every reason for such thoughts. The irony was that the people who were going to civilize them were representatives of a country in which the level of literacy was at that time lower than in their own very small region.

In South Tyrol, the campaign of oppression against its German-speaking residents was in full swing: the population of the region, in the absence of Italian education diplomas, were put out of their jobs in droves, their land was occupied by Italians, who most often came from the very south of the country, and the architectural image of South Tyrolean cities was forcibly changed. In 1923, Ettore Tolomei, the man who is still called the “grave-digger of South Tyrol”, put forward a draft law for South Tyrol which was called the Gentile Reform and affected all the formerly Austrian lands. It was prohibited to use the German language everywhere – at schools, administrations, associations. Local people were denied the right to their own culture. This process of linguistic fascism was referred to as “Italianization of the population”. It was even forbidden to pronounce the word “Tyrol”. The name of the region was changed to Alto Adige, and all the South Tyrolean cities, villages and settlements, as well as surnames of local people, were substituted by their Italian versions. The only place that managed to escape that fate was the village of Lana, whose name, apparently, sounded Italian enough as it was.

New teachers were sent from Italy to South Tyrol. The government saw them as enthusiasts and colonialists, who were supposed to bring the modernized Italian way of life to the Austrian province. Claus Gatterer, a patriarch of Austrian journalism of the 20th century, wrote that “Italian teachers were often in fact much better than the popular opinion about them. They suffered from the atmosphere of hostility that surrounded them, and had no social contacts. Farmers in the villages were suspicious of them, especially of teachers wearing town clothes, which were considered immoral.” In accordance with the Italian fashion of the 1920s and 1930s, the teachers wore miniskirts and men’s haircuts, which more than embarrassed South Tyrolean farmers, who were not used to this style. To deal with the stress from working in this region, where people were so unfriendly to them, teachers would sometimes go out drinking at night; in the morning they could not come to work, in which case their students had to be sent home.

In order for the language and the traditions of the region not to be lost by new generations, enthusiasts among German-speaking teachers secretly organized their own classes, called “catacomb schools”. One of their patrons was the Catholic priest Michael Gamper. He was outraged with King Victor Emmanuel III not keeping his promise to respect the national identity of the South Tyrolean people. The priest, under the protection of the Catholic Church, began creating German publishing houses in the region, wrote and published articles in German. The Fascist regime that had captured South Tyrol quickly ranked Gamper as the “public enemy number one”, and he was forced to hide from persecution in a Tuscan monastery. Nevertheless, the priest was lucky to survive, while many other enthusiasts of the “catacomb schools” were much less fortunate. They had to die for their cause. People remember with sadness the story of a very young teacher Angela Nikoletti, who died at the age of 25 from tuberculosis, which she had contracted in prison.

Even later, in the days of Nazism and Hitler’s meetings with Mussolini, German was forbidden in South Tyrol, as if the language of the “chosen people of Aryan race” was something illegal. The inhabitants of South Tyrol, as always, found themselves on the borderline – this time, between the two dictatorships. Formally, they had a choice: either to join the Nazi Germany and leave their homes, or to stay and experience all the “charms” of the Fascist regime.

It is against this background, and with an utmost ardour and desire to complete the work as soon as possible, that the triumphal arch was built in Bolzano (Bozen) – the monument in Neo-Romanesque style, with an ominous inscription in Latin that bode no good for the region.

The Victory Monument was Benito Mussolini’s ambitious idea. The dictator declared in the Italian parliament that “a memorial to Cesare Battisti and other martyrs” would be built in Bolzano, adding that it would be erected “on the same foundation as the monument to the German victory”. The “monument to the German victory” that Mussolini was referring to was the monument to the Tyrolean Kaiserjäger (Imperial Riflemen) in Bolzano (Bozen), which was actually dedicated to the memory of the dead, and not the “German victory” at all.

On July 12, 1926, on the tenth anniversary of the death of Cesare Battisti and Fabio Filzi, at a distance of approximately eight metres from the foundation of the monument to the Imperial Tyrolean Riflemen, the first stone was laid in the foundation of the Victory Monument. In a solemn setting, in the presence of King Victor Emmanuel III, Marshals Luigi Cadorna, Pietro Badoglio and several ministers, two more were added to the first stone. The first of them was brought from Monte Corno, where Cesare Battisti was captured, the second from Monte Grappa, conquered with enormous human losses only in 1918, and the third from Monte San Michele, a strategically important mountain located on the Italian-Slovenian border. The mortar was made using water from the river Piave. The first symbolic stone of the Victory Monument was blessed by the Bishop of Trento, Celestino Endrici, notwithstanding the written request from the clergy of South Tyrol to Pope Pius XI that the monument should not receive a church blessing.

After the construction of the Victory Monument was started, more precisely, on June 9, 1927, the monument to the Imperial Tyrolean Riflemen was blown up. The remaining blocks were given to the cities that had donated money for the construction of the Victory Monument. Only four sculptures by Franz Ehrenhofer were rescued, transported to North Tyrol, and then placed on Bergisel.

On the day when the Victory Monument was inaugurated, a protest demonstration was held on Mount Isel in Innsbruck, in which more than 10,000 people took part, including representatives of South Tyrol. Ernesta Bittanti, the widow of Cesare Battisti, opposed using the figure of her husband and other irredentists in the Fascist campaign, and did not come to the opening ceremony of the triumphal arch. Later, her daughter, Livia Battisti, would repeatedly suggest renaming the arch the Monument of Memory and Warning. Despite the discontent of the Battisti family, they did place into one of the niches of the 19-metre-high triumphal arch a bust of the 42-year-old journalist Cesare Battisti – a politician, a scientist, an irredentist, and a patriot of Trento, who had been executed by Austrians.

Cesare Battisti was a hero during his life and remained one after death. He did not need any monuments.

The Triple Alliance between Italy, Austria-Hungary and Germany was formed in May 1882. It was based on the Austro-German Alliance pact of October 1, 1879 and the union treaty between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy of May 20, 1882. The union was renewed on May 6, 1891. The core of the pact was formed by articles II and III, transferred from the previous treaties of 1882 and 1891 without changes. The articles stated that Italy, in the event of an unprovoked attack by France, would receive help from the Allies. The same obligation would be placed on Italy if France attacked Germany without direct provocation from the latter. Also, if one or two of the contracting parties, without a direct provocation on their part, were attacked and involved in a war with two or several great powers not participating in this treaty, then the circumstances requiring the fulfillment of the treaty would be present for all the contracting parties simultaneously. At the same time, the Triple Alliance agreed with the special statement of Italy that the participation of England in a war against the Triple Alliance would exclude the participation of Italy because of the vulnerability of its territory to the British fleet. The two treaties contradicted each other.

In August 1914, the tripartite alliance was broken; Italy declared itself neutral and refused to join the war on the side of Austria-Hungary and Germany. Italy explained its decision by the fact that articles II and III of the alliance treaty did not make sense in that situation: Austria-Hungary was waging an offensive war, not a defensive one.

Despite the neutrality officially declared by Italy, militaristic tendencies quickly gained popularity in the country and grew into movements which called for war, but on the side of the Entente. These movements were led by the Tyrolean socialist from Trento, Cesare Battisti, and the Italian playwright Gabriele d’Annunzio. A number of Italian deputies, as well as Alcide de Gasperi, doctor of philology and a native of Trento, considered that the country didn’t need to enter the war, and that it was better to continue to maintain neutrality.

Germany suggested that Austria-Hungary should hand over to Italy the territories inhabited by Italians. It was assumed that this would stop the Italian supporters of the war on the side of the Entente. The vote on that issue in the Italian parliament showed an unexpected and discouraging result: 320 deputies were for neutrality, and 508 were for joining the war. On May 23, 1915, the Italian ambassador in Vienna declared war. A week earlier, Italy had joined the Entente Powers (Russia, Britain and France) and took on the obligation to enter the war against Austria-Hungary in exchange for the territories of Trentino, South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and part of Dalmatia. The position of Austria in relation to its former ally would be expressed by Kaiser Franz Joseph I, who, addressing his people, would say that this was “a breach of fidelity unknown in history”.

Cesare Giuseppe Battisti, born in Trento into the family of a wealthy Tyrolean merchant and an Italian countess of the ancient family of Fogolari, was happy that the war started. Since his childhood, he had been dreaming of liberating his land from slavery and the status of a Habsburg province.

As early as in 1847, the idea of the national unification of Italy and the liberation of its territories from the “Austrian yoke” began to gain momentum. The Austrian bureaucracy, of course, did not share this idea, and expressed strong confidence in its right to dominate over the Italian regions. The Austrian statesman, diplomat and prince von Metternich referred to the Italians who lived outside their own country, on the Austrian territory, not as a nation, but as a “geographical concept”. What Metternich said did not contradict the official position of Austria-Hungary with regard to the Italian population living in Austria, and the “Tyrolean Italians”, who lived in Trentino in large numbers, were offended by this attitude. As a result, in 1878, Menotti Garibaldi founded the Italian irredentist movement, which advocated the accession to the Italian Kingdom of the territories bordering Austria-Hungary and inhabited by Italians: Trentino, Trieste, and others. The term irredenta was used to denote a part of an ethnos constituting a minority within the state, but living compactly in close proximity to a state in which people of the same ethnos constituted the majority.

The fact that the irredentist movement arose among the Italians who were actually trapped on the territory of the neighboring state is not surprising. The patriotism of the “Tyrolean Italians” was dual: besides the sense of their “small homeland” and their own land (Trentino), they also had a very strong sense of their historical homeland, that is, Italy. On October 24, 1911, Cesare Battisti appealed with passion to the common sense of the parliament members: “This monarchy cannot control itself, to say nothing about its territories! Just take a look at what’s happening with its government, if this helpless gang of embezzlers can still be called a government! They are failing to approve their own budget for the second year! Why do we, Italians, have to hold this country that has been ruined long ago on our shoulders? They consider us to be their slaves and demand loyalty – is this not the greatest absurdity in the world?” The Italian mentality, not prone to assimilation, made the problem of “Tyrolean Italians” practically impossible to solve in any other way except war.

Cesare Battisti died on the scaffold, caught by the Austrian army and executed as a traitor. The last thing he saw before his death was the sky of his beloved Trento, which at that time was still remaining in the grip of Austria-Hungary.

The death of the national hero became a call to fight for other Italians. They fought for Trento with extraordinary fervour, fought to the last drop of their blood. They composed poems about Battisti, embroidered his portraits on banners, went to the battle to the sounds of the march “La leggenda dei Piave”, dedicated to Battisti.

The Entente kept its promises: Trentino, South Tyrol and other lands specified in the agreement became Italian. The biography of Alcide de Gasperi, like the biographies of many other “Tyrolean Italians”, would state: born in Austria-Hungary, died in Italy.

Cesare Battisti was not the only Italian national hero executed by the Austrians to be immortalized in the triumphal arch of the Victory Monument. The busts of two other people occupy another niche of the monument: the 35-year-old lawyer Fabio Filzi and the 22-year-old engineer-technician Damiano Chiesa (both sculptures were made by Adolfo Wildt). All the three of them were natives of Trentino and officers of the alpini detachments.

The project of the Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen) was implemented by one of the key architects of the Fascist era, Marcello Piacentini. The sculpture on the tympanum of the monument, above the ominous inscription about the borders from which the “others” were to be taught “language, laws and culture”, was made by Arturo Dazzi. It is called Vittoria Saggitaria, “Victory with an arrow”. On the back of the arch, there are three sculptural medallions: “New Italy”, “Air” and “Fire”. The inscription in Latin under the medallions says the following: “In honour and in memory of people of incredible courage, who, fighting in legal wars, resolutely won their homeland back with their own blood. All Italians donated money for this.” An irrefutable proof of the fact that the Victory Monument belonged to the Fascist era was a direct written reference to it on the south side of the monument. However, that inscription – “Benito Mussolini, Il Duce of Italy, the 6th year (of the Fascist era)” – was removed after 1945.

A surprising number of talented people worked on the implementation of the triumphal arch in Bolzano (Bozen) and on its details. For example, there is a sculpture of Christ the Redeemer by Libero Andreotti in the centre of the monument. The risen Christ ascends the granite altar calmly and solemnly. The statue produces an impression of calm and peace, not characteristic of other monumental works of the Italian master. Christ the Redeemer by Andreotti is one of the rare examples of truly sacred modern sculpture, and it seems paradoxical that it should be combined with the monument of the Fascist era.

The triumphal arch of the national martyrs was surrounded with a high fence almost immediately after its opening. Nevertheless, over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries, many things happened around it: protests, demonstrations, referendums, hanging memorial plaques, clashes between Germans and Italians, between the right and the left. It was repeatedly suggested that the Victory Monument should be demolished because it incites ethnic strife. In 1977, a union of several South Tyrolean parties submitted a bill in which they asked to consider the possibility of demolishing not only the Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen), but also all the buildings in the city which praise fascism. The bill, however, didn’t receive much support.

In 2001, Bolzano (Bozen) city council decided to change the name of the square in front of the monument from Victory Square to Peace Square, but in October 2002 it was renamed back. The results of the referendum showed that the German-speaking population voted unanimously for renaming the square, while the Italian-speaking population voted against. Once again, the Italians missed the opportunity to show their openness to the German-speaking residents of South Tyrol by giving up the idea of “victory” over their region – at least in the name of the square. We must, however, give credit to the city council, which attempted to put the inscription Già della Pace (“Already of Peace”) under the new sign of Piazza della Vittoria (Victory Square).

In 2004, information panels were installed approximately 50 metres from the Victory Monument; they contained the following text about the significance of Bolzano (Bozen) triumphal arch, written in four languages (Italian, German, Ladin and English): “Italy’s Fascist regime erected this monument to celebrate victory in the First World War, an event which brought the division of Tyrol and the separation of the population of South Tyrol from Austria, their mother country. The City of Bolzano, a free, modern and democratic town, condemns the discrimination and divisions of the past, as well as any form of nationalism, and pledges its commitment to promoting a culture of fraternity and peace in the true European Spirit”.

Installation of information panels next to the Victory Monument or on the monument itself was prohibited by decree of the Ministry of Culture following mass protests of the Italian right-wing parties.

On July 21, 2014, a permanent exhibition called BZ’18—45. One Monument, One City, Two Dictatorships was opened in the crypt and in other underground spaces beneath the triumphal arch in Bolzano (Bozen). The Victory Monument ceased to be inaccessible and frightening; now it was “speaking” about its own history, about the new Bolzano (Bozen), about past and present relations between language groups in the city. Numerous attempts to destroy the Victory Monument or to “weaken” it by depriving it of its historical significance would have had less effect than this exhibition. Trying to destroy or distort the past is a weakness. The power is in studying it, in understanding and transferring knowledge about it to next generations, so that they have the opportunity to become better than their predecessors. South Tyroleans were wise enough to clearly define their own position – that of commitment to peace and democracy – and to arrange a permanent exhibition under the Victory Monument.

The walls of one of the underground rooms, besides quotations from Cicero and Horace about fame and sacrifice to the fatherland, bear laser-projected quotes by Hannah Arendt (“No one has the right to obey”), Bertolt Brecht (“Unhappy those peoples who need heroes”), and Thomas Paine (“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government”). One might say that the quotations have been taken out of the context, but the main principle – not to destroy, but to add – was chosen quite correctly. The quotations, superimposing the still phrases from the past, which can still be clearly seen, show explicitly that you need to know your history, no matter how painful it is, but you also need to be able to re-examine it, so that horrible mistakes should not be repeated in future.

The exhibition in the limited space under the Victory Monument tells and shows the history of the region with all the happiness and sorrow of its people, who fought for themselves and for their traditions; it highlights the process of building the “new Bolzano”, the relationship of the Fascist regime with art and culture in general, the rise of Hitler’s power and the illegal national socialist movement in South Tyrol, the history of the Victory Monument and the history of other political and ideological monuments, as well as the fate of the architect Marcello Piacentini.

The Victory Monument in Bolzano (Bozen) became a crucial point in the life of South Tyrol. This monument has a strange fate. With surprising unanimity, both Italian nationalists and peace-loving left-wing German-speaking residents defended it from demolition and destruction. With no less unanimity, the nationalist representatives of the German-speaking community and the Italians who opposed fascism wanted to wipe it off the face of the earth. Ironically, sometimes the Victory Monument would, quite on the contrary, unite people who believed that they were on opposite sides.

On the plaque indicating in large letters the name of Piazza della Vittoria (Victory Square), there was a modest postscript Già della Pace (“Already of Peace”) in very small letters, but South Tyroleans afterwards placed the postscript in almost imperceptible brackets. Establishing peace is not as easy as one might wish, but it can still be achieved – through acting step by step, persistently, politely and very intelligently. In order to be able to say, to write, to proudly declare: “Already peace”. And to put a full stop after that phrase, rather than the eternal question mark.