• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

imFsr^ax- .-..,; •;- I AND THE JUGOSLAV MOVEI =00 =o I o^=^c^» o'-^00 er ^™^C\| K s==B^ u ~ — *^~* o^= i ^ «^^M So WITHDRAWN FROH 1 FAWC.TT LIBRARY 27 WILFRED STREET LO.\DON, S.W.I. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from Microsoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/dalmatiajugoslavOOvojnuoft DALMATIA AND THE JUGOSLAV MOVEMENT BY THE SAME AUTHOR lllyricus—Dalmazia e Italia, Consigli e Awertimenti. Roma, Enrico Voghera Editor, 191 5. X. X. X. L'Ora della Dalmazia. Lettera di uno Slavo a un amico Italiano. A cura dell' "Unita." Firenze, Stabilimento tipo- grafico Aldino, 19 15. N. Tommaseo. Scintille, traduzione dal Serbo-Croato con un' introduzione storico- critica di Luigi Voinovich. Collezione della Giovane Europa. Catania, Battiato Ed. 1916. La Monarchic f rangaise dans l'Adriatique (Etudes sur l'histoire diplomatique). Paris, Bloud et Gay, 1918. DALMATIA AND THE JUGOSLAV MOVEMENT BY COUNT LOUIS VOINOVITCH WITH A PREFACE BY Sm ARTHUR EVANS, LL.D., F.R.S. WITH ETHNOGRAPHICAL MAP LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN k UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C 1 NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS First published in iq2o 4tr z— -> {All rights reserved) Arisen in the name of National Right we believe in yours , and proffer you our help to conquer it. Unite / Mazzini, To the Southern Slavs. Trampled upon jor so 'many centuries, we have not lost the proud nobility of the soul. Blush not, Dalmatia, for thine origin / ToMMASEO, Scintilla xxxii. So strong is our conviction, Gentlemen, that if we were proposed the most advantageous treaties at the cost of the slightest violation of the principle of nationality, we should reject them without hesitation. Cavour, i860. TABLE OF SERBO-CROATIAN PRONUNCIATION. c = ts in Tsar 6 = t in nature 6 = ch in church dj = g in George h = ch in loch j = y in you lj = lu (without oo sound) in illumine nj = nu (without oo sound) in nuisance s = sh in ship i = z in azure Vowels as in modern pronunciation of Latin PREFACE The writer of this work, Count Lujo Vojnovid, is peculiarly qualified both by his origin and connections to supply a true estimate of the place occupied by Dalmatia, not only as regards the Slav mainland to which it belongs, but in relation to Italian civiliza- tion of the opposite coast that has at all times so greatly influenced it. Born of an old Ragusan family, he has had the initial advantage of surveying those intricate Italo-Slav relations from the point of view of that aristocratic Republic which, while it never, like the other Dalmatian cities, passed under the Venetian "» yoke, and clung throughout to its Serbian mo,ther *—*? \^ \ speech, did more than any South Slav centre to adapt the Italian literary spirit. Count Lujo, I may add, ^a^\ belongs to a distinguished family. His father, Count JLAJffc Constantine Vojnovic\ was one of the earliest and J most eloquent advocates of South Slav union. His brother Ivo claims a very high place among the living poets of Jugoslavia. I have had myself the privilege of Count Lujo's acquaintance for many years, and can vouch for the fact that, if the conclusions of his present work are fatal to Italian pretensions to his native land, it is not from any want of perception of the cultural debt which Dalmatia and his native city owe to their great neighbour over-sea or of friendship to the Italian people. 8 DALMATIA AND THE JUGOSLAV MOVEMENT As an Englishman, both as traveller and resident, my acquaintance with Dalmatia is not of to-day or yesterday. I have indeed visited the province in its remotest nooks, and have a personal acquaint- ance with every class of its inhabitants. For seven years of my life, indeed, I had my headquarters at Ragusa, and I can thoroughly endorse the views that are put forward by the author of this work by my long experiences. The idea that any part of Dalmatia is at the present day in any true sense Italian is a pure delusion —though for purposes of political propaganda and imperialistic greed that illusion has been fostered far and wide. It is possible indeed to go much further than this and to affirm that at no period of history could Dalmatia be truly described as an Italian province. It is true that, after immense efforts, renewed through over two centuries of ceaseless campaigns, Rome succeeded in mastering the native Illyrian population, and planted her colonies on a series of points along the coastland. When in the seventh century of our era, in the wake of Avar hordes, Slavonic settlers of the Serbo-Croat stock occupied the country, a certain proportion of these Roman municipal organizations survived as islands in a barbaric sea. For a while they sought support from the Byzantine Exarchate, just as later they divided their allegiance between Hungary and Venice, but the remarkable ethnic phenomenon with which we have to deal is that by the tenth or eleventh century, though its municipal tradition survived in the principal cities of its littoral and islands, the Latin-speaking element within their walls had been practically sub- merged by gradual infiltration from the surrounding 4 ; DALMATIA AND THE JUGOSLAV MOVEMENT population of Slavonic stock and assimilated to it. It may be added moreover as a curious fact, that the old Romance dialects of the East Adriatic coastland, of which only traces now survive in the Slav vernacular, did not themselves even belong to the Italian family. That for social and diplomatic purposes the ruling caste at Ragusa made considerable use of the Tuscan language, that the political subjection of a large part of Dalmatia to Venice promoted the popular use of a lingua franca in the Venetian dialect, are pheno- mena that must not obscure the fact that the home speech of the Dalmatians from the Early Middle Ages onwards has been the Serbo-Croat. The dominion of Venice indeed was itself wholly dissociated from the idea of propagating the Italian language in any form in fact, the only colony that Venice planted on the coast was Albanian-speaking. If we examine the names of eminent artists and architects of Dalmatia in Mediaeval and Renaissance times, they will be found almost exclusively to point to a Slavonic origin, and it is well known that some of these, like Andrew Medulic' (" II Schiavone ") and Julius Glovi6 (Clovio) transferred their activities to Italian soil. The same is true of the brilliant group of Dalmatian poets and dramatists, the special centre of whom was at Ragusa. It is equally true that, great as was the indebtedness of Dalmatian art and literature to Italian models, the native element was never lost nor were these models by any means exclusively Italian. For what is perhaps the noblest monument of Mediaeval Dalmatia, the Cathedral of Trau, the prototypes have to be sought in a more northern region—not beyond the Adriatic but beyond the Drave. 5 DALMATIA AND THE JUGOSLAV MOVEMENT According to the best existing statistics of the Dalmatian population, about 97 per cent, is Serbo- Croat and not more than 3 per cent. Italian. Casting my own memory back some forty years, and with an intimate knowledge of the whole country, I can confidently affirm that there was nothing that could be called a real Italian population in Dalmatia at all. Even the small " Autonomist " faction, which feared that union with the Slav lands beyond Dinara, would swamp the traditional elements of Dalmatian culture, which had been so largely due to Italian influ- ence, did not deny their own Slavonic nationality. That a portion of these should now proclaim them- selves to be Italians is of course their own affair, but the personal names of these " Italians," too often betray their Slav parentage. Of the unfortunate result of this racial schism, the small town of Zara, where alone the adherents of Italy can claim to be the majority of the population, is likely to prove a melancholy example. It is not difficult to foresee the disastrous consequences of its divorce in any form from the mainland to which it is bound by geographical, economic, and in the truest sense by ethnic ties. But as for handing over to Italy—as was actually proposed by the Secret Treaty of London—not only the littoral and islands, all solidly Serbo-Croat, but a large mainland region—including some of the most fervid centres of Jugoslav nationalism—the pro- posal can only be described as as unrealizable in practice as it is indefensible on any theory that takes count of the rights of peoples. A strange boon indeed of the Allies to Italy to aid her to place a " " Trojan horse within her walls ! ARTHUR EVANS. 6 TO THE READER The last great sale of nations took place in Vienna in 1815. In spite of their express declaration that they were fighting Napoleon in the cause of independence and freedom of the nations, the allied Powers instituted the so-called " Statistical Commissions/' within whose circle the whole pernicious Treaty of Vienna was elaborated. Peoples were passed from hand to hand during the debates of the Commissions like so many flocks of sheep. Historic rights were invoked, and strategic, political, and economic considerations. The Com- missions only consulted the wishes of the strongest The Austrian Imperial and Royal police took good care to render the air of Vienna exceedingly uncon- genial to the representatives of the poor and oppressed. Whole provinces and kingdoms were assigned to one or other of the great Sovereigns convened to Vienna after Leipzig and Waterloo, in accordance with the convention that each of them had to own so many thousands of square miles and so many hundreds of thousands of human souls.

Load more

  334

Copy Link