Revue De Géographie Alpine, 104-1 | 2016 Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche 2
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Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine 104-1 | 2016 Montagnes et conflictualité : le conflit, facteur d’adaptations et d’innovations territoriales Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche Alessandro Celi Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rga/3243 DOI: 10.4000/rga.3243 ISSN: 1760-7426 Publisher Association pour la diffusion de la recherche alpine Electronic reference Alessandro Celi, « Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche », Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine [Online], 104-1 | 2016, Online since 12 May 2016, connection on 02 May 2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/rga/3243 ; DOI : 10.4000/rga.3243 This text was automatically generated on 2 May 2019. La Revue de Géographie Alpine est mise à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche 1 Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche Alessandro Celi AUTHOR'S NOTE This work was supported by the LABEX ITEM (ANR-10-LABX-50-01) within the “Investissements d’Avenir” programme operated by the French National Research Agency (ANR). 1 Valgrisenche is a secondary valley on the southern side of the Aosta Valley. It runs for some 40 kilometres in a north-south direction from its opening at Arvier, in the major groove of the region, to the ridge on the border of Tarentaise. Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 104-1 | 2016 Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche 2 Photo 1. Panorama of Arvier today: The black square indicates the castle of La Mothe and the white square the village of Leverogne, from both sides of the gorge shaped by the Dora di Valgrisenche River Photo Alessandro Celi 2 In civil and religious terms, it comprises a single municipality and one lone parish, today divided into 16 villages. Its identity is marked – both in the minds of the people and in scientific literature – by a paradox: Valgrisenche is a poor and isolated valley, rich only “de berrio et de rocs” (“in stone and rocks”), but its inhabitants are very wealthy. According to a saying that Bernard Janin (1991) recorded and that is reminiscent of the anti-Semitic background in which our Western civilisation is steeped, they are “the Jews of the Aosta Valley”. This contradiction is related to other factors, identified by several authors during the 19th century who praised the population’s “fair reputation of honesty” (Gorret-Bich, 1877) and described them as “laborious and efficient” (Bethaz 1877) and as having the “most active arms [and] the most religious hearts” throughout the region (Fénoil, 1887). 3 Although Valgrisenche is comparable to the surrounding valleys regarding morphology and the conditions of their traditional economy, it has retained a particular identity that has spanned three centuries, and even today, the Valgriseins have a reputation – sometimes positive and sometimes negative – that distinguishes them from other inhabitants of the Aosta Valley. 4 We can compare Valgrisenche with the Rhêmes Valley on its eastern border because they both are very long and separated from the main valley by a very narrow gorge at their entrance. Actually Valgrisenche is less closed than Rhêmes, as the Col du Mont provides easy access to the Isère Valley and thus favoured favouring trade in years past. Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 104-1 | 2016 Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche 3 Photo 2. The Col du Mont Photo Alessandro Celi 5 Valgrisenche is different from La Thuile on its western side because access to the Little St-Bernard Pass (2,188 m.) is much easier than to the Col du Mont (2,646 m.). Moreover, the valley has never experienced a tourist boom comparable to the one that led to the creation of the La Rosière–La Thuile ski resort. It also differs from Sainte-Foy-Tarentaise, the village at the foot of the French side of the Col du Mont, which until the end of the Second World War “was the real centre of gravity of the upper [Isère] valley, owing to both its agricultural and pastoral resources (...) and the absolute and relative weight of its population in the upper valley” (Bozonnet - Bravard, 1984). Valgrisenche never reached this level because it lies 20 kilometres far from the main axis of the Aosta Valley. 6 However, the history of Valgrisenche has some points in common with Tignes, a second site in Savoy. Some families of Tignes-based clothes merchants, like that of Bishop Joseph-Auguste Duc (1835-1922), came to settle in the Aosta Valley in the 18th century, while the Col du Mont was the preferred route for relatives to travel between the two sides of the Alps. Tignes and Valgrisenche are also similar by virtue of having built a dam on their territories after the Second World War. Construction forced the local population to abandon some of their native hamlets. The controversies and protests between the inhabitants and the companies building the dams, which sometimes turned violent (Fournier, 2000), as well as the memories of the evicted families, put the experiences of these two communities on an equal footing. Valgrisenche differs from the French case because the resistance of its inhabitants never reached the level of violence in Savoy. However, it firmly opposed the building company’s proposals, obtaining some significant compensations for the people forced to move from their home to seek a new one in other villages in the Aosta Valley. Even though they were forced to move elsewhere, the people maintained their own identity and their love for their birthplace. Every year, on the day Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 104-1 | 2016 Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche 4 of Saint-Grat (September 7), most of them take part in the traditional pilgrimage to the lake named after this saint who is also the symbol of the community. 7 The endurance of a sense of identity is so strong that it also enables people living elsewhere to recognise the ones coming from Valgrisenche. This article focuses on the causes of this endurance. It will examine the founding elements of this identity and their origins according to the rules of social psychology, which acknowledges “a common history and present” as elements defining a social identity and, at the same time, as the basis for “shared social action” (Wetherell-Mohanty, 2010). The article will focus mainly on changes in the borders, along with their effects on the territory, between the 16th and 18th centuries, and the contrasts that garnered strong opposition from the people against the central national power as well as the acknowledgement of a diversity jealously kept till today. A territory defined by shifting boundaries 8 As mentioned in the introduction, the identity of Valgrisenche is based on a set of elements that include isolation, poverty and, more generally, some delay in economic development, which contrasts with the honesty and laboriousness of the residents and their strong Catholic faith. These elements allowed the establishment of a shared thought narrative attributing the poverty of Valgrisenche to the State, which allegedly would have abandoned the valley in the early 1950s. It was the time of building the dam that submerged five of its villages, among them Fornet, the seat of a rectory, founded in 1759, that made it the second centre of the valley, at least from a religious point of view. The rising waters forced part of the population to leave their homeland and prevented the growth of tourism in the area, while the rest of the Aosta Valley grew thanks to winter sports. 9 This explanation, though supported by several authors in the Aosta Valley (Viérin, 1987; Bois, 2000; Bétemps, 2002), seems to be primarily the product of both contemporary political debate and nostalgia. In fact, the reputation of “Jews” attributed to Valgriseins is based on their ability to work and on the relative affluence of the population, due to trade relations, which since ancient times have used the path of the Col du Mont. This passage, though situated at a higher altitude than the Little St-Bernard Pass, has several advantages for a wayfarer. The route is easy – even in the 17th century it was utilised “easily and in almost every season by chariots loaded with goods from Saint-Foy” (De Tillier, 1968) – but above all it is closer to Aosta, the regional capital, and to the road leaving from Avise and joining the Great St-Bernard Pass across the Vertosan Valley and the Citrin Pass. Journal of Alpine Research | Revue de géographie alpine, 104-1 | 2016 Conflict and Identity in Valgrisenche 5 Map 1. The route between the Col du Mont and the Great–St-Bernard Pass Alessandro Celi 10 Thus, in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages, the Col du Mont was a very busy trade route, as evidenced by the Roman literature and medieval archaeological remains. By contrast, in modern times Valgrisenche became an important military target because of its opening at Arvier, which allowed French troops to avoid the blockade at the Pierre Taillée, the gorge that separates Valdigne and the road to the Little St-Bernard Pass from the central part of the Aosta Valley. As a result, since the 18th century, Valgrisenche has undergone a decisive transformation: Instead of a passage, it became a barrier meant to repulse any attempt at invasion from the French side. It thus became very isolated because of the new geopolitical conditions. 11 This change, which permanently marked the local history and identity, is proved by many fortified sites, whose ruins are still around today. They indicate how both the military and the fiscal borders moved over the centuries.