Italian Irredentism in Corsica - History

History

Corsica was considered Italian (ethnically, linguistically and historically) until 1768, when the Republic of Genoa, which had ruled the island for centuries, ceded the island to France, one year before the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte in the capital city of Ajaccio. Under French rule, the use of the Corsican language, which is closely related to standard Italian, has gradually declined and has been replaced by French.

Giuseppe Garibaldi promoted the unification of Corsican Italians to Italy when Rome was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy, but Victor Emmanuel II did not agree to it.

The course of Italian irredentism only marginally affected Corsica, and only during the Fascist rule of Benito Mussolini were the first organizations strongly promoting the unification of the island to the Kingdom of Italy founded.

Before World War I in Livorno, professor Francesco Guerri founded the review "Corsica antica e moderna", inspired on the "Archivio storico di Corsica" of Gioacchino Volpe. Petru Rocca created in the 1920s the Partito autonomista of Corsica (of which he was the leader) with the support of monsignor Domenico Parlotti and dr. Croce, director of the "Archivi di Stato della Corsica".

Before and during World War II, some Corsican intellectuals staged pro-Italian propaganda and cultural activities in Italy (mainly in the "Gruppi di Cultura Corsa"). These included Marco Angeli, Bertino Poli, Marchetti, Luccarotti, Grimaldi and Petru Giovacchini (he was later proposed as a possible governor of Corsica if Italy had annexed it). The most renowned was Petru Giovacchini, who considered Pasquale Paoli (the hero of Corsica) as the precursor of Corsican irredentism in favor of the unification of the island to Italy. The "Gruppi di Cultura Corsa" of Giovacchini reached a membership of 72,000 members by 1940, according to the historian R.H. Rainero.

In November 1942 the VII Army Corps of the Regio Esercito occupied Corsica as part of the German led response to the Ally landings in Africa, leaving the island still under the formal sovereignty of Vichy France. Because of the lack of partisan resistance at first, and to avoid problems with Marshal Philippe Pétain, no Corsican units were formed under Italian control (except for a labour battalion formed in March 1943). However, a Resistance movement based on local inhabitants loyal to France and boosted by Free French leaders developed, opposing the irredentist propaganda and the Italian occupation, and was repressed by Italian fascist forces and subsequently by German troops.

Some irredentist Corsican military officials collaborated with Italy, including the retired Major Pantalacci (and his son Antonio), colonel Mondielli and colonel Petru Simone Cristofini (and his wife, the first Corsican female journalist Marta Renucci). After Free French forces and Resistance forces, together with some Italian troops which sided with the Allies, retook Corsica, Petru Cristofini was executed in 1943. Of nearly 100 irrendentist collaborators (including intellectuals) put on trial by the French authorities in 1946, eight were sentenced to death, but none were executed. Petru Giovacchini was also condemned to death, but fled to Italy where he found refuge until his death in 1955. With him, the Italian irredentistic movement in Corsica died out, though separate movements for independence from France (like the Corsica Nazione, Partitu di a Nazione Corsa) and the terrorist organization called National Front for the Liberation of Corsica) are currently active.