Sardinian in Italy
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The national anthem of the Kingdom of Sardinia was the Hymnu Sardu (or Cunservet Deus su Re), the lyrics of which are in the Sardinian language. It was partially substituted by the Savoy's March when Italy was unified. During the Fascist period, especially the Autarchy campaign, regional languages were banned. The restrictions went so far that even personal names and surnames were made to sound more "italian-sounding". During this period, the Sardinian Hymn was the sole chance to speak in a regional language in Italy without risking prison, because, as a fundamental part of the Royal Family's tradition, it could not be forbidden. Italians took advantage of this possibility to express their opposition to Fascism by singing the Hymn, as did King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy on several official occasions, when the Crown needed to remind Mussolini of its superior position. To reduce this potentially dangerous bit of propaganda which was being whistled and sung in Sardinian streets, Mussolini was forced to find urgent remedies: Achille Starace, national secretary of the Fascist party, imposed the use of orbace, a poor Sardinian wool, as the national cloth for the uniforms of Blackshirts, while on a cultural level Mussolini himself officially recognised on repeated occasions the effective value of Sardinian poets and writers, still on the border of the limits of the law. The policies for the island also included the reclamation of wide areas of the region (bonifiche) and the implementation of commerce and industry. Catholic priests practiced a strict obstructionism against mutos, a form of improvised sung poetry where two or more poets are assigned a surprise theme and have to develop it on the spur of the moment in rhymed quatrains. In the Italian Army, the mechanized infantry of Brigata Sassari is the sole unit to have a hymn in Sardinian language: Dimonios, written in 1994 by Captain Luciano Sechi. This name comes from the attribute Rote Teufel (German for Red Devils, and Dimonios is Sardinian for Devils) given to them by Austro-Hungarian enemies during World War I because of their white and red flashes and their worth in war. Read more about this topic: Sardinian Language Famous quotes containing the word italy:“Uncle Matthew’s four years in France and Italy between 1914 and 1918 had given him no great opinion of foreigners. “Frogs,” he would say, “are slightly better than Huns or Wops, but abroad is unutterably bloody and foreigners are fiends.”” |