Original scientific paper
A Sociohistorical Introduction to the Problematics of Ethnic Minorities in South Italy
Emil Heršak
; Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The author presents South Italy as an area which has seen the superposition and fusion of diverse ethnic groups from antiquity onwards. The paper reviews the presence in this region of several important non-Italian groups in the Middle Ages: Longobards, Saracens and Normans. Later, mention is made of the immigration of Franco-Provengale, Occitanian and Catalan linguistic groups. Special attention is paid to the three ethnic minorities that still exist in South Italy – the Greeks, Albanians and Slavs (Croats). In relation to the other groups, the South-Italian Greeks have a certain indigenous character and therefore a discussion on them and their origins cannot be confined to the Middle Ages. However, the present state of the Greek, Albanian and Croatian minorities is very similar. In conclusion, claim is made that South Italy presents an important region for studying ethnicity which appears either as a reflex of a substratum or else as the result of immigration flows. As an immigration region, South Italy has two specificities – on the one hand, it has always been exposed to the influence of the Mediterranean peoples; on the other hand, being surrounded by seas, a certain isolation has resulted. Therefore many immigrant groups lost contact with their lands of origin and gradually melted into the South Italian demos. There are, however, differences in the levels of assimilation of the surviving ethnic groups – e.g. in the case of Albanians and Molisan Croats – which present an important subject for historical sociology.
Keywords
ethnic minority; immigration; Italy
Hrčak ID:
128500
URI
Publication date:
30.9.1987.
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