IRREDENTISM. - Irredentism, a phenomenon almost exclusively Italian, rather than a doctrine, was a political movement predominantly animated by sentimental motives and surrounded by a certain mystical aura, even expressed in the very word, which derived from the hypothetical existence of a slavery still in need of redemption. As in every other movement, so too in this one a substratum of ideology can be found, and this derived from the nationalistic conception of the Risorgimento, to which it was closely linked.
With the application of the principle of nationality (v.), it was concluded at that time that all sections of the Italian people, speaking the same language and sharing the same culture, should be reunited under the same national political regime, so as to achieve the natural coincidence between nationality and the State. Having largely achieved this aim through the establishment of the unified Italian State under the House of Savoy, the principle continued to influence minds and led them to consider the work of redemption as still not fully accomplished, since some provinces remained under foreign domination.
Thus, two classic concepts of nationalism can be regarded as the ideal driving forces of the irredentist movement: on the one hand, the right of those sections of nationality left outside the orbit of the national State to join the already unified majority; on the other, the injustice of their subjection to a foreign State, from which was deduced the right of the nationality to rise up against the State to which it remained subject, and the right of the national State to act for its liberation or redemption from foreign servitude.
This body of principles and conclusions, although not framed within an organic doctrine, was subject to the criticism directed against the principle of nationality, which cannot of itself found the right asserted, nor does it lend itself to qualifying as unjust the political subjection of part of a nation to a power of a different nationality. If, moreover, the principles underlying irredentism have no moral or juridical value, then no value attaches to the conclusion drawn from them regarding the right to rise up against the State in order to obtain independence, or to wage war for the redemption of the nationality. Catholic doctrine, respectful of the acquired rights of the State and of the duties of subject minorities living within its borders, has consistently excluded from just causes of war the liberation of nationalities and from motives of legitimate resistance to constituted powers the mere desire for independence or national unity. The framework of conclusions might, however, change if the State were to act as an oppressor and tyrant of the nationality, in an attempt to level it and forcibly absorb it into the majority, preventing it from maintaining and developing its own peculiarities and culture.
Historically, irredentism began in Italy shortly after the annexation of Veneto. On the occasion of Victor Emmanuel II’s visit to Udine in 1866, a large number of Italians remaining under Austrian rule organized a great demonstration of Italian identity, while at the same time agitation for independence began in Trentino. Its more sentimental than theoretical character is shown by the fact that irredentist claims were directed exclusively toward certain border territories of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and among these, with particular insistence, toward Trentino and Venezia Giulia, with an illogical neglect of Dalmatia, although it too was considered Italian in culture, and even more so of the provinces on the other side of the Alps subject to French rule, Savoy and the Island of Corsica.
Irredentism was eminently anti-Austrian and, in the various phases of history, acted as a stimulus to the national idea, now suppressed by governments anxious to avoid international complications in periods of internal consolidation, now exploited as an agitational idea. At the moment of Italy’s entry into the war against Austria during the First World War, irredentism exerted a great influence in stirring the spirits, particularly among the young university element, together with the revived nationalism with which it had practically merged in a shared ideal.
Political errors committed by Austria and certain victims claimed by repression, such as the Obendan affair in 1880, strengthened it both within and beyond national borders, facilitating the action of some associations formed for this purpose. Among these, although it set itself cultural aims, the “Dante Alighieri” society deserves particular mention. The favorable outcome of the First World War, with the collapse of the Austrian Empire, removed the raison d’être of the movement, which saw its unifying aims achieved.