Tolomei, Ettore

Born in the city of Rovereto (province of Trento , Tyrol , Austria-Hungary ) in the family of a wood merchant. He had Austrian citizenship . He graduated from high school in Rovereto; then studied linguistics in Florence and Rome , where he joined . After completing his education, he taught at Italian schools in Tunisia , Thessaloniki , Izmir and Cairo . In 1901 he returned to Italy and was appointed inspector general of Italian schools abroad ^[2] .

In 1890 he founded the magazine La Nazione Italiana - the mouthpiece of Italian nationalists ^[3] . He raised, in particular, the issues of belonging to Trento and Trieste , then under the rule of Austria-Hungary , as well as the Levant and North Africa ^[4] .

At the end of the century, Tolomei's interest shifted to the north. According to him, the natural northern border of Italy passed along the main watersheds in the Alps - the and Brenner passes , despite the fact that mainly German-speaking Austrians lived in these areas ^[2] .

Among the population of South Tyrol, ladins were represented - an ethnic group speaking the Romansh language ( South Tyrol , Trento and Belluno ). Tolomei decided to use Ladin as “an Italian wedge in the German-speaking region” ^{[4] [5]} . He coined the name Upper Trentino ( Italian Alto Trentino ) for the region, which he later replaced with Upper Adige ( Italian Alto Adige ); after the First World War, this name began to be used officially in Italy and continues to remain so to the present ^[6] .

In 1904 he climbed the peak, which he mistakenly considered the northernmost peak of the watershed in the Tyrolean Alps. He declared himself the pioneer and renamed the peak to peak Vetta d'Italia ("Top of Italy"), bearing in mind a specific political goal ^{[7] [approx. 1]} . This name appeared later on the Italian maps. In 1938, King Victor Emmanuel III awarded Tolomei the title of “Count of the summit” (Conte della Vetta) ^[2] .

In 1906, Tolomei founded the magazine Archivio per l 'Alto Adige; The main purpose of the publication was to promote the Italianization of South Tyrol ^[8] . Part of the propaganda was local toponymy: on the basis of supposedly existing archives for each village in South Tyrol, an Italian name was "found", supposedly only recently replaced with German ^[9] .

In 1914, after the outbreak of World War I , the Tomeans fled to Rome to avoid being drafted into the Austrian army. By this time, he managed to give the area between the Brenner Pass and the semblance of Italian ethnicity ^{[approx. 2]} . The Archivio Handbook compiled by Tolomei became widely used on issues related to South Tyrol, especially in Italy during the war. Thus, the idea of ​​Italian legal law on South Tyrol has become generally accepted ^[10] .

After Italy entered the war on the side of the Entente (1915), Tolomei joined the Italian army under the name Eugenio Treponti ^{[approx. 3]} and got a place in the committee of chiefs of staff ^[11] . He continued to lobby for the annexation of South Tyrol. In particular, he suggested retraining the local population from German to Italian, not excluding the possibility of deportations. In 1916, published a list of Prontuario dei nomi locali dell'Alto Adige , containing more than 10 thousand settlements and toponyms of South Tyrol, the names of which were changed from German to Italian. Researchers note this massive renaming, made by one person, as unique in history ^[12] .

In 1916 and 1917 collaborated with the Military Geographic Institute (now De Agostini ) in the production of maps that depicted South Tyrol as part of Italy. These cards were used by the Italian delegation at the Paris Peace Conference to create an impression of the original identity of this region of Italy ^[2] .

After the occupation of Tyrol by Italian troops, Tolomei actively advocated decisive measures to radically change the ethnic situation in the region. He was appointed Commissioner for Language and Culture in Alto Adige, but his radical proposals were not accepted by the government. The situation changed only after the Nazis came to power ^[13] .

After the conclusion of the in November 1918 ^{[approx. 4]} Italian troops occupied the southern part of Tyrol. Tolomei was appointed to the Department of Cultural Policy in the administrative center of the region - Bozen (Italian Bolzano).

On October 2, 1922, Tolomei, at the head of a group of black shirts, occupied the city hall of Bolzano and convinced Commissioner Luigi Ponte to remove the mayor; the next day it repeated in Trento. This was the actual end of democracy in the Trentino Alto Adige area . Beginning in 1923, with the support of Benito Mussolini , the Tolomei headed for Italianization . About 8 thousand settlements and toponyms were renamed; Italian was declared the only official language ^[14] ; residents were forced to change their surnames and learn Italian. The plan of Tolomei included 32 points, of which the most characteristic were ^[15] :

• a ban on the name "Tyrol" and its variations;
• closing schools in German;
• the ban on parties expressing the interests of the German-speaking population;
• the introduction of Italian as the only official language ;
• German newspaper closure.

In 1939, the efforts of Tolomei led to the conclusion of an agreement on South Tyrol, which gave the inhabitants of the region a choice of two options: stay in Italy or emigrate to Nazi Germany - the so-called “für Deutschland option” ^[2] .

After the surrender of Italy in 1943, the Germans arrested the Tolomes and sent him to the concentration camp of Dachau , but soon transferred to a sanatorium in Thuringia ^[2] .

Due to the Italianization policy of South Tyrol, German-speaking residents called the Tolomes “undertaker of South Tyrol” ^[14] .

He was buried in Montagna ( German: Montan ). Tolomeo asked to be buried with his face to the north , so that he could watch the last German from South Tyrol leave for Austria ^[16] . That did not happen. After World War II, German was restored as an official language along with Italian ^[16] .

Many place names changed by the Tolomes during the years of fascism still have Italian names, which provokes protests of the predominantly German-speaking population. Politicians cannot agree on the issue of names, which causes friction between the Italian and German communities. Some groups, such as Suedtiroler Freiheit (a small party in favor of South Tyrol’s independence from Italy) demand the cancellation of all changes made by Tolomeo ^[16] :

All that the Nazis did in order to prove the ownership of South Tyrol in Italy - which has never happened before - is a cultural crime and has no right to exist.

Original text

Everything that fascism did with the aim of rewriting South Tyrolean history, with the aim of making South Tyrol Italian - which it never was - is a cultural crime and has no right to exist.

• The Order of the Crown of Italy - Ital. Commendatore dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia , 1920
• The Order of the Crown of Italy - Ital. Grande ufficiale dell'Ordine della Corona d'Italia , 1931
• Legion of Honor - 1935

• Catacomb schools

Notes

1. ↑ Actually, the first ascent to the peak was made by Franz Hofer and Fritz Kögl in 1895. An extensive article on climbing was published in the journal of the Austrian mountaineers club, but whether Tolomei knew about it is unknown ( Fabio Cammelli, Werner Beikircher. Alpi Aurine: Brènnero, Gran Pilastro, Vetta d'Italia. - Touring Editore, 2002. - ISBN 978- 88-365-2603-1 . )
2. ↑ Salurner Klause ( Italian: Chiusa di Salorno or Italian. Stretta di Salorno ) is a section of the Adige valley in the muddy region between South Tyrol and Italian Trentino. Traditionally considered the Italian-German language border .
3. ↑ The pseudonym gave the hope of avoiding high treason charges if it fell into the hands of the Austrians.
4. ↑ The terms of the armistice were enshrined in the Saint-Germain Treaty of 1919.

Footnotes

• Ettore Tolomei (1865-1952). Un nazionalista di confine. Die Grenzen des Nationalismus. - Trento: Museo Storico in Trento, 1998.
• Ferrandi, Maurizio. Ettore Tolomei: l'uomo che inventò l'Alto Adige. - Trento: Publilux, 1986.
• Framke, Gisela. Im Kampf um Südtirol. Ettore Tolomei (1865-1952) und das ‚Archivio per l'Alto Adige '. - Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1987 .-- ISBN 3-484-82067-5 .
• Steininger, Rolf. South Tyrol: a minority conflict of the twentieth century. - New Brunswick, NJ, USA: Transaction Publishers, 2003 .-- ISBN 0-7658-0800-5 .

• Ettore Tolomei - Der Totengräber Süd-Tirols . Tiroler Schützenkompanie Andreas Hofer Meran (German)
• “Why an Italian row over place names is dredging up memories of fascism”, BBC, 04/28/2017 - status of the issue in 2017 (English)