Originally Posted by
Excargodog
Ask any teacher of European history. Since first recorded times, their history is replete with one side selling out another. When I was stationed in Germany the nearest village spoke a slightly different dialect than the next nearest (not quite 3 kilometers away). Historically, one village had been Catholic and one had been Protestant and for three or four hundred years after the Protestant Reformation neither village had commerce with or had even spoken to the other and their languages had drifted apart.
Then there were areas like Saarbrucken which had been briefly independent, changed back and forth from French to German generally being near destroyed in the process since the Thirty Years War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saarbr...onal_relations
All of Europe is a place with simmering old grudges papered over by compromises that always left someone unhappy. There was a bitter loser in every war - sometimes several - and an incredible number of wars over the centuries, many where the winners massacred the losers - man, woman, and child.
People talk about separatist movements in the US - Texas wanting to raise the Lone Star again and such - they ain’t seen nothin’. Europe is replete with separatist movements. The Basques, the Catalonians, the Scots, the Irish, heck - more than I can remember:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ents_in_Europe
Each nursing ancient grudges and hatred, many quite legitimate.
Not a joke.
Im a first generation American born of an Italian mother, but Italian by border only.
In 1918 after the war, the borders were redrawn and former South Tyrol of Austria was annexed into Italy.
The German dialect they spoke was outlawed, the Italian language was mandated, all town names were Italianised and they imported southern Italians by force.
First the Fascists, then the Nazis.
Before 1942 they were seen as non-Germans and were “given opportunity” to move to Poland. Those that remained then became fodder for conscription into the German army.
When the war ended they expected to be reunified with Austria but deals were made and delays were had.
The region became Trento Alto Adige, and uprisings occurred.
Now, they are an autonomous community within Italy. They have their language back (it’s still 80% or more ethnically Tyrolean), the province is now named Südtirol (only your Pinot Grigio says Trento Alto Adige), and now they are the money makers for all of Italy, so no way they are going to be back in Austria.
Call my mom an Italian and you have a fight on your hands. And she will chew you out in Italian, or English, Spanish, or German.
These kinds of issues are all over Europe.