Tabarka, La Goulette, TunisItalian Tunisians living in Italy:Sicily, Rome (migrant descendants of those people, from Sicily), Naples (Sicilian Tunisian immigrants)
Genoese fort at the island of Tabarka, near Biserta, in the northern coast of Tunisia facing Sardinia.Map of Tunisia in 1902, when the Tunisian Italians were its biggest European community . The island of Tabarka can be seen in full resolution near the Algerian border.
Italian Tunisians (Italian: Italo-tunisini, or Italians of Tunisia) are Tunisian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who emigrated to Tunisia during the Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Tunisia. Migration and colonization, particularly during the 19th century, led to significant numbers of Italians settling in Tunisia.[2]
The presence of a numerous community of Italians in Tunisia has ancient origins, but it is only from the first half of the 19th century that its economic and social weight became critical in many fields of the social life of the country.[3]
The Republic of Genoa owned the island of Tabarka near Biserta, where the Genoese family Lomellini, who had purchased the grant of the coral fishing from the Ottoman Turks, maintained a garrison from 1540 to 1742. Here may still be seen the ruins of a stronghold, a church and some Genoese buildings. At Tabarka the ruins consist of a pit once used as a church and some fragments of walls which belonged to Christian buildings.
Italian Jews from Livorno created the first foreign community in Tunisia, after the 16th century. In those centuries, the Italian language became the lingua franca in the field of the commerce in the Maghreb.[4]
After the 1848 revolutions many Italian patriots sought refuge in Tunis; among them were Giuseppe Morpurgo and Pompeo Sulema, from Leghorn (even Garibaldi had called at Tunis in 1834 to advise Bey Hussein on the administration of a modern navy; he came back in 1849 and was hosted at Palazzo Gnecco, Rue de l'Ancienne Douane.) Among the exiled was Gustavo Modena, who earned his living by teaching Italian to the Tunisian gentry 'smerciando participi' (peddling participles, in his own inventive expression.) Sulema opened a regular school that was soon patronized by the Jewish minority, both local and from Leghorn, as it was not a confessional one, while the other Italians preferred to follow the Rotonda and Visconti school. Another Italian school was opened in 1845 by Morpurgo, Luisada and Salone, joined later by Sulema, and was closed in 1863. Trading houses of the regency in this period were mostly Italian (Bensasson, Fiorentino, Gutierrez, Moreno, Peluffo, Sonnino.) On 4 January 1874 the Italian community, headed by the Consul, opened an elementary school that was partly funded by the state: on opening it had 73 pupils, half of them from the Jewish community. The secretary of state of the Bey, today we would say the prime minister of the time, was often an Italian. In 1859 the trade convention between the Bey of Tunis and the consul general of Austria, Giovanni Gasparo Merlato, had been written in Italian; that is no wonder, since in the Austrian Empire as a federal entity, the official language for the Navy and most of the trade was Italian. Around the start of the 20th century there was also an Italian newspaper in Tunis, called L'Unione, which clamored for annexation of the territory; but France was gradually taking hold and, after 1902, foreign lawyers (most of whom were Italian nationals) could not practice unless they had a French degree, and the license from the Italian High School in Tunis was not adequate to gain access to a French university.[5]
The first Italians in Tunisia at the beginning of the 19th century were mainly traders and professionals in search of new opportunities, coming from Liguria and the other regions of northern Italy. In those years even a great number of Italian political exiles (related to Giuseppe Mazzini and the Carbonari organizations) were forced into expatriation in Tunisia, in order to escape the political oppression enacted by the preunitary States of the Italian peninsula. One of them was Giuseppe Garibaldi, in 1834 and 1849.
In a move that foreshadowed the Triple alliance, Italian colonial interests in Tunisia were actually encouraged by the Germans and Austrians in the late 19th century to offset French interests in the region and to retain a perceived balance of power in Europe. The Austrians also had an interest in diverting Italy's attention away from the Trentino.[6]
At the end of the 19th century, Tunisia received the immigration of tens of thousands of Italians, mainly from Sicily and also Sardinia.[7] As a consequence, in the first years of the 20th century there were more than 100,000 Italian residents in Tunisia.[8] They concentrated not only in Tunis, Biserta, La Goulette, and Sfax, but even in small cities like Zaghouan, Bouficha, Kelibia, and Ferryville.
In those years, the Italian community was the main European community in the French Protectorate: Sicilians made up 72.5% of the community's population, while 16.3% were from central Italy (mainly Tuscan Jews), 3.8% were Sardinians and 2.5% from northern Italy (mainly from Veneto and Emilia).[9]
The small city of La Goulette (called La Goletta by the Italian Tunisians) was practically developed by Italian immigrants in the 19th century, who constituted nearly half the population until the 1950s (the international actress Claudia Cardinale was born there in 1938).
Year
Muslim Tunisians
Jewish Tunisians
French
Italian Tunisians
Maltese
Total
1921
778
1,540
772
2,449 (40,8%)
381
5,997
1926
1,998
2,074
1,264
2,921 (33,8%)
299
8,653
1931
2,274
843
2,233
3,476 (37,5%)
332
9,260
1936
2,343
1,668
2,713
3,801 (35,0%)
265
10,862
Census (1921 to 1936) of La Goletta. From: Paul Sebag, Tunis. Histoire d'une ville, ed. L'Harmattan, Parigi 1998
The presence of the Italians was fundamental in the process of cultural modernization of the country with the creation of various schools and institutes of culture, with the foundation of newspapers and reviews in Italian language and with the construction of hospitals, roads and small manufacturing industries, supported by Italian financial institutions.
The British Encyclopedia states that "...after 1862, however, the kingdom of Italy began to take a deep interest in the future of Tunisia. When the country went bankrupt in 1869, a triple control was established over Tunisian finances, with British, French and Italian controllers.' In 1880 the Italians bought the British railway from Tunis to Goletta. This and other actions excited the French to act on the secret understanding effected with the British foreign minister at the Berlin Congress. In 1881 a French force crossed the Algerian frontier under pretext of chastising the independent Khmir tribes on the north-east of the regency, and, quickly dropping the mask, advanced on the capital and compelled the Bey to accept the French protectorate. The actual conquest of the country was not effected without a serious struggle with the existing Muslim population, especially at Sfax; but all Tunisia was brought completely under French jurisdiction and administration, supported by military posts at every important point. In 1883 the new situation under the French protectorate was recognized by the British government withdrawing its consular jurisdiction in favour of the French courts, and in 1885 it ceased to be represented by a diplomatic official. The other powers followed suit, except Italy, which did not recognize the full consequences of the French protectorate until 1896..."[obsoletesource]
On 30 September 1896, Italy and France signed a treaty whereby Italy virtually recognised Tunisia as a French dependency.[10]
France and the Peril Italien
The French conquest of Tunisia in 1881, the so-called Schiaffo di Tunisi, created many problems to the Tunisian Italians, who were seen as Le Peril Italien (the Italian danger) by the French colonial rulers.[11]
Buildings showing influence of the Italian "Liberty" architecture in Tunis
In Tunisian cities (like Tunis, Biserta and La Goulette) there were highly populated quarters called “Little Sicily” or “Little Calabria”. Italian schools, religious institutions, orphanages and hospitals were opened. The prevailing Italian presence in Tunisia, at both the popular and entrepreneurial level, was such that France set in motion with its experienced diplomacy and its sound entrepreneurial sense the process which led to the "Treaty of Bardo" and a few years later the Conventions of La Marsa, which rendered Tunisia a Protectorate of France in 1881.
In this way France began its policy of economic and cultural expansion in Tunisia, opening free schools, spreading the French language and allowing, on request, French citizenship to foreign residents. Some Sicilians become French: in the 1926 Census there were 30,000 French "of foreign language" in Tunisia.[12] For example, attending free French schools, Mario Scalesi, the son of poor Sicilian emigrants, became a French speaker and in French wrote Les poèmes d’un maudit ("The poems of one damned") and was thus the first francophone poet from the Maghreb.
Even under the Protectorate the emigration of Italian workers to Tunisia continued unabated. Scalesi pinpointed that in 1910 there were 105,000 Italians in Tunisia, as against 35,000 Frenchmen, but there were only 1,167 holders of land among the former, with an aggregate of 83,000 hectares, whereas the Frenchmen include 2,395 landowners who had grabbed 700,000 hectares in the colony. A French decree of 1919 made the acquisition of real estate property practically prohibitive to the Tunisian Italians[13] and this French attitude toward the Italians paved the way for the Mussolini's complaints in the 1920s and 1930s.[14]
With the rise of Benito Mussolini, the contrasts between Rome and Paris were sharpened also because the Italians of Tunisia showed themselves to be very sensitive to the fascist propaganda and many of them joined in compact form the nationalistic ideals of the Fascism of the "Duce".[15]
Indeed, the Tunisian Italians showed "to be defiantly nationalistic and robustly resistant to amalgamation"[16] and many of them refused–often vehemently–to be naturalized by the French authorities.[17]
The fact that the French government promoted actively the French citizenship between the Italians in Tunisia was one of the main reasons of the direct intervention of Mussolini in the Tunisian problems. From 1910 to 1926, the Italians were reduced by this French policy of assimilation from 105,000 to fewer than 90,000.
In the 1926 census of the Tunisian colony, there were 173,281 Europeans, of which 89,216 were Italians, 71,020 French and 8,396 Maltese.[18] Indeed, this was a relative majority that prompted Laura Davi (in his Memoires italiennes en Tunisie of 1936) to write that "La Tunisia è una colonia italiana amministrata da funzionari francesi" (Tunisia is an Italian colony administered by French managers).
Initially, during the 1920s, fascists promoted only the defense of the national and social rights of the Italians of Tunisia against potential assimilation by France.[19] Mussolini opened some financial institutions and Italian banks (like the Banca siciliana) and some Italian newspapers (like L'Unione), but even Italian hospitals, teachers, cinemas, schools (primary and secondary) and health assistance organizations.
The March of Times (a documentary from Time magazine) in 1939 stated that "...With 1 million trained soldiers and its powerful navy, Italy is in a position to execute its plan for Mediterranean conquest. Of all Mediterranean plums, none is so tempting to land-hungry Italy as France's North African protectorate—Tunisia. For nearly 60 years, Tunisia was reasonably contented. The country is fertile—a major producer of olive oil and fertilizer, it may also have oil. Tunisia has strategic importance in a major Mediterranean war and could make Rome again master of this sea.The French employ a Muslim figurehead, who, in return for his keep, is supposed to ensure that the Muslim population is content. The fascist imperial state of Italy has sent advance men sent into Tunisia, so that there are more Italians in French Tunisia than in all African colonies. Well supplied with fascist funds, Italy's consuls and their agents have long been busy systematically undermining French influence of authority. Italian banks are generous to Italian colonists, Italians have their own schools loyal to the fascist state of Italy, and many Tunisian newspapers are subsidized by Italy. Professional agitators are actively encouraging trouble, magnifying grievances, imaginary or real. Radio programs tell Muslims that Mussolini alone is their protector. Membership in the Fascist Party is all but compulsory for every Italian male in Tunisia, and refusing to join means virtual banishment. Granted free speech and free assembly by French law, fascist leaders in Tunisia have become loud and aggressive in demanding special privileges for Italians, at the same time denouncing the French government, which tolerates their activities. Italy is making buildings that are easily convertible to military use, and building up the civil population to support a mass takeover..."[20]
In 1940, Mussolini requested France to give Tunisia (along with Djibouti, Corsica and Nice) to Italy, when World War II was just beginning. However it was only in November 1942 that Italian troops occupied Tunisia.
Near the end of 1942, Italian troops seized Tunisia from the Vichy French colonial administrators with support from German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps.
In the first months of 1943 Italian schools were opened in Tunis and Biserta, while 4000 Italian Tunisians volunteered for the Italian Army.[21] Some Italian newspapers and magazines that had been closed by the French government in the late 1930s were reopened.[22]
In the last months of 1942 some Tunisians and local Italians joined the National Fascist Party in Tunis. From December 1942 until February 1943 Tunisia and Italian Libya were under Italian control and administered as Italian North Africa,[23] but later the Allies conquered Tripolitania and Italian control was reduced to the Tunisian area west of the Mareth Line (where an Axis last stand was fought). All legally established territory of Italian North Africa was dissolved by early 1943, but Tunisia remained the last de facto Italian administered territory.
After regaining Tunisia, French authorities closed all the Italian schools and newspapers.[24] As a result of harassment by the French regime, the Italian community in Tunisia began to disappear. This process was aggravated in the 1950s when Tunisia gained independence.[25]
In the 1946 census, the Italians in Tunisia numbered 84,935, but in 1959 (three years after many Italian settlers had left for Italy or France) there were only 51,702, and in 1969 there were fewer than 10,000. As of 2005, there are only 900, mainly concentrated in the metropolitan area of Tunis. Another 2,000 Italians, according to the Italian embassy in Tunis, are temporary residents, working as professionals and technicians for Italian companies in different areas of Tunisia.
Legacy
The influence of Sicilian culture can be seen in these Tunisian pastries
The legacy of the Italians in Tunisia is extensive. It goes from the construction of roads and buildings to literature and gastronomy (many Tunisian dishes are heavily influenced by the Sicilian gastronomy).[26]
The city of La Goletta was practically created by Sicilian immigrants during the 19th century, with a quarter called "Piccola Sicilia" (Little Sicily, or "Petite Sicile" in French).[27]
In 1926 there were 2,449 Italians living in this city near Tunis (40.8% of a total population of 5,997), while the French population only numbered 772.[28]
Even the Tunisian language has many words borrowed from the Italian language.[29] For example, "fatchatta" from Italian "facciata" (facade), "trino" from Italian "treno" (train), "miziria" from Italian "miseria" (misery), "jilat" from Italian "gelato" (ice cream), "guirra" from Italian "guerra" (war), etc....[30]
Tunis is the capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. As of 2020, it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region and the eleventh-largest in the Arab world.
The Young Tunisians was a Tunisian political party and political reform movement in the early 20th century. Its main goal was to advocate for reforms in the French protectorate in order to give more political autonomy and equal treatment to Tunisians.
La Goulette, in Arabic Halq al-Wadi, is a municipality and the port of Tunis, Tunisia.
The conquest of Tunis occurred in 1535 when the Habsburg Emperor Charles V and his allies wrestled the city away from the control of the Ottoman Empire.
Ahmad I, born 2 December 1805 in Tunis died 30 May 1855 at La Goulette, was the tenth Husainid Bey of Tunis, ruling from 1837 until his death. He was responsible for the abolition of slavery in Tunisia in 1846.
The history of Tunisia under French rule started in 1881 with the establishment of the French protectorate and ended in 1956 with Tunisian independence. The French presence in Tunisia came five decades after their occupation of neighboring Algeria. Both of these lands had been associated with the Ottoman Empire for three centuries, yet each had long since attained political autonomy. Before the French arrived, the Bey of Tunisia had begun a process of modern reforms, but financial difficulties mounted, resulting in debt. A commission of European creditors then took over the finances. After the French conquest of Tunisia the French government assumed Tunisia's international obligations. Major developments and improvements were undertaken by the French in several areas, including transport and infrastructure, industry, the financial system, public health, administration, and education. Although these developments were welcome, nonetheless French businesses and citizens were clearly being favored over Tunisians. Their ancient national sense was early expressed in speech and in print; political organization followed. The independence movement was already active before World War I, and continued to gain strength against mixed French opposition. Its ultimate aim was achieved in 1956.
Le Kram is a town and commune in the Tunis Governorate of Tunisia. Situated between La Goulette, the port of Tunis, and Carthage, it opens onto the Gulf of Tunis to the east and the Lake of Tunis to the west. As of 2004 it had a population of 58,152. Before 2001, Le Kram was a municipal district within the municipality bordering La Goulette.
The French protectorate of Tunisia, officially the Regency of Tunis and commonly referred to as simply French Tunisia, was established in 1881, during the French colonial Empire era, and lasted until Tunisian independence in 1956.
The Banque de Tunisie is a bank in Tunisia, the first established in the country in modern times. It has been listed in the Bourse de Tunis since 1990.
Hayreddin Pasha was an Ottoman-Tunisian statesman and reformer, who was born to a Circassian family. First serving as Prime Minister of the Beylik of Tunis, he later achieved the high post of Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, serving from 4 December 1878 until 29 July 1879.
The mass media in Tunisia is an economic sector. Under the authoritarian regimes of Habib Bourguiba, and then Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, it saw periods of liberalization and then challenges, notably due to Tunisian censorship. The 2010-2011 Tunisian protests and the subsequent change in government may bring significant change in this domain.
European Tunisians are Tunisians whose ancestry lies within the ethnic groups of Europe, notably the French and Italian. Other communities include those from Southern Europe and Northwestern Europe.
The Fourth Shore or Italian North Africa was the name created by Benito Mussolini to refer to the Mediterranean shore of coastal colonial Italian Libya and, during World War II, Italian Tunisia in the fascist-era Kingdom of Italy, during the late Italian colonial period of Libya and the Maghreb.
Carthage is a commune in Tunis Governorate, Tunisia. It is named for, and includes in its area, the archaeological site of Carthage.
The Sainte-Croix Church of Tunis is located in the medina of Tunis in Tunisia. It is a Roman Catholic church that was built in 1837 before the establishment of the French protectorate. Given to the Tunisian government in 1964, it now houses offices of the municipality.
Until 1815 the Beylik of Tunis maintained a corsair navy to attack European shipping, raid coastal towns on the northern shores of the Mediterranean and defend against incursions from Algiers or Tripoli. After 1815 Tunis tried, with limited success, to create a modern navy, which fought in the Greek War of Independence and the Crimean War.
Our Lady of Trapani procession is a traditional festival that the Tunisian Christian community celebrates on the 15th of August of each year at Saint-Augustin and Saint-Fidèle's church in the city of La Goulette in Tunis.
Hara, now referred to as Hafsia, was the Jewish quarter of the Medina of Tunis.
Juliette Bessis was born in 1925 in Gabès, Tunisia, and died 2017 in Paris, France. She was a contemporary Tunisian scholar and historian specializing in the Maghreb region of northern Africa.
Giuseppe Raffo was a Tunisian businessman and politician who served on the Supreme Council of the Beylik of Tunis, fulfilling the main functions of a Minister of Foreign Affairs.
References
↑ Greenberg, Udi; A. Foster, Elizabeth (2023). Decolonization and the Remaking of Christianity. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. p.105. ISBN9781512824971.
↑ El Houssi L. 'Italians in Tunisia: between regional organisation, cultural adaptation and political division, 1860s-1940'. European Review Of History. 2012;19(1):163-181, p.164.
↑ "A History of the Italian People" by Giuliano Procacci
↑ El Houssi L. 'Italians in Tunisia: between regional organisation, cultural adaptation and political division, 1860s-1940'. European Review Of History. 2012;19(1):163-181.
↑ Alberti Russell, Janice. The Italian Community in Tunisia, 1861-1961: a viable minority. pags. 34-37
↑ Bonura, Francesco. Gli Italiani in Tunisia ed il problema della naturalizzazione. pag. 59
↑ Iliams, Dreyfus, Diplomatists and the Dual Alliance, p. 115
↑ Greenberg, Udi; A. Foster, Elizabeth (2023). Decolonization and the Remaking of Christianity. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. p.105. ISBN9781512824971.
Bibliography
Alberti Russell, Janice. The Italian community in Tunisia, 1861-1961: a viable minority. Columbia University. Columbia, 1977.
Bellahsen,Fabien, Daniel Rouche et Didier Bizos. Cuisine de Tunisie Ed. Auzou. Paris, 2005
Bonura, Francesco. Gli Italiani in Tunisia ed il problema della naturalizzazione. Luce Ed. Roma, 1929
Foerster, Robert. The Italian Emigration of Our Times. Ayer Publishing. Manchester (New Hampshire), 1969. ISBN0-405-00522-9
Mion, Giuliano. Osservazioni sul sistema verbale dell'arabo di Tunisi. Rivista degli Studi Orientali 78. Roma, 2004.
Moustapha Kraiem. Le fascisme et les italiens de Tunisie, 1918-1939. Cahiers du CERES. Tunis, 1969
Priestley, Herbert. France Overseas: Study of Modern Imperialism. Routledge. Kentucky, 1967. ISBN0-7146-1024-0
Sebag, Paul. Tunis. Histoire d'une ville ed. L'Harmattan, Paris, 1998
Smeaton Munro, Ion. Through Fascism to World Power: A History of the Revolution in Italy.Ayer Publishing. Manchester (New Hampshire), 1971. ISBN0-8369-5912-4
Watson, Bruce Allen. Exit Rommel: The Tunisian Campaign, 1942-43. Stackpole Military History Series. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books (1999). ISBN978-0-8117-3381-6.
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