World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Italy : Croatians

Profile

Croatian is spoken by some 2,000 to 2,400 people in three isolated mountain communities, San Felice del Molise, Acquaviva Collecroce and Montemitro, of Campobasso province in the Molise region of southern Italy. The community is bilingual in Croat and Italian, or trilingual with the addition of Albanian. It is the smallest minority in Italy, but there is a Croatian Consulate in Montemitro. The main occupation is agriculture.

Molise Croatian is a tokavian-ikavian dialect with a number of čakavian elements, close to the Croatian dialects spoken in Middle Dalmatia. The original fifteenth- or sixteenth-century language has evolved with influences from the Italian dialects of Molise, Abruzzo, Campania and Puglia, rather than influences from other Croatian dialects and from standard Croatian.

Around 90 per cent of the community attends Roman Catholic Church regularly.

Historical context

Croatians are believed to have fled to the region in the fifteenth or the sixteenth century to escape the Ottomans. Their dialect has survived in isolation from other Slavic languages for 500 years or more. Some researchers believe they came from Istria, others from Herzegovina. Molise Croatian literature began in the nineteenth century and has continued, although it is not prolific.

In the early 1900s Croatians emigrated to the USA and South America. A second wave of emigration took place in the 1950s to Europe and Australia, as the mountain communities depopulated. From the 1950s there has been an increasing degree of assimilation into Italian culture.

Article 6 of the 1947 Constitution provides for the protection of linguistic minorities. In 1963 the Molise region gained autonomy. The 1999 law on the protection of minorities mentions the Croatians. The Italian and Croatian governments agreed to provide support for the Croatian community, and Croatia opened a Consulate at Montemitro in 2004.

Current issues

Croat is offered as an optional subject at some primary schools, including the school of San Felice. Molise Croat is distinct from standard Croat, and has no standard written norms, making it difficult to teach. Molise Croatians can attend university and other higher education institutes, including teacher-training institutes, in Zagreb.

Croatians live in nine communities of the region, but the language is spoken in only three. Although there is no obligation on the part of the local administration to publish documents in Croat, the language is used in local council debates. There are some road signs in Croat and Italian.

The Fondazione Agostina Piccoli has a documentation and research centre and offers standard Croatian language courses. It has also begun codifying the dialects of Montemitro and Kruč.

In December 2005 the municipal authorities of Montemitro, Aquaviva Collecroce and San Felice del Molise and the government of Croatia bid for €250,000 in European Union funds to support a cross-border project to promote the language, culture, information exchange and tourism.

Church services are usually in Italian although about one-third of the clergy speaks Croat. Bishops from Croatia have visited the community.

There is no local radio or television service in Croat but the services of Croatian broadcaster HRT can be received with a satellite dish. There are no local newspapers in Croat but Croatian newspapers and magazines can be read online. The Fondazione Agostina Piccoli publishes a cultural magazine in Croat and Italian, Rica Ziva/Parola Viva. It organizes an annual Croat poetry prize. There is a bilingual magazine Komostre/Kamastra in Croat and Albanian for the two minorities in Molise region. There is some book publishing in Croat.

Because of the isolation of the Croatian community, they have become the subject of a human genetics research project coordinated by the University of Rome with the aim of finding new medical cures.