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THE LADIN PEOPLE OF THE VAL DI FASSA |
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A love for the
nature surrounding us, friendship and the importance of every
individual person are core values in our culture.
Alongside its geological curiosities, the Dolomite area of
the Sella group is also home to an ethnic rarity – an isolated
pocket of Ladin language and culture that has survived over the
centuries.
The Ladin people came into being as a result of a fusion of
(primarily linguistic) Latin elements with existing (mainly ethnic
and cultural) Rhaetian elements following the Roman campaign to
conquer the Alpine territories as far north as the Danube completed
by Livy and Drusus in 15 BC. Throughout the Dark Ages, the entire
region of the eastern Alps shared similar ethnic origins and an
almost identical language which, however, evolved into an infinite
multitude of dialects as a result of lack of communication between
valleys. With the advancement of Germanic and Italian cultures,
however, these ethnic and linguistic characteristics rapidly
withdrew into isolated enclaves. Ethnic Ladin communities still
survive to this day in the Swiss Grison Canton, in Friuli, in the
Fassa, Gardena and Badia valleys in the Dolomites, in Livinallongo
and in Cortina. |
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For centuries, the Ladin territories
belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Throughout this period,
they managed to preserve their distinctive ethnic and linguistic
characteristics, thanks in part to the substantial degree of
autonomy afforded them by Vienna and also to the constantly shifting
balance between the many different forms of local power in the Tyrol
(the Empire, the Bishop Princes of Trento and Bressanone, the Counts
of Castel Tirolo and the local lords). Nationalist pride and the two
World Wars turned the Gruppo del Sella into a zone of major
political and military interest.
The Ladins were then caught up in a lengthy series of opposing
attempts to assimilate their territories by Italy and Austria, which
severely tested but failed to defeat their two thousand year old
identity. After the Constitution of the Italian Republic in 1948, a
sophisticated system of self-government and linguistic protection
began to develop in the four Ladin valleys allocated to Italy. This
was accompanied by a remarkable reawakening of a sense of Ladin
identity among the inhabitants of the valleys. The results of this
process are still clearly visible today in the unique organisation
of the Autonomous Provinces of Trento and Bolzano and in the
linguistic and cultural vitality of the Ladin towns.
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