Una triestina in Australia
|
|
indietro
History of Emigration from the Region
Gian Carlo Bertuzzi
Is emigration a destiny, a sentence for those born somewhere where there is only poverty? Is emigration a choice for the brave who want to ‘find their fortune’ and improve their lifestyle and the lifestyle of their families? Is it perhaps part of an economic and social system which produces it, but which it then contributes to sustaining? Can emigration be a source of well being for those who go away and those who remain? Or is it only a source of social, cultural, economic and demographic degradation for the places the emigrants leave? Or is it a mix of all these together?
Let us try and look at the case of Friuli Venezia Giulia from a historical point of view.
In modern times many were the residents of Carnia, as in other Alpine areas, who moved, even far away, to carry out the trades in which they were skilled: weavers, craftsmen, porters, household servants and above all travelling merchants, the “Cramàrs”. Some of these began dealing wholesale in their products, setting up warehouses in the main trading centres, managing to save considerable amounts of money, building large houses, buying land not only in Carnia but in other areas, too. In this case we can talk about ‘an emigration of wealth’, to maintain and consolidate a lifestyle which would otherwise not have been possible.
In the middle of the 19th century, when industrial development radically changed the economic picture in Europe, this system came to an end. The extension itself of industrialisation, urbanisation, and the network of transport needed more and more workmen for the building industry, and if the destination of the emigrants did not necessarily change, the seasonal nature of work did: people no longer migrated for the winter months but in the spring and autumn, in the months most favourable for building. The opportunities for work and the prospects of reasonable wealth, which the trades connected with building seemed to guarantee, encouraged people to put their hopes for the future, both for themselves and for their families, more and more into emigration: more intensely, both in terms of quantity as well as quality. From the traditional mountain areas emigration spread to the plain where the peasants, overburdened with taxes, oppressed by unjust agreements with the landowners, ruined by blights of the silk worms and the vines, saw an opportunity to change their lives by heading for new lands, far away, which often unscrupulous emigration agents pictured as wonderful. Towards the end of the 19th century thousands headed for Argentina and Brazil, while at the turn of the century thousands more made for North America. At the same time up to 100,000 seasonal workers arrived in the countries of Central Europe, they were often organised into work groups, and even as enterprises right and proper: some of them were the urban developers and builders of the infrastructures, facilities in the places they went to. Emigration at the beginning of the 20th century was not only the solution to a problem of widespread poverty, but it became an economic system which moved a large part of the work force abroad, with serious consequences for development in the homeland. It is precisely for this reason that the First World War put an end to the activities the emigrants were doing, interrupting the flow of migrants, destroying the system and eliminating the only source of income at that time. After the war France, Belgium and the Americas could only in part substitute that which the countries of Central Europe had offered. The political instability and the economic stagnation of the ‘20s and ‘30s made finding a living abroad even more difficult. Many countries introduced emigration restrictions, while in Italy the fascist regime set in motion a demographic policy against emigration, which it then had to moderate, as the employment situation worsened: the regime went so far as to put thousands of agricultural and industrial workers at the disposal of the Third Reich, just on the eve of conflict. In those years a marginal form of emigration appeared, political emigration, which often involved people who opposed fascism and had to get away, as had many Slovenes and Croatians who had become part of the Kingdom of Italy, either because they were being persecuted for political and national reasons, or because they were marginalised by the work they had done at the employment of the Hapsburg government.
The Second World War further aggravated age-old economic problems in Friuli and brought others connected to the exodus of Italians from Istria and to the problematic reintegration of the economy of Trieste in a geo-political context which had radically changed. The migratory phenomenon also involved the town of Trieste at that time, with emigration overseas tending to become permanent, as happened to many families who had fled from Istria, which had now become a part of Yugoslavia, and were sent as displaced people to Australia and Canada by the international aid agencies. Non-permanent emigration to European countries began again, too, much of it illegal, as at the end of the 19th century: many went to France and Belgium to work in the mines, to Luxembourg, to Switzerland and in the 50s to the German Federal Republic. These were gradually to become the favourite destinations. However, the Italian economic development of those years, which could also count on the money sent back to Italy by the emigrants and used by the financial system, also had an effect on Friuli and Venezia Giulia, too and called back those who had acquired professional and managerial skills abroad and had resources to invest. Migration changed and by 1968 there were more people coming back than leaving. It was the marginal areas which felt - and still heavily feel - the effects of emigration and the subsequent depopulation. But the huge process of rebuilding after the earthquakes of 1976 gave many people from these areas the chance to return and become part of an economic and social system which had changed to such an extent that, later, immigrants from other parts of the world would become necessary.
Click here to read the complete essay of Giancarlo Bertuzzi
|
|
 the names who what when where  the interviews maps the timeline the journeys the stories
|
Tell a story about emigration
Write your story or that of a relative, a friend or someone you know. You can add photographs, other documents, multimedia files, read it in AMMER and tell others about it.
|
AIRE “Anagrafe degli Italiani Residenti all'Estero” (Register of births, marriages and deaths of Italians Abroad)
The statistical data, updated to June 2006, of the citizens of Friuli Venezia Giulia residing abroad, by Province, by ATO (Ambiti Territoriali Ottimali), by Municipality, by Continent and Country of destination.
visit the website
|
|
web
administrator