Italianization

Italianization (Italian: Italianizzazione; Croatian: talijanizacija; Slovene: poitaljančevanje; German: Italianisierung; Greek: Ιταλοποίηση) is the spread of Italian culture, people, or language, either by integration or assimilation.

It is most known for a process organized by the Kingdom of Italy to force cultural and ethnic assimilation of the native populations living in the former Austro-Hungarian territories that were transferred to Italy after World War I in exchange for Italy having joined the Triple Entente in 1915. This process was conducted during the period of Fascist rule between 1922 and 1943.

Between 1922 and the beginning of World War II, the affected people were the German-speaking population of Trentino-Alto Adige, and Slovenes and Croats in the Julian March. The program was later extended to areas annexed during World War II, affecting Slovenes in the Province of Ljubljana, and Croats in Gorski Kotar and coastal Dalmatia.

The former Austrian Littoral (later renamed Julian March) was after Armistice with Austria occupied by Italian army. Following the annexation, 400 cultural, sporting (for example Sokol), youth, social and professional Slavic organisations, and libraries ("reading rooms"), three political parties, 31 newspapers and journals, and 300 co-operatives and financial institutions had been forbidden, and specifically so later with the Law on Associations (1925), the Law on Public Demonstrations (1926) and the Law on Public Order (1926), the closure of the classical lyceum in Pazin, of the high school in Voloska (1918), the closure of the 488 Slovene and Croat primary schools followed.

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