Sardinian nationalism

Sardinian nationalism or also Sardism (Sardismu in Sardinian, Sardismo in Italian) is a social, cultural and political movement in Sardinia promoting the protection of the island's environment and the re-discovery of Sardinian culture. It also calls for national devolution, further autonomy, or even outright independence, from Italy.

Even though the island has been characterized by periodical waves of ethnonationalist protests against Rome, the contemporary Sardinian movement has its origins on the left of the political spectrum; attempts for Sardinian self-determination countered in fact Rome-centric Italian nationalism and fascism (which would eventually manage to contain the autonomist and separatist tendencies). Over the years many Sardist parties from different ideological backgrounds have emerged, all being in the minority, and with some of them making government coalitions of variable geometry with the statewide Italian parties. For instance, that also happened in the 2014 Sardinian regional election, where the combined result of all the nationalist parties would have been 26% of the votes.

In 1720, the Kingdom of Sardinia was definitely ceded by Spain to the House of Savoy after a plurisecular period of Spanish rule and a short-lived reconquest, abiding by the treaty of London that followed the War of Spanish Succession. The Savoyard kings, who were forced to accept this island in place of the much more populated and developed Sicily, were not pleased with the exchange to the point of making them want to dispose of what Cavour called "the third Ireland" later, according to Mazzini who denounced the plot, by selling it to France. For a long time, Sardinia would be ruled in the same way as it was during the Spanish period, with its own parliament and government being composed exclusively of men from the mainland. The only exception to this has been an outbreak of political unrest (known as "Sardinian Vespers") against the local Piedmontese notables in 1794, later led by Giovanni Maria Angioy, that ended only in the first years of the 19th century. In 1847, a segment of the Sardinian elites from Cagliari and Sassari, guided by the unionist Giovanni Siotto Pintor, demanded the so-called Perfect Fusion, aimed at getting the liberal reforms Sardinia could not have because of its separate legal system. The king Charles Albert agreed to the request; however, he also removed what little self-governing capacity the island had in the process, and Sardinia would continue to be left to its own devices, further aggravating its peripheral condition. The episode would lead Pintor himself to regret having made that proposal (Errammo tutti, "we all made a mistake"), and would raise the "Sardinian Question" (Questione Sarda) from then on, a broad term used to cover a wide variety of issues regarding the difficult relationship between Sardinia and the mainland. The Savoyard kings then proceeded to expand their domains through the Unification of Italy: Sardinia, being already part of the Piedmontese Kingdom from the very beginning, automatically joined the new polity, that changed its name to become the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.

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