18 - Long Live the Language of Love

Professor Konrad Eisenbichler dissects language in time of multiculturalism

How can one talk about survival of the Italian language in Canada when there is a war, waged by so few, that denies survival to so many innocent people? This is the question posed to Konrad Eisenbichler, professor of Italian Renaissance, and Associate Chair and Graduate Co-ordinator of the Department of Italian Studies at the University of Toronto.
"Don't ask me. I am one of the many victims of the Second World War," says Eisenbichler. "I don't only remember the innocent people losing their lives because of this conflict, or the shattered balance. I also remember the refugees, forced to leave their homes and their land and to roam the world looking for another home, another land. This strikes a chord in my heart, as the same thing happened to us Istrians at the end of World War II, as an effect of the division of Europe: we had to leave everything and go, right away. We lost everything, even our identity. My family got divided, took different ways and citizenships, and lived in separation. We lost contact with one another and were never able to reassemble the shreds of our history."
Technically he's an Austrian-Canadian, Eisenbichler hasn't lost hope of one day obtaining the Italian citizenship "that only historic events took away from me at birth."
In 2000, one of his numerous publications, The Boys of The Archangel Raphael: a Youth Confraternity in Florence, 1411-1785, received the prestigious "Howard R. Marraro" Award, presented annually by the American Catholic Historical Association to the best book on the history of Catholicism. The book is the fruit of a 10-year research that Eisenbichler conducted in Florence on the religious and secular phenomenon of the confraternities; as to the one specifically under exam, the Confraternity of the Archangel Raphael, he illustrated its 375 years of life with a wealth of documents. But even beyond the research, this book is testimony to the solidity of the bond between its author and the culture of Italy. That bond was the theme of two crowded conferences held by Eisenbichler in February at the University of Trieste, where he spoke on the role of the Julian-Dalmatian people within Italian emigration to Canada and of literature and society in Italian Renaissance.
Eisenbichler speaks, and his words do nothing to hide an ancient pain: "When Istria, after the war, was assigned to Yugoslavia we had to choose whether to become Yugoslav citizens or leave. That was a tragedy: we Istrians had centuries of Italianity inscribed in our chromosomes. My birthplace, the town of Lussinpiccolo on the island of Lussino, had belonged to the Republic of Venice for 1,000 years before passing to Italy. How could we become Yugoslavs overnight? We did not only reject the political system - Yalta had consigned Yugoslavia to the Soviet sphere of influence; we could not adopt the culture, history, and society of the hew masters of our homeland. On the other hand, we could not stay also because those new masters enacted increasingly unbearable persecutions against us Istrian Italians. The Slavs and the Italians followed different, often hostile ways, all through the centuries, and entered the contemporary era in too different situations. So we had to make an emotionally as well as technically lacerating choice: we could not stay, but where could we go since our roots, our loves and our interests were in Istria?"
What did you do?
"What we could. Just before the deadline an uncle of mine, worried of internment - a possible prospect - sailed from Lussino by night on a sailboat, crossing the Adriatic Sea and reaching Ancona, where he requested asylum. When the moment of choosing arrived, my maternal grandmother and a daughter of hers opted for Italy, whence they were promptly extradited; not having anyone who could take them back, however, they ended up in a refugee camp. My mother, Italian by citizenship, and I returned to Austria with my father; since he was an Austrian citizen, we automatically got his citizenship. A sister of my father's, who had married a Croatian, stayed in Istria. Since then, our big family dispersed: we ended up in Canada, my grandmother and aunt in the United States, my paternal grandfather in Austria, another aunt and my cousins remained in Yugoslavia. We never reassembled, not even at a marriage, baptism, or funeral."
How did those events influence your decision to devote yourself to Italian studies?
"In a decisive way, I'd say. It was my reaction to the impossibility to live as an Italian in a region that had been Italian for centuries; those studies allowed me to live as an Italian anyway, despite the fact that I cannot obtain Italian citizenship regardless of my requests. The island of Lussino ceased to belong to Italy in 1947, and I was born there in 1949. The documents show that I am an Austrian citizen born in Yugoslavia. Clearly something is amiss, see?"
How much of Italy is there in Canada?
"A lot."
For how much longer?
"As long as Italian language and culture will be taught and studied here. Fashion, food, style, Made in Italy, are not enough to sustain Italianity out of Italy. These things are important, but not sufficient. Italian language and culture must be studied. We Istrians have a more complicated approach to this than other people, precisely because an invader expropriated us of our language and culture, Italians for over a millennium. Other Italians living in Canada - e.g. Calabrians, Abruzzese, Friulians, Sicilians - do not share our tormented awareness of being Italian because they never risked being robbed of their own linguistic and cultural identity."
What's the current health status of Italian language and culture in Canada?
"Good, but endangered, for several reasons. First of all because immigration from Italy has stopped, thus interrupting the constant update of behaviours and idioms. Italian-Canadians are becoming more Canadian than Italian, it's inevitable..."
Then there was the reform of education, with cutbacks to language classes...
"That reform axed the roots not only of the Italian community, but also of many other ethnic groups. Thanks to the Heritage Language Program, up until some 15 years ago I think, Italian and many other languages were offered until high school, and we received students that already had a good mastery of the language. We, university professors, were able to take this solid base of knowledge and strengthen it. Now we have to begin almost from scratch."
Italy, tells me Professor Balboni and Professor Trifone, has enacted a strategy in support of Italian language and culture abroad. They sketched a picture that inclines towards optimism, albeit cautiously. In North America there are the Managing Institutions that have been delegated the teaching of Italian language and culture. Is that enough?
"When you mention the Managing Institutions, I think of Alberto Di Giovanni's Centro Scuola e Cultura and its 30,000 students. I say that what we would need in order to stop the erosion of Italian is many more Alberto Di Giovanni's."
Whose task is it to teach Italian: the Managing Institutions on behalf of Italy, or the Government of Ontario?
"In areas with high concentration of Italian-Canadians, it is the institutional duty of the Government of Ontario, as it is a matter of satisfying the legitimate cultural requests of Canadian citizens, regardless of their origin. Clearly, it is not for Alberto Di Giovanni to practice multiculturalism, which inevitably implies helping foreign-born Canadians keep their language and culture. In an ideal, and possibly utopian situation, I could see Italian taught up to high school level by the Province, and Centro Scuola e Cultura supplementing this strategy. If this happened, our language would live for many more years."
Isn't the Italian-Canadian community anyhow to blame for the slow wilting of the study of Italian?
"Well, the Italian-Canadian community did much. Sure, it could have done more, but if it didn't this wasn't due to lack of sensitivity or lack of willingness. The fact is that the older generation did not feel the urgency of this: in their opinion, the language supported itself due to the large quantity of speakers. If something can be blamed on them is their short-sightedness, that prevented them from foreseeing the progressive erosion of Italian while children and grandchildren were becoming totally anglophonic."
They also accepted, almost without opposition, the cutbacks to language classes...
"Yes, they did. But this, too, was due to the belief that Italian did not need being taught in school to survive. That's why they opposed so weakly the elimination of the Heritage Language Program, and did not mobilize their representatives in the institutions. That was a gross misjudgement. However, with all this, we shouldn't dismiss Italian too quickly: in Canada it is going through a crisis, but it is not a language doomed to disappear. Only languages that nobody speaks disappear, and only languages that cannot convey emotions aren't spoken; the Italian language, even when misspoken or deformed under the guise of Italiese, still serves communication needs in Canada. Of course it should be studied more and better than it is."
Will globalization harm the Italian language?
"No, it won't. Italian culture and economy have a specific role in globalization, and that ensures that our language will not suffer from it. We can see it already: didn't Tullio De Mauro's survey prove that Italian is among the world's five most studied languages?"
Due to your family ties and to your birthplace, you also share in the Habsburg culture; you are a legitimate son, we could say, of a multicultural empire where German was the lingua franca of different nations without cancelling their specific languages and cultures. What's the difference between Habsburg and Canadian multiculturalism?
"Somewhere at home I have the Italian text of the Habsburg imperial anthem, which was sung in 17 different languages. This shows how even a solemn symbol like the national anthem was mindful of national specificity. Canadian multiculturalism is different from that of the Habsburg: here it is the awareness of the fact that this country would not be much without the contribution given by people who came here from all over the world. There is almost a need to put these people at ease, a reward of some sort, we might say. Habsburg multiculturalism, on the other hand, was born of the awareness that such a large empire was difficult to keep together without recognizing the century-old specific traits of the peoples in it, including Italians, Hungarians, Germans, Czechs, and Croats."
Wasn't this an implicit admission of weakness?
"It wasn't: the Habsburg empire was strong because it was authoritative, not the other way around. Its strength and authority stemmed from its ability in keeping so different peoples united. As a consequence, we Central Europeans lived for centuries straddling at least two cultures: that of the land where we lived, and the German one, conveyed by the lingua franca we spoke. In Istria we straddled three, four, even five languages, and alongside Italian and German also Slovenian, Croat and Hungarian were spoken. Everyone was free to choose a reference language and culture: my family and I chose Italian. We live here as Italians. My granddaughter, born in Canada in 1983, declares herself to be a Canadian of Italian origin, even if her last name is Eisenbichler."
Is this Italianity of yours understood by outsiders, such as your granddaughter's friends?
"Usually it is understood and respected. But it can be confusing to someone. It is only natural for us Istrians, though, as we have Italy in our hearts and minds."

Publication Date: 2003-04-27
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2664