Corfiot Italians

The effectiveness of the powerful Venetian fortifications of the island was a great factor that enabled Corfu to remain the last bastion of free, uninterrupted Greek and Christian civilization in the southern Balkans after the fall of Constantinople.

Will Durant, an American historian, claims that Corfu owed to the Republic of Venice the fact that it was the only part of Greece never conquered by the Muslim Turks.

Because of its association with the ruling elite, by the end of the 15th century, the influence of the Italian language and culture (including in some ways the Roman Catholic church) assumed a predominant role in the island.

Until the second half of the 20th century the Veneto da mar was spoken in Corfu, and the local Greek language assimilated a large number of Italian and Venetian words, many of which are still common today.

Indeed, even before the fall of the Byzantine Empire much of the population in Corfu spoke the Veneto da mar or the Mediterranean Lingua Franca Sabir as a second, or first, language.

It became Venetian in 1386 although, with the exception of Corfu city which maintained a majority of a Venetian-speaking population (due partially to the Italkian of the capital's Jewish community), most of the peasants retained Greek as their first language.

According to historian Ezio Gray, the small communities of Venetian-speaking people in Corfu were mostly assimilated after the island became part of Greece in 1864 and especially after all Italian schools were closed in 1870.

The architecture of Corfu City still reflects its long Venetian heritage, with its multi-storied buildings, its spacious squares such as the popular "Spianada" and the narrow cobblestone alleys known as "Kantounia".

As in Venice itself, the "campi" developed haphazardly in the urban fabric where it was natural for residents to congregate, especially around churches, civic buildings, fountains, and cisterns.

[14] The opera house of Corfu during 18th and 19th centuries was that of the Nobile Teatro di San Giacomo, named after the neighbouring Catholic cathedral, but the theatre was later converted into the Town Hall.

A long series of local composers, such as Antonio Liberali (a son of an Italian bandmaster of the British Army, who later translated his surname to 'Eleftheriadis'), Domenico Padovani (whose family has been in Corfu since the 16th century) or Spyridon Xyndas contributed to the fame of the Teatro di San Giacomo.

[17] After World War I, however, the Kingdom of Italy started to apply a policy of expansionism toward the Adriatic area and saw Corfu as the gate of this sea.

Benito Mussolini developed an extreme nationalistic position in accordance to the ideals of Italian irredentism and actively promoted the unification of Corfu to Italy.

[19] Italy occupied Corfu two times: the first for a few months only in 1923 after the assassination of Italian officers; the second during World War II, from April 1941 to September 1943.

[20] After World War I, Italy had embarked on a policy of expansionism towards the Adriatic, in which Corfu played an important role, as it controlled entrance to it.

During the procession of the Saint Spyridon, the fascist young Corfiot Italians participated and provoked the students of the Greek high schools.

From 10 to 14 September 1943, the Germans tried to force the Italian garrison in Corfu to surrender, while the political prisoners from the small island of Lazaretto were set free.

Historically, the upper class of the Jewish community of Corfu spoke a Venetian dialect with some modifications (due to the influence of Greek) (see "Italkian").

[23] Permanent residence in Corfu was also found by the Apulian Jews, who brought from the Italian coast their vernacular and a few specimens, still preserved, of their literature.

Two Apulian love-songs, seemingly original, exist in manuscript, of which one is an independent composition of a rather scurrilous purport, while in the second each stanza is preceded by one of a religious Hebrew poem on a quite different subject.

Both are written in Hebrew characters, as is a semi-original composition containing the rules for the Passover supper, of which the following paragraph (with Italian words retransliterated) may be cited: "Pigiamu la cu li doi signali, e la spartimu a menzu, edizzimu: Comu spartimu chista, cussi spardiu lu Mari Ruviu, e passàra li padri nostri intra di issu e fizzi cun issi e .

A Corfiote Jew visiting any part of Apulia would have found difficulty in understanding the spoken vernacular or the songs of the natives, although the grammatical structure is exactly the same as that of his own dialect.

The Jews can boast of having preserved the oldest text in the Apulian dialect, a collection of translations of Hebrew dirges dating from the thirteenth century and now in the British Museum (MS. Or.

In the fourteenth century the decay of Apulian in Corfu had so far advanced that readers were no longer able to pronounce correctly the words of this Hebrew manuscript or to grasp their meanings.

Vowel-points were accordingly inserted, but very inaccurately; and later an incompetent scribe incorrectly substituted "duzzini" (= "dozens"), "douzelli" (= "young men"), "macchina" (= "machine") for "magina" (= "image"), and attempted to erase the superlative termination of "grandissima."