Thanks to the availability of L'Unione Sarda, to whom I extend all my gratitude, in the spirit of a cultural Sardinian who loves his land, I am starting today a long series of weekly articles on Sardinian history: not narrated - as is customary - but interpreted and reasoned in its ultimate moral, in order to stimulate, even using irony, my fellow countrymen to be aware of the mistakes made over the centuries, starting from six thousand years before Christ up to the present day, so that - if possible - we avoid repeating them from now on.
Our historical mistakes
So, reading me you will not find the usual exposition of traditional island history, the one repeated by local historians always the same since the time of Giovanni Francesco Fara in the sixteenth century onwards, you will instead find the denunciation of the behavioral errors committed by us in the distant and recent past, and the consequences that justify the condition of current Sardinia, totally dependent on the Italian peninsula in all sectors of life: from politics to culture to society and even the economy. Indeed, without realizing it, we are completely colonized by the Peninsulars, so much so that many of us are the first to defend what they have learned from the outside since elementary school, through school books, national newspapers, state television, cinema and even the web, without questioning it in the slightest.
Reclaiming Statehood
With these historical writings of mine, I do not pretend to convince anyone to change their mentality: everyone is free to think as they wish; but, through the exposition of the mistakes made in the past, I indicate - if we really want to reverse the trend at least of cultural dependence coming from outside - the only possible non-violent and most easily achievable way: that of being able to claim, in the face of the entire Nation, the paternity of the State that has governed us for seven hundred years, called at the beginning the Kingdom of Sardinia, then the Kingdom of Italy, today the Italian Republic, with all the positive political and social consequences that would derive from it.
The role of the Region
Of course, it would be better if the students of our schools of all levels learned from the mistakes of the past, so as not to unconsciously repeat them in the future: the Sardinians of tomorrow; but, for this, the direct intervention of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia through the Department of Public Education would be necessary. Who knows if…
***
MANY SARDINIAN PEOPLES SINCE THE ORIGIN
A Spanish saying – I don’t know who first said, in Spanish, that we Sardinians are “pocos, locos y mal unidos” which, in Italian, means: “few, insane and disunited”. It seems to have been a bishop of the sixteenth century when since 1324 the Kingdom of Sardinia since its formation was a State in real union aggregated to the Crown of Spain, and the high prelates came from the Iberian peninsula to fill this position because we natives did not have such titled and capable men of the Church.
Let us, however, pause to examine this apparently insulting yet, in many respects, true phrase.
We are few inhabitants – As for the “pocos”, even today, at the beginning of the third millennium, we are indeed “few”: a fifth of Sicily, and we tend to decrease more and more because many young people are induced to leave the island, since they have no job prospects. Whether those who remain are “mad” towards History as in the time of the Spanish bishop, I do not pronounce even though I think so, as I would alienate all my fellow countrymen, touchy and vindictive. Instead, as a historian, I can say why we are “disunited”. We have always been.
The concept is evident in our social behavior over the centuries and is explicit in the medieval archival documentation of the fourteenth century, especially in Arborea: "Be united like crows that do not gouge out each other's eyes - preached the priests in the churches of Oristano in June 1365 - ... otherwise Peter III of Aragon will arrive with his army and will gouge out the eyes of you and King Mariano IV". At that time there was a fierce war going on between the Kingdom of Arborea and the neighboring Kingdom of Sardinia of the Catalan-Aragonese; and in the end the latter won because they were united; we did not. "Mutatis mutandis" is a warning that is still valid today, if we continue to gouge out each other's eyes, leaving our land at the mercy of those who in solidarity come to exploit it.
The first Sardinians – When the island appears in written history, about a thousand years before Christ, the man with his wife and his children had already settled there permanently since the Paleolithic, for more than six thousand years. They came from different places and at different times. Reasonably the first inhabitants had different languages and different customs. It took them a very long time to occupy all the territory and come into contact with each other, and to compare themselves. I think they were no more than a hundred thousand, and divided. The Romans, when they arrived in 238 BC, found at least twenty "peoples" scattered across the island, far from united and peaceful: the Beronicenses between the lower Sulcis and the Iglesiente; the Giddilitani, the Euthicani and the Uddadhaddar in Montiferru; the Luguidonensi in Logudoro; the Bàlari in the upper and lower Coghinas; the Corsicans and the mythical Lestrigoni in Gallura; the Iliensi or Iolei in the mountains of Alà; the Nurritani in the area of Orotelli; the Parati, the Sossinati and the Aconiti probably between the Albu and Remule mountains; the Cunusitani and Celsitani in Fonni; the Esaronensi in the Cedrino valley and, again, the Galillensi thought to be in the upper Flumendosa, under the Gennargentu. Finally, there is news of some other probable ancient Sardinian people, such as the Maltamonenses, the Semilitenses and the Moddol, who we place approximately between the rivers Cixerri and Rio Mannu.
Even today we are disunited - In short, even back then we were divided from each other, and with different needs: some wealthy people settled in the fertile plain, some poor people enclosed in the sterile mountain, and they fought among themselves for survival, and the rich defended themselves from the raids of the hungry Barbagia mountain people by building the turreted nuraghi.
Skipping the centuries, the concept of the “disunited” Sardinians has remained the same. As recently as 1877, not long ago, Giovanni Siotto Pintor wrote a “Civil History of the Sardinian Peoples”, in the plural. The First World War seemed to unite us under Austrian fire in the sinkholes of the Carso, and, in 1921, the Sardinian Action Party sanctioned it in Macomèr with the Four Moors who, however, do not look at each other, because they have blindfolds over their eyes (sic!).
And now? Can we finally say we are “united” enough to deny the severe judgment of the Spanish bishop of the sixteenth century? So I ask myself: does the Ogliastrino really feel equal to the Barbaricino, and the Barbaricino equal to the Gallurese, and the Gallurese equal to the Sassarese, and the Sassarese equal to the Oristanese, and the Oristanese equal to the Cagliaritano? Meh! I doubt it.
Francis Caesar Casula
