The demise of "Little ´Europe"

Nowhere else in Western Europe is there a greater ethno-cultural diversity than in the Eastern Alps. Situ- ated in the extremely northeast part of Italy the Valcanale, i.e. the region Italy claimed from Carinthia in 1919, represents the core area. In this Little Europe no fewer than four distinct ethnic groups have set- tled next to each other: Friulians, Italians, Slovenes, and Germans. The elder of the autochthonous Slo- venes in the Valcanale - to date, however, only around 150 Persons - are using all four of these languages in their day-to-day conversations. To date, the autochthonous languages are in danger to disappear com- pletely. Nevertheless, almost all descendants of the Germans and Slovenes were aware about their ethnic origins that determined also their regional identity. The objective of the project proposal is to explore the impact of current demographic and socio-economic developments as well as assimilation on the ethnic identity of this population and on the cultural land- scape: to what extent do new in-migration to the Alps - new highlanders, new farmers, refugees, and other immigrants - affect the ethnic awareness? What are the effects on the cultural landscape? Since similar processes of assimilation have also taken place in other Alpine areas, we assume that this is a gen- eral trend: minority languages may disappear, but certain sociofacts, artefacts, and mentifacts of a culture will persist. Therefore, the question arises whether the losses of the autochthonous minorities affect the cultural landscape and thus subsequently also tourism and agriculture. Although this study focuses on the Valcanale, for purposes of comparison, however, it seems appropriate to highlight minority processes in neighboring Friulian regions, too (Resia Valley, German language pockets). Since the 1990s more and more communities in the Alps, which suffered traditionally from depopula- tion, have suddenly become in-migration areas. The project focuses on this new phenomenon and its im- pact on ethnic identity and cultural landscape for the first time. After a presentation of underlying con- cepts and the ethno-geographical problems of the Valcanale and neighboring regions the project continues with three theses referring to symbolic ethnicity and cultural landscape, to the innovative influence of the newcomers, and to the new farmers revitalizing effects on the cultural landscape. Moreover, the project will have to take also the possible influence of refugees and migrants from other continents into account. Even though amenity migration is omnipresent, there are still partly abandoned peripheral mountain vil- lages and therefore sufficient housing available for those people. The evaluation of the current status of research, the interpretation of official statistics, field studies with a variety of data acquisition methods will be key tools to achieve the project goals.

Is Little Europe disappearing? The main research goals were the analysis of ethnolinguistic change in the quadrilingual Valcanale, a part of Carinthia before World War I, and in the German language pockets of Northern Friuli. It was a concern to continue the geographical tradition of (German-language) Cultural Landscape Research and to include the dimension of Symbolic Ethnicity as well as that of Linguistic Landscape, thus entering the field of regional identity research. It is striking that the young generation in the Valcanale is open to Roman culture, and so now - after decades of internalized dualisms - the emergence of an interwoven regional identity is emerging. Nevertheless, quadrilingualism is still present in several villages as well as in the linguistic landscape. The project results also provided new theoretical as well as empirical perspectives with the inclusion of the German language pockets in Friuli settled by Tyrolean and Carinthian colonists in the High Middle Ages. A new approach to regional identity research in multilingual areas was found in "food geography". In this context, the question was pursued to what extent the diet in minority areas forms a special feature. Our ethnogeographical investigations also went beyond the Friulan mountain area and included the core area of the Alps-Adriatic region. In doing so, we introduced Sorica/Zarz in the Slovenian Alps, a dying German language island where only a handful of people still speak the old Tyrolean dialect. On the other hand, in Istria we explored the numerically smallest linguistic minority in the EU: the Istroromans. A third focus of our FWF research was the demographic change in the Montagna friulana, which is particularly impressive in the area between the Valcanale and the German language pockets in Friuli. Nowhere in the Alps was depopulation stronger between 1950 and 1990 than here; these processes even led to the creation of ghost villages. In the last two decades, however, a demographic trend reversal started due to the Amenity Migration. In our research we showed this revitalization, especially the influence of the "new pioneers" in cultural landscape, agriculture and tourism. The new immigrants are also found in other parts of North Friuli and influence the ethnolinguistic processes in the Valcanale as well as in the German language pockets.