Irredentism

Irredentism is the doctrine of political or popular movements that claim and seek to occupy (usually on behalf of their members' nation) territory considered "lost" (or "unredeemed") to the nation, based on history or legend.[1][2] The scope is occasionally subject to disputes about underlying claims of expansionism, owing to lack of clarity on the historical bounds of putative nations or peoples.

See also: Revanchism and Reactionary
The 1887 painting La Tache Noire ('The Black Spot') by Albert Bettannier, depicting schoolboys in France being taught about the province of Alsace–Lorraine, which was lost in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and which is depicted by black colouring on a map of France.

This term also often refers to revanchism, though the difference between the two is, according to Merriam-Webster, that the irredentism is the reunion of politically or ethnically displaced territory, along with a population having the same national identity. On the other hand, "revanchism" evolved from the French word "revanche" which means revenge. In the political realm, revanchism is such a theory that intends to seek revenge for a lost territory.

Etymology

The word (from Italian irredento for "unredeemed") was coined in Italy from the phrase Italia irredenta ("unredeemed Italy").[3] This originally referred to rule by Austria-Hungary over territories mostly or partly inhabited by ethnic Italians, such as Trentino, Trieste, Gorizia, Istria, Fiume and Dalmatia during the 19th and early 20th centuries.[4] An area liable to be targeted by a claim is sometimes called an "irredenta".[5]

A common way to express a claim to adjacent territories on the grounds of historical or ethnic association is by using the adjective "Greater" as a prefix to the country name e.g. Greater Germanic Reich, Greater Hungary, Greater Serbia, Greater Albania etc. This conveys the concept and image of national territory at its maximum conceivable or claimed extent, with the country "proper" at its core. The use of "Greater" does not always equate, however, to irredentism; an example of such a situation is Greater Poland, the region containing the historical nucleus of the Polish statehood, which bears the adjective “Greater” in order to distinguish it from the region of Lesser Poland, and is unrelated to any concept of Polish territorial claims.

See also
  • Ethnic nationalism – Ethnic identity-based political ideology
  • Expansionism – Consists of policies of states that involve territorial or economic expansion
  • Lebensraum – German "living space" ideas of settler colonialism (1890s–1940s)
  • Separatism – Advocacy for separation from a larger group
  • Secession – Act of withdrawing from an organization, union, military alliance or especially a political entity
  • Manifest destiny – Cultural belief of 19th-century American expansionists
  • Pan-nationalism – Nationalism beyond national boundaries
  • Phyletism – Conflation between church and nation
  • Rump state – Remnant of a once-larger state, left with a reduced territory
  • Status quo ante bellum – Latin phrase meaning "the state existing before the war"
  • Territorial dispute – Disagreement over the possession or control of land between countries or their subdivisions

References
  1. Kornprobst, Markus (2008). Irredentism in European Politics: Argumentation, Compromise and Norms. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-89558-3.
  2. "Irredentism". Merriam Webster dictionary. Retrieved 14 February 2020.
  3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Irredentists" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 840.
  4. Bozeman, Adda Bruemmer (1949). Regional Conflicts Around Geneva: An Inquiry Into the Origin, Nature, and Implications of the Neutralized Zone of Savoy and of the Customs-free Zones of Gex and Upper Savoy. Geneva. ISBN 9780804705127.
  5. "Irredenta". Free Dictionary.

Further reading
  • Willard, Charles Arthur (1996). Liberalism and the Problem of Knowledge: A New Rhetoric for Modern Democracy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-89845-2; OCLC 260223405
  • Keating, Joshua (2018). Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood. Yale. ISBN 978-0-300-22162-6.
Look up irredentism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Irredentism.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.