Guglielmo Oberdan
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Guglielmo Oberdan, (born Wilhelm Oberdank) (February 1, 1858 - December 20, 1882) was an Italian
irredentist Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent st ...
. He was executed after a failed attempt to assassinate Austrian Emperor
Franz Joseph Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his ...
, becoming a martyr of the Italian unification movement.


Biography

He was born in the city of
Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...
, which was Austrian at the time. His mother was a German woman from
Šempas Šempas ( or ; in older sources also ''Šenpas,''Navratil, J. 1894. "Slovenske národne vraže in prazne vére (Dalje)." ''Letopis Matice slovenske'' 138–201, p. 184. it, Sambasso, german: Schönpass) is a village in the Vipava Valley in the Mu ...
in the
County of Gorizia and Gradisca The Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca (german: Gefürstete Grafschaft Görz und Gradisca; it, Principesca Contea di Gorizia e Gradisca; sl, Poknežena grofija Goriška in Gradiščanska), historically sometimes shortened to and spelled " ...
, while his father, Valentino Falcier, was a Venetian soldier in the
Austrian army The Austrian Armed Forces (german: Bundesheer, lit=Federal Army) are the combined military forces of the Republic of Austria. The military consists of 22,050 active-duty personnel and 125,600 reservists. The military budget is 0.74% of nati ...
. He did not acknowledge his son, so Wilhelm took his mother's surname. He was educated in an Italian cultural milieu, embraced irredentist ideas and Italianized his name to "Guglielmo Oberdan". In 1877 he enrolled at
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
's College of Technology (now
Vienna University of Technology TU Wien (TUW; german: Technische Universität Wien; still known in English as the Vienna University of Technology from 1975–2014) is one of the major universities in Vienna, Austria. The university finds high international and domestic recogn ...
) where he studied engineering. As he supported the idea of independence for all of the empire's national groups he resented the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary and therefore deserted from the
Austro-Hungarian Army The Austro-Hungarian Army (, literally "Ground Forces of the Austro-Hungarians"; , literally "Imperial and Royal Army") was the ground force of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy from 1867 to 1918. It was composed of three parts: the joint arm ...
because he did not want to take part in military activities there. Instead, he fled to
Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...
to continue his studies. In the Italian capital he adopted
irredentist Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent st ...
ideas, aiming at the annexation to Italy of the Italian-speaking lands still under Austro-Hungarian rule. In 1882 he met with irredentist leader and co-founder Matteo Renato Imbriani. It was then that he came to the conviction that only radical acts of
martyrdom A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
could bring the liberation of Trieste from Austrian rule.


Assassination attempt

In the same year, Emperor
Franz Joseph Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his ...
was planning a visit to Trieste as part of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Habsburg rule. Although the city had earned itself the honorific title of ''urbs fidelissima'' ("most faithful city") for its non-participation in the revolutions of the 1840s, the city was nonetheless a hotbed for Italian irredentists. The ceremonies were accompanied by anti-Austrian demonstrations. At this opportunity, Oberdan and Istrian pharmacist Donato Ragosa plotted an assassination attempt on the emperor. Oberdan's attempt failed. Oberdan was arrested and sentenced to hang by an Austrian court. His mother,
Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...
, and
Giosuè Carducci Giosuè Alessandro Giuseppe Carducci (; 27 July 1835 – 16 February 1907) was an Italian poet, writer, literary critic and teacher. He was very noticeably influential, and was regarded as the official national poet of modern Italy. In 1906, h ...
appealed for clemency - but in vain. The condemned Oberdan refused all religious rites, stating "I am a mathematician and a freethinker, and do not believe in the immortality of the soul". Just before the execution, he cried "''Viva l'Italia!''" (Long live Italy!), which helped establish his later reputation as a
martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
of the Italian national cause. Statues of him were erected in towns and cities throughout unified Italy. Emperor Franz Joseph, who reigned another 35 years, never visited Trieste again. The subsequent assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria, (18 December 1863 – 28 June 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I. F ...
in 1914, and the revival of
irredentism Irredentism is usually understood as a desire that one state annexes a territory of a neighboring state. This desire is motivated by ethnic reasons (because the population of the territory is ethnically similar to the population of the parent sta ...
that followed, harked back to Oberdan's earlier attempt.


Legacy

Various prominent monuments in Italy celebrate Oberdan. In Trieste, one of the central squares carries his name (''Piazza Oberdan''). In Florence, his name is inscribed in the Obelisk of the Fallen in the Wars of Independence in the square in front of Santa Maria Novella. The Slovene writer Boris Pahor wrote a novel with that title, in which he incorporated the events from Oberdan's life. The Italian writer
Enzo Bettiza Vincenzo Bettiza (7 June 1927 – 28 July 2017) was a Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavian-born Dalmatian Italians, Italian novelist, journalist and politician. Biography Bettiza was born in Dalmatia, then part of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia ...
also depicted Oberdan in his novel "The Ghost of Trieste", under the fictitious name of Stefano Nardenk (Narden). A film adaptation of Oberdan's life was produced in 1915 by Tiber films of Rome. It starred Alberto Collo as Oberdan and was directed by Emilio Ghione, who also played the role of the governor of Trieste. It was one of a number of patriotic, irredentist films produced in Italy during World War One. Emilio Ghione met the irredentist Gabriele D'Annunzio at an invitational showing of the film in Rome and Ghione's inter-titles were praised by D'Annunzio. In 1924
Francesco Salata Francesco Salata (17 September 1876 – 10 March 1944) was an Italian senator, politician, journalist, historian and writer. Salata was an irredentist, although he had a more legalistic approach than other contemporaries, as well as being more l ...
published his extensive and well-documented work on Oberdan '' Guglielmo Oberdan secondo gli atti segreti del processo: carteggi diplomatici e altri documenti inediti'', which, however, is to some extent influenced by the mindset of the Fascist regime. John Gatt-Rutner, biographer of the Trieste writer
Italo Svevo Aron Hector Schmitz (19 December 186113 September 1928), better known by the pseudonym Italo Svevo (), was an Italian writer, businessman, novelist, playwright, and short story writer. A close friend of Irish novelist and poet James Joyce, Svevo ...
, suggests that Svevo - 21 years old at the time of Oberdan's execution - was deeply affected by it. In the aftermath, Svevo started writing regularly for the Trieste Irredentist paper L'Indepedente. He never mentioned Oberdan explicitly - the paper was heavily censored and the Austrian authorities considered any manifestation of sympathy for Oberdan as treason. However, on January 21, 1884, Svevo published a translation of
Ivan Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (; rus, links=no, Ива́н Серге́евич Турге́невIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; 9 November 1818 – 3 September 1883 (Old Style dat ...
's story "The Worker and the Man with the White Hands", whose protagonist is sent to the gallows for a rebellious act on behalf of the oppressed; Svevo added the remark that "What is really moving is not the death of the man with the white hands, but his self-sacrifice on behalf of people who are unable to appreciate it." Gatt-Rutner states that "Triestines could not miss the allusion to Oberdan, which clearly demonstrates the light in which
vevo Vevo ( , an abbreviation for "Video Evolution", stylized as VEVO until 2013) is an American multinational video hosting service, best known for providing music videos to YouTube. The service is also available as an app on selected smart TVs, ...
viewed the matter".John Gatt-Rutner, "Italo Svevo, A Double Life",
Clarendon Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, Oxford, 1988, Ch. 12-13


Notes


References

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External links


I giorni di Trieste: 1882 – L’impiccagione di Guglielmo Oberdan
(2 December 2013) {{DEFAULTSORT:Oberdan 1858 births 1882 deaths People from Trieste History of Trieste 19th-century Italian people Executed Slovenian people Executed German people Executed Italian people People executed by Austria-Hungary Italian people of Slovene descent Italian people of German descent TU Wien alumni Freethought Italian irredentism 1882 in Austria Failed regicides People executed for attempted murder People executed by Austria by hanging