Talk:Marta Verginella

Italian or Slovenian?
Can a woman that was born in Italy and that lives in Italy, be a Slovenian from Italy? I think, she is an Italian from Slovenian autochthonous community of Trieste.

We are writing about nationality, not about ethnicity. Was Napoleon an Italian from France?--Grifter72 (talk) 14:43, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with you on a general level. Besides, it's a wp policy to mention nationality first, and only then the eventual ethnic background or origin. However, the distinction nationality vs. ethnicity translates very badly into the Central European vocabulary. This distinction also comes from a specific cultural/historical background, which is different from the Central European one; because of this, I believe in cases like this one, we should follow a different course of action. As you probably know, one of the policies of wikipedia is that all general rules are to be followed pragmatically. Let me explain, in short, why I believe cases like this should be an exception.
 * In many areas of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, the distinction citizenship vs. nationality is used instead of the distinction nationality vs. ethnicity. Due to the frequent changes of borders, the Central European concept of nation is not directly connected with statehood and citizenship, but is linked more to a sense of cultural-linguistic belonging. The Slovenian case is a prototypical example of this. In Slovenian, the notion of nationality (narodnost) is independent of citizenship (which is logical, as there has been an independent Slovenian state for less than 20 years, but people expressed their sense of belonging to the Slovenian nation for much longer than that). The great majority of Slovenes in the Italian provinces of Trieste and Gorizia (but in that of Udine), share this kind of identity. They would thus not say that they are Italians, even though they are loyal citizens of the Italian state. They regard themselves as Slovenians by nationality. This is of course not true for all of them, identities are becoming increasingly fluent, but this is still the prevalent paradigm.
 * As for Marta Verginella, the case is even more simple, as she is also a Slovenian citizen; even in international conferences, she always lectures under the label “Slovenia” and, as far as I know, never or almost never the label “Italy” . Best regards, Viator slovenicus (talk) 19:00, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Here you can see that University of Primorska considers Marta as Italian: http://www.zrs.upr.si/SL/zaloznistvo/knjiznica%20annales/Suha_pasta/Suha_pasta.pdf

I agree with you for people from Austro-Hungarian Empire, but after WWI all changed. Following your opinion all the Italo-Americans would be Italians.

Boris Pahor case is different from Marta Verginela. He was born in Austria (a multietnical state), when Trieste had 25% of its population of Slovenian ancestry, and he always written in Slovenian.

But Marta Verginela was born in 1960 in Italy and she lives in Italy in http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagnoli_della_Rosandra. She has an Italian passport and she votes in Italy. What do you think about "Slovenian-Italian from Trieste"? --Grifter72 (talk) 09:41, 18 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Slovenian-Italian is ok for me, but I'm not convinced by your other arguments. First of all, I can't find the reference that she considers herself Italian: in the text you posted, I cannot find that. Can you please provide the exact page and line? (Btw, the data from Italian wp is wrong: she lives in Trieste proper, not in Bagnoli). As to her citizenship, I can assure you she has both.
 * In any case, I don't agree that the mere coincidence that someone was born before or after 1918 should make any difference. It's a technicality. According to your argument, all the Slovenes and Croats that were Italian citizens between 1918-1947 should be labeled as "Italians". If we follow this logic, then even people like the Slovene anti-Fascist resistence fighter Janko Premrl Vojko should be labeled as "an Italian resistance fighter" (which would be absurd), just because he happened to be an Italian citizen who spent his whole life in Italy... I'm not making any generally valid statements from my argument: no, Italian Americans are primarily Americans, but people like Boris Pahor, Alojz Rebula and Marta Verginella are primarily Slovenians, because they identify, like the vast majority of Slovenes in the provinces of Trieste and Gorizia, with the Slovenian nation, and not with their Italian citizenship, because in this Central European model of idenitification, national bonds (understood culturally-linguistically) are stronger than frequently shifting borders. Viator slovenicus (talk) 13:25, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to convince you. I've an opinion and you have another opinion. I agree with you about Boris Pahor and Alojz Rebula, but Marta Verginella is really different.--Grifter72 (talk) 13:42, 18 May 2009 (UTC)