Irredentism

Irredentism (Italian Italia irredenta, “unredeemed Italy”), term originally applied to a policy advocated in Italy in the 19th century for the acquisition of foreign territories claimed as Italian because of previous Italian sovereignty over them or of ethnic affinity. The territories so claimed included the city of Nice in France, the Mediterranean islands of Corsica and Malta, and those regions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Switzerland that had large Italian-speaking populations, such as the South Tirol. The Italian Irredentist movement originated around 1878 and was essentially a manifestation of the intensely nationalist movement that had succeeded in 1861, after decades of struggle, in creating a united Italy.

By extension, especially after World War I, the designation Irredentist was applied to movements in other countries, for the inclusion within their national boundaries of areas of which those countries had been previously deprived. Several of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles that redefined the boundaries of a number of European states in 1919 thereby laid the basis for Irredentist claims. A notable example of such claims was the movement in Hungary for the recovery of the province of Transylvania from Romania. Later examples include the Greek claims to southern Albania after World War II, and Yugoslav claims to Carinthia, now part of Austria, and to Trieste, which was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia in 1954.