Il lessico dell'identità e dell'esclusione. Sui concetti di popolo, patria e nazione nelle arti e nelle letterature dell'Europa mediterranea e balcanica in età moderna

The project analyses the role played by literature, theatre and music in creating the idea of national art during the 19th century in Germany, Poland, Croatia, and in other Balkan countries such as Albania, at the time when all European countries were defining their own identities on the basis of ethnicity, language, religion, art and popular-folk traditions. The aim of the discussion is to focus on the development of national consciousness structured around a series of different study cases, in which the words nation, homeland and people have been applied. This is the Romantic lexicon which identifies similar but various conceptions of the national idea in some countries dominated by Italian, German and Slavic cultures, and in some groups or minorities such as the Albanians, the Jews in the Mitteleuropa lands and the Vlachs in the Militärgrenze, as a phenomenon of self-description. In order to clarify the cultural framework, in which the political independence of the so-called “nations without history” or territorial unity played an important role, the seminar explores the construction of identity through folk tunes, poetry inspired by the popular culture, opera and theatre in which the national myths or heroes appear (Lek Skanderbeg, Marko Kraljević, Nikola Šubić Zrinjski). In the self-making tradition, the national traits are sustained on the one hand by the process of embodiment of any regional trend, and also by the elimination of the “other” ― namely the minorities ― and the conflict between folk and cultivated tradition. Theoretical perspectives have been shaped by the new approaches to this topic, which study the artistic episodes as socio-historical facts without making any aesthetic considerations. Particular attention is paid to the medieval paradigm, which includes both the ancient collections of poetry and the related modern unwritten songs. In view of the complexity of this topic it is necessary to affirm that nationality is a condition, but nationalism is an attitude.