A lazy lunch with good Mediterranean friends

[FTE217]

arm79, as mentioned my Zio/Uncle eldest bro of my Father has been tracking back their family history for some time........
I love reading about all this and some of the history is mind boggling for me.
We have more as we're pushing my Father to make sure alot is put down on a word doc before these old gens pass away - we're also encouraging my Mother to put down her fam history from her Recco region.
The below may not be of interest to anyone much here but I'd say your Nonna's and relos went through similar circumstances.......

My brother Sergio keeps digging up bits of history about the XXXXichs so I thought I should provide you with a summary. Although some parts may well be known to you, it is something you may like to pass to your kids.

You well know that our origin is from the southern part of the Dalmatian coast. It seems that, over the centuries, people from that area headed North for two main reasons:

1. the 1400th century plague – it apparently so devastated the Istria peninsula that people from Dalmatia were encouraged by the Venetian authorities to move to Istria where the plague caused the death of a high percentage of the population and therefore Istria needed to be re-poipulated.
2. the Ottomans 1800th century attempted invasion of the southern part of Europe. This again caused people from Dalmatia to head North in order to gain the protection of the Austrian-Hungarian Federation. It is interesting to note that people from Rumania joined the exodus in the same direction.
Having failed to achieve their target, some Ottomans ( possibly members of their Army) remained and settled in the Bosnia Herzegovina area where, to this day, a percentage of the population is Muslim.

In the Dalmatian area, the local Croatian dialect was “chakavian”. In Istria, the XXXXichs settled in the small village of Susnjevica (current pop. 60) and the village also became home for some Rumanian refugees. This led to the development of a dialect as a mixture of the Croatian and Rumanian languages.
Our grandfather Giuseppe obviously spoke “chakavian” as well as the new dialect. He left Susnievica and moved to Fiume where he found work in the ship-yard. That is where he learnt the Fiumano dialect which is mostly a version of the Venetian dialect. As a kid, I can recall that his Fiumano was not very fluent and, in view of his history, the reason for that is understandable.
I should explain that the Fiumano dialect is very similar to the Venetian dialect, the result of the Venetian Republic occupation of many Adriatic sea ports and its influence on the population of such towns. I will not be surprised if you are confused by the mixture of all these dialects…. so am I.

As the next step in the history, as part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Fiume saw an influx of people from Hungary. Our own father Enrico learnt several Hungarian words during his youth.
It’s interesting to note that, unlike Fiume ,Trieste and Pola (our mother Emilia’s birth place) came under the Austrian influence.
At the end of First World War in 1919, Fiume and the Istria peninsula became part of Italy. Born in 1904, our father was conscripted in the Italian Army (see photograph). He married Emilia XXXX in March 1930. Son Sergio was born on 26 December of the same year, followed by Silvano in 1933 and Enrico (Cino) in 1935.
"The above 3 are my Father and his brothers."

The next phase in our history moves to the end the Second World War in 1945 when Fiume was annexed to Yugoslavia, run by a communist regime; this led to the exodus of 85% of Fiume’s population.
Our family moved to Italy as refugees and eventually settled in Recco (Genova), a place recommended by fellow refugees (where my Father met his future wife/my Mum). That took place in 1947. Life in the Italia post-war was extremely difficult, particularly for new settlers and our dad and mum could not see a good future for the whole family. Having left our home town Fiume, they felt it was time to make yet another move .
Still regarded as refugees, they decided to migrate to Australia where the whole family arrived on January 10, 1951.
In 1991, following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Croatia became an independent country but, by that time, the town was typically Slavic and no refugees from Fiume ever considered returning to their home town.