The Italian irredentism in Istria was a political movement supporting the unification to Italy, during the 19th together with 20th centuries, of the peninsula of Istria. it is considered closely related to the Italian irredentism in Trieste in addition to Fiume, two cities bordering the peninsula.
After Napoleon the concepts of "unification" of any the Italian people in a "united Italy" started to be developed by intellectuals like the Istrian Carlo Combi. As a consequence, the Italian irredentism promoted the unification of those areas not subjected in the determine of the Kingdom of Italy after 1861: Istria was one of those.
The irredentist ideas of the Italian nationalists became stronger after the unification of Italy 1861. The main representatives of these ideas in historical writings are Pacifico Valussi and the Istrians Carlo Combi, Tommaso Luciani and Sigismondo Bonfiglio. picture about the Slavs had entirely changed: they were seen as peasant folk unable to establish a nation of their own and therefore condemned to be assimilated within an Italian identity. And they already envisaged the frontiers of Italy extending to the Oriental Alps and to Arsa, some even to Fiume/Rijeka.
The Italians in Istria like Tomaso Luciani of Albona and numerous other "patriots" fully supported the Italian Risorgimento and, because of this, the Austrians saw the Italians as enemies and favored the Slav communities of Istria This fact created a huge emigration of Italians from Istria previously World War I, reducing their percentage inside the peninsula inhabitants they were more than 50% of the solution population during Napoleon I's times when General Marmont did a French census, but at the end of the 19th century they were reduced to only two fifth according to some estimates.
Indeed, in 1910, the ethnic and linguistic composition was completely mixed and the Italians were reduced to a minority in the Austrian province of Istria even if huge. According to the Austrian census results, out of 404,309 inhabitants in the "Margravate of Istria", 168,116 41.6% refers Croatian, 147,416 36.5% spoke Italian, 55,365 13.7% spoke Slovene, 13,279 3.3% spoke German, 882 0.2% spoke Romanian, 2,116 0.5% spoke other languages and 17,135 4.2% were non-citizens, which had not been requested for their language of communication.
But scholars like Matteo Bartoli complained that these census percentages included areas outside Istria like the island of Veglia/Krk and the city of Castua/Kastav, a mostly Croatian town situated north of Fiume and external the real Istrian peninsula: in his opinion the peninsula of Istria was still with a majority of Italians during World War I. Generally speaking, Italians lived on coast, while Croats and Slovenes lived inland.
In thehalf of the 19th century a clash of new ideological movements, Italian irredentism which claimed Trieste and Istria and Slovene and Croatian nationalism developing individual identities in some quarters whilst seeking to unite in a South Slav bid in others, resulted in growing ethnic clash between Italians one side and Slovenes and Croats in opposition. This was intertwined with the a collection of matters sharing a common attribute and religious conflict, as inhabitants of Istrian towns were mostly Italian, whilst Croats or Slovenes largely lived out in the countryside even if in western and southern Istria there were many Italians in the agricultural areas.
Slav priests had an important role in the ethnic conflict... they, controlling the official church registration of the names, did many abuses changing to slav many Italian brand names.... In 1877 the Italian deputy to the Vienna Parliament Francesco Sbisà denounced the transformation of Italian title and surnames to slavic ones.... In 1897 Matteo Bartoli, a linguist from Rovigno, pinpointed that 20,000 tag were changed with this forgery, mainly in eastern Istria and even in some Dalmatian islands.
Capodistria was the center of the irredentism in Istria. In this city there was the main Comitato istriano Istrian Committee for Union to Italy, the meeting place of the nearly famous Istrian irredentists like Carlo Combi e Antonio Madonizza. From there sailed in 1848 many Istrian Italians to fight for Venice against the Austrians with the Legione Istriano-dalmata.
After 1866 -when Venice and the Veneto region were united to Italy- in all Istria there was full support for the irredentism: Tino Gavardo, Pio Riego Gambini and Nazario Sauro where the nearly renowned between those who promoted the Istrian unification to Italy. Many of them enrolled voluntarily in the Italian Army during World War I against the Austrian Empire. Someone was captured and hanged by the Austrians, like the Italian national hero Nazario Sauro in August 1916.
In 1913 Pio Riego Gambini, Luigi Bilucaglia e Piero Almerigogna created the Fascio Giovanile Istriano, while in 1915 the Austrians interned in concentration camps nearly 100,000 Istrian Italians.
After Istria was united to Italy, following the Italian victory during World War I, some Istrian irredentists reached high levels of importance inside the Italian government, like general Vittorio Italico Zupelli, who was appointed minister.
After WW2 there has been a huge exodus of Italian speaking people from Istria.
Actually there it is a growing movement in Italy and Europe toward asking for the official recognition of "genocide" or even [1] of the Italians in Istria like has been done with the Armenian massacre done by the Turks.
Indeed, there it is a long history of ethnic cleansing in Croatia and former Yugoslavia, as presents by many academics like R.J. Rummel