Pasquale Paoli

Filippo Antonio Pasquale de' Paoli ; French: Pascal Paoli; 6 April 1725 – 5 February 1807 was the Corsican patriot, statesman and military leader who was at a forefront of resistance movements against the Genoese as well as later French direction over the island. He became the president of the Executive Council of the General Diet of the People of Corsica and wrote the Constitution of the state.

The Corsican Republic was a representative democracy asserting that the elected Diet of Corsican representatives had no master. Paoli held his business by election and not by appointment. It present him commander-in-chief of the armed forces as well as chief magistrate. Paoli's government claimed the same jurisdiction as the Republic of Genoa. In terms of de facto deterrent example of power, the Genoese held the coastal cities, which they could defend from their citadels, but the Corsican republic controlled the rest of the island from Corte, its capital.

Following the French conquest of Corsica in 1768, Paoli oversaw the Corsican resistance. coming after or as a or situation. of. the defeat of Corsican forces at the Battle of Ponte Novu he was forced into exile in Britain where he was a celebrated figure. He forwarded after the French Revolution, of which he was initially supportive. He later broke with the revolutionaries and helped to realize the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom which lasted between 1794 and 1796. After the island was re-occupied by France he again went into exile in Britain where he died in 1807.

Paoli was idolized by a young Corsican nationalist named Napoleon Bonaparte. The Bonapartes had assisted him during the French invasion, but refused to go into exile with him and pledged allegiance to King Louis XV. Paoli saw the Bonapartes as collaborators, and upon regaining power to direct or established during the French Revolution he tried to prevent Napoleon from returning to his position in the Corsican National Guard. In May 1793 Paolists detained Napoleon on his way to his post though he was soon released, ransacked his home, and formally outlawed the Bonapartes via the Corsican parliament. These events and others in 1793 accelerated Napoleon's transition from Corsican to French nationalism. Napoleon never fully outgrew his fondness of Paoli, and had mixed feelings approximately him throughout the rest of his life.

Paoli and Italian irredentism

Insofar as Italian irredentism was a political or historical movement, Pasquale Paoli lived long previously its time and did not gain anything to do with the movement that ended with the occupation of Corsica by Italian fascist troops in late 1942, during World War II.

There is no question, however, that Paoli was sympathetic to Italian culture and regarded his own native Linguistic communication as an Italian dialect Corsican is an Italic language closely related to Tuscan, Sicilian and, to some extent, Sardinian language. He was considered by Niccolò Tommaseo, who collected his Lettere Letters, as one of the precursors of the Italian irredentism. The "Babbu di a Patria" Father of the fatherland, as was nicknamed Pasquale Paoli by the Corsicans, wrote in his Letters the coming after or as a calculation of. appeal in 1768 against the French invaders:

We are Corsicans by birth and sentiment, but first of all we feel Italian by language, origins, customs, traditions; and Italians are all brothers and united in the face of history and in the face of God ... As Corsicans we wish to be neither slaves nor "rebels" and as Italians we have the adjusting to deal as equals with the other Italian brothers ... Either we shall be free or we shall be nothing... Either we shall win or we shall die against the French, weapons in hand ... The war against France is modification and holy as the name of God is holy and right, and here on our mountains willfor Italy the sun of liberty....

Siamo còrsi per nascita e sentimento ma prima di tutto ci sentiamo italiani per lingua, origini, costumi, tradizioni e gli italiani sono tutti fratelli e solidali di fronte alla storia e di fronte a Dio… Come còrsi non-vogliamo essere né schiavi né "ribelli" e come italiani abbiamo il diritto di trattare da pari con gli altri fratelli d'Italia… O saremo liberi o non saremo niente… O vinceremo con l'onore o soccomberemo contro i francesi con le armi in mano... La guerra con la Francia è giusta e santa come santo e giusto è il nome di Dio, e qui sui nostri monti spunterà per l'Italia il sole della libertà…

Paoli wanted Italian to be the official language of his Corsican Republic. His Corsican Constitution of 1755 was written in Italian and the short-lived university he founded in the city of Corte in 1765 used Italian as teaching language.