Dalmatian Italians (Italian: dalmati italiani; Croatian: Dalmatinski Talijani) are the historical Italian national minority living in the region of Dalmatia, now part of Croatia and Montenegro.
Historically, Italian language-speaking Dalmatians accounted for 12.5% of population in 1865, 5.8% in 1880, and to 2.8% in 1910, suffering from a constant trend of decreasing presence, due to various reasons.
The Istrian–Dalmatian exodus (Italian: esodo giuliano dalmata; Slovene: istrsko-dalmatinski eksodus; Croatian: istarsko-dalmatinski egzodus) was the post-World War II exodus and departure of local ethnic Italians (Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians) as well as ethnic Slovenes and Croats from Yugoslavia. The emigrants, who had lived in the now Yugoslav territories of the Julian March (Karst Region and Istria), Kvarner and Dalmatia, largely went to Italy, but some joined the Italian diaspora in the Americas, Australia and South Africa. These regions were ethnically mixed, with long-established historic Croatian, Italian, and Slovene communities. After World War I, the Kingdom of Italy annexed Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March and parts of Dalmatia including the city of Zadar. At the end of World War II, under the Allies' Treaty of Peace with Italy, the former Italian territories in Istria, Kvarner, the Julian March and Dalmatia were assigned to now Communist-helmed Federal Yugoslavia, except for the Province of Trieste. The former territories absorbed into Yugoslavia are part of present-day Croatia and Slovenia.
The treaty provided the right of option of nationality to people on both sides, who might have been required to emigrate from the territory if they opted to keep their nationality by jus sanguinis (right of blood). According to various sources, the exodus is estimated to have amounted to between 200,000 and 350,000 Italians (the others being ethnic Slovenes and Croats who chose to maintain Italian citizenship) leaving the areas in the aftermath of the conflict. The exodus started in 1943 under Nazi Germany and ended completely only in 1954. According to the census organized in Croatia in 2001 and that organized in Slovenia in 2002, the Italians who remained in the former Yugoslavia amounted to 21,894 people (2,258 in Slovenia and 19,636 in Croatia).
The Unification of Italy (Italian: Unità d'Italia [uniˈta ddiˈtaːlja]), also known as the Risorgimento (Italian: [risordʒiˈmento]; lit. 'Resurgence'), was the 19th century political and social movement that in 1861 ended in the annexation of various states of the Italian peninsula and its outlying isles to the Kingdom of Sardinia, resulting in the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. Inspired by the rebellions in the 1820s and 1830s against the outcome of the Congress of Vienna, the unification process was precipitated by the Revolutions of 1848, and reached completion in 1870 after the capture of Rome and its designation as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.
Individuals who played a major part in the struggle for unification and liberation from foreign domination included King Victor Emmanuel II; politician, economist and statesman Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour; general Giuseppe Garibaldi; and journalist and politician Giuseppe Mazzini. Borrowing from the old Latin title Pater Patriae of the Roman emperors, the Italians gave to King Victor Emmanuel II the epithet of Father of the Fatherland (Italian: Padre della Patria). Even after 1870, many ethnic Italian-speakers (Italians in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Savoyard Italians, Corfiot Italians, Niçard Italians, Swiss Italians, Corsican Italians, Maltese Italians, Istrian Italians, and Dalmatian Italians) remained outside the borders of the Kingdom of Italy, planting the seeds of Italian irredentism.
Italian irredentism in Dalmatia was the political movement supporting the unification to Italy, during the 19th and 20th centuries, of Adriatic Dalmatia.
The Italian language is an official minority language in Croatia, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. Croatia's proximity and cultural connections to Italy have led to a relatively large presence of Italians in Croatia.
Italians were recognized as a state minority in the Croatian Constitution in two sections: Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Their numbers drastically decreased following the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus (1943–1960). Even though today only 0.43% of the total population is Italian by citizenship, many more are ethnically Italian and a large percentage of Croatians speak Italian, in addition to Croatian.
The Governorate of Dalmatia (Italian: Governatorato di Dalmazia; Croatian: Guvernatorat Dalmacija) was an administrative division of the Kingdom of Italy that existed during two periods, first from 1918 to 1920 and then from 1941 to 1943. The first Governorate of Dalmatia was established following the end of World War I, given the London Pact (1915), and was disastablished following the Treaty of Rapallo. The London Pact also promised Italy part of Dalmatia (for the presence of Dalmatian Italians). However, both the peace settlement negotiations of 1919 to 1920 and the Fourteen Points of Woodrow Wilson, who advocated self-determination, took precedence, with Italy being permitted to annex only Zadar from Dalmatia, with the rest of Dalmatia being part of Yugoslavia. Enraged Italian nationalists considered the decision to be a betrayal of the promises of the London Pact, so this outcome was denounced as a "mutilated victory".
The second Governorate of Dalmatia was established following the military conquest of Yugoslavian Dalmatia by General Vittorio Ambrosio, during World War II. It had the provisional purpose of progressively importing Italian national legislation in Dalmatia in place of the previous one, thus fully integrating it into the Kingdom of Italy. It was a territory divided into three provinces of Italy during the Fascist Italy and Italian Empire epoch. It was created as an entity in April 1941 at the start of World War II in Yugoslavia, by uniting the existing province of Zara with occupied Yugoslav territory annexed by Italy after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers and the signing of the Rome Treaties.