00:00Welcome back to Dentro La Storia, the channel for those who love contemporary history.
00:03It's 2025 and we're heading towards 2026, the year when we'll celebrate the 80th anniversary
00:10of the Italian Republic. The Republic was born from the institutional referendum
00:14of June 2nd and 3rd, 1946, a referendum that was also accompanied by the election
00:20of the Constituent Assembly, the assembly that would work for 18 months to draft the
00:26fundamental text of the new state. That text is our Constitution, which has been called
00:32the most beautiful Constitution in the world. Our choice as Dentro La Storia is to accompany
00:37you along this journey leading up to the celebration of the 80th anniversary with a commentary on
00:45some articles of our Constitution. Today, it's Article 6, which I will now read to you.
00:52And it's a short article, but very, very, very significant. The Republic protects linguistic
01:00minorities with specific regulations. Few people probably had thought about the existence of
01:07linguistic minorities until the Constituent Assembly began its work. And yet, these were major issues,
01:15not only bilingualism, but also the cultural distinctiveness of the minorities living in
01:21Italy. Let's think about Alto Adige, about what happened starting from the 1980s with forced
01:27Italianization and the imposition of new place names. The ban came with fascism, the prohibition
01:33of speaking the German language, teaching the German language, and practicing German cultural customs
01:39and traditions. And then the options, something we've already talked about in another video that you
01:44can find on the channel. But let's also think about the Eastern question, another topic we've already
01:50covered. The arrival within the State Territory, after the Great War, of Slavic-speaking populations,
01:57Slovenes, Croats, then reduced because with the Peace Treaty, after the Second World War,
02:04part of those territories would be ceded to the newly formed Republic of Yugoslavia. But in any case,
02:11ethnic and linguistic minorities, with all their cultural background, were present within Italian
02:17territory. For this reason, Article 6 provides for protection, which means the prohibition of any
02:26form of discrimination against members of these communities. It was something that stemmed from
02:32lessons learned, starting from the burning of the Narodny Dam in Trieste, another topic that we have
02:37already covered in a video on our channel, and the entire period of violence that broke out from the early
02:441920s and went on to characterize the entire Second World War. For this provision to be fully implemented,
02:51it was necessary to wait for Law 482-99. But even before that, through various memorandums of
03:00understanding, think of the Gruber and De Gasperi agreements, the foundation would have been laid for
03:05the various recognitions of minorities and their effective inclusion within the Republic. All of this,
03:11however, has been part of a very difficult, very arduous journey, a path that was anything but
03:17simple, because it doesn't just concern bilingualism. Although Article 1 of the aforementioned Law 482
03:25states the official language of the Republic is Italian, Article 1 of that law also says the Republic,
03:33which values the linguistic and cultural heritage of the Italian language, also promotes the
03:38appreciation of the languages and cultures protected by this law. This means that the promotion of these
03:43languages is encouraged, and the teaching of other languages is also encouraged within areas where
03:49linguistic minorities are present, and it is protected. All of this is precisely to avoid new needs,
03:56situations of friction, to prevent new painful phases in Italian history. Painful phases that we have
04:02experienced, however, that's another topic from another video we made about South Tyrolean separatism.
04:07But why? Simply, why had the rules contained in Article 6 of the Constitution not yet been fully
04:15implemented? They were there, but they remained dead letter because the implementing decrees were
04:21missing. The Republic, however, also promotes and values diversity within itself. And this is because,
04:27referring back to the reasoning of Article 3, there is no distinction between male and female citizens,
04:34not even for the language they speak. This is something fundamental. And if today we applaud a sports
04:41champion like Yannick Simmer, the son of a German-speaking family who was born and raised in Sesto Pousteria,
04:48Sexton, we also owe it to the fact that Yannick and his entire generation were born and raised in an
04:56environment that protects diversity, that prioritizes multiculturalism. And that allows people to live
05:05together peacefully. A minority, which in that place is actually the majority, that is the German-speaking
05:11minority, within a state that recognizes them as citizens with full rights and duties and protects
05:18and values them. This is a very important aspect to understand, that there is no absolute dominance,
05:24that there is no domineering principle, but rather tolerance, which is the possibility given to
05:31everyone to express themselves freely, even in their own mother tongue. And above all, by showing who they
05:38are, what they believe in, and what they want to communicate in a particular language. I'll stop here for
05:45today. I'll see you next Sunday with a new video dedicated to the Articles of our Constitution,
05:52and I wish you a good Sunday.
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