No Austrians in South Tyrol? Why the German-speaking community in Italy’s South Tyrol (Alto Adige) province is not usually called an Austrian minority
No Austrians in South Tyrol? Why the German-speaking community in Italy’s South Tyrol (Alto Adige) province is not usually called an Austrian minority

Summary/Abstract: The article discusses the question why the German-speakers in Northern Italy’s South Tyrol province are only very rarely referred to as an Austrian minority, in spite of the fact that they were split off from Austria, and not Germany, in the aftermath of World War I. An analysis of the naming of German-speaking South Tyroleans in German, Austrian, Italian and English-speaking news media, which demonstrates a preference for terms such as “German-speaking minority” or “German minority” over “Austrian minority and equivalents, is followed by a discussion of three hypotheses to account for the situation. The author shows how the question of how to name the German-speaking South Tyroleans is closely intertwined with the issue of Austrian national identity and its re-orientation away from Germany in the aftermath of the Second World War. The author comes to the conclusion that the minority is not usually referred to as Austrian both due to the fact that it is difficult to include them in the young (civic) Austrian nation in a logically consistent manner, and due to the German-speaking South Tyroleans’ own inconsistent self-identification as Austrians.

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