Molise Slavs

From Freepedia

Molise Slavs (ethnonym Zlavi, or the named molizanski Hrvati in scientific literature, in response to new ties with Croatia) live in the Molise region of Italy in the villages Acquaviva Collecroce (in Croatian: Kruč), San Felice del Molise (in Croatian: Štifilić) and Montemitro (in Croatian: Mundimitar) and elsewhere. In these three villages they are a majority. There are about 1.700 speakers of the Molise Slavic language Additionally, there are about 1.000 people in other parts of Italy and emigrants in other countries originating from these villages.

Molise Slavss identify themselves as Italians and speak the Italian language. Milena Lalli, a poet born to local parents in Rome, studied Slavic languages in the 1970s and evaded the curse of the midget language by acquiring a sizeable literary Croatian vocabulary to replace the numerous Italian borrowings in her dialect. Sometimes, in publications, these Croatian words and even whole expressions are translated in parenthesis or to the side into proper Italian; so also in translations from Croatian.

The Molise Slavs are all Catholic; therefore by the (traditional) religious criterion they are Croats regardless of whether they used to be, as a matter of fact, Catholic or Orthodox. Tradition holds that the nation settled "z one bane mora" (from the other side of the sea) in the fifteenth century, and was once much more widespread. The legend says that they came to new country on one friday in May carrying only the statue of Saint Lucy. Because the exact year and date of their arrival is unknown they held processions dedicated to Saint Lucy (Sveta Luca) on every Friday in May.