Guglielmo Oberdan

Guglielmo Oberdan, (born Wilhelm Oberdank) (February 1 1858 - December 20 1882) was an Italian irredentist. He was executed after a failed attempt to assassinate Austrian Emperor Francis Joseph, thus becoming a martyr of the Italian unification movement.

Biography

He was born in the city of Trieste, then part of the Austrian Empire. His mother was a Slovene woman from Šempas in the County of Gorizia and Gradisca, while his father, an Austrian soldier from Lombardy-Venetia, was Italian. He did not recognize his son, so Wilhelm took his mother's surname. He was educated in an Italian cultural milieu, embraced irredentistic ideas and Italianized his name to "Guglielmo Oberdan". In 1877 he enrolled at the Vienna's College of Technology (now Vienna University of Technology) where he studied engineering. As he supported the idea of independence for all of the empire's national groups he resented the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary and therefore deserted from the Austro-Hungarian Army because he did not want to take part in military activities there. Instead, he fled to Rome to continue his studies. In the Italian capital he adopted "irredentist" ideas , aiming at the annexation to Italy of the Italian lands still under the Austro-Hungarian rule . In 1882 he met with irredentist leader and co-founder Matteo Renato Imbriani. It was then that he came to the conviction that only radical acts of martyrdom could bring the liberation of Trieste from Austrian rule.

The assassination attempt

In the same year, Emperor Franz Joseph was planning a visit to Trieste as part of the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Habsburg dominion over the city. Although the city had earned itself the honorific title of "urbs fidelissima" ("most faithful city") for its non-participation in the revolutions of the 1840s, the city was nonetheless a hotbed for Italian irredentists. The ceremonies were accompanied by anti-Austrian demonstrations. At this opportunity, Oberdan and Istrian pharmacist Donato Ragosa plotted an assassination attempt on the Emperor. Oberdan's attempt failed, but their bombs claimed two innocent victims. Oberdan was arrested and sentenced to hang by an Austrian court. Just before the execution, he cried "Viva l'Italia!" (Long live Italy!), which helped establish his later reputation as a martyr of the Italian National cause. Statues of him were erected in towns and cities throughout unified Italy, especially after the rise of fascism. The subsequent assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, and the revival of irredentism that followed, harkened back to Oberdan's earlier attempt.

Legacy

In Trieste, one of the central squares carries his name ("Piazza Oberdan"). The Slovene writer Boris Pahor wrote a famous novel with that title, in which he incorporated the events from Oberdan's life. The Italian writer Enzo Bettiza also depicted Oberdan in his famous novel "The Ghost of Trieste", under the fictitious name of Stefano Nardenk (Narden).

References

*cite book|first=Jean-Paul|last=Bled|title=Franz Joseph|location=Cambridge|publisher=Blackwell Publishers|year=1992|pages=p. 230
*cite book|first=S.|last=Cilibrizzi|title=Storia parlamentare, politica e diplomatica d'Italia|location=Naples|year=1939-1952|pages=p. 259
*cite book|first=Christopher|last=Seton-Watson|title=Italy from Liberalism to Fascism|location=London|publisher=Methuen & Co.|year=1967|pages=p. 115