Italians in Crimea: How the Descendants of Emigrants Influence the Life Of The Peninsula

 

The Crimean Italians Community is a relatively small organization called Cherkio. Translated from Italian means "circle". This is how the Venetians and Genoese called the medieval city that was on the site of Kerch. In the name of the organization, this is an abbreviation, which in Italian stands for the Community of Descendants of Italian Emigrants in Crimea (C.E.R.K.I.O. Comunità degli Emigrati in Regione di Krimea - Italiani di Origine).

 

According to the Сhairman of Cherkio, Julia Giacchetti-Boyko, there are 30 active people, but up to 500 descendants of Italian emigrants live in Kerch alone, and several more families in Feodosia, Simferopol, Yalta and Chistopolye. Recently, enterprising envoys of the Apennine Peninsula began to come and settle in Crimea more and more often.

 

Italian emigrants in the Crimea kept their native dialect for a long time. Many houses had books, and later a library with Italian books, newspapers and magazines was created. Recently, the first confirmation was found that the newspaper "Kerch Rabochiy" published materials in Italian (the Moscow researcher Yulia Nikolaeva found a Kerch newspaper with such an article in the Central Library). But after the repressions of the 30s of the XX century and the deportation in most families, children did not learn or speak to them in Italian, and few people can remember a few words in the dialect.

After the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014, representatives of the community were attacked by Italian and Italian-language media, asking for interviews. Foreign journalists were worried about what is really happening on the peninsula and why the Crimeans made such a choice. Unfortunately, not all interviews and reports were published; may not have gone through Western censorship. To remind the descendants of Italians about their native country, the community has been holding the Week of Italian Language and Culture for many years, organizing concerts, poetry evenings, conferences, meetings with Italian musicians and writers, etc. They dream that the popular Italian film festival RIFF will be held in Crimea, and the organizers of the festival support this initiative, but so far they have not succeeded due to local problems. In previous years, the Italian Cultural Institute at the Italian Embassy helped organize exhibitions and other cultural events, but now, due to sanctions, this cooperation has been interrupted.