ŠTIVOR, An Italian village in Bosnia with 140 years of History
By: Federica Sala
Tags: Nationality, History, Italy, Trentino, Bosnia And Herzegovina

ŠTIVOR, An Italian village in Bosnia with 140 years of History

The resistance of this community will make you rethink about the concept of nationality Federica Sala May 9, 2020·7 min read

In the heart of the Balkans, in the North of Bosnia and hidden in the woods of the Republic of Srpska there is a small village with a very particular history connected to Italy. During one of my travels in Bosnia I discovered the presence of a community of about 400 Italians from Trentino, whose ancestors survived 130 years of history passing on a culture that is still today the same. As the village was really close to Banja Luka, that is where I was staying, I decided that I absolutely had to go to visit this village. So, one day I left by car with my Bosnian boyfriend and after 70 kilometres of travel on unpaved ground and alongside grazing cows and sheep, we finally arrived to Štivor.

The very first indication of Italianness that I saw upon entering, was the welcome sign written in Bosnian and Italian language. The village is not so big, it’s a few kilometres of paved road flanked by houses and a single bar, the Trentino Bar, where I saw the second Italian sign: the Italian flag. More and more intrigued, we decided to sit down to have a drink and find out more about the history of the place. I immediately heard the other guests talking to each other half in Italian and half in Trentino dialect, which later I discovered to be the dialect of the Valsugana area.

At this point you will wonder… Why is there an Italian village in Bosnia? What are Italian people doing there?

It’s a curious story that begins more than a century ago, precisely in 1881, when an incessant rain hit the Valsugana area, and the flood of the Brenta river forced many inhabitants to migrate elsewhere, as many suddenly found themselves homeless and jobless. Together those families planned to emigrate to Brazil, a land that was promising fields and new work tools, but hopes were soon broken as some of the people in charge of purchasing the ship trip fled with all the savings of the poor companions.

The decision to emigrate to Bosnia came only later when the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph, visiting Roncegno for the spa treatments, decided to come to the aid of the population by giving them a piece of the lands just torn from the Ottoman Empire afterwards to the Berlin treaty of 1878, with which the Austro-Hungarian Empire had obtained the administration of Bosnia, even if it will remain under Ottoman sovereignty until 1908. In the meantime, a policy of repopulation of Bosnia had been implemented, so the empire managed to put together lands to colonize and settle with the issue of helping the poor villagers. The districts of Prnjavor, Banja Luka, Konjic and Tuzla were involved in this project, where families from Valsugana, Primiero, Aldeno, Cimone, Roncegno, Ospedaletto and Levico Terme were welcomed.

In 1882, over 200 migrants, hoping to start a new life, left their country and set off for Bosnian lands carrying with them the culture, the language and the traditions of their motherland. After 1,000 kilometres and more than a month of travel, the migrants finally arrived to the place assigned to them. There were no churches, schools and even houses, only wild and uncultivated land and some plum trees from which the name of the town derives; Štivor has also known as the country where the plums grow and the name seems to come from a mispronunciation of the Bosnian word plums, sljive, with which then the people from Valsugana tried to reproduce a fruity version of the italian grappa, the sljivovica, that is a variant of rakija, a popular distillate in the Balkans. It was not only the Italians who were sent to repopulate those areas of the empire, also Czechs, Poles, Germans and Ukrainians arrived in the same year in that strip of land that many used to call Mala Europa, little Europe.

Some of the first Italian immigrants in Štivor, 1883.

The killing of the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 not only broke the thread of peace in Europe, but also the thread that was keeping the relations between Bosnia and Trentino united. With the outbreak of the First World War, Trentino immigrants turned from being populations of the empire into foreigners in a land of conquest. Bosnia, the epicenter of the outbreak of the Great War, was hit and so was the area of ​​Štivor. The end or the war was followed by the redefinition of the borders and the birth of Yugoslavia, whose government, together with the Italian one, reached an agreement that granted the Italian citizenship to Trentino immigrants in Bosnia on condition that they would return to Italy for one year. However, due to the delay in the arrival of information, or due to the lack of local propaganda (it was not an interest of Yugoslavia to flag the presence of an Italian community in an area promoted as entirely Slavic) only a small part returned. During the Second World War Štivor was not bombed because it was known that it was an area inhabited by Italian people. However, many emigrated to more industrialized cities of Yugoslavia such as Rijeka or Pula, or abroad, especially with the end of the Tito regime and after the subsequent ethnic war, which aggravated the situation in the country.

Two world wars, the Tito regime and the ethnic war have severely tested the Italian presence in Bosnia but the tragic events of history have not changed the identity and spirit of this village. Nowadays Štivor is full of symbols of an Italian spirit that has not been forgotten, starting with the welcome sign. The full of the Italian sentiment is in the Trentino Bar, which remembers a small Valsugana tavern. There you can eat the typical dishes of the area of origin and traditional costumes are worn; the owner is Italian and talks about the past and current events of the place in dialect.

It is not uncommon to see cars with Trento plate running around there, as it is not uncommon to hear inhabitants speaking Italian or dialect. To date, in fact, 92% of the population of Štivor is still of Trentino origin and three quarters of them have maintained the use of the Trentino dialect of the Valsugana region. Many actively speak Italian, while those who don’t speak it, understand it. Besides, from some years the teaching of the Italian language has been included in the school of Prnjavor, thanks to the support of the Association Trentino in the world.

In Štivor traditions are important and still deeply linked to the land of origin. Carnival is a recognized commemoration and every Sunday Mass is celebrated half in Italian and half in Serbo-Croatian. Visiting this village is like taking a journey through time to rediscover values ​​and customs that unfortunately in Italy are slowly dying out.

The desire to pass on their origins manifested immediately, starting in 1882, when families leaving Valsugana decided to bring with them some personal or work items, which for them meant home despite the change, a way to overcome nostalgia. In addition, in the village they were used to marry among family members with the aim of keeping alive the bonds between them and consequently also their surnames, the most characteristic indication of roots. The result is that, today, the stivorians are almost all related to each other. However, the disappearance of this practice and the subsequent mixed marriages between Serbs and Trentino people, have not managed to change the identity of this village.

Nowadays, the citizens of Štivor have dual citizenship and many elderly people receive Italian pensions. Some of them have never been to Italy, they know the language, traditions and customs because this is what their parents have always done or taught them. But, what does Italy mean for the Stivorians? And what does Trentino represent for them?

Among the ethnic puzzle in Bosnia, today the Italians are the smallest of the minorities and it is no longer up to the elderly to carry on the bond with their ancestors and invest in this land, now it’s time for young people. In 1997 the association “Circolo Trentini di Stivor” was born in Roncegno with the aim of gathering the Stivorians who returned home. It is also responsible for protecting the cultural identity of the Italians and maintaining ties with the land of origin. Thanks to this organization and the collaboration between the autonomous province of Trento, together with the municipality of Stivor, it was possible to build an aqueduct, which allows the houses in the village to get direct access to drinking water.

Italian or Bosnian?

The historical and cultural events of Štivor demonstrate how nationality, or the feeling of belonging to a land, is a concept that goes beyond the formal concept of territoriality. Furthermore, they showed the adaptability of a culture that did not want to choose between two countries, but that during the years, has adapted to this combination. Their roots come from Italy, they born from a valley in Trentino and from there they have faced 1,000 kilometres of road and more than a century of history. Štivor is the testimony of a culture that remains solid and faithful to its origins without being afraid to adapt to social, geographical and cultural changes, mixing with other experiences and other stories. Štivor is a great example of cultural adaptation and maintenance: its inhabitants grew up immersed in the Italian feeling of their origins and they have decided to cultivate this sentiment there, in the country where they born today.