page_title: Slavia Friulana
section_title: Language, culture and religion
hierarchical_section_title: Slavia Friulana / Language, culture and religion
caption_attribution_description: Performing musicians at the carnival of San Giorgio in the community Resia, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy
context_page_description: Slavia Friulana, which means Friulian Slavia, is a small mountainous region in northeastern Italy and it is so called because of its Slavic population which settled here in the 8th century AD. The territory is located in the Italian region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, between the town of Cividale del Friuli and the Slovenian border.
context_section_description: Most people in Slavia Friulana (considering the whole slavophone area) speak four different Slovene dialects, named after the major valleys that form those territories: first of all the Natisone Valley dialect, the Torre Valley dialect, the Resian dialect and the Iudrio Valleys. The first three are closely related to each other and Resian, instead, has its own peculiar characteristics. On the other hand, the Slovene spoken in the province of Gorizia is part of the Littoral dialect group.
  Almost all of the inhabitants are fluent in Italian, which is taught in schools and present in the media and in the administration. Friulian is also widespread, especially in the municipalities of Montenars, Tarcento, Nimis, Attimis, Torreano, and Prepotto; in many villages in these municipalities, the Friulian language has already replaced Slav as the first language of communication. Because of the lack of education in the local Slav languages, most of the inhabitants do not master the standard Slovene language. Many do not understand it either, especially in the areas where the Slovenian TV and radio are not accessible, since standard Slovene is not entirely intelligible with the languages spoken in the region. They are however partially intelligible with the neighbouring Slovene dialects spoken in the Slovenian Littoral, especially the Soča and Brda dialects, which actually were parts of the ancient Venetian Schiavonia and annexed to Habsburgs' county of Gorizia in the early 19th century.
  The vast majority of the people belong to the Roman Catholic Church and the religion plays an important role in the local culture. The Roman Catholic priests have traditionally been the most important promoters of the Slovene language and culture in Slavia Friulana. Anyway, the linguistic matter hasn't been clarified yet. In the late 19th century, the Polish linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay considered the four local languages as different Slav ones, rich of Paleoslav archaisms which make them often sound closer to Serb. He classified the four Friulian Slav groups as those of: Resia valley, Torre valleys, Natisone valleys and Judrio valleys.
  In the last decades some local politicians have been asking for a popular referendum concerning the self-ethnic definition of these people, but the project has never been possible to carry out because it has been boycotted by the most ideologized groups. The referendum itself has been recently demanded by the European Union and in the meanwhile the first scientific studies about local languages have finally been published for a transparent debate.
  Slavia Friulana is known for its rich folk traditions. Numerous folk and ethno music bands come from the region, and many of them are extremely popular throughout Slovenia and the Friuli Venezia Giulia. The best-known of these bands are probably the Beneški fantje ("Venetian Lads"), which are considered to be oldest still existing Slovene band. Besides its archaic traditional music and dances, the Resia valley is also known for its folk tales, which were edited and translated into standard Slovene language by the Slovene scholar Milko Matičetov and published by the largest publishing house in Slovenia, Mladinska knjiga, in 1976. They have been re-published in eight editions since, and have had a huge impact in popularizing the Friulian Slav folk culture in Slovenia.
  Since the late 1980s, Slavia Friulana has also emerged as one of the major centres of high quality Slovene dialect poetry. The best-known poets from the region are Silvana Paletti, Francesco Bergnach and Marina Cernetig.
  Since 1994, the artistic project Stazione di Topolò – Postaja Topolove or "Topolò Station" takes place every summer in the small village of Topolò (Slovene: Topolovo, known as Topolove or Topoluove in the local dialect). The project, which is the most important cultural and artistic event in the region, is an attempt to bring together contemporary visual art with and the local folk traditions.
caption: The carnival in the Resia Valley.
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