W

e have analyzed the political action of Don Lorenzo Guetti , a priest from the Giudicarie vallies, an area of Western Trentino. His great work is best seen in the field of cooperatives, through the creation of the Famiglie Cooperative and Casse Rurali, as well as those structures that enabled people from the Trentino to come out of poverty and begin a new era of dignified economic prosperity. His yet other achievement was his activism in favour of the autonomy of Italian Tyrol, i.e. the present-day Trentino. For 800 years, the Italian Tyrol. . .the present day Trentino was a feudal state of the Prince Bishop of Trento. It was the Principato of Trento and belonged to the Holy Roman Empire of the Church. With the end of the Principato in 1803, the Italian Tyrol..now the Trentino became part of the Princely County of Tyrol. Since 1803, although inhabitants of the Tyrol, specifically the Welsch Tyrol or the Southern Tyrol, Trentino people have become officially Tyroleans, producing a radical change from a political, civic and administrative point of view.

Guetti: The Tyrols Autonomy

Whereas Trento was once the centre of the public life (power, public offices, justice and taxes) of the territory, after the Treaty of Regensburg of February 24, 1803, the city of Innsbruck, which was already the capital of North Tyrol, became the centre of the whole region. Innsbruck was the place where the Diet (Parliament) of the County was based, and where all institutions and public offices that governed the public life were moved. Trento became a peripheral city, practically anonymous; Innsbruck acquired the role of central engine of the whole Tyrolean community.

Don Guetti writes: To my supporters - he writes - I want to say that I consider the autonomy of our country as the cornerstone of its interests and its political life, as the only effective means to raise our country again from the situation where it finds itself, to develop its latent resources, to heal the plague threatening our Districts. Consequently, I want it, like any good patriot, and I want it real, corresponding to its needs, which are neither few nor small. ( La famiglia Cristiana, January 4, 1892) Nobody ever listened to him. Austria never granted What consequences did this new political-administrative autonomy to Trentino people, nor did Italy under situation have for Trento (therefore Italian) citizens? Fascism! We had to wait until 1948 to see the dream of Obviously, everything became more complicated for father Lorenzo Guetti come true! them. This is what Don Guetti will later describe, as Fr. Marcello Farina is a priest, high school clearly as he usually does: the political power of Tyrol, teacher of philosophy, an adjunct professor according to him, was far from the actual needs of the at the University of Trent, author of many books including E per un uomo la terra regardpeople, who were engaged in a daily struggle for survival. ing the life and work of Don Guetti. The slowness of interventions, the superficiality of the analysis of the problems, the remoteness of the 5

bureaucratic institutions for administrative formalities: everything contributed to increase the distance and the incomprehension between the Province of Tyrol and Italian Tyrolean citizens. More simply: from the valleys of Trentino, Innsbruck was really difficult to reach, considering the transport means of that time (even if the construction of the Brenner railway was initiated half way through the 17th century); in Innsbruck German was spoken, which Trentino people did not know at all (at least common people); bureaucracy, like today, made things even more complicated; and last, but not least, the power (seats in Parliament) was firmly held by the German part of the provincial institution, with a well-organized majority. All this contributed to create a sense of deep frustration in South Tyrolean people. Since they were different for their culture, tradition, language and history, according to Don Guetti and friends, they should have an independent Parliament, ensuring proximity to the people. According to him, this would mean a better relationship between governors and governed, and a way to control how they used their power.