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"The past is a beacon that is transmitted ..."

F. Sarraveli-Retali

The history of Corsica was marked by great invasions, conquests and constant duality caused by its geography: the internal resistance (due mainly to agro-pastoralism) and economic development in the sea through cited mainly founded by the Genoese. Dominated in turn by the Etruscans, Romans, Saracens, Pisa, Genoa and finally the French, Corsica has a history of great hardship, on a par with most other Mediterranean islands. The constant struggle against their conquerors, sometimes solicited and sometimes imposed, has shaped the soul of his people. What we offer here is a quick trip back in time to better understand the intricacies of its history ...

The prehistory and the Greco-Roman

Thanks to the "Lady of Bonifacio", the skeleton of our oldest known ancestor, we know that the island is inhabited by men since 9000 years. 5000 years later appear farming communities and the first megalithic.

We are also still many, particularly in the region Sartenais (alignments and Palaghju Stantari) and Valinco (site Filitosa). It was not until 6500 years later show delivery bronze objects and the architecture of protection - I Castelli - including Cucuruzzu in the Alta Rocca. The Graeco-Roman will, meanwhile, marked by two important dates: 564 and 250 BC.

564 BC. JC. Greeks reach the mouth of Tavignanu and based not far away, the city will become of Alalia Aleria. They will operate mainly olive trees and vines whose products will be transported in amphorae (there are still some other day during exploratory dives). 250 BC. JC. The Romans conquered and destroyed Alalia Corsica. They begin a war without thank you cons native who last a century. The Romans and their descendants remain in Corsica nearly 700 years infiltrating an indelible mark on Corsican culture particularly through culture and language.

The Christianization of the island

In 455, Vandals and Ostrogoths invade Corsica. Vandals destroy Aléria Mariana then take control of the island. They occupy the coastal areas until VI century where they are hunted by Justinian 1. Then began the Byzantine occupation and the Christianization of the island. In 774, by donation of Charlemagne, Emperor of Western Christendom, Corsica becomes property of the Papal State. Corsica suffers a raid by the Moors every year 806 to 813. They are really driven from Corsica, that about 1016 by the Pisan and Genoese.

The Pisan: 1077-1284

In 1077, Pope Gregory VII ordered the Bishop of Pisa to govern Corsica. The architecture and art Pisan expressed through the construction of many churches and convents (San Michele di Muratu San Ghjuvanni Carbini Di San Michele di USIS, Santa Maria di u ... Nebbiu).

The reorganization of the island by the church divided into 90 Corsica Pieve (parish) with a priest at the head of each of them. In 1284, the Pisani were defeated by the Genoese in the naval battle of Meloria. It was in 1296 that Pope Boniface VIII called the king of Aragon to dispute the possession of Corsica to Genoa. It fails to Bonifacio.

The Genoese: 1284-1768

Against a backdrop of unrest and lawlessness that the Genoese foothold in Corsica, called by the notables of the island north of the island. They have raised under the banner of Alando Sambucuccio to try remove clutter caused by the weakness of Pisa. The Genoese founded in 1268 Calvi, Bastia in 1383, St. Florent in 1440, Ajaccio, Porto Vecchio in 1492 and 1539. In 1405, Vincentellu of Istria, allied to the King of Aragon, tried to return to Corsica from the Genoese. He was appointed viceroy of Corsica in 1420 and settled in Biguglia which became the capital of Corsica.

Much of the Corsican join with the exception of Bonifacio that remains faithful to the Republic of Genoa. In 1433, Vincentellu increase taxes considerably, causing a popular revolt. He has to flee to Sicily, where he was captured and beheaded.

At the end of the Middle Ages, Corsica has not really experienced feudalism. She remained a prisoner of Roman patronage give birth to the clans. Pieve south of the island are run by the "corporal", small warlords, while unable to agree that the North started a revolution under the rule of the Genoese Republic, which seeks to establish a favorable peace in Corsica the development of Corsica. Half a century later, the troubles have not ceased. A resident of Bastelica, former mercenary in the pay of the Medicis.

Florence, became colonel of the army of King of France, Sampieru Corsu manages to invade Corsica with the financial assistance of King Henry II of France. He captured Bastia, Corte, Ajaccio and Calvi. Corsica is finally made to the Genoese by France after the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrai in 1559. But Sampieru decides to continue the fight with his troops, he defeated the Genoese in Vescovato, Porto-Vecchio in 1564 and became master of the interior of the island. But in 1567 he was killed in an ambush by the family of his young wife he strangled her (Vannina), and whose tragedy inspired the famous play by William Shakespeare: Othello. From 1569 to 1729, the Genoese govern Corsica without real opposition.

The war of "thirty years": 1729-1769

This war, revolution Corsican compelled Genoa, declining to appeal to turn to the French and Austrians. Various uprisings shook Corsica. Born of these violent events, with Chef Jean-Pierre Gaffori, a national feeling which will lead to fifteen years of independence under the chair of General Pascal Paoli. 1735: Corsica was declared independent of the power in a sponge Consulta (assembly) convened at Corte. 1751: Jean-Pierre Gaffori was elected leader of the nation but was assassinated in 1753. 1755: Pascal Paoli was elected leader of the Corsican Nation July 14 when the Consulta di di a San'Antone Casabianca. Independence was proclaimed in November that year.

Paoli, progressive man, trying to adapt the ideals of the Enlightenment to the realities of the eighteenth century Corsica. The hearing of Corsica and its leader is thus relays in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and James Boswell (An Account of Corsica). Corsica Pascal Paoli endowed with a capital - Corte - and a university, he set up the structures of a state in which the "Corsican nation is sovereign. 1768 by the Treaty of Versailles, the Republic of Genoa cedes Corsica to France with a guaranteed right to return as soon as the debt owed to King Louis XV will be refunded. Afflicted by the divisions of Corsican and face an unequal power relationship, the troops of P. Paoli fought at Ponte Novo on 8 May 1769. Corsica becomes the possession of the kingdom of France.

Inclusion in France: 1789

On August 15, 1769: born in Ajaccio Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of the French in 1804. It focuses much of his native island except to submit to military law. November 30, 1789: a decree proclaiming Corsica "integral part of the French Empire" to prevent the right of return claimed by Genoa. This decree has been urged by Pascal Paoli, then in exile in London to the constituent assembly because he fears that Genoa does not require the return of Corsica in its fold. On July 14, 1790, Pascal Paoli returned to Corsica, welcomed by all those who have kept the memory of the republic in 1755. Pascal Paoli declared enemy of the nation by the French Assembly, must once again flee to England. He then left for Corsica and still leaves room for a short-lived Anglo-Corsican kingdom shall not stand for a year. In 1796, General Napoleon Bonaparte, took possession of Corsica in the name of the French Republic. The island seems to find the path of progress and modernity of some of Napoleon III. But this is only apparent because the island has indeed missed the industrial revolution.

Photo credits: Bruno Delacotte

The tumult of the twentieth century and the emergence of separatist movements

The governments of the Third Republic abandoning Corsica: the embryo declining industry, agriculture has stagnated and the economy deteriorates. Lack of local opportunities, the Corsicans emigrate to the continent where they enter the administration but also to the Americas or the African and Asian colonies. The war of 1914-1918: the Great War caused the deaths of 12,000 young islanders.

The Spanish flu of 1919 is adding to the carnage and decimates the lowest. Once again, the flower of youth embarked for the continent, where the administration has opened hundreds of thousands of posts to fill gaps caused by war. 1920: on the margins of social protest and political autonomy movements are emerging, including "Partitu Corsu of Azzione, which became in 1927 Pieve" with an emblem muvra A (the sheep). He seeks autonomy for the island under the protection of France but will sink relatively early in a fascist drift that will bring in the thirties to support the policy that Mussolini claimed as Corsica Italian soil. The war of 1939-1945: Corsica occupied by 80,000 Italians in the month of November 1942 is the first French department to have released October 9, 1943. 12000 Corsican armed involved in fighting for the liberation of the island. The martyrs of the Resistance are Fred Godfrey Scamaroni who committed suicide in March 1943 not to talk under torture that he inflicted the Italian fascists in the Prison of Ajaccio and Jean Nicoli, run by the Blackshirts in August 1943.

The awakening of Corsica postwar

- 1959: recovery of regional demands, the actions of protest against increasing abandonment of Corsica. A new regionalist claims is accurate and gives rise to the "Corsican Regionalist Front" which will split after the creation of the "Corsican Regionalist Action (ARC). 1960: a project to create a center of atomic bomb tests near Calvi is expected. Mobilizing the failure of the project. 1962: Population rallies against the removal of the railway in Corsica. The first attacks were committed against the line electrification "carbo-Sardinian. The end of the war in Algeria is signified by the signing of the Evian and causes the arrival on the island many returnees. 1973: Training from the underground of the "Patriotic Front of Corsica Liberation (FPCL) who commits the first bombing, and" Paolina Ghjustizia. 1974: Protest grows against spill off Cape Corse from "red mud" which are the mercury waste from the chemical factory of Montedison (Italy). One of these vessels is plastic bins by FPCL.

The revolt of 1975

In the late fifties, SOMIVAC (investment company for the development of Corsica) bought some 3000 hectares located on the east coast between Fiumorbu Casinca and to entrust the cultivation of young farmers Corsican.

To do this, they should benefit from loans at preferential rates. But history would decide otherwise. For the arrival of returnees causes a reversal of government decisions that assign these loans to Blackfoot. Born when resentment among young farmers island which the loans had been refused. They accept that difficult and, moreover, the work of returnees is shown in the model to better branding "laziness" island. The two organizations then take over the underground bombings. Follows the scandal of chaptalization wine (process of adding sugar in the wort to double the production of wine and increase profits) and bank embezzlement going to "explode the pot." The separatists denounce these practices led by Simeoni brothers, founders of the ARC (Action Corsican Regionalist becomes Azzione per a Rinascita di a Corsica). On August 21, 1975, activists occupied the CRA cellar of one of these growers alleged crooks, leading the assault on the police and the death of two of them. A week later, a CRS is killed in Bastia in riots caused by the dissolution of the Council of Ministers of the ARC. Imprisonment of Dr. Simeoni and many occupants of the cave will cause a wave of unprecedented solidarity. Therefore, young Corsican farmers will occupy much of the land while in May 1976, creating the most radical separatist organization illegal u "di Fronte Liberazione Naziunale di a Corsica (FLNC). Thirty years later, the Corsican problem has still not been solved. The traditional and elected politicians are endorsing mainland nationalists.

The permanence of violence. These retorting that the underdevelopment of Corsica, which allows violence to continue. Yet it is clear that individual governments whether right or left have constantly to end the unrest in Corsica seeking institutional solutions: May 1976: then what created the National Liberation Front Corsica, the President of the Republic, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, recognizes "the Corsican soul." End 1976: the island, which is a region since 1975, is divided into two departments: Haute-Corse and Corse-du-sud. May 1981: election of François Mitterrand at the head of the French Republic. Establishment of the special status sought by the Minister of Interior Defferre also responsible for decentralization. August 8, 1982: First Assembly of Corsica, elected by popular vote. The list of "Unione di u Corsu Populu" Edmond Simeoni received 11% of the vote and seven elected. This Assembly will be dissolved in June 1984 for failure. 1984-1996: five new elections of the Assembly of Corsica. The nationalist idea is gaining ground culminating in 1992 with 25% of the votes cast scattered on two lists that foreshadowed the bloody division of the original nationalist movement. In 1993, war broke out between the two FLNC, the Canal and the Canal usual. It will mean 14 deaths and the decline of this movement. On February 6, 1998, the prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, was shot in Ajaccio. an underground movement hitherto unknown claims the assassination. The island manifests imposingly against violence. May 1999: Following arson committed by the police against a restaurant in Cala d'Orzu (the famous hut "in Francis'), the prefect of the region Bernard Bonnet, was indicted and imprisoned. 1999-2000: the Jospin government to engage in a discussion process with the only elected Corsican nameOf process that will take the "Matignon process" of meetings called "Matignon", initiated by the government. January 2002: CTC (Territorial Collectivity of Corsica) sees his skills significantly enhanced through the decentralization law, the consequence of a transfer of the state. In particular the possibility of proposing to Parliament legislative experiments. July 2003: The Raffarin government has decided to propose the abolition of Corsica General Tips in favor of a single Local Authority. The vote result is negative. The electorate voted for Corsican does not change the system. That ends any institutional change. April 2004: territorial elections give a short head start on the left disunited. The nationalists are playing cards right and promote the election of Camille de Rocca Serra (UMP) to chair the meeting; Ange Santini (UMP) was elected head of the executive.