Cesare Battisti and the Trentino
tisti to improve his policy along national lines without in any way disavowing his socialistic ideas.
If socialism signified opposition to all tyranny, what greater oppression demanding redress was there to be found in the Trentino than that of Austria, encamped as mistress on our soil! If socialism signified the elevation of the masses, how could this be attained while tolerating and acquiescing in their continued subjugation by a foreign power?
Hence Battisti, from being purely a socialist, soon became both socialist and irredentist, and this he always remained. It was mostly due to him that in the Trentino we do not find, as in other countries, opposition of the socialistic ideal to the ideal of irredentism; the Trentino socialist party was at the same time sincerely Italian and patriotic.
Battisti soon occupied a leading position not only with regard to his party, but in the general public opinion of the country. One of the best opportunities presented itself in the matter of the Italian university, as we shall now see.
Since 1866, after the downfall of Venetia, the Italians remaining under Austrian rule asked that a university of their own be established at Trieste, the most important Italian city of Austria, since they would no longer be able to attend the University of Padua. Support and justification of such a demand was to be found in the Austrian constitution itself, an article of which guaranteed "equality of treatment to all nationalities," including the right of each nationality to study in its own language.
Austria constantly refused to make any concessions, and it was not until about 1897 that a few Italian courses in law and social science were instituted at the German university of Innsbruck. These concessions were of small account, however, and students as well as the public refused to recognize them for more than that, while the agitation for an Italian univeristy at Trieste increased.
