Ethnic Lombardy

A fundamental battle that Nazione Lombarda is carrying forward, in an entirely innovative manner and in continuity with the previous movement, concerns the concept of “Lombardy” (and, in parallel, of “Lombards”), as well as the correct use of these terms.

In common language, the term “Lombardy” is in fact often used to identify the administrative subdivision called “Regione Lombardia,” created in 1970 by the Italian Republic, and the term “Lombards” to identify the inhabitants of that political entity.

Obviously, if calling “Regione Lombardia” simply “Lombardy” were merely a convenient contraction used in everyday language, and if there were awareness that the political entity does not coincide with the Lombard land, there would be no problem.

Unfortunately, this is not the case: very many people are convinced that Lombardy is the Region of the same name, and it is painful to note that this misunderstanding exists even in academic and cultural circles.

To explain the serious errors behind this widespread misinterpretation, it is first necessary to clarify that when speaking of a “nation” one may fall into another semantic trap, since in common language the terms “state” and “nation” are often confused and even considered synonyms in countless cases.

However, the terms in question have completely different meanings: while the word “state” represents a political-legal order that exercises sovereign power over a given territory and the subjects belonging to it, the word “nation” identifies a group of people who, sharing characteristics such as history, language, territory, culture, and ethnicity, recognize themselves in a common identity to which those people feel they belong (national feeling).

If identifying a state is a very simple and objective operation, since it is sufficient to identify an order that exercises sovereign power, identifying a nation is much more complex because determining the defining elements (history, language, territory, culture, and ethnicity) requires a greater degree of subjective evaluation.

This is why Nazione Lombarda, inheriting the legacy of Grande Lombardia, seeks to fight to finally give an ethno-national face to the Cisalpine homeland, starting from its Padan ethnic core, which represents the heart of the nation and the privileged stage of Lombardist action.

After a long study of the defining elements of the populations inhabiting the Lombardy Region and the surrounding territories, we have come to the conclusion that the original and genuine Lombard land—what we will designate as “ethnic Lombardy”—includes the following characteristics: from a historical point of view, in addition to having been defined as Lombardy until the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was part of Cisalpine Gaul and of the Lombard Kingdom, gave rise to the civilization of the free communes, to the epic of the Lombard League, and to the lordships, in particular to the unifying one of the Visconti; from a linguistic point of view, it developed the Cisalpine Gallo-Romance idioms improperly defined as “Gallo-Italian”; from a territorial point of view, it consists of the hydrographic basin of the Po River; from a cultural point of view, it developed a culture that is a point of connection between the Mediterranean world and Mitteleuropa; from an ethnic point of view, it has Celto-Ligurian and Gallic (Romanized) roots, to which was added a significant Germanic component (particularly Lombard, to which we in fact owe our ethnonym).

It is therefore sufficient to empirically verify these points to realize that, in addition to the territories under the jurisdiction of the previously mentioned administrative entity, ethnic Lombardy also includes the Region of Piedmont, the so-called “Emilia” up to the historical boundary represented by the Panaro (which in ancient times ran along the course of the now-extinct Scoltenna–Panaro, roughly along the lowland provincial boundary separating the Modenese area from the Bolognese), the Canton of Ticino, the Aosta Valley, western Trentino, and some portions of land within the Padan hydrographic basin.

No one wishes to deny that historical events have fragmented the Lombard people over the past centuries, also leading to a certain linguistic divergence—albeit within the Cisalpine Gallo-Romance sphere—and that the sense of belonging initially present has faded over time. This, however, does not mean that it cannot be rediscovered, especially considering that it was weakened by purely administrative, convenience-based constructs. This does not, of course, mean trampling on the particularities of the various Padan peoples, but rather strengthening them through the shared identitarian spirit that binds them to the same ethnocultural territory.

Lombardy, at its ethnic core, still possesses all the defining elements of a historical European nation situated between Central Europe and a genuinely southern Europe. It is therefore evident that the weakening of ethnic feeling is a reversible phenomenon, and that our land can, without a shadow of a doubt, once again become a proud homeland—naturally by then broadening the perspective to the remaining Granlombard peoples and organizing itself politically into a (ethno)national state. Free, sovereign, identitarian.

Obviously, in the creation of a future Granlombard ethnostate, the events that have occurred in the meantime must be taken into account. In particular, it must be emphasized that the aforementioned fragmentation has also given rise to the development of a highly distinctive linguistic and cultural continuum, such that one moves from ethnic Lombardy to ethnolinguistic (or ethnocultural) Lombardy and finally to the historical Lombardy, Great Lombardy.

The most relevant aspect of this fact is that it does not allow Lombard territory to be divided into a few homogeneous regions. For this reason, we believe that, in a hoped-for definitive settlement freed from foreign yokes, a subdivision into numerous regions that are relatively homogeneous at the linguistic and cultural level—as well as municipal and historical—represents the ideal solution to best safeguard all the particularities of our splendid land.

More precisely, we believe that the optimal subdivision of ethnic Lombardy would consist of 14 cantons, in turn grouped into regions for statistical and demographic purposes.

Subalpine Lombardy (in yellow):

Turin, with Ivrea, Pinerolo, Susa, and Aosta.

Cuneo, with Alba, Mondovì, and Saluzzo.

Alessandria, with Asti and Acqui.

Cispadane Lombardy (in red):

Parma, with Fidenza and Fiorenzuola.

Modena, with Reggio and Carpi.

Piacenza, with Voghera and Tortona.

Western Transpadane Lombardy (in light blue):

Milan (capital), with Busto Arsizio, Monza, Lodi, and Pavia.

Como, with Lecco, Lugano, and Varese.

Novara, with Vercelli, Biella, Varallo, and Vigevano.

Locarno, with Domodossola, Intra, and Bellinzona.

Eastern Transpadane Lombardy (in green):

Brescia, with Rovato, Desenzano, Darfo, and Riva.

Bergamo, with Crema, Clusone, and Zogno.

Cremona, with Mantua, Ghedi, and Casalmaggiore.

Sondrio, with Tirano and Chiavenna.

This territorial subdivision of ethnic Lombardy would then be integrated into the wider Granlombard national framework (which will be addressed on the following page), composed of the remaining “Gallo-Italian” lands (the County of Nice, Liguria/Genoese territory, Lunigiana, eastern Emilia, Romagna, ager Gallicus), which moreover constitute an intermediate ethnolinguistic form of Lombard identity between the ethnic and the historical one, as well as the eastern territories (Trentino and southern Tyrol, Veneto, Friuli, Venezia Giulia). Nazione Lombarda presents itself, following in the footsteps of MNL and GL, as an ethnist point of reference for all those who believe in the patriotic unity of the Lombardies. Natural