WI: Greater Venetization of the Stato da Màr?

The Stato da Màr is the name for Venice's lands outside of the old duchy and excluding its hinterland, the Terraferma. This includes western Istria, Dalmatia, Kotor and nearby Montenegrin towns, Durazzo/Durrës, the Ionian Islands, Chandia/Crete, Negroponte/Euboia, and a few other outposts on the mainland. For the Dalmatian Romance-speaking population, they were eventually Venetized to the point where the language eventually became extinct. Other had Venetian-speaking towns and upper class citizens, but the peasantry largely stuck to their native tongue whether it be Croatian, Albanian, or Greek. By the time Napoleon rolled around to end the Serene Republic, still only the main cities and towns in Dalmatia were Italian-speaking with mixed populations in the Ionian Islands.

What if there was a greater push for Venetization in the Stato da Màr? This could be accomplished with an early PoD post-Fourth Crusade by either more Venetian speakers immigrating to the outer colonies or perhaps a more intensive promotion of the language like in church services. What would be the implications of a greater Venetian-speaking population in these areas? How might such a push affect Venice for the better or worse? If the rise of nationalism isn't butterflied away, how might this affect pan-Italianism and the nationalist narratives of its neighboring countries like Croatia and Greece?
 
Dialectally speaking, Triest was mostly Venified, it lost its Friulian dialect during the late middle ages.
 
Dialectally speaking, Triest was mostly Venified, it lost its Friulian dialect during the late middle ages.
That is true- interestingly enough, Trieste spent most of its history not under Venetian overlordship but under Aquilea and later Austria. Its language shift was more a result of Venetian being the Adriatic lingua franca and so its traders became Venetized over time, then it spread to other social groups. And yet the same process did not happen as strongly to other areas they conquered.
 
That is true- interestingly enough, Trieste spent most of its history not under Venetian overlordship but under Aquilea and later Austria. Its language shift was more a result of Venetian being the Adriatic lingua franca and so its traders became Venetized over time, then it spread to other social groups. And yet the same process did not happen as strongly to other areas they conquered.
I mean Trieste was already Romance speaking and geographically close to Venice, those make it easier than assimilating Slavic Dalmatians or Greeks.
 
Language follows culture and power.

Make Venice a mote dominant power in the Balkans- screw the ottomans and hingarians, mayne go bold and have venice absorb neotheen italy or pull a raj on the mamluks. With that wealth and orestig3 comes soft power comes cultural hegemony comes assimilation.
 
I think you would need Venice to be a more open Imperial Power for a higher degree of a assimilation. Even more than the Spanish in the Americas the Stato da Mar was run for the Metropolis by people from the Metropolis with all the key posts being held exclusively by "native" Venetians. So the carrot for assimilation, greater opportunities, wasn't there while the stick, exclusion from your original community was very strong. Therefore relatively little assimilation.
 
Would it be possible for Venice to expand further inland, thus necessitating more integration of local populations?

I'm not saying they need to take over too much more territory. Just more hinterland - Slovenia south of the Sava, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Lika-Senj County, and more area around the hinterland of Kotor, and Herzegovina seem like plausible expansions to me.
 
Assimilation comes from education. Had the Venice invested more into education in Dalmatia, I'm sure that in 400 years of their rule they would be able to assimilate at least a big part of population. But, they did no such thing. So, when Napoleon came, the land was allmost without educational institutions, at least for masses outside cities.
 
Assimilation comes from education. Had the Venice invested more into education in Dalmatia, I'm sure that in 400 years of their rule they would be able to assimilate at least a big part of population. But, they did no such thing. So, when Napoleon came, the land was allmost without educational institutions, at least for masses outside cities.
??? Maybe that's true for the 19th century, but pre-modern linguistic and cultural assimilation didn't come from the few educational institutions.
 
Did Venetian Greece (Ionian Islands, Corfu, etc.) ever have a larger native Venetian speaking population?

Define native, Venice did colonize Crete with its citizens to an extent, and some natives spoke Venetian. But most of the rule was either distant or with oppressive colonists. The main reason was that the standard of living within Venice was too high for most to leave, whereas IOTL's colonization was done by "undesirables" that the rulers wanted out anyways.
 
Define native, Venice did colonize Crete with its citizens to an extent, and some natives spoke Venetian. But most of the rule was either distant or with oppressive colonists. The main reason was that the standard of living within Venice was too high for most to leave, whereas IOTL's colonization was done by "undesirables" that the rulers wanted out anyways.
...and yet Venice was a city of 100k+ people, if Venice supposedly produced this surplus of people that couldn't afford to live in the city why wasn't the Mediterranean world flooded with them?
 
...and yet Venice was a city of 100k+ people, if Venice supposedly produced this surplus of people that couldn't afford to live in the city why wasn't the Mediterranean world flooded with them?
Language of trade, not colonists. It declined with venetian trade volume in the 18th century.
 
Language follows culture and power.

Make Venice a mote dominant power in the Balkans- screw the ottomans and hingarians, mayne go bold and have venice absorb neotheen italy or pull a raj on the mamluks. With that wealth and orestig3 comes soft power comes cultural hegemony comes assimilation.
An Ottoman screw might go poorly for Venice as they were their primary trading partners. Everything from Asia passed through the Ottomans or Mamluks before ending in the hands of Venetian merchants prior to the Portuguese sailing around Africa. Have them suffer instability, and trade might be disrupted and weaken the Venetian position. That said, maybe an early enough screw in which the Ottomans don't take control of lands on the European side of the Bosporus might mean that Venice holds onto its European holdings for more centuries (the loss of Negroponte and Albania in the 15th century, then the Morea, Naxos, Crete, and Cyprus in the later centuries). That might require a stronger Byzantine state that retakes some of its holdings but weak enough that it doesn't retake all of Greece and the Aegean. I am unsure about the relation between the Hungarians and the Venetians- the Hungarians claimed Dalmatia as one of their lands under Croatia but they did not have a war outside of the first one that gave Dalmatia to Venice, so that might not be as relevant (unless the Venetians claim the entire Croatian littoral which they might snag if the Hungarians are especially weak, but the coast does not have many good harbors). It already more or less took control of Northeastern Italy IOTL, with any future expansion butting heads with the Pope, Milan, or the Habsburgs. An outpost in Mamluk lands would be interesting, like a colony in Cyreneica, Syria, or Alexandria, allowing them to bypass the Ottomans if they ever become hostile.

I think you would need Venice to be a more open Imperial Power for a higher degree of a assimilation. Even more than the Spanish in the Americas the Stato da Mar was run for the Metropolis by people from the Metropolis with all the key posts being held exclusively by "native" Venetians. So the carrot for assimilation, greater opportunities, wasn't there while the stick, exclusion from your original community was very strong. Therefore relatively little assimilation.
Would it be possible for Venice to expand further inland, thus necessitating more integration of local populations?

I'm not saying they need to take over too much more territory. Just more hinterland - Slovenia south of the Sava, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Lika-Senj County, and more area around the hinterland of Kotor, and Herzegovina seem like plausible expansions to me.
What might cause the Venetians to see assimilation as an important policy to enact and extend privileges to non-Venetians? It appears they were content to simply use their language to run official matters and trade while letting those not involved to follow their native tongue and customs. They did gain a good deal of Terraferma that was non-Venetian speaking: Bergamo and Brescia in the west were both Lombard, and Friuli was, well, Friulian. The coastal areas were Venetified like Monfalcone and Grado, but not the hinterland outside of the areas that were already Venetian like Treviso and Vicenza. If anything, the gaining of more non-Venetian land might simply serve to strengthen their current approach which is to use Venetian as a language of administration and trade, not wanting to irritate the greater number of people they have.

Would they have much reason to gain the listed regions? Littoral Croatia are severely under populated and lacks good harbors; Slovenia/Carniola is a maybe if they take the lands around the Isonzo River like Gorizia but the Sava is too far; it is outside of the Venetian agenda which is to control the Adriatic and Po trade routes. Unless control of the Laybach/Ljubljana trade routes was one of their priorities, they might be fine with simple Gorizia and Trieste. Herzegovina requires they subjugate Ragusa first, then maybe it will be worth the attack; Montenegro and the hinterlands around Kotor were taken IOTL, but a series of wars with the Serbians and later the Ottomans stripped them of it, meaning those would have to be weakened for the Venetians to become overlords of the hinterland.

Define native, Venice did colonize Crete with its citizens to an extent, and some natives spoke Venetian. But most of the rule was either distant or with oppressive colonists. The main reason was that the standard of living within Venice was too high for most to leave, whereas IOTL's colonization was done by "undesirables" that the rulers wanted out anyways.
So just to clarify, Venice wanted to keep as many of its citizens living within the city because most of them were valuable in some way? Or that people simply didn't want to leave because living standards were great in Venice as opposed to its colonies?
 
So just to clarify, Venice wanted to keep as many of its citizens living within the city because most of them were valuable in some way? Or that people simply didn't want to leave because living standards were great in Venice as opposed to its colonies?

Living standards were quite high in Venice, some guilds also prohibited emigration, though the high cost of living did eventually hurt competitiveness.
 
What would be the implications of a greater Venetian-speaking population in these areas? How might such a push affect Venice for the better or worse? If the rise of nationalism isn't butterflied away, how might this affect pan-Italianism and the nationalist narratives of its neighboring countries like Croatia and Greece?
Regardless of the PoD, what insights can be made on the overall effects of the Venetization of the Stato?
 
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