ian. pA-en though Carlo Goldoni, thernmost prolific of Italian dramatists (no fewerrnthan 2 50 plays!), occasionally wrote hisrnplas in the VencHan dialect, it was forrnhim a local divertimento, no more. Mostrnof them were written in Italian, and evenrnin French—which, in 18th centun,’ Europe,rnwas regarded (rightly or wrongly) asrnthe language par excellence of polite societ’,rnand thus used as a natural linguarnfranca by another extraordinary Venetian,rnGiovanni Jacopo Casanova, the selfennobledrn”Chevalier de Seingalt,” whosern”shocking” memoirs are certainh’ amongrnthe most entertaining ever penned b’ arnrobust hon vivant.rnLike Milanese, like Venetian, likernNeapolitan, like Genoese and Pisan —rnand I mention these hvo because variousrnparts of the island were, at different hmes,rnruled b’ Pisan “counts” and Genoesernmariners and robber-bankers —Corsicanrnis a dialectal derivative of Italian. LastrnSeptember, Jean-Gu Talamoni, a vociferousrnadvocate of Corsican “nationalism,”rnexplained (in an inter’iew grantedrnto a Paris weekly) that he did not recognizernthe Marseillaise as being his nationalrnanthem. His national anthem was,rnand woidd always remain, Corsica’srn”Salve regina . . . “rnI must confess that I feel some sympathrnfor this point of iew, but for quite different,rnnon-nationalistic reasons. ThernMarseillaise — v<‘\\ its bellicose call tornarms of an embattled citizenn’, enjoinedrnto form themselves into battalions—wasrnwritten by Rouget de Lisle, a French captainrnof Engineers in April 1792, shortlyrnafter the newly created Republic had declaredrnwar on Imperial Austria, thernhomeland of the soon-to-be-executedrnqueen, Marie Antoinette. It was a typicallyrnchest-beating, muscle-flexing piecernof superpatriotic doggerel, and ever’ bitrnas stupid and intemperate as such laterrnexercises in the same bellicose genre asrnAugust Hoffmann von Fallersleben’srn”Deutschland! Deustchland iiher alles!”rnand the British nahoual anthem, in thernsecond verse of which God is asked torn”confound tlie knavish tricks” of the kingrn(or queen) of England’s enemies. Comparedrnto this rhetorical rubbish, thern”Salve Regina . . . ” of the Corsicansrncomes close to being poetry. But it is notrnCorsican but Latin poetry that is involrncd; and the Queen whose mercifulrnaid is here invoked to save the plaguestrickenrnand oft-exploited inhabitants ofrnthe lovely island is the Catholic Church’srn”Queen of Heaven,” better known to usrnas the Virgin AIar-.rnI know cr’ little about Jean-Pierre Talamoni’srnreligious beliefs, but I franklyrndoubt that they have had much influencernon his political convictions. Corsicanrn”patriots,” like those who foundedrnthe originallv clandestine but now offieialK-rntolerated Annata Corsa movementrn(one of whose leaders, ]ean-Miehel Rossi,rnwas mysteriously assassinated in Augustrn2000) or who swear allegiance to Talamoni’srnCorsica Nazione, keep denouncingrnthe “jacobine” oppression to which theyrnha’e been subjected for the past hvo centuriesrnby political and administrativern”centralists” in Paris. But nothing couldrnbe more “jacobine” and intolerant thanrntheir openly avowed aim to make thernteaching of Corsican a compulsory obligationrnin all of the island’s schools.rnNot long ago, a Corsican friend ofrnmine, who happens to belong to one ofrnthe island’s most distinguished families,rnwas informed that the name of the villagernnear Ajaecio from which tlie family hadrnderived its name would have to be “Corsieanizedrn” (in FVench, “corsise”). Thisrnperemptory declaration was made by arn”university” official closely linked to thernso-called “Territorial Assembly” (composedrnof 51 members from 16 differentrnfacHons) in the “capital” of Corte. A picturesquernold burg dominated by the ruinsrnof a medieval castello, in the mountainousrn”hintedand” of the island, Corternis little more than a one-horse townrn(it barely numbers 5,500 inhabitants),rnwhich, a few years ago, was elevated tornthe rank of “capital” and offered a “universit}”rnin an effort to cireum’ent the traditionalrnrivalr’ between the northern seaportrnof Bastia and Napoleon’s hometownrnof Ajaecio, with its quaint, ochre-huedrnhouses and its magnificent crescentshapedrnbay. Although tax receipts andrnother documents obtained from the senaternarchives in Genoa indicated that thernvillage’s name had remained unchangedrnfrom the early 16th centur on, my friendrnwas informed by the university “professor”rnin Corte that the ancestral namernwould have to be changed on the officialrnrecords “in the name of the spontaneih’rnand authentieit)’ of the local toponymy,rnthe Tuscani/.ed forms being more derivedrnfrom literary forms, and thus imported.”rn”Wdiat those people are doing,”rnm friend exclaimed with a mixture ofrnamusement and disgust, “is inventing arncrazy new language!” —in a war of “liberation”rnfought not only against French administrativernrule but against the “t)ranny”rnof the Italian language.rnIt eertainlv is craz —and Lilliputian,rntoo. For all this hubbub concerns the “national”rnfuture of no more than 250,000rnsouls —roughly one 50th of the populationrnof “greater Paris,” or of what is morernelegantly called I’lle de France. Islandersrndo not even have enough “Corsophonic”rninstructors capable of teaching the localrnvernacular in the island’s 44 lycees andrnsecondary-school colleges. But nothingrnmore flatters the w ounded ego of certainrnCorsicans than the idea that, by occasionallyrnblowing up a French fiscal bureau orrnoflier administrative building, or even byrnassassinating a prefect (as happened twornyears ago to the luckless Claude Erignae),rnthe fearless Corsican David will eventuallyrnreduce the arrogant French Goliath tornsuch a state of fear and trembling that hernEisenstadt’s KissrnAugust 15.1945rnby Bruce GuernseyrnI dream for my parents it was just like this:rnthe anonymous sailor, the anonymous nurse,rnher head in his arm, his hand at her waist,rnon Times Square that day in Augustrnabout when my father came down the ramprnand they kissed like those strangers I ho]De,rnbending together, my father and mother,rncur-e into curve, these mythical lovers.rnOCTOBER 2001/41rnrnrn