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Italianization a term used to describe a cultural change in which something non-Italian is made to become Italian.
In the context of twentieth century history, Italianization is the process by which the government of Benito Mussolini forced autochthonous Slavic populations living within the borders of Italy to assume Italian culture.
This program of Italianization, often brutal, aimed to the suppress native Slovenian and Croatian populations of Istria, Dalmatia and other parts of the former Austrian littoral region. Under this program, victims of Italianization were forced to adopt Italian names, attend Italian language schools and churches and speak only the Italian language in public. Slovenian and Croatian institutions, such as the Narodni dom in Trieste, were vandalized. Nationally-conscious Slavs were also imprisoned or put to death by the Mussolini regime.
A few Slovenians and Croatians willingly accepted Italianization as a compromise required in order to gain full status as Italian citizens. Most, however, found little reason to change their cultural identity to accomodate the government in Rome, which they saw as a recent interloper in the affairs of the eastern Adriatic.
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