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Article: Northern League's surge stems from a millennium of history.(World)(Briefing/Europe)
- Article from:
- The Washington Times (Washington, DC)
- Article date:
- April 28, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 News World Communications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The dramatic success of the secessionist Northern League in last week's Italian elections is no freak result of protest votes but reflects deep and widening divisions rooted far back in Italian history.
Italy was one of the last of Europe's modern nation-states to unify. While Britain, France, Russia, Spain and other nations were unified from the Middle Ages or earlier, the Risorgimento movement, a combination of secular democracy and liberal nationalism, only succeeded in unifying Italy in 1859-61.
Then the northern kingdom of Piedmont, ruled by the House of Savoy, allied with Emperor Napoleon III of France to defeat Austria, which had dominated ...