Past Fellows at the Institute of International Studies

Reinhard Bendix Memorial Research Fellow, 2009-2010

Mark Sawchuk, Department of History: Completing the Hexagon: Political Culture and Regionalism in Nice and Savoy, 1860–1890

On a clear morning in April 1860, an extraordinary event took place in the County of Nice and the Duchy of Savoy, which formed part of the Italian kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. The men of the provinces queued up in an orderly manner for their first exercise in universal suffrage: a plebiscite to ratify a March annexation treaty that formally ceded the provinces from Sardinia to France. By dropping their ballots into the electoral urn, the inhabitants of Nice and Savoy literally decided their own national identity, a decision that in the past had been more commonly made by way of the sword or the marriage bed. Part of Sardinia for generations, the County of Nice and the Duchy of Savoy were not historically French, except for a brief period during the French Revolution. But unlike the unification of Italy and Germany in the same decade, both of which occurred by way of violent and costly international wars, the transfer of these territories to France occurred peacefully. With the creation of three new departments, France finally assumed its current borders, and the French “completed” their Hexagon, the now-familiar term to describe the geographical shape of France that came into popular use in the 1860’s. Yet the study of Nice and Savoy's trajectory within France after 1860 has been neglected, even though the two provinces occupied strategic positions on the borders of Switzerland and Italy. Mr. Sawchuk's dissertation explores the complicated process of cultural negotiation between Niçois, Savoyards and the central government that took place after 1860, which manifested itself in often unexpected ways. Many of the territories’ inhabitants enthusiastically embraced their new nationality after 1860, and devoted themselves to activities that would demonstrate their allegiance. At the same time, there were also those who were at best unsure or at worst openly hostile to France. In Nice’s taverns and bars, fights and incidents broke out regularly between Niçois and groups that were identified as somehow “French,” often gendarmes, soldiers, or sailors or émigré workers from what the Niçois called the “Outre-Var." In Savoy, the influence of democratic, republican Switzerland to the north exerted a powerful magnetic attraction on liberals upset by the suppression of political liberties by the repressive Second Empire. The fitful integration of the two provinces was dealt a severe blow during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which resulted in separatist incidents in both Nice and Savoy. Not surprisingly, during times of political crisis the government itself viewed the inhabitants of the provinces with suspicion as provincials at best and as crypto-Swiss (in Savoy) or crypto-Italians (in Nice) at worst. Mr. Sawchuk's dissertation argues that the lingering "half-life" of Nice and Savoy's previous association with Piedmont-Sardinia left an indelible mark on the provinces' social and political life in the three decades after their annexation.