After getting boos – along with Germany – in late February for balking against harsh sanctions against Russia via its invasion of Ukraine, Italy has more than come around. The Ukrainians who have already lived and worked there since the mid-2000s, mostly domestic caregivers (women) and construction workers (men), have been joined by another 91,000 or so of their countrymen and women, sadly displaced by the war. Local churches and social service agencies are welcoming them with open arms.
Political leaders have likewise used their pulpits to condemn Russia. Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has said that talking to Putin “is a waste of time” and has expelled Russian diplomats from the country. The Italian government was one of the first to seize property (in this case, boats and villas) of Russian oligarchs. And after the revelations of the Bucha massacre, Luigi di Maio, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice.
The Ukrainians also have a vocal champion in Pope Francis, an Italian-Argentinian. Francis broke diplomatic protocol by personally visiting the Russian Embassy in Rome a few days after the conflict began, expressing his concern. And his annual Easter Sunday message in the Vatican further called for an end to the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
(For the religious record: Nearly 88% of Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians who do not recognize a pope. The rest of Ukraine is split among Ukrainian Catholics and Ukrainian Jews. Current president Volodymyr Zalenskyy is the latter).
fueled by Italian genius
Italy has a long history with Russia, too. Recently, former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was one of Putin’s earliest and closest friends. But this history goes back centuries, as we demonstrated in Issue XL of The Italic Way Magazine (available in the Research Library section of our website). Though the article is largely about how Italian architects, sculptors, and painters shaped the great city of St. Petersburg, the most “European” of Russian cities, it also shows the Italic influence on such Russian art forms as ballet, and even on classical Russian music. (Photo: Truewindhealingtravel.com)
But: Did you know that there is a “Little Russia” in Italy? I did not, though I once drove through it – specifically, Forte dei Marmi, the seaside Tuscan beach-town which draws Italian celebrities as well as foreign tourists. And many of those foreign tourists are Russian – in particular Russian oligarchs, many of whom generously spread their wealth around.
According to a recent article in The Daily Globe and Mail, local Italian entrepreneurs are anxious about what the Russian invasion will mean to their own financial health. With world sanctions hitting Russia’s economy, and with many Russian oligarchs now having their properties confiscated, the town of Forte dei Marmi will also take a definite hit.
One Russian oligarch, Ogar Tinkov, is distancing himself from Moscow. No doubt, he is desperate to hold on to the kind of dolce vita not allowed in his dour homeland. Tinkov is the most well-known of Russian billionaires in Italy and can often be seen in Forte dei Marmi engaging in that most Italian of past-times: bike-riding.
As for the other billionaires? No one knows their fate. Many of them made their money on oil, the element currently fueling (no pun intended) Putin’s on-going war. Oil was a source of contention during the initial NATO series of sanctions against Russia since Italy, like many European nations, is also dependent on Moscow for its importation. If the still talked-about issue of NATO fully disengaging from Russian oil comes to pass, will Italy ultimately vote “yay” or “nay”?
The Daily Globe and Mail article mentions a 2008 incident in which Roman Abramovich, the now-deposed owner of England’s Chelsea Soccer Team, docked his yacht at Forte dei Marmi, seeking to eat at a popular Italian restaurant. He didn’t have reservations, so he and his party were told they couldn’t enter. In a snit, Abramovich pointed his yacht toward Sardinia and never returned. All of Italy was aghast – and delighted – that a humble restaurateur told a rich oligarch, “No.”
Will Mario Draghi and his cabinet do the same when it comes to Putin and his oil reserves? -BDC
1.What percentage of the 12.0 % of the Ukranians (Christians and Jews) are Jewish?
2.What percentage of the residents in Forte de Marmi are Christians…are Jews…?
The statistics for the various religions in Ukraine are all-over-the-map; that is, very complicated. I visited many websites before settling on the figures in my blog; however, I just revisited a few more sights and got these insights (below).
It shows you just how complex both religion and Ukraine really are:
Religion in Ukraine is diverse, with a majority of the population adhering to Christianity. A 2018 survey conducted by the Razumkov Centre found that 71.7% of the population declared themselves believers. About 67.3% of the population declared adherence to one or another strand of Orthodox Christianity (28.7% of the Kyiv Patriarchate, 23.4% state simply ‘Orthodox’ with no declaration as to which Patriarchate they belong to, 12.8% of the Moscow Patriarchate, 0.3% Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, and 1.9% other types of Orthodoxy), 7.7% Christian with no declared denominational affiliation, 9.4% Ukrainian Byzantine Rite Catholics, 2.2% Protestants and 0.8% Latin Rite Catholics, 2.5% Islam, Judaism was 0.4%; while a small percentage follow Hinduism, Buddhism and Paganism (Rodnovery). A further 11.0% declared themselves non-religious or unaffiliated.[2] According to the surveys conducted by Razumkov in the 2000s and early 2010s, such proportions have remained relatively constant throughout the last decade, while the proportion of believers overall has decreased from 76% in 2014 to 70% in 2016 and 72% in 2018.[2][3]
As of 2018, Christianity was particularly strong in westernmost Ukrainian regions, where most Greek Catholics lived. In central, southern and eastern regions, Christians constitute a smaller proportion of the total population, particularly low in the easternmost region of Donbas.[3] Another religion that is present in Ukraine besides Christianity is Rodnovery (Slavic native faith), which comprises Ukrainian- and Russian-language communities (some Rodnover organizations call the religion Православ’я Pravoslavya, “Orthodoxy”, thus functioning in homonymy with Christian Orthodox churches).[4][5]
Crimean Tatars professing Islam represent a significant part of the population in Crimea, which prior 2014 was a subject of Ukraine, but has been since that year occupied by Russia. As of 2016, without Crimea, where Muslims formed 15% of the population in 2013,[6] only Donbas maintains a larger community of Muslims compared to other Ukrainian regions (6%).[3]
Since before the outbreak of the war in Donbas in 2014, but even more violently so from that year onwards, there has been unrest between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian religious groups in the country.
On one level I was heartened by our local Italian American Community at the Italian American Heritage Foundation because we took a special donation to give monies to the Ukrainian Catholic Mission in Santa Clara California. for refugee relief. While it won’t solve many problems it is a good neighbor gesture to people in our community that we care about them and their plight. I could not imagine some of the personal tragedies they are experiencing. . I was a child when the adults in my family had long conversations about organizing care boxes to send to Italy after WWII. My cousins, who are left, still recall them and again what it represented. Not just the items, but the sense of caring and outreach. What a nightmare to see this being repeated so many years later for Ukrainian Americans.
It would be great if there were peace but Russia has invaded the Ukraine. Even at great cost Italy and the world must choose the moral thing. Russia is guilty of great crimes in Ukraine. All moral people must choose to help Ukraine at this dark hour. Russia must stop its crimes! Russia has a mad man as leader. We must learn from history he must not succeed