Twentieth-century travelers

In April 1899, in the presence of Umberto I and Margaret of Savoy, the foundation stone of the town hall was laid in Cagliari, while the monument to the King of Italy was completed in Sassari. They are symbolic images of two cities that, for some years, have been working to abandon a whole series of delays that distanced them from the other capitals of the Kingdom with the old century.

Only twenty years earlier, the inauguration of the Cagliari-Sassari railway line in Macomer had been celebrated for several days with a solemnity such as to require, alongside the Sardinian deputy Cocco Ortu, the presence of the Minister of Public Works Alfredo Baccarini. On the one hand, therefore, the twentieth century opened under the phenomenon of the urbanization and development of major cities, an obvious sign of a certain growth, but on the other hand, this fact seems to make more marked the gap, in terms of population, wealth and development, between them and the rest of an island, which overall, throughout the first half of the century, still suffers from those hardships that belong to the past centuries in almost the rest of the continent.

Sardinia thus finds itself in the new century with its usual problems, linked to the backwardness of the countryside and the pastoral world, to the inadequacy of roads, to crime, to emigration to work and the well-being that are lacking locally. This is not why the island ceases to be the subject of the attention of travelers, observers, scholars, whose stories, however, will not only be esoterizing writings to tickle strong emotions in rich European living rooms, but in-depth works and studies, which will leave a profound mark on institutions as well as on the collective consciousness.

Therefore, no longer in the background of their pages are the Chiudende, the abolition of feudalism or the Perfect Fusion, but the Great War, the birth of parties and their death during fascism, regional autonomy: profound changes that have too often left the usual problems unchanged.

Update

19/9/2023 - 09:30