Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 January 2016
This article reviews one of the many leitmotifs that have linked Alcide De Gasperi to Trentino. It will focus attention on De Gasperi's experience as the Catholic representative of a national minority within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In that period, he was challenged on a daily basis by the difficulties of the relationship between the minority and the majority and the nation-state, and the importance of enforcing the laws that could guarantee the very existence of minorities. The same themes also recurred after the annexation of the Trentino region to the Kingdom of Italy, when De Gasperi continued to defend local institutions and associations against the centralist homogenisation imposed by the Rome government. In the phase of Liberation and the birth of the Republic, De Gasperi took on a leading political position, at both the Italian and European levels. In managing the border with Austria and resolving the Trentino Alto Adige/South Tyrol question, there are echoes of a Hapsburg approach to the region–State relationship, where minorities could coexist within the same State framework provided they subscribed to a pact of collaboration and trust under the constitution.