AEMI

Crossing Boundaries: Negotiating
Transnational Heritage and Belonging in
the German Waldensian Diaspora
Elisa Gosso
Introduction
The case of the German Waldensians
examined in this article was studied as
part of my research work for a Ph.D. in
Anthropological Sciences 1 . This research
focuses on the Waldensian diaspora and
transnationalism, and the resulting return
visits of the descendants of Waldensian
emigrants to the homeland 2 .
The term ‘Waldensian’ defines an
Italian religious Protestant group, that
originated in Lyon, France, as an heretical
movement in the early Middle Ages
(Tourn, 1980). In 1532 their members
decided to adhere to the Protestant Reformation
and, consequently, to organize
themselves as a Church. Because of persecutions
from both the political power
and the Catholic Church they were soon
banished from Lyon and scattered across
other regions.
Already in the thirteenth century
they had found very suitable conditions
to settle in some Valleys of the Cottian
Alps, in Western Piedmont, about 70
km far from Turin. Waldensians have
lived in these valleys virtually since the
origins of their religious movement up
to the present day, and there is probably
no other place in which anything
similar has occurred. This is the reason
why this cluster of valleys is known as
the ‘Waldensian Valleys’, or, among the
Waldensians, simply as ‘the Valleys’.
The very definition of the Waldensian
Valleys has been gradually established
both for external and internal purposes.
Under the Savoy dynasty the Piedmontese
government long sought to confine
the Waldensian population to this area.
That policy culminated around the middle
of the eighteenth century in the creation
of a sort of Waldensian ghetto in the
Valleys. Waldensians were not allowed
to live outside the boundaries of the Valleys,
they could not attend high school
and were forced to celebrate Catholic
festivities. That condition ended in
1848, when king Charles Albert, with
his Statute, granted civil rights to the
Waldensians and the Jews of the kingdom.
The new freedom had the effect
of dissolving not only the boundary as
an obstacle, but also – paradoxically –
the boundary as a protective shell for
Waldensian culture. The group itself,
especially its intellectual and ecclesiastical
components, tried in various ways