Sardinia and vendetta/mafia

[Piccolo]

Do the Sardinians have a history of vendetta culture like the Corsicans or Southern Italians/Sicilians? From what I have read it seems like they do not. I also noticed that there does not seems to be a Sardinian mafia whereas the Corsicans and Southern Italians/Sicilians do have a history of organized crime.

Am I wrong in making this characterization? If not, what accounts for this difference?

[Mens-Sarda]

in many ways Sardinians are very similar to Corsicans, proud, stubborn, pricky, and yes in Sardinia there was a culture of Vendetta like in Corsica, that followed a strict honor code, you could kill a man from the enemy family, but you couldn't touch women or children; in recent years, until the '80s, various villages of inner Sardinia were plagued by blood feuds that usually opposed two families almost wiping out them, nowadays this custom is almost disappeared. And about Mafia, in Sardinia there is nothing similar, no organized crime of that kind, maybe Sardinians criminals and Sardinians in general are too stubborn to coexist with organized crime or to bow to it.
There is a proverb in Sardinian language that explains everything : chentu concas, chentu berrittas (one hundred heads, one hundred hats) it means that everyone here likes to think with his own head, and is not prone to pay heed to other people's opinions

[askra]

Mafia and Sardinia are two incompatible terms. Mentality is too much individualist or even anarchist, nobody could accept to be subjected to someone, the state impositions are often poorly tolerated by many here, absolutely nobody could tolerate the invadence of mafia or other organized crime.


It was written even a book which explains the cultural and historical reasons because mafia doesn't exist in Sardinia:


"Because there isn't mafia in Sardinia. The roots of an ordered anarchy."


spread of organised crime extorsion in Italy


municipalities with mafia's infiltration

[Piccolo]

Thank you both for the informative responses. Why did vendetta decline in Sardinia? Was it because of better police work on the part of the authorities to bring people to justice within the normal judicial system, or was it some other factor or factors?

[askra]

Thank you both for the informative responses. Why did vendetta decline in Sardinia? Was it because of better police work on the part of the authorities to bring people to justice within the normal judicial system, or was it some other factor or factors?

Many factors:

- The decline of the agro pastoral society (the code of law which allowed vendetta, called Codice Barbaricino, that was a derivation of the Cartha de Logu, a corpus of laws in force in Sardinia since the Middle Ages, were suitable with a rural society, for example the cattle raiding was considered the worst offence, and punishable with death). In a modern society where people are employed mainly in the tertiary and industry the Codice Barbaricino is completely obsolete;
- Introduction of modern legislations and the acknowledgement of them by great part of population;
-Nobody is so stupid today to risk the life imprisonment if exist authorities like the police and the legal process;
-The fact that criminality in Sardinia hadn't relations with the politicians, on the contrary with what happens in the places where exist the mafia, so it was possible instititute successful politics to annihilate this criminal phenomenon.