SAN MAREIN, THE WORLD'S OLDEST REPUBLIC WAS BORN

Ripóbblica de San Marein

The Grandma was born in Andorra a little country in the heart of Pyrenees and because of this she appreciates and loves little countries.

There are more advantages and quality of life if you live in a little country than if you live in a big one. You can offer a better and closer service to your citizens thanks to proximity and you are the owner of all richness you create. Moreover, living in a little country allows you the possibility of keeping and taking care of all your cultures, respecting them and being proud of all of them. Andorra, Liechtenstein Luxemburg, Malta, Monaco, San Marino, Switzerland or Vatican City are European examples of this.

On a day like today in 301 was founded the Republic of San Marino, the world's oldest Republic and one of the smallest countries around the world.

More information: San Marino

The Grandma wants to homage this date and she has invited her closer friend and an experienced traveller, Tina Picotes, to talk about San Marino, because she was born in another little country, Monaco and she and The Grandma visited San Marino some years ago and they want to remember their experience in this wonderful European republic.

Before talking with Tina, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Ms. Excel course.

Chapter 16. Excel Tables (III) (Spanish Version)
 

San Marino, in Romagnol Ripóbblica de San Marein, officially the Republic of San Marino, also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino is a Southern European microstate on the northeastern side of the Apennine Mountains, completely surrounded by Italy and the European Union.

It is just over 61 km2, with a population of 33,562. Its capital is the City of San Marino and its largest settlement is Dogana in the municipality of Serravalle. San Marino has the smallest population of any member of the Council of Europe. The official language is Italian, and San Marino maintains strong financial and ethno-cultural connections to its much larger neighbour. It is located close to the riviera of Rimini, one of Italy's main coastal resort areas.

More information: Visit San Marino

The country derives its name from Saint Marinus, a stonemason from the Roman colony on the island of Rab, in modern-day Croatia. In AD 257, Marinus, according to legend, participated in the reconstruction of Rimini's city walls after their destruction by Liburnian pirates.

Marinus then went on to found an independent monastic community on Monte Titano in AD 301; thus, San Marino lays claim to be the oldest extant sovereign state as well as the oldest constitutional republic.

The Grandma in San Marein / San Marino

The nation is governed by the Constitution of San Marino, Leges Statutae Republicae Sancti Marini, a series of six books written in Latin in the late 16th century, that dictate the country's political system, among other matters.

San Marino is considered to have the earliest written governing documents still in effect.

The country's economy mainly relies on finance, industry, services and tourism. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP (per capita), with a figure comparable to the most developed European regions. San Marino is considered to have a highly stable economy, with one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe, no national debt and a budget surplus. It has the world's highest rate of car ownership, being the only country with more vehicles than people.

San Marino is one of the only three countries in the world to be completely surrounded by another country (the others being Vatican City, also surrounded by Italy, and Lesotho, surrounded by South Africa). It is the third smallest country in Europe, after only Vatican City and Monaco, and the fifth smallest country in the world.

More information: Lonely Planet

Saint Marinus left the island of Rab in present-day Croatia with his lifelong friend Leo, and went to the city of Rimini as a stonemason. After the Diocletianic Persecution following his Christian sermons, he escaped to the nearby Monte Titano, where he built a small church and thus founded what is now the city and state of San Marino, which is sometimes still called the Titanic Republic".

The official date of the founding of what is now known as the Republic is 3 September 301.

In 1320 the community of Chiesanuova chose to join the country. In 1463 San Marino was extended with the communities of Faetano, Fiorentino, Montegiardino, and Serravalle, after which the country's borders have remained unchanged. In 1631, its independence was recognized by the Papacy.

The advance of Napoleon's army in 1797 presented a brief threat to the independence of San Marino, but the country was saved from losing its liberty thanks to one of its Regents, Antonio Onofri, who managed to gain the respect and friendship of Napoleon.

Thanks to his intervention, Napoleon, in a letter delivered to Gaspard Monge, scientist and commissary of the French Government for Science and Art, promised to guarantee and protect the independence of the Republic, even offering to extend its territory according to its needs. The offer was declined by the Regents, fearing future retaliation from other states' revanchism.

More information: San Marino Cycling

During the later phase of the Italian unification process in the 19th century, San Marino served as a refuge for many people persecuted because of their support for unification. In recognition of this support, Giuseppe Garibaldi accepted the wish of San Marino not to be incorporated into the new Italian state.

Tina Picotes in San Marein / San Marino

The government of San Marino made United States President Abraham Lincoln an honorary citizen. He wrote in reply, saying that the republic proved that government founded on republican principles is capable of being so administered as to be secure and enduring.

During World War I, when Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915, San Marino remained neutral and Italy adopted a hostile view of Sammarinese neutrality, suspecting that San Marino could harbour Austrian spies who could be given access to its new radiotelegraph station. Italy tried to forcibly establish a detachment of Carabinieri in the republic and then cut the republic's telephone lines when it did not comply. Two groups of ten volunteers joined Italian forces in the fighting on the Italian front, the first as combatants and the second as a medical corps operating a Red Cross field hospital. The existence of this hospital later caused Austria-Hungary to suspend diplomatic relations with San Marino.

Following the conclusion of World War I, San Marino suffered from high rates of unemployment and inflation, leading to increased tensions between the lower and middle classes. The latter, fearing that the moderate government of San Marino would make concessions to the lower class majority, began to show support for the Sammarinese Fascist Party (Partito Fascista Sammarinese), founded in 1922 and styled largely off their Italian counterpart. PFS rule lasted from 1923 to 1943, and, during this time, they often sought support from Benito Mussolini's fascist government in Italy.

More information: Our Escape Clause

 
During World War II, San Marino remained neutral, although it was wrongly reported in an article from The New York Times that it had declared war on the United Kingdom on 17 September 1940. The Sammarinese government later transmitted a message to the British government stating that they had not declared war on the United Kingdom.

Three days after the fall of Benito Mussolini in Italy, PFS rule collapsed and the new government declared neutrality in the conflict. The Fascists regained power on 1 April 1944 but kept neutrality intact. Despite that, on 26 June 1944, San Marino was bombed by the Royal Air Force, in the belief that San Marino had been overrun by German forces and was being used to amass stores and ammunition.

The Sammarinese government declared on the same day that no military installations or equipment were located on its territory, and that no belligerent forces had been allowed to enter. San Marino accepted thousands of civilian refugees when Allied forces went over the Gothic Line. In September 1944, it was briefly occupied by German forces, who were defeated by Allied forces in the Battle of San Marino.

San Marein / San Marino

San Marino had the world's first democratically elected communist government -a coalition between the Sammarinese Communist Party and the Sammarinese Socialist Party, which held office between 1945 and 1957.

San Marino is the world's smallest republic, although when Nauru gained independence in 1968 it challenged that claim, Nauru's land mass being only 21 km2. However Nauru's jurisdiction over its surrounding waters covers 431,000 km2, an area thousands of times greater than the territory of San Marino.

San Marino became a member of the Council of Europe in 1988 and of the United Nations in 1992. It is neither a member of the European Union, nor of the Eurozone although it uses the euro as its currency.

Its hilly topography, with no flat ground, is part of the Apennine mountain range. The highest point in the country, the summit of Monte Titano, is 749 m above sea level. There are no bodies of water of any significant size.

San Marino has a population of approximately 33,000, with 4,800 foreign residents, most of whom are Italian citizens. Another 12,000 Sammarinese live abroad (5,700 in Italy, 3,000 in the US, 1,900 in France and 1,600 in Argentina).

The first census since 1976 was held in 2010. Results were expected by the end of 2011, however, 13% of families did not return their forms.

More information: The New York Times

The primary language spoken is Italian; Romagnol is also widely spoken.

Romagnol is a group of closely related dialects of the Emilian-Romagnol language spoken in the historical region of Romagna, which is today in the south-eastern part of Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

The name itself is derived from the Lombard name for the region Romania. It is also spoken outside the region, particularly in the neighboring province of Pesaro-Urbino, part of the Marche region, and in the independent country of San Marino.

It is classified as a threatened language, due to older generations having neglected to pass on the dialect as a native tongue to the next generation.

While contemporaneous with modern Standard Italian, it is technically a member of the Gallo-Italic branch and more comparable to the northern group of Italian dialects. This includes the dialects Emilian, Ligurian, Lombard, and Piedmontese.

It is sometimes considered a subdialect of a larger Emilian-Romagnol language, which encompasses a broad continuum of dialects spanning the region of Emilia-Romagna.

More information: Omniglot

Grant me thirty years of equal division of inheritances

and a free press, and I will provide you with a republic.

Alexis de Tocqueville