Republic of Calabria (Napoleon's World)

The Republic of Calabria (Italian: Republica Calabrese) was a short-lived Italian state in existence between May 1, 1976 and August 24, 1978. The region which the republic inhabited, traditionally associated with Naples, had been explicitly ceded to Sicily in 1944 as part of the Partition of Italy, a move which neither the Sicilians nor Calabrians had much interest in. After thirty-one years of peaceful relations with their benign but detached Parliament in Palermo, the Calabrians staged a local referendum on independence, with the hope being that they would enter the proposed secular Italy upon its formation, which by 1975 seemed inevitable.

With a 91% approval of independence in the November 4, 1975 referendum, Sicilian officials agreed to grant the two provinces of East and West Calabria independence as a separate state in 1976. The short-lived republic was mired in economic difficulty throughout most of its brief existence before joining Italy in 1978, just as it had intended upon independence.