Irredentism

On rereading the thread (see also here) I linked to two days ago, I learnt an interesting word: irredentism.

Merriam Webster defines it as: “a political principle or policy directed toward the incorporation of irredentas within the boundaries of their historically or ethnically related political unit”, with “irredenta” being: “a territory historically or ethnically related to one political unit but under the political control of another”.

Collins Dictionary derives ‘irredentism’ from irredentist, which is “a person who favours the acquisition of territory that once was part of his or her country or is considered to have been”, from the historical meaning: “a member of an Italian association prominent in 1878 that sought to recover for Italy certain neighbouring regions (Italia irredenta) with a predominantly Italian population that were under foreign control”.

Wiktionary explains: “A nationalistic doctrine advocating the annexation of foreign lands with historic or ethnic links.

It is of course also an international word.

In my opinion today’s Russia (that is, its government and armed forces, not necessarily all of its population) is fascist, imperialist, expansionist, and irredentist.