Aullène

Aullène is located some 35 km in a direct line (68 km by road) south-east of Ajaccio, 20 km in a direct line (36 km by road) north-east of Propriano, and 10 km in a direct line (21 km by road) east by south-east of Petreto-Bicchisano. Aullène is a mountain village with a pastoral tradition whose territory is in the upper part of a valley parallel to and south of the Taravo valley. Access to the commune is by road D420 from Serra-di-Scopamène in the south-east to the village in the south of the commune then continuing west by a tortuous route to Petreto-Bicchisano. The D69 road comes from Cargiaca in the south by a tortuous road to the village then continues north from the village through the length of the commune, then goes west across the Col de la Vaccia before continuing north to Zicavo.[3]

The village is at an altitude of 850 metres on the left bank of the Chiuvone (in Corsican Chjuvonu). It extends around two "pogs" (or poghji in Corsican) and is dominated by the Punta Ariola, a summit of 1,449 metres. The Chjuvonu river, called Le Fleuve (The River) by locals, rises on the Cuscionu plateau, which marks the north by north-eastern border of the commune, and passes near the village before continuing its course towards south by south-west towards the Rocca region and joins the Rizzanese below Zoza.

Ridge lines, including the main summit of Punta di Sistaja (1,724 metres), are the natural boundaries of the village to the east, north and west while the Col de la Tana delimits the territory in the south by south-west.

The name of the commune is Aullène in French and Audde' in Corsican - the accent after the "e" corresponds to a tone mark on the final "e" and not the French "é", it sounds almost like au|g|ddè.[4]

In Corsican it sounds different depending on whether it is in the diquai (di qua dai monti) or in the dilai (di là dai monti). A simple test is to ask how to say grandmother and grandfather: if it is mammone and babbone that is in diquai; if it is minnana and missiavu then that is dilai. In addition, each micro-region has its idiosyncrasies and phonological features. Thus in the Alta Rocca region, which is a dilai area, the "ll" is strongly dentalised which turns it into a small palatal "d", hence the modern spelling Audde' instead of Aullé as written in the Terrier of Corsica in 1769.

There has been a myriad of suppositions made by scholars on the etymology of the name "Aullène".

Among the certainties, it is known that the people of Alta Rocca say Audde' and that the French geographers of the late 18th century used the name Aullène. Aullene is found written on Italian acts in the 17th century. In the 16th century Auguliena appears in the detail of inhabited places in the Pieve of Talla.

In the village some have argued that the origin of the name comes from Ancient Greek meaning "crossroads" (in Greek diodos = "place where two roads meet"; triodos = "place where three roads meet"). The crossroads, however, are rather recent in Aullène as the road to Ajaccio was not opened until the end of the 19th century and completed in 1927.

Geographers in the late 18th century supported the Latin term meaning alder to give a French name to the village because they believed that the word had a rapport with the fragrance of alder in some mountain valleys (Alnus alnobetula subsp. suaveolens or u bassu in Corsican).

The term Auguliena was used in texts in the mid-16th century (see the research by Antoine-Dominique Monti in Elements for a dictionary of proper names) meaning a "scan point" or "observation post". This solution is plausible as it was probably a fortified place in the 11th century and certainly in the 13th century when the Giudice (Sinucello Della Rocca was called the "Giudice of Cinarca") monitored and controlled the neighbouring lords.

The village of Aullène lies in the heart of the Alta Rocca micro-region and is strongly influenced by an old pastoral tradition. Until just before the First World War, which cut off Corsican families from their traditional lives, the residents of Aullène moved with their cattle from the mountain pastures to the coast for the winter months during the rainy season or the impiaghiera then went back to their summer pastures in the mountains or a muntanera before the onset of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Between Monacia-d'Aullène, the summer village, and Aullène is Ghjanuciu - now a hamlet which was well populated until recent times. Ghjanuciu was a stop at the foot of the Montagen de Cagna on the Transhumance way for the shepherds. It is therefore not surprising to find the same families in the three villages. It was not only individual property that was shared between two villages - part of the land owned by the commune of Aullène on the Cuscionu was in joint ownership with Monacia-d'Aullène and some coastal lands in Monacia-d'Aullène was also ij joint ownership with Aullène. Livestock breeding was so important in the commune that the parish feast on the first Sunday of August continued to be the largest cattle fair in the region until the Second World War.[4]

In 2010 there were 464 permanent residents in Monacia-d'Aullène, from which the hamlet of Aullène separated to be an independent commune in 1870, and 182 in Aullène. These figures can increase fivefold or more when the so-called "Corsican diaspora" come to spend the summer at the village.

In July 2009 a fire destroyed some 3,500 hectares of forest from the hamlet of Burgu (Propriano) to the Col de Vaccia (Aullène). According to police investigations the fire was caused by work done on an electrical line at Burgu.[5]

List of Successive Mayors[6]

(Not all data is known)

In 2017 the commune had 187 inhabitants.

• Sinucello Della Rocca, called "Il Ghjudiciu di Cinarca" (1221-1306 or 1312) - In 1264 he accepted a form of constitution and succeeded in uniting the island around the end of the 13th century; his seat was at a fortified place on the heights of Aullène.
• Jean-Baptiste Natali (1883-1974) - Born in Aullène; writer; teacher, prosecutor of the Republic; author of Nos Géorgiques (Our Georgics) (1921), Parmi le thym et la rosée (Among the Thyme and the dew) (1934), a study on the Alta Rocca dialect, and La Poésie dialectale du peuple corse (The Dialectical poetry of the Corsican people) (1961).
• Pierre-Dominique Lucchini, known by the pen-name Pierre Dominique (1889-1973) - journalist and politician; author of Chroniques corses (1926).
• Simon Dary or Simonu d'Auddè (1900-1978) - Born at Monacia-d'Aullène; poet, prose writer, and writer of fables (text, poetry, and plays); author of Filosofia, cumediola in dui atti è sei sceni (1965) and Risa Corsa (1977).
• Pierre Rossi (1920-2002) - Born at Aullène; writer and philosopher; teacher and diplomat; author of L'Irak des révoltes (Revolts in Iraq) (1962), La Libye (Libya), La Tunisie de Bourguiba (The Tunisia of Bourguiba), "De Suez à Akaba" (From Suez to Aqaba), Le pétrole arabe dans la guerre (Arab oil in war), Les clefs de la guerre (The keys of war), La verte Libye de Khadafi (The green Libya of Qaddafi), La cité d'Isis, histoire vraie des Arabes (The City of Isis, a true history of Arabs) (1976), L'Irak, le pays du nouveau fleuve (Iraq, the country with long news), Un soir à Pise (An evening at Pisa), Les conjurés d'Aléria (The plotters of Aléria), U disturbu 1789-1989, la mise à sac (1989), La Corse, l'Europe et le droit (Corsica, Europe, and the right) (1991).
• Lucie Dolène (1931) - originally from Aullène; singer and comedian
• Jacques Chaban-Delmas, Prime Minister (1969-1972)
• Jean-Claude Gaudin, Senator-Mayor of Marseille

• Communes of the Corse-du-Sud department

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Aullène.

• Aullène website (in French)
• Aullène on wiki.Geneanet (in French)
• Aullène on Géoportail, National Geographic Institute (IGN) website (in French)