Description
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Dubrovnik (pronounced [dǔbroːʋniːk] (
);[2] Italian: Ragusa) is a Croatian city on the Adriatic Sea, in the region of Dalmatia. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean, a seaport and the centre of Dubrovnik-Neretva County. Its total population is 42,615 (census 2011).[1] In 1979, the city of Dubrovnik joined the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.
The prosperity of the city of Dubrovnik was historically based on maritime trade. As the capital of the Republic of Ragusa, a maritime republic, the city achieved a high level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries. Dubrovnik became notable for its wealth and skilled diplomacy.
The beginning of modern tourism in Dubrovnik is associated with the construction of the Hotel Imperial in Dubrovnik in 1897.[3] According to CNNGo, Dubrovnik is among the 10 best preserved medieval walled cities in the world.[4] Although Dubrovnik was demilitarised in the 1970s to protect it from war, in 1991, after the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) for seven months and suffered significant damage from shelling.
Name
The historical Latin and Dalmatian name of Dubrovnik is Ragusa (pronounced [raˈɡu.sa]), or Ragusium in older form. Ragusa is also the name in Italian, shared with another Ragusa in Sicily. The historical name in Greek is Ragouza (Ραγοούζα).
The current name was officially adopted in 1918 after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but was in use from the Middle Ages. It is also referred to as Dubrovnik in the Charter of Ban Kulin in 1189. See also: Other names of Dubrovnik.
The name Dubrovnik is from dubrava, which means "oak grove". dub in many Slavic languages means "oak", compare Russian:дуб and дубрава.
History
Origins
Historical lore indicates that Dubrovnik was founded in the 7th century on a rocky island named Laus, which is said to have provided shelter for refugees from the nearby city of Epidaurum.[5]
Another theory by the late Tibor Živković appeared in 2007, based on new archaeological excavations. New findings (a Byzantine basilica from the 8th century and parts of the city walls) contradict the traditional theory. The size of the old basilica clearly indicates that there was quite a large settlement at the time.[6] There is also increasing support in the scientific community[who?] for the theory that major construction of Dubrovnik took place before the Common Era. This "Greek theory" has been boosted by recent findings of numerous Greek artifacts during excavations in the Port of Dubrovnik. Also, drilling below the main city road has revealed natural sand, contradicting the theory of Laus (Lausa) island.
Dr Antun Ničetić, in his book Povijest dubrovačke luke ("History of the Port of Dubrovnik"), expounds the theory that Dubrovnik was established by Greek sailors. A key element in this theory is the fact that ships in ancient times travelled about 45–50 nautical miles (83–93 km; 52–58 mi) per day, and required a sandy shore to pull out of water for the rest period during the night. The ideal rest site would have fresh water sources in its vicinity. Dubrovnik has both, and is situated roughly halfway between the two known Greek settlements of Budva and Korčula, 95 nautical miles (176 km; 109 mi) apart from each other.
Republic of Ragusa
After the fall of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, the town came under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. Dubrovnik in those medieval centuries had a population of Latinized Illyrians.[7] After the Crusades, Dubrovnik came under the sovereignty of Venice (1205–1358), which would give its institutions to the Dalmatian city. After a fire destroyed almost the whole city in the night of August 16, 1296, a new urban plan was developed.[8][9][10] By the Peace Treaty of Zadar in 1358, Dubrovnik achieved relative independence as a vassal-state of the Kingdom of Hungary. During the 14th century it became the main port where Serbian Empire and Venice transacted their products.[11]
Between the 14th century and 1808, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state, although it was a vassal from 1440 to 1804 of the Ottoman Empire and paid an annual tribute to its sultan.[12] The Republic reached its peak in the 15th and 16th centuries, when its thalassocracy rivalled that of the Republic of Venice and other Italian maritime republics.
For centuries, Dubrovnik was an ally of Ancona, the other Adriatic maritime republic rival of Venice, which was the Ottoman Empire's chief rival for control of the Adriatic. This alliance enabled the two towns set on opposite sides of the Adriatic to resist attempts by the Venetians to make the Adriatic a "Venetian Bay", also said[by whom?] to control directly or indirectly all the Adriatic ports. Ancona and Dubrovnik developed an alternative trade route to the Venetian (Venice-Austria-Germany): starting in Dubrovnik it went on to Ancona, through Florence and ended in Flanders as seen on this map.
The Republic of Ragusa received its own Statutes as early as 1272, statutes which, among other things, codified Roman practice and local customs. The Statutes included prescriptions for town planning and the regulation of quarantine (for sanitary reasons).[13]
The Republic was an early adopter of what are now regarded as modern laws and institutions: a medical service was introduced in 1301, with the first pharmacy, still operating to this day, being opened in 1317. An almshouse was opened in 1347, and the first quarantine hospital (Lazarete) was established in 1377. Slave trading was abolished in 1418, and an orphanage opened in 1432. A 20 km (12 mi) water supply system was constructed in 1436.
The city was ruled by the local aristocracy which was of Latin-Dalmatian extraction and formed two city councils. As usual for the time, they maintained a strict system of social classes. The republic abolished the slave trade early in the 15th century and valued liberty highly. The city successfully balanced its sovereignty between the interests of Venice and the Ottoman Empire for centuries.
The languages spoken by the people were the Romance Dalmatian and late-common Slavic. The latter started to replace Dalmatian little by little since the 11th century among the common people who inhabited the city. Italian and Venetian would become important languages of culture and trade in Dubrovnik. At the same time, Dubrovnik became a cradle of Croatian literature.
The economic wealth of the Republic was partially the result of the land it developed, but especially of seafaring trade. With the help of skilled diplomacy, Dubrovnik merchants travelled lands freely and on the sea the city had a huge fleet of merchant ships (argosy) that travelled all over the world. From these travels they founded some settlements, from India to America, and brought parts of their culture and flora home with them. One of its keys to success was not conquering, but trading and sailing under a white flag with the word Latin: Libertas(freedom) prominently featured on it. The flag was adopted when slave trading was abolished in 1418.
Many Conversos, Jews from Spain and Portugal, were attracted to the city. In May 1544, a ship landed there filled exclusively with Portuguese refugees, as Balthasar de Faria reported to King John. During this time there worked in the city one of the most famous cannon and bell founders of his time: Ivan Rabljanin (Magister Johannes Baptista Arbensis de la Tolle). Already in 1571 Dubrovnik sold its protectorate over some Christian settlements in other parts of the Ottoman Empire to France and Venice. At that time there was also a colony of Dubrovnik in Fes in Morocco. The bishop of Dubrovnik was a Cardinal protector in 1571. Cardinal protectors were only in 16 other countries, too, in 1571, namely in France, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Poland, England, Scotland, Ireland, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Savoy, Lucca, Greece, Illyria, Armenia and Lebanon.
The Republic gradually declined after a crisis in Mediterranean shipping and the catastrophic earthquake of 1667[14] killed over 5,000 citizens and levelled most of the public buildings, ruining the well-being of the Republic. In 1699, the Republic sold two mainland patches of its territory to the Ottomans in order to avoid being caught in the clash with advancing Venetian forces. Today this strip of land belongs to Bosnia and Herzegovina and is that country's only direct access to the Adriatic. A highlight of Dubrovnik's diplomacy was the involvement in the American Revolution.[15]
In 1806, the city surrendered to the Napoleonic army,[16] as that was the only way to end a month long siege by the Russian-Montenegrin fleets (during which 3,000 cannonballs fell on the city). At first, Napoleon demanded only free passage for his troops, promising not to occupy the territory and stressing that the French were friends of Dubrovnik. Later, however, French forces blockaded the harbours, forcing the government to give in and let French troops enter the city. On this day, all flags and coats of arms above the city walls were painted black as a sign of mourning. In 1808, Marshal Auguste de Marmont abolished the republic and integrated its territory first into Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy and later into the Illyrian provinces under French rule. This was to last until the 28th January 1814 when the city surrendered to Captain Sir William Hoste leading a body of British and Austrian troops who were besieging the fortress.
Languages
The official language until 1472 was Latin. Later, the Senate of the Republic decided that the official language of the Republic would be the Dubrovnik dialect of the Romance Dalmatian language, and forbade the use of the Slavic language in senatorial debate. The Gospari (the Aristocracy) held on to their language for many centuries, while it slowly disappeared.
Although the Latin language was in official use, inhabitants of the republic were[when?] mostly native speakers of Slavonic languages (as confirmed[clarification needed] by count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy in 1698, when he noted "In Dalmatia ... Ragusans ... call themselves Croats"[17]). The Dalmatian language was also spoken in the city.
The Italian language as spoken in the republic was heavily influenced by the Venetian language and the Tuscan dialect. Italian took root among the Dalmatian Romance-speaking merchant upper classes, as a result of Venetian influence.[18]
Austrian rule
When the Habsburg Empire annexed these provinces after the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the new authorities implemented a bureaucratic administration, established the Kingdom of Dalmatia, which had its own Sabor (Diet) or Parliament, based in the city of Zadar, and political parties such as the Autonomist Party and the People's Party. They introduced a series of modifications intended to slowly centralize the bureaucratic, tax, religious, educational, and trade structure. Unfortunately for the local residents, these steps largely failed, despite the intention of wanting to stimulate the economy. And once the personal, political and economic damage of the Napoleonic Wars had been overcome, new movements began to form in the region, calling for a political reorganization of the Adriatic along the national lines.[citation needed]
The combination of these two forces—a flawed Habsburg administrative system and new national movement claiming ethnicity as the founding block toward a community—posed a particularly perplexing problem; since Dalmatia was a province ruled by the German-speaking Habsburg monarchy, with bilingual (Slavic- and Italian-speaking) elites that dominated the general population consisting of a Slavic Catholic majority (and a Slavic Orthodox minority of not more than 300 people).[citation needed]
In 1815, the former Dubrovnik Government (its noble assembly) met for the last time in Ljetnikovac in Mokošica. Once again, extreme measures were taken to re-establish the Republic, but it was all in vain. After the fall of the Republic most of the aristocracy was recognized by the Austrian Empire.
In 1832, Baron Šišmundo Getaldić-Gundulić (Sigismondo Ghetaldi-Gondola) was (1795–1860) was elected Mayor of Dubrovnik, serving for 13 years; the Austrian government granted him the title of "Baron".
Count Rafael Pucić (Raffaele Pozza), Dr. Jur., (1828–90) was elected for first time Podestà of Dubrovnik in the year 1869 after this was re-elected in 1872, 1875, 1882, 1884) and elected twice into the Dalmatian Council, 1870, 1876. The victory of the Nationalists in Split in 1882 strongly affected in the areas of Korčula and Dubrovnik. It was greeted by the mayor (podestà) of Dubrovnik Rafael Pucić, the National Reading Club of Dubrovnik, the Workers Association of Dubrovnik and the review "Slovinac"; by the communities of Kuna and Orebić.
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Location
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, Dubrovnik, Croatia
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