Dubrovnik, historically also known as Ragusa, is a city in southern Dalmatia, Croatia, by the Adriatic Sea. It is one of the most prominent tourist destinations in the Mediterranean, a seaport and the centre of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County. In 2021, its total population was 41,562. Recognizing its outstanding medieval architecture and fortifications, UNESCO inscribed the Old City of Dubrovnik as a World Heritage Site in 1979.
The history of the city probably dates back to the 7th century, when the town known as Ragusa was founded by refugees from Epidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia). It was under protectorate of the Byzantine Empire and later under the sovereignty of the Republic of Venice. Between the 14th and 19th centuries, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state. The prosperity of the city was historically based on maritime trade; as the capital of the maritime Republic of Ragusa, it achieved a high level of development, particularly during the 15th and 16th centuries, as it became notable for its wealth and skilled diplomacy. At the same time, Dubrovnik became a cradle of Croatian literature. In his letter to Nikola Nalješković (1564), poet Ivan Vidalić named it the "crown of Croatian cities".
The entire city was almost destroyed in a devastating earthquake in 1667. During the Napoleonic Wars, Dubrovnik was occupied by the French Empire forces, and then the Republic of Ragusa was abolished and incorporated into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy and later into the Illyrian Provinces of France. From the early 19th to early 20th centuries, Dubrovnik was part of the Kingdom of Dalmatia within the Austrian Empire. Dubrovnik became part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia immediately upon its creation, and it was incorporated into its Zeta Banovina in 1929, before becoming part of the Banovina of Croatia upon its creation in 1939. During World War II, it was part of the Independent State of Croatia, an Axis puppet state, before being reincorporated into the Socialist Republic of Croatia in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence, Dubrovnik was besieged by the Yugoslav People's Army for seven months and suffered significant damage from shelling. After undergoing repair and restoration works in the 1990s and early 2000s, it re-emerged as one of the Mediterranean's top tourist destinations, as well as a popular filming location. Often called "The Queen of the Adriatic" Dubrovnik is considered one of the most popular destinations in the Adriatic and in Europe.
Names
The names Dubrovnik and Ragusa co-existed for several centuries. Ragusa, recorded in various forms since at least the 10th century (in Latin, Dalmatian, Italian; in Venetian: Raguxa), remained the official name of the Republic of Ragusa until 1808, and of the city within the Kingdom of Dalmatia until 1918, while Dubrovnik, first recorded in the late 12th century, was in widespread use by the late 16th or early 17th century.
The name Dubrovnik of the Adriatic city is first recorded in the Charter of Ban Kulin (1189). The most common explanation for the origin is from a Proto-Slavic word *dǫbъ meaning 'oak', and the term dubrovnik referring to 'oak wood' or 'oak forest', as dǫbrava means 'oakwood', 'forest'.
The historical name Ragusa is recorded in the Greek form Ῥαούσιν (Rhaousin, Latinized Ragusium) in the 10th century. It was recorded in various forms in the medieval period, Rausia, Lavusa, Labusa, Raugia, Rachusa. Various attempts have been made to etymologize the name. Suggestions include derivation from Greek ῥάξ, ῥαγός "grape"; from Greek ῥώξ, ῥωγός "narrow passage"; Greek ῥωγάς "ragged (of rocks)", ῥαγή (ῥαγάς) "fissure"; from the name of the Epirote tribe of the Rhogoi, from an unidentified Illyrian substrate. A connection to the name of Sicilian Ragusa has also been proposed. It has been proposed by V. Orel that the Proto-Albanian *rāguša of Albanian rrush 'grape' is related to Ragusa or the source of the name. Putanec (1993) gives a review of etymological suggestion, and favours an explanation of the name as pre-Greek ("Pelasgian"), from a root cognate to Greek ῥαγή "fissure", with a suffix -ussa also found in the Greek name of Brač, Elaphousa. The name of the city in the native Dalmatian language, now extinct, was Ragusa, as shown by a 1325 letter in Dalmatian. In Albanian, the city was historically referred to as Rush (Albanian definite form: Rushi), from Latin Ragusium.
The classical explanation of the name is due to Constantine VII's De Administrando Imperio (10th century). According to this account, Ragusa (Ῥαούσιν) is the foundation of the refugees from Epidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia), a Greek city situated some 15 km (9 mi) to the south of Ragusa, when that city was destroyed in the Slavic incursions of the 7th century. The name is explained as a corruption of a Dalmatae/Romance word Lausa, the name of the rocky island on which the city was built (connected by Constantine to Greek λᾶας "rock, stone").
History
Origins
Dubrovnik was inhabited by the Illyrian tribe of Pleraei in ancient times. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus's De Administrando Imperio (c. 950), Ragusa was founded in the 7th century, named after a "rocky island" called Lausa, by refugees from Epidaurum (Ragusa Vecchia), a Roman city situated some 15 km (9.3 mi) to the south, when that city was destroyed by Slavs fighting with the Avars. It was one of the Dalmatian city-states.
Excavations in 2007 revealed a Byzantine basilica from the 8th century and parts of the city walls.
The size of the old basilica clearly indicates that there was quite a large settlement at the time.
There is also evidence for the presence of a settlement in the pre-Christian era, most notably the finding of ancient coins from the 3rd and 2nd century BC, as well as archeological fragments from the 1st century BC in the area of the old City port.
Antun Ničetić, in his 1996 book Povijest dubrovačke luke ("History of the Port of Dubrovnik"), expounds the theory that Dubrovnik was established by Greek sailors, as a station halfway between the two Greek settlements of Budva and Korčula, 95 nautical miles (176 km; 109 mi) apart from each of them.
Republic of Ragusa
After the fall of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, the town came under the protection of the Byzantine Empire. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Dubrovnik grew into an oligarchic republic. After the Crusades, Dubrovnik came under the sovereignty of Venice (1205–1358), which would give its institutions to the Dalmatian city. In 1240 Ragusa purchased the island of Lastovo from Stefan Uroš I, king of Serbia, who had rights over the island as ruler of parts of Zachlumia. After a fire destroyed most of the city on the night of August 16, 1296, a new urban plan was developed. By the Peace Treaty of Zadar in 1358, Dubrovnik achieved relative independence as a vassal-state of the Kingdom of Hungary.
Between the 14th century and 1808, Dubrovnik ruled itself as a free state, although it was a tributary from 1382 to 1804 of the Ottoman Empire and paid an annual tribute to its sultan. 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.
There are also signs of a long established Albanian population in the Ragusan hinterlands since at least the Medieval period. And a Ragusan document dating to 1285 states: "I heard a voice crying in the mountains in Albanian" (Audivi unam vocem clamantem in monte in lingua albanesca).
For centuries, Dubrovnik was an ally of Ancona, the other Adriatic maritime republic rival of Venice, which was itself 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 controlling 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. Ragusa was an important base for the traffic of the Balkan slave trade, from which slaves were transported from the Balkans across the Adriatic Sea to the Aegean Sea, from which they were sold on to either Spain in the West or Egypt in the South.
The Republic of Ragusa received its own Statutes as early as 1272, 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).
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, instead of a cistern, was constructed in 1438 by the Neapolitan architect and engineer Onofrio della Cava. He completed the aqueduct with two public fountains. He also built a number of mills along one of its branches.
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.
Latin was originally used in official documents of the Republic. Italian came to use in the early 15th century. A variant of the Dalmatian language was among the spoken ones, and was influenced by Croatian and Italian. The presence of Croatian in everyday speech increased in the late 13th century, and in literary works in the mid-15th century. In the coming decades, 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 the city had a huge fleet of merchant ships (known as argosy) that travelled all over the world. From these travels they founded some settlements, from India (cf. Ragusan trade with 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 Latin: Libertas word (freedom) prominently featured on it. The flag was adopted when slave trading was abolished in 1418.
In search of Indian spices and textiles, merchants from Dubrovnik arrived in Goa, India, and settled in what is now called Gandauli. The people of Dubrovnik arrived in the Portuguese colony of Goa between 1530 and 1535, and after that they founded their own colony, Sao Braz, named after the patron saint of Dubrovnik, St. Blaise. The church was built around 1563 and was a replica of the original church of St. Blaise in Dubrovnik. About 12,000 inhabitants lived in São Braz and was a thriving colony until the 1570s when trade between Croats and Indians declined.
Many Conversos, Jews from Spain and Portugal who converted to Christianity, 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 one of the most famous cannon and bell founders of his time worked in the city: Ivan Rabljanin (also known as Magister Johannes Baptista Arbensis de la Tolle). By 1571 Dubrovnik had sold its protection 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, at that time there were only 16 other countries which had Cardinal protectors.
Dubrovnik was a tributary state of the Ottoman Empire at one time. From this, they gained benefits such as access to the Black Sea, paid less customs duties (they however needed to make tribute payments) and had the diplomatic support of the Turks in trade disputes against the Venetians. This status also allowed increased trade with the inland regions through the Balkan overland trade which made merchants from Dubrovnik to build up a strong network unequaled with other Christian states.
The Republic gradually declined due to a combination of a Mediterranean shipping crisis and the catastrophic earthquake of 1667 that killed over 5,000 citizens, levelled most of the public buildings and, consequently, negatively affected the well-being of the Republic. In 1699, the Republic was forced to sell 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.
Early modern period
On 27 May 1806, the forces of the Empire of France occupied the neutral Republic of Ragusa. Upon entering Ragusan territory without permission and approaching the capital, the French General Jacques Lauriston demanded that his troops be allowed to rest and be provided with food and drink in the city before continuing on to take possession of their holdings in the Bay of Kotor. However, this was a deception because as soon as they entered the city, they proceeded to occupy it in the name of Napoleon. Almost immediately after the beginning of the French occupation, Russian and Montenegrin troops entered Ragusan territory and began fighting the French army, raiding and pillaging everything along the way and culminating in a siege of the occupied city during which 3,000 cannonballs fell on it. In 1808 Marshal Marmont issued a proclamation abolishing the Republic of Ragusa and amalgamating its territory into the French Empire's client state, the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. Marmont claimed the newly created title of "Duke of Ragusa" (Duc de Raguse) and in 1810 Ragusa, together with Istria and Dalmatia, went to the newly created French Illyrian Provinces.