About Dubrovnik
A fiew words about rich history of Dubrovnik.
The Croatian name of the town is derived from the word dubrava (wood – Oak),
while the Latin name Ragusa originated from the name of the island where the first
settlement was established (Lave, Lausa). Dubrovnik was probably founded in the
first half of the 7th century, upon the fall of the nearby Epidaurum (today's Cavtat)
during the Avaro-Slavic invasion on Dalmatia. Opposite of that location, at the foot
of Srđ Mount, developed a Croatian settlement under the name of Dubrovnik, after which,
in the course of time, the entire town was named. The spatial separation was created
by leveling and filling up of the present Placa, where the core of an integrated town
developed. From its establishment the town was under the protection of the Byzantine
Empire (for a certain period, the Byzantine strategist also resided here); during the
Crusades it came under the sovereignty of Venice (1205-1358), and by the Peace Treaty
of Zadar in 1358 it became part of the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom. Having been granted
the entire self-government (bound to pay only a tribute to the king and providing
assistance with its fleet), from that moment Dubrovnik started its life as a free state
that reached its peak in the 15th and the 16th centuries. A crisis of Mediterranean
shipping and especially a catastrophic earthquake in 1667 put Dubrovnik in a very
difficult economic position. In such a situation Dubrovnik saw the beginning of the
Napoleonic wars. The French entered Dubrovnik in 1806; in 1808 Marshal Marmont abolished
the Dubrovnik Republic (the name was in use from the 15th c.). Pursuant to the resolutions
of the Vienna Congress in 1815, Dubrovnik was annexed to Austria.
Dubrovnik was an outstanding literary centre in the
Renaissance (M. Drzic, I. Gundulic);
the centre of the local painting school in the 15th-16th century; the birth-place of several
world-famous scientists, such as the physicists Marin Getaldic (1568-1626) and Ruder Boskovic
(1717-1787), the economic theoretician Benedikt
Kotruljic (1400-1468),
the composers
Luksa Sorkocevic (1734-1789) and Ivan Mane Jarnovic (1740 or 1745-1804) and other.
Dubrovnik was the cradle of humanism and Latinism on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic.
Science and culture in the town were promoted by scientific and literary societies - academies:
the Academy of the Unanimous (second half of the 16th c.), the Academy of the Frivolous (
founded around 1690) and other. Dubrovnik has maintained its important position in the
Croatian culture until today.