The Islands of Croatia. Rudolf Abraham
In 888 Duke Branimir pledged his loyalty to the Pope and assumed the title Duke of the Croats; Tomislav became the first king of Croatia in 925; and during the reign of Petar Krešimir IV (1058–1074) Dalmatian and Pannonian (inland) Croatia were for the first time unified into a single state, although it is not certain that all the islands were included in this.
Petar was succeeded by Zvonimir (1075–1089), who had the title King of Croatia and Dalmatia conferred upon him by Pope Gregory VII, but his kingdom more or less fell to pieces during the power struggles which followed his death, and in 1091 Hungary invaded Croatia, with the Hungarian Arpad dynasty inheriting the rights of the Croatian kings in 1102.
It was during this period that the city of Dubrovnik (or Ragusa) rose to power. Founded in the first half of the seventh century by refugees from Epidaurus (Cavtat), a city recently devastated by the Avars and the Slavs, Dubrovnik soon grew rich on maritime trade, and in the 12th century developed into an independent republic. In 1190 Dubrovnik signed treaties against external enemies, in particular Venice, and by the 14th century its territory stretched from the Kotor inlet in Montenegro to the northern tip of the Pelješac peninsula, and included the islands of Lastovo and Mljet.
The Roman forum, ninth-century Church of St Donatus and the bell tower of the 12th–13th century Cathedral of St Anastasia in Zadar
In the 12th century Venice launched a series of attacks on the coastal cities of Dalmatia, as well as on a number of its islands, sacking Zadar in 1202 as part of the infamous Fourth Crusade (which would go on to sack Constantinople two years later) and taking Dubrovnik in 1205. Venice is credited with having sourced much of the wood for its magnificent fleet from the islands of the Croatian Adriatic.
The Mongols arrived on the Adriatic coast during the 13th century, which they ravaged while in hot pursuit of King Bela of Hungary. There was a brief return to Hungarian rule in the 14th century, with Venice temporarily relinquishing its grip on Dalmatia, but by 1420 Venice controlled the whole of Dalmatia – with the exception of Dubrovnik, which became an independent republic with its own government from 1358 – a grip it would not relinquish until the arrival of Napoleon.
The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans during the second half of the 15th century saw the displacement of large numbers of people. Some of them, such as the Glagolitic priests from the Poljica Republic (the mountainous area inland from Split), took refuge on the islands, the latter on Brač, where they founded a monastery at Pustinja Blaca. Others became famed pirates – the Uskoks of Senj, scourge of Ottoman (and Venetian) shipping for years (‘God keep you from the hands of Senj’, went an old Venetian saying).
Relief sculpture in the town of Vis
Napoleon extinguished the Venetian Republic in 1797, and his victory over Austria in 1805 resulted in Dalmatia being ceded to France, and the creation of the Illyrian Provinces. He dissolved the Republic of Dubrovnik the following year. Napoleon instigated a number of reforms in Dalmatia, including the establishment of schools and the University of Zadar to combat illiteracy; the draining of the marshes to combat rampant malaria; even a tree-plantation programme, in an attempt to restore the denuded forests. Yet these reforms remained largely unpopular, due in part to French opposition to the clergy, and to the fact that new taxes were introduced upon the locals in order to pay for the reforms.
Dalmatia was returned to Austria in 1815 following the Congress of Vienna, with the Istrian coast and the island of Lošinj developing into favourite resorts for the well-heeled Austrian elite, while ship-building boomed in Rijeka and Mali Lošinj. However, the ongoing imposition of Hungarian language and culture in Croatia, and the fact that most upper-class Dalmatians spoke Italian, led to the rise of the Illyrian Movement, with calls for the teaching of Slavic language at schools, and for the unification of Dalmatia with Slavonia (inland Croatia, which was now under Hungarian control again).
With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of the First World War in 1918, a Croatian delegation made an agreement with the Serbian government for the establishment of a parliamentary monarchy ruling over the two countries, and in December 1918 the first communal Yugoslav state, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was founded. It was to last until 1941, although it was never recognised by the Treaty of Versailles. However, the Treaty of Rapallo in 1920 gave Istria, Zadar and a number of islands to Italy, and a new constitution abolished the Croatian sabor (parliament) and centralised power in Belgrade, leading to opposition to the new regime.
Germany invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941, installing the Ustaše as rulers of the Fascist NDH (Independent State of Croatia), headed by Ante Pavelić, who between 1941 and 1945 implemented a range of decrees against the ‘enemies’ of the regime (primarily Jews, Gypsies and Serbs), including the establishment of several extermination camps. However, the Ustaše drew their support from only a minority of the population, centred around Lika and western Herzegovina, and owed their authority largely to the support of Hitler and Mussolini. That their support would remain minimal in Dalmatia was guaranteed by an agreement to cede large chunks of the coast and islands to Italy. Armed resistance to the Ustaše was taken up by the Četniks, soon to be superseded by the National Liberation Partisans under Josip Broz Tito, to whom Allied support was channelled and who by 1943 controlled much of Croatia. In 1944 Tito made a cave on the remote island of Vis his clandestine base for operations.
Titova špilja, used as a base by Tito during the Second World War, on the slopes of Hum, Vis (Walk 22)
Following the end of the Second World War, the Federal Peoples’ Republic of Yugoslavia was established on 29 Nov 1945, consisting of six republics and two autonomous provinces. Tito initiated a number of constitutional reforms and formally broke with Stalinism in 1948. But the perceived over-representation of Serbs in government positions and the security forces, combined with the suppression of organised religion, led to increasing dissatisfaction in Croatia, culminating in the ‘Croatian Spring’ of 1971. Following Tito’s death in 1980, discontent and nationalist aspirations which he had largely driven underground in 1971 slowly rose to the surface.
Free elections were held in April 1990, with Franjo Tuđman and the HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) elected to office with 40 per cent of the vote. Mass dismissals of Serbs from the public service sector, combined with an unrelenting Serbian media campaign heralding the rebirth of the Ustaše, prompted Croatia’s 600,000 strong Serb community in the Krajina and eastern Slavonia to demand autonomy. In May 1991, following the deaths of 12 Croatian policemen near Osijek, a referendum was held, with over 90 per cent voting in favour of Croatian independence, which was formally declared on 25 June 1991. In response, the Krajina Serbs held their own referendum and voted to remain part of Yugoslavia. JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) forces entered Slovenia, which had also declared its independence, but were comprehensively defeated in five days. In Croatia, the so-called ‘Homeland War’ was to take a very different course.
In June 1991 heavy fighting broke out in the Krajina and eastern Slavonia, after which the Serb-dominated JNA increasingly intervened on its own authority in support of Serbian irregulars. European Community mediation persuaded Croatia to freeze its declaration of independence to prevent the country spiralling into further bloodshed, but in the three months following 25 June a quarter of Croatian territory fell to Serb militias and the JNA. In September, the Croatian government ordered the blockade of federal military installations within Croatia; in response the JNA blockaded the Adriatic and laid siege to the historic town of Vukovar on the Danube. The United Nations declared an arms embargo on all republics of the former Yugoslavia.
In October the JNA and Montenegrin militia positioned themselves on the hills above Dubrovnik, beginning a siege that would last until June the following year and draw widespread international media attention. In November Vukovar finally fell, having been almost razed to the ground by relentless air and artillery bombardment, and many of the surviving inhabitants were massacred. By December, thousands of people had died in the fighting in Croatia, and