Only in Dubrovnik by Duncan J.D. Smith

Introduction Introduction “The city seems to rise white from the dazzling sea, its grey walls and bastions one with the rocks that are their foundation.” AMemory of Ragusa (1929) by Leonard Green Ragusa; Thesaurum mundi; Pearl of the Adriatic: all monikers for the Croatian city of Dubrovnik. Poet and playwright George Bernard Shaw, who visited in 1929, the same year that Leonard Green’s little-known memoir was published, was impressed with Dubrovnik’s glorious set- ting between Mount Srđ and the sea and its cultural treasures. Despite an excess of summer visitors, his ‘paradise’ city continues to enthral. The origins of Dubrovnik are sketchy. According to Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII (913–959), it was founded in the seventh cen- tury AD by refugees from Epidaurum, a nearby Roman city sacked by Slavic tribes. The barren and waterless islet they chose, however, is now known to have been occupied during the early sixth century by a com- munity of Christian Illyrians, with access to several springs. They chris- tened the place Ragusium from the Illyrian word Lausa meaning ‘rocky’. By the seventh century, the settlement was under the protection of the Byzantine Emperor. Initially only the islet was occupied, separated from the mainland by a marshy sea channel. The settlement was pro- tected first by a wooden palisade and then a stone wall inside which a large basilica was erected, a forerunner of today’s cathedral. From the turn of the first millennium, Ragusa fell under the alter- nating suzerainty of Byzantium, Venice and the Normans. It never sur- rendered its autonomy though and instead prospered through a series of shifting tribute arrangements and trade agreements. During the 11th century, the sea channel was infilled to become the street called Stradun and a pagan Slavic (Croat) settlement called Dubrava on the mainland was absorbed (the name reflected the oaks that grew there). The fortifications were extended to incorporate both settlements creat- ing the footprint of today’s world-famous Old Town (Stari Grad). In 1358, Hungary expelled Venice from the eastern Adriatic. In re- turn for becoming a Hungarian dependent, Ragusa was free to develop into the capital of a tiny but influential aristocratic maritime republic, which reached its commercial peak during the 15th and 16th centuries. A centre of art, literature, theatre and music, with a concomitant love of liberty, it was dubbed the ‘Croatian Athens’. Ragusa’s fortunes eventually waned. In 1667, many of the city’s distinctive Gothic–Renaissance buildings were toppled by an earth- quake. Then, in 1808, the Republic was abolished and incorporated 5