Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic Quiz

Answer: Rausa (Ragusium)

The city was founded as Rausa, or Ragusium, in the 7th century AD, by Roman refugees fleeing earthquake of Epidaurus, just to the southeast. A colony of Slavs soon joined the Romans there, and from an early date the city formed a link between two great civilizations, Roman and Slovene.
Acruvium is today nearby Kotor, founded by the Ancient Romans. Salonae (today Solin, near Split) is the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (ruled 284-305). Dubrovnik is Serbo-Croat name for the city.

Answer: grove

At first entirely Roman, the city of Dubrovnik gradually became Slovenized, and so it changed its name to Dubrovnik. "Dubrava" means "grove", and the name came from woods surrounding the city. However, these woods were gradually all cut down for ship-building, changing the environment to a semi-desert.

Answer: Byzantine Empire

After the fall of Rome, Dubrovnik was ruled by the Byzantine Empire for a long time. It successfully defended itself against foreign powers from the 9th to the 12th century.

Answer: Venice

Though it acknowledged Venetian suzerainty from 1205 to 1358, Dubrovnik managed to keep much of its independence through skillful political maneuvering. This became one of the main features of long and successful policy of the city situated amongst ever competing big powers.

Answer: King Richard I of England

Returning from Crusade against Saladin (1192), King Richard I of England sailed home by way of the Adriatic, because of French hostility, and a storm drove his ship ashore near Dubrovnik, where he took refuge. Dubrovnik was the 'open city' of the time.

Answer: Cyrillic

Dubrovnik became a great mercantile power, being situated at the seaward end of overland trade routes to Byzantium and the Danube region. Ragusan land trade flourished throughout the Balkans, specially with Bosnia and Serbia. The mightiest Serbian king, Dusan, at a peak of its power, also visited Dubrovnik to grant Dubrovnik's safety and to encourage trade and mining investments in Kosovo.

The Charter of Bosnia of Ban Kulin was written in the Cyrillic alphabet, created by the Greek brothers Cyril and Methodius in 863 for the purpose of translating the Holy Scriptues from Greek into the Old Slavonic language.

Answer: Serbia

Serbian King Dusan sold Stonski Rat to Dubrovnik in order to concentrate on southward expansion. Under this agreement, the Orthodox inhabitants of Stonski Rat were granted religious autonomy. After the fall of Serbia to Turkey, though, the agreement became void and people were gradually pressed to convert to Catholicism.

Answer: The attempted invasion of England

Dubrovnik financed and sent men-of-war and ships as an aid to Spain in its ill-fated attempt to invade England. Ships were of the Caraca type, a Ragusan mercantile version of lighter caravel ship. Almost all ships were lost, but Republic managed to improve its position among Catholic rulers of the time.

Answer: Ottoman Empire

In 1420, when Dalmatia was sold to Venice, Dubrovnik remained a free city in all but name. This was possible because Dubrovnik signed a strategic treaty with the Ottoman Empire (then at the peak of its power) that guaranteed Dubrovnik's liberty and maintained the opportunity for a major trading role between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Dubrovnik sold narrow strips of land on its western border (today Bosnia's 6km exit to the sea) and on its eastern border (today in the Prevlaka region of Bay of Kotor) to shield itself from Venetian aggression.

In the 16th century Dubrovnik traded with countries as far away as India and the Americas.

Answer: Battle of Lepanto 1571

As part of its policy of manoeuvring between powers, Dubrovnik provided military assistance and ships to both sides in battle of Lepanto (Oct. 7, 1571), naval battle between allied Christian forces and the Ottoman Turks in the Gulf of Patras, near Lepanto (Greece). Assistance for the Christian coalition was public, while assistance for Turks was kept secret.

The purpose of assisting both sides was to save the Republic's freedom whatever the outcome of the battle.

Answer: Croat (also known as Serbo-Croat)

Dubrovnik, at first Roman in culture and language, was gradually slavicized by allowing the immigration of neighboring locals, the vast majority of them being from the Herzegovina region, just north of the Republic, so that by the 14th century city inhabitants were already speaking Croat (Serbo-Croat) and had given the name 'Dubrovnik' to earlier 'Ragusa'.

The variety of the language was that spoken in nearby Herzegovina (the New Shtokavian dialect). This dialect was later taken by great language reformer, Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic as the basis for the contemporary Serbian and Croatian (Serbo-Croat) language(s).

Answer: Ivan Gundulic

Gundilic wrote in epic pentameter, a folk style of neighboring Slavs. He was a prolific writer. Inspired in general by the Italian Renaissance and in particular by Torquato Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata", Gundulic's "Osman" describes the Ottoman Sultan Osman II's defeat by the Poles at Khotin in Bessarabia (1621).

The work comprises 20 cantos; cantos 14 and 15 are no longer extant. His verses, 'Oh, you beautiful, you golden, you sweet liberty!' became the basis of the motto of the Republic: 'Libertas'. Petar Hektorovic was an important poet in the Ragusan Renaissance literature ("Fishing and Fishermen's Talk", 1555 a pastoral and philosophic poem). Ivan Mazuranic is 19th century Croatian patriotic poet (famous epic "The death of Smail-aga Chengich"). Frano Lasic is contemporary actor and singer from Dubrovnik.

Answer: Enabled only the oldest son to inherit the land

In order not to divide further small land possessions, and thus to sustain agricultural productivity and feed the Republic in case of a total blockade, only the oldest sons of land owners were under law permitted to inherit land and thus to merry. Other sons of land-owners could opt: they either stayed on land, but without permission to marry, or they left in order to become sailors, merchants or other free professions. Republic also had rigorous fishing laws and quotas in order to preserve fish stocks for the future.

Answer: Marin Drzic

Marin Drzic wrote pastoral dramas and comedies lively portraying Renaissance Dubrovnik. Marko Marulic is a 15th-16th century Dalmatian writer from Split, author of the epic Judita (1501), a plea for the national struggle against the Turks. Hanibal Lucic is Dalmatian poet from island of Hvar, author of Robinja ("The Slave Girl"), the first South Slav secular play. Ivan Mazuranic is 19th century Croatian patriotic poet (famous epic "The death of Smail-aga Chengich").

Answer: Petar Hektorovic

Petar Hektorovic from nearby island of Hvar (1487-1572). An aristocratic landowner, educated in Italy and influenced by the Venetian background of his native island, Hektorovic was impressed by the Italian Humanist adaptation of classical forms for vernacular literature.

Although he wrote Italian and Latin verse and translated Ovid, popular Dalmatian lyrics intersperse his chief work, Ribanje i ribarsko prigovaranje (1555; "Fishing and Fishermen's Talk"), a pastoral and philosophic poem. Petar Petrovic Njegos was poet and religious and political leader of nearby Montenegro. Petar Kocic was Serbian poet and writer from Bosnia, and Petar Preradovic is a Croatian poet of the Illyrian movement, all of them 19 century poets.

Answer: Vice Bune

Vice Bune, a Ragusan that served the Spanish Crown, became Viceroy of Mexico during the reign of Philip II (1527-1598). Petar Ohmucevic, a Croatian noble from Hercegovina, represented the King Philip II in Central America and was declared Captain General of the Indies. Ivan Ratkaj was Croatian Jesuit and explorer, who came to Veracruz, Mexico, in the 17th century, and Ferdinand Konscak, missionary and explorer, draw the maps of California in 1746.

Answer: Marin Getaldic

Marin Getaldic-Ghetaldus or Marino Ghetaldi in Italian (1568-1626) was born and educated in Ragusa, then he moved to Rome before traveling extensively in Europe. He gave an accurate table of specific weights of solids and liquids 1603. He also studied parabolas obtained as sections of a right circular cone. According to a letter of an Italian scientist Buratini we know that the city of Dubrovnik possessed a telescope before Newton's discovery.

It is interesting to look at the kind of person Ghetaldic was.

He turned down a chair at Louvain University when he was a young man. Descriptions of him say he had the 'morals of an angel' and to be a 'Ragusan gentleman of discernment'. Juraj Dragisic was a Franciscan from Bosnia who suggested a reform of the Julian calendar to Pope Leon X in 1514. Vinko Paletin, from island of Korcula near Dubrovnik, was professor of mathematics in Vicenza, and diplomatic missionary on behalf of the Spanish King Philip II. Frederik Grisogno from Zadar, Dalmatia (1472-1538), was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer and physician.

Answer: Rudjer Boskovic

Rodger Joseph Boscovich (Rudjer Josif Boskovic, as he signed himself, or Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, in Italian) was born in Dubrovnik in 1711 and died in Milan 1787. His father, Nikola Boskovic, a wealthy Serb trader from the nearby town of Trebinje, married a Ragusan girl of Italian origin, Pavica Betere, and moved to Dubrovnik where he converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism in order continue in commerce. Rudjer went to Jesuit schools in Dubrovnik, and later studied in Italy. He made valuable scientific contributions in the field of the movement of planetary bodies. His main work was "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" ("The Theory of Natural Philosophy"). Werner Heisenberg (winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1932) wrote of his work: ' "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" put forward hypotheses which were confirmed only in the course of last fifty years'. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a member of St.Petersburg Academy, a "membre correspondant" of the French Academie Royale des Sciences, a professor at many European universities. Very delicate work on repairing the cupola of St. Peter's church in Vatican was given to Boskovic.

Marin Getaldic was also Ragusan physicsist and mathematician of 16-17th centuries. Franciscus Bosniensis is a Bosnian medieval composer. Juraj Klovic was a 16th century Croatian painter.

Answer: Earthquake

In 1667 an earthquake (and subsequent fire) destroyed parts of the city, and about one-fifth of the inhabitants perished. However, the city was already in decline, caused by re-direction of European trade from Asia Minor to the Atlantic seaboard and the Americas. Only during the Napoleonic Wars did the republic briefly regain its prosperity. From 1800 to 1805, as the only neutral Mediterranean state, it secured a large share of trade.

Answer: Napoleon

Napoleon I subjugated Dubrovnik in 1808, and opened its walls without fight. More than thousand years of continuous freedom of the small Republic was gone for ever. The politics of balancing between opposing powers thus came to its end. Aristocrats in Dubrovnik refused to marry foreigners, and the aristrocracy soon became extinct. The Congress of Vienna (1815) gave Dubrovnik to Austria; in 1918 it was incorporated into Yugoslavia and became a part of its history.

A historical reflection. Dubrovnik kept its freedom not by being simply neutral, but by being cunningly proactive. This tiny republic managed to flourish for such a long time under extremely difficult conditions: tiny in size as it was, it was great in spirit: it brilliantly mixed various cultures, Eastern and Western. Being Roman, it was open to Slavs. Being Slavic, it kept many Roman traits. It also provided the best example of true southern Slavic integration: mostly Serb by its language and ethnicity, mostly Croat by its religion and political orientation, it was a miniature but true Yugoslavia, for centuries before Yugoslavia as a name was even invented. Thus with this quiz we pay tribute to this true gem of the Adriatic.