The Croatian name of the town is derived from the word dubrava, while the Latin
name Ragusa - Rausa originated from the name of the island where the first settlement
was established (Lave, Lausa). Dubr-ovnik 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 Srd 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 levelling 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 Dubr-ovnik 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.
During the period of independence of Dubrovnik, the state administration was
in hands of the aristocracy; the administrative bodies were the Upper Council
and the Lower Council (from 1238) and the Senate (from 1253).
The head of the
state was the Duke, elected for a term of office of one month. In the 13th century
Dubrovnik gained the island of Lastovo, and in the 14th century also Ston, the
Peljesac Peninsula and the island of Mljet.
In the course of several centuries
Dubrovnik grew into the most powerful economic centre on the eastern coast of
the Adriatic, trading both in the Orient and the Occident, developing a powerful
fleet of merchant and war ships (shipyards in Gruz, Lopud and in Sudurd on Sipan;
an institution for marine insurance from the second half of the 14th c.) and
maintaining diplomatic relations with a number of countries and cities. Dubrovnik
had its Statute as early as 1272, which, among others, codified the town-planning
and hygienic regu-lations (organization of quarantines). Medical service was
introduced in 1301; the first pharmacy was opened in 1317.
The old people's
home was opened in 1347; the first quarantine hospital ("lazaret")
was organized in 1377; the Supreme Medical Council was established in 1424;
in 1432 the orphanage was opened; the waterworks was constructed in 1436.
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.
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