Читать книгу The Islands of Croatia. 30 walks on 14 Adriatic islands онлайн

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The second half of the ninth century saw a gradual increase in the power and autonomy of local Croatian dukes, reflected in a move towards religious autonomy and the adoption of Glagolitic (the written form of Old Church Slavonic) instead of Latin by the local priests. 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.