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

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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.