enjoy dalmatia

It is impossible to describe Dalmatia in few sentences in order to make its proper introduction to the interested visitors of these web pages or to a tourist, who would like to visit and experience this impressive tourist destination. The beauty of Dalmatia is an unique item in the Mediterranean string of pearls. Its exceptional geographic and culture unity, situated in the eastern part of the Adriatic Sea , has an exceptionally complex history and a variety of the culture influences. This Croatian region is a really challenge for tourists and strangers. As regards its geographic, civilization and cultural characteristics belongs Dalmatia to the Mediterranean countries. This geographic space is characterized by numerous similar landscapes, blue-coloured seas, composed civilization types following one another. Mediterranean means a meeting with the primeval myths and legends, means getting acquainted with the specific beauty of the old towns. In few words, Mediterranean is an old crossing, where during the long millenniums the different cultural influences of the east and west civilizations are mixed.Its unique culture identity, within the Mediterranean world, Dalmatia owes primarily to its cultural-historical heritage and the specific geographic position. Accordingly, as the remainders of this history we find in Dalmatia an opulence of cultural-historical monuments as evidence of the different Mediterranean cultures and the powerful states from the different periods of history of this ‘old time’ infancy.

The first civilization contours of Dalmatia could be identified in the antiquity.The autochthonous inhabitants in those times on the East Adria seaside were the old Illyrians. We don’t know very much about the Illyrians, especially before the ancient Greeks and the Romans had come to the East Adria . The main characteristic of their culture was nomadic life. They inhabited the space from Epire in the South to Istria in the North. In the Makarska seaside region and in the hinterland, in the Neretva river region as well as in the west part of Bosnia , the Ardiens, Daorses and Delmats were the major Illyrian clans. On account of long-lasting and violent fights with the clan DELMATS the Romans named this region DALMATIA . The Illyrian clan Delmats lived at the seaside between the river Cetina and Neretva as well as in its hinterland. After several raids, the powerful Roman empire succeeded to occupy the East Adria seaside defeating the Illyrian queen Teuta in the year 228 b. Chr., although the Delmats rebellions could be still noticed in the next two centuries. The Romans left plenty of traces confirming the civilization development of this province at the beginning of the new era.

The Dioclezian’s palace in Split , the summer-residence of one of the most powerful Roman emperor at the end of the 3. and the beginning of the 4.century, is the most impressive monument left after the Roman’s times in this province.In the 7. and 8. century, during the big people migrations, the Croats came in this area. In the 9. and 10. century the first organized state bodies were established by forming an alliance between the clans; after that the elected Croatian dukes were crowned as national rulers. Their residences were in Solin, Nin, Biograd, Knin and Šibenik. In that time the Christianisation of the colonized Croats was completed, but also the assimilation with the Roman inhabitants in the Dalmatian provinces. With the time the Croats became the dominating part in the urban population bringing some habit elements from their old homeland into the urban life style. From the 12. till the beginning of the 15. century the Dalmatian towns were governed by the Hungarian-Croatian monarchs, excepting some shorter periods of the Venetia domination.

n the period between the 12. and 14. century the Dalmatian towns experienced considerable economic and cultural development, thanks to their favourable position on the east-Adriatic shipping routes and the active trade with the Balkan hinterland as well. The period from the 15. till the 18.century should be described as the determinative one for the form and the culture substance of the today’s Dalmatia, although this concerns not only Dalmatia but also the other regions and the future modern nations in this particular space. At the end of the 15.century began the hardest period in the Dalmatian history under the Venetia domination. After the Turks had occupied Bosnia (1463) they broke plundering and devastating to the Dalmatian border. In the 15. century, the conflicts lasting almost 400 years started between the Ottoman empire and the inhabitants, loyal to the European Christian West. Dalmatia was hardest suffering during the Venetian-Ottoman wars; the Cyprus war (1571), the Candia war (1645.-1669) for the Island of Crete as well as the Morea war for the Peloponnese .

The worst one was the Candia war, by which the Makarska seaside region was hardly affected. The results of those long-lasting conflicts and cease fires between the Turks and the Venetia, under which domination Dalmatia was, are the present Dalmatia border, which was not changed any more. In the modern historical-geographical conception of Dalmatia the parts of the Croatian seaside region are encircled, then the parts of the former Venetian Dalmatia, which were in Venetia possession until the end of the 18. century. Accordingly, Dalmatia is stretched from Karlobag to the mouth of river Neretva, and in the 19. century the former Republic of Dubrovnik was attached to this region. The Republic of Dubrovnik was the last medieval Croatian, but also the South-Slav small state, which lost the independence. It happened in the year 1806 after the French troops invaded into the old town.The end of the 18. century is known for the facts that the Venetia went downhill, the Ottoman empire began to sink, and, on the other side, that the Hapsburgs monarchy started its strong ascension and expansion in this part of the Europe .Dalmatia , exhausted through the several centuries lasting wars and conflicts, became in the year 1814 a part of the Hapsburg monarchy and remained so until the monarchy was defeated in the year 1918 in the First War. Thereafter became Dalmatia a part of the monarchy Yugoslavia (1918-1941), and, after the Second War, a part of the Socialistic Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (1945-1991). In the year 1992 the Republic of Croatia as independent state was established, a rejoicing particularly for the whole Dalmatia , since those towns were the mediaeval residences of the first Croatian dukes and kings.