Lovro Kuncevic

The article is dedicated to one of the most serious incidents between the Venetian and Ragusan Republics: the armed conflict between the Venetian galleys and Ragusan armed ship and fortresses in front of Ragusa on 28 July 1630. The first part of the article offers a comprehensive reconstruction of the event itself, represented in very different ways in the Venetian and Ragusan documents. The
second part addresses the immediate aftermath of the event, that is, the reactions of the Venetian and Ragusan governments and various diplomatic initiatives that followed. Finally, the third part investigates the significance and long-term consequences of this incident, questioning the established interpretation according to which it was the beginning of the so-called “Lokrum crisis”, a prolonged diplomatic conflict between Venice and Ragusa. The article is largely based on the hitherto unknown documents from the Venetian archive, which not only bring a wealth of new data, but also reveal a serious methodological issue inherent in relying exclusively on Ragusan documents when reconstructing the diplomatic history of the small state. The appendix of the article is the transcription of the report regarding the incident, written by the commander of Venetian forces, Giovanni Battista Grimani.

Early modern Ragusa was a small republic surrounded by the vastly superior empires upon whose benignity depended not only its extensive trade but also its very survival. Such a precarious international position required shrewd and vigilant diplomacy, which constantly balanced between the great powers antagonistic to each other. The early modern Ragusans were aware of the complex diplomatic game which their government played, and it became an important theme in the city’s historiography and literature. This chapter addresses various references to diplomacy in the rich literary sources of the sixteenth and seventeenth century. More precisely, it addresses a set of well-established topoi which described the republic’s perilous international position, the diplomatic prudence of its patriciate, and the alleged importance of its diplomacy for the interests of entire Christendom.
The first part of this chapter introduces its protagonist, the Ragusan republic, outlining its international position and the importance of diplomacy for its survival. The second part reconstructs the development of topoi about diplomacy in Ragusan drama, poetry and epics during the sixteenth and seventeenth century. Finally, the third part analyses the political tendentiousness of such discourses on diplomacy, that is, the ways they were used to legitimize the specific political goals of the Ragusan republic

The article examines the Venetian-Ragusan relations during one of the most dramatic moments in Dubrovnik's history―the first few weeks after the Great Earthquake of 1667. This large-scale crisis which not only destroyed the city physically, but also its socio-political order, had a profound impact on the relations between the two Adriatic republics. Starting from the assumption that the situations of crisis allow a privileged insight into the nature of historical phenomena, this text centres on the microfactography of this dramatic period. On the one hand, it reconstructs various diplomatic contacts, speculations and plans in Venice itself, among which the most intriguing was the initiative for the union between the two republics and their patriciates. On the other hand, the article traces the situation in the surroundings of Dubrovnik, where general governor Cornaro made recurrent attempts at pressuring the remaining nobility into aggregation with the Most Serene Republic. Lovro Kunčević, member of the Institute for Historical Sciences of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Dubrovnik. Address: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku,

Cilj članka je ispitati način na koji su predmoderni Dubrovčani
razumjeli odnos svog političkog identiteta, tj. pripadnosti gradu-državi, i svog etničkog identiteta, tj. pripadnosti zajednicama poput “Ilira”, “Slovinaca”, “Dalmatinaca” ili “Hrvata.” Prvi dio teksta upozorava na dva temeljna načina na koje su Dubrovčani razlikovali ove “zamišljene zajednice”, a to su drugačiji kriteriji pripadnosti svakoj od njih, te različite normativne implikacije ovih kolektiviteta. Drugi i zaključni dio teksta posvećen je međuodnosu političke i etničke pripadnosti, pokazujući da su te dvije vrste identiteta funkcionirale komplementarno i bez konflikta.

Članak analizira razloge iznimnog socijalnog mira i političke stabilnosti
Dubrovačke Republike u razdoblju između 14. i 17. stoljeća. U prvom se dijelu daje pregled pobuna, zavjera i političkih protesta u Republici, upozoravajući na njihovu relativnu rijetkost i slab intenzitet. Potom se analiziraju geopolitički faktori koji su otežavali nastanak i eskalaciju nezadovoljstva te organiziranje ozbiljne opozicije establišmentu. Glavni među tim faktorima bili su: nedostatak vanjskih partnera za nezadovoljnike, društvena kohezija uslijed osjećaja ugrože nosti od susjednih sila te konačno, politika neutralnosti koja je omogućila izbjegavanje čitavog niza destabilizirajućih situacija. U posljednjem poglavlju analiziraju se gospodarski razlozi stabilnosti, koji se protežu od relativno visokog životnog standarda, preko trgovačko-pomorske orijentacije ekonomije do specifičnih fiskalnih politika Republike.

The text analyses the reasons for the exceptional social peace and political stability of the Ragusan Republic in the period between the fourteenth and the seventeenth century. The first part provides an overview of the all known instances of rebellions, conspiracies and political protests, stressing their relative scarcity and weak intensity. The second part is dedicated to the analysis of geopolitical factors which hindered the emergence, escalation and organization
of discontent. Chief among such factors were the absence of good foreign partners for malcontents, a strong social cohesion due to the constant sense of foreign threat, and the politics of neutrality which enabled Dubrovnik to avoid many destabilizing situations. The third part is dedicated to the economic factors of stability. They encompassed very diverse issues such as the relatively high standard of living, the social impact of maritime and mercantile economy, and the specific fiscal politics of the Ragusan Republic.

Članak se bavi odnosom Venecije i Dubrovnika u jednom od
najdramatičnijih trenutaka dubrovačke povijesti - prvim tjednima nakon velikog  potresa 1667. godine. U izvanrednim okolnostima katastrofe, kad nije razoren samo fizički Grad, već i njegov sociopolitički poredak, odnos dviju jadranskih republika promijenio se iz temelja. Polazeći od uvjerenja da situacije krize omogućuju privilegiran uvid u prirodu povijesnih fenomena, ovaj tekst koncentrira se na mikrofaktografiju tog dramatičnog perioda. S jedne strane rekonstruira razne diplomatske kontakte, spekulacije i planove u samoj Veneciji, među kojima je vjerojatno najzanimljivija bila inicijativa za ujedinjenje dviju republika i njihovih plemstava. S druge strane, članak prati situaciju u okolini samog Dubrovnika gdje je generalni providur Cornaro više puta pokušao uvjeravanjem i pritiscima nagovoriti preostalo plemstvo na predaju Prejasnoj Republici.

This article deals with the Venetian-Ragusan relationship during one of the most dramatic periods of Ragusan history—the first few weeks after the disastrous earthquake which struck the city in April of 1667. In the profoundly unusual
circumstances of the catastrophe—which destroyed not only the physical city, but also its institutional apparatus and political authority—the relations between the two Adriatic republics changed drastically. Starting from a premise that crises enable historians to grasp the hitherto hidden features of the phenomena, this article focuses on the events of the few critical weeks immediately after the
disaster. Thus it analyses various diplomatic negotiations, speculations and plans that emerged in this situation of utmost uncertainty, shedding a new light on the
ways in which Ragusan and Venetian elites understood the relationship of their republics. It also reconstructs in detail the events in the immediate surrounding of the demolished city, primarily the dramatic negotiations between the remaining Ragusan nobility and the Venetian governor-general during which the latter tried to persuade the Ragusans to acknowledge the rule of Venice. Finally, the article thoroughly examines an idea that proved quite influential in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake: a plan to unite the Ragusan Republic with Venice, which included the aggregation of the surviving  Ragusan patriciate with that of the most Serene Republic.

This article seeks to analyse the most important rhetorical strategy of Ragusan diplomacy, traditionally directed towards the Christian Europe: an endlessly repeated claim that Ragusa, situated on the frontier with the Orthodox “schismatics” and Muslim “infidels”, performs an important mission in the interest of Catholic and Christian religion. The first goal of this article is to reconstruct the historical development of this rhetoric, starting from its first appearance in the fourteenth century until its full articulation in the sixteenth. The second goal is to analyze the types of situations in which it was used and the purposes for which it served. The third goal is to put the Ragusan rhetoric in context, comparing it to the rhetoric of other Renaissance states situated on the frontier of religions, such as the Iberian kingdoms, Poland, and Hungary.

The goal of this study is to reconstruct the images which the Venetian and Ragusan republic created of each other during the early modern period. In other words, based on rich historiographical, literary and diplomatic material it seeks to investigate the mutual stereotyping of these two Adriatic cities between the late fifteenth and the mid seventeenth century. However, this is a somewhat atypical study of the image of the “Other” due to two main reasons. Firstly, I seek to analyse not only the stereotypes which one community created about the other, but also the stereotypes which that other community created about the first. My study will reconstruct a kind of dialogue between the two images of the “Other,” an interaction between the stereotypes through which the two neighbouring republics described one another. The second peculiarity of this study is that the “Other” in question was not culturally alien and unknown, but familiar, even remarkably similar. Yet exactly such familiarity between Venice and Ragusa, the fact that their inhabitants interacted intensively for centuries, had led to the creation of elaborate and deeply rooted mutual stereotypes. What helped create and maintain these strongly colored images was the fact that the relations between the two republics were usually tense, even outright hostile. Although they never engaged in open warfare, for centuries they remained uneasy neighbours and fierce economic competitors, whose relationship oscillated from mild distrust all the way to ruthless “dirty war.”

Iznimno važno, a zanemareno pitanje iz povijesti dubrovačke diplomacije pitanje je o njenoj retorici, odnosno argumentaciji kojom su potkrepljivane njene molbe i zahtjevi. Ovaj rad je pokušaj analize vjerojatno najvažnije retoričke strategije starog Dubrovnika, tradicionalno korištene pred kršćanskim državama: tvrdnje da grad, smješten na granici s islamom i pravoslavljem, obavlja iznimno važnu ulogu u interesu katoličke i kršćanske vjere. Uz pokušaj da predoči postupan razvoj retorike o Dubrovniku kao graničaru kršćanstva, ovaj članak također ima za cilj analizirati situacije u kojima se ona javljala i svrhe za koje je korištena. Dubrovačku retoriku promatra se unutar šireg europskog konteksta i uspoređuje s retorikama drugih renesansnih država smještenih na granici religija.

The goal of this study is to investigate how medieval and Renaissance
Ragusans spoke about themselves as a community, developing a set of recognizable
ways of characterizing their city-state. In other words, it seeks to reconstruct
different discourses of collective identity, i.e., different strategies of collective
self-representation, which emerged in the culture of the Ragusan Republic. In
doing so it draws on a broad array of sources, from historiography, literature,
diplomatic correspondence all the way to civic ritual and visual monuments.
The utterances regarding collective identity found in these sources are analyzed
within a contextualizing framework which addresses their authors, the specific
circumstances of their creation, and the purposes they served..