Travel in Split - Croatia - Europe - History

Split - History

Split is a seaport, resort, and the economic and administrative centre of Middle Dalmatia. With about 200,000 inhabitants, Split is the chief city of Dalmatia, and the second largest city in Croatia. It is situated on a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea with a deep, sheltered harbour on the south side. A major commercial and transportation centre, the city is best known for the ruins of the Palace of Diocletian. The immense complex originally had 16 towers (of which 3 remain) and 4 gates. A tree-lined promenade now keeps the Adriatic from lapping against the south walls as it once did. Collectively with the historic royal residences, fortifications, and churches in the city, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979.

Emerging from a Greek settlement founded between the 3^rd and 4^th centuries BC, the height of Split's history came in 295 BC when Roman emperor Diocletian ordered a residence to be built there for his retirement. It took ten years to build this magnificent palace and Diocletian lived there until his death in 313 BC. After that, many Roman rulers continued to use it as a retreat. In the Medieval period, after Avars destroyed near-laying town of Solin, in the Roman Colony Salona, about 614 and plundered the area, the only place the inhabitants could get any shelter was the palace. From this moment on the palace in fact becomes a town of Split.

People built their homes within the seven-acre (three-hectare) palace compound, incorporating its walls and pillars, calling the settlement Spalatum. The Avars damaged the palace as well. Slav tribes then populated the new Split’s surroundings. They have been mixing with town's population and brought a new strange culture. The town itself became a medieval cultural centre influenced by both old Roman and new Slavic culture. All along Middle Ages Split is a centre of Croatian culture. Many greatest Croatian artists were born and worked there, among others Marko Marulic, "the father of Croatian literature".

The city enjoyed a good degree of autonomy between the 12^th and 14^th centuries before the Venetians conquered it in 1420. After the fall of Venetian rule in 1797, the Austrians ruled Split, and briefly the French, before becoming part of the Yugoslavia that was formed in 1918. Much of its development occurred after 1920 when Zadar, Dalmatia's official capital, became an Italian enclave. In 1941, the city was occupied by the Italians and soon a very strong resistance movement evolved and the city was first liberated in 1943, after the capitulation of Italy, and then finally in October of 1944 when the first people's government of Croatia was formed.

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