The Second Death of Dubrovnik: Selected Testimonies from the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century on the Fall of the Republic in the Light of Lujo Vojnović’s Historiosophical Conception

Abstract

This article offers a discussion of various images of the fall of the Dubrovnik Republic at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The end of the independence of this city-state was a watershed event not only in political terms and in terms of statehood, but also in the social, cultural and economic spheres. The study focuses on the occupation of Dubrovnik by the French and the siege by the Russians and Montenegrins (fighting for supremacy over it), as well as on the hopes associated with the emergence of a new reality. In doing so it analyzes examples of literary testimonies describing the events, phenomena and processes that took place at that time. The article is framed by the fundamental dissertation Pad Dubrovnika [The Fall of Dubrovnik] by Lujo Vojnović, which, despite the fact that it was published in 1908, grows out of nostalgia for the Republic and the ideological atmosphere of the nineteenth century.

Keywords

• Dubrovnik in the 19th century
• fall of the Dubrovnik Republic
• French occupation of Dubrovnik
• Russo-Montenegrin siege of Dubrovnik
• Lujo Vojnović