CONSERVATIVE

CAVTATRAZ/CC BY-SA 1.0
Coats of arms of the Ragusan noble families.
Empire, changed the balance of power, as well as the
balance of prosperity, to Dubrovnik’s loss.
But Ragusan society was, for all that, remarkably
polished: it produced a great scientist in the shape of
Rudjer Bošković, a fine composer in the form of Luko
Sorkočević and a range of lesser polymaths, all strongly
imbued with local pride and patriotism.
By the end of the 18th century the Ragusan
maritime trade had recovered: and Ragusan ships were
now bringing corn from the Black Sea through the
Dardanelles to Western Europe.
The political order of Dubrovnik had, though,
become sclerotic. The nobles had more or less overcome
past schisms, based on blood, that divided the families
of the so-called sorbonezi and salamankezi. But there were
simply not enough of them to fill all the offices: such is
the effect of caste on demography. Moreover, a limited
section of the nobility itself had become imbued with
reformist ideas derived from the French Revolutionary
upheavals.
In truth, there was no way in which the Ragusan
Republic could survive in the turbulent years of the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars without a powerful
patron—and for once in its long history that patron
was lacking. In 1806, despite the Senate’s desperate
attempts to avert it, French troops entered Dubrovnik.
This, in turn, prompted a ferocious attack by hordes
of Montenegrins, supported by the Russian fleet. The
aggressors’ tactics, and indeed motivation, differed little
from that of their offspring in the early 1990s.
By the time that the siege was lifted, Dubrovnik’s
wealth, above all its merchant fleet, had been largely lost.
Finally, on the afternoon of January 31, 1808, Marshal
Marmont, exasperated at the Dubrovnik Senate’s refusal
to follow Venice’s example of polite political suicide,
gave the order for the abolition of the Republic. It was
read out in an insulting speech by a jumped-up French
Colonel. The Senators were ordered to disperse. The
doors of the Rector’s Palace, and of all the offices within,
were locked fast and sealed. A few weeks later Marmont
was rewarded by Napoleon with the title duc de Raguse.
The Ragusans
So how shall I sum the Ragusans? They were, by
and large, talented, brave, patriotic and pious—as long
as piety didn’t get in the way of profit. Their diplomacy
was in equal degrees admired for its subtlety and reviled
for its deviousness. They were resilient in the jaws of
adversity and opportunist in the face of fortune. They
were unswervingly consistent in strategy, while infinitely
flexible in tactics. They were compassionate towards the
needy; tolerant towards those to whom tolerance paid;
remorseless in resisting any threat. They were diligent in
business and skilled in seamanship.
And they were endowed with the talent for
pleasure—as their tales of fishing trips and picnics,
parties and gardens confirm. They built for themselves
and their friends a chain of beautiful villas, sadly now
often in ruins, along the coast and on the islands. This,
Petar Sorkočević’s house on Lapad, is now home to the
Historical Institute. In the end, I admire the Ragusans
because they knew the most important thing there is to
know—they knew how to live.
Robin Harris served as an Adviser at the UK Treasury and Home
Office, Director of the Conservative Party Research Department,
and was as a member of Prime Minister Thatcher’s Downing
Street Policy Unit. He is the author of Dubrovnik: A History
(2003), and other books. This article is based on a private lecture
given to the Croatian Students and Young Professionals Network
in 2004. It is published here with his kind permission.
The cover of the first edition of Harris’s 500-page
history of the Croatian city, its people, and culture.
26
Summer 2015