History of the island of Vis

Even though the first people settled here as early as prehistoric times, the first real settlements are dated to the year 397 BC. In that year Dionysius the Elder led his army onto the island and founded Issa — the first Greek settlement of the eastern Adriatic. Until 229 people lived here unmolested by enemies, founded further towns in the surroundings and enjoyed the region's good wine. But then the pirate queen Teuta stormed towards the settlement and Rome had to come to the aid of the beleaguered Greeks — which of course did not come amiss, since one could thereby take the land from the Greeks in an all but friendly manner. From 46 before Christ Issa was then placed under the Roman administrative seat of Salona, but in exchange for the political demotion experienced an architectural improvement: forums and town houses, temples and thermal baths were erected in abundance in this era. When, however, after the division of the Roman empire the place Issa was assigned to Byzantium, and thereby lay at the outermost end of the empire, it fell more and more into oblivion. It was almost a compliment, then, that the Venetians “came to visit” in 997 — and stayed for a few centuries. Until 1242 Vis was now governed by the Serenissima, until the Croatian-Hungarian kings remembered the small island and took it back. But only for a short time, for as early as 1409 King Ladislaus resolved to cede all of Dalmatia to the Venetians for 100,000 ducats. And so Vis too, which after the decline of Venice in the eighteenth century was governed first by Austria, then by France and from 1811 by the British. These fortified the island so well that Austria wanted it back — and in 1815 duly took it. A model, it seems, for the Italians, who did the same in 1918. Only since 1920 has the island, which lies within sight of the Croatian mainland, been itself a part of the Serbian-Slovenian-Croatian kingdom again. Such a bitterly contested point on the map must simply have every prerequisite for a military base, people thought, and promptly made the island a naval headquarters and command centre. In 1944 the military airfield was added. Moreover the people's liberation fighters around the later Croatian president Tito met here for their secret meetings in a cave. This can be visited again today, after the island was closed to foreigners in politically less certain times.