Book:

Dubrovnik intermedial. Zwischen Idyll und Katastrophe

Ragusa, now Dubrovnik, is unique. The city republic was independent for over six centuries (between 1204 and 1808) in the midst of the great powers of Venice/Austria-Hungary/Ottoman Empire. Although even Shakespeare (1564-1616) knew of Illyria (Ragusa), as seen in the comedy Twelfth Night (1623), interest in Ragusa in the German-speaking world only awakened in the 19th century. Napoleon (1769-1821) was to blame for this: in 1808 the Republic of Ragusa was abolished by the Napoleonic Marshal Marmont (1774-1852). In 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, at the Congress of Vienna, it was awarded to the Habsburg Monarchy and remained an integral part of the Illyrian Province until the end of the First World War. From the beginning of the 19th century, there was an increased interest in the former Republic of Ragusa in German-speaking countries, also reflected in literary circles. While in the previous centuries it was described as an idyllic place, as for example by Marin Držić (1508-1567), William Shakespeare or Ivan Gundulić (1589-1638), 19th century authors preferred to see it as a place of catastrophe: At the beginning of the novella Der Findling (1811) by Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811) and in the dramatic narrative Marino Caboga (1814) by Achim von Arnim (1781-1831). And how is it today? Since the 19th century Dubrovnik has been a tourist and media metropolis, as shown by Hermann Bahr (1863-1934) and Miroslav Krleža (1893-1981), but also by the US series Game of Thrones (2011-2019). So, it is not only since today that Dubrovnik has been contributing to a global history of literature, culture and media. The book follows this media history of Dubrovnik.