Croatia History Trivia

1. Which ancient people are believed to have been be the first to establish a permanent settlement in what is now Zagreb?

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: Urnfield

The Urnfield people are believed to have originally settled on what is now Demeter Street in Zagreb around the 12th century BC. Even before then, the Zagreb area was a long-time home to nomadic people. The nearby site of Krapina is the largest known burial site of Neanderthal people, indicating Zagreb had already been established as a popular living place, at least temporarily.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Rausa (Ragusium)

The city was founded as Rausa, or Ragusium, in the 7th century AD, by Roman refugees fleeing earthquake of Epidaurus, just to the southeast. A colony of Slavs soon joined the Romans there, and from an early date the city formed a link between two great civilizations, Roman and Slovene. Acruvium is today nearby Kotor, founded by the Ancient Romans. Salonae (today Solin, near Split) is the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (ruled 284-305). Dubrovnik is Serbo-Croat name for the city.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: King Ladislaus I of Hungary

King Ladislaus I established the Zagreb Diocese in what is know called the Kaptol neighborhood. Today, Ladislaus is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church and is the patron saint of Hungary. Kaptol, which was home to a number of religious buildings, was an easy target for invaders over the next few centuries because it was left mostly unfortified.

From Quiz Croatia: A Historical Landscape

Answer: Diocletian

Diocletian was born in nearby Solin, Croatia around 244 CE. He is perhaps best known for splitting the Roman Empire into subdivisions governed by himself, fellow "Augustus" emperor Maximian, and their adopted sons, Galerius and Constantius. This division is usually reckoned as the cultural foundation of East and West Europe. He retired to his palace in present-day Split in 305 and died there in 311.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: grove

At first entirely Roman, the city of Dubrovnik gradually became Slovenized, and so it changed its name to Dubrovnik. "Dubrava" means "grove", and the name came from woods surrounding the city. However, these woods were gradually all cut down for ship-building, changing the environment to a semi-desert.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: St. Mark's Square

St. Mark's Square was the historic location for the gathering of guilds in the region with St. Mark's Church being the primary meeting house. St. Mark's quickly became the center of life in what is now Zagreb. Even today, the many important buildings in the Croatian government are located there, and it is traditionally (though not always) the place where presidential inaugurations take place.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Byzantium

After the fall of Rome, Dubrovnik was ruled by Byzantium for a long time. It successfully defended itself against foreign powers from the 9th to the 12th century.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: Matija Gubec

Matija Gubec led the Croatian-Slovene Peasant Revolt of 1573. He was a serf who the others elected to lead them in the revolution. However, the peasants were ill-prepared to fight against the nobility, and the rebellion was quickly put down. Gubec was executed by the orders of the bishop. He was paraded around Zagreb and forced to wear a crown made of red-hot irons. He was also poked with irons and quartered. Today, Matija Gubec is considered a hero and has become the subject of many legends.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Venice

Though it acknowledged Venetian suzerainty from 1205 to 1358, Dubrovnik managed to keep much of its independence through skillful political maneuvering. This became one of the main features of long and successful policy of the city situated amongst ever competing big powers.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: Flood

In 1651, the Medvescak stream flooded. The Medvescak was the center of industry in Zagreb for centuries and was heavily populated. Fifty-two people died in 1651 when the river flooded their homes. Although the stream flooded frequently, this incident was, by far, the most dangerous. The stream continued to flood frequently until infrastructure changes were made in 1898. The Medvescak is nicknamed the Bloody Creek.

From Quiz Croatia: A Historical Landscape

Answer: 1919-1991

The idea of a unified South Slavic state had been seriously promoted by Croatian intellectuals from the European Enlightenment on. The collapse of both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Turkish Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I left a power vacuum in the Balkans. As the great conflict drew to a close, leading figures from the Habsburg Balkans (including Croatia, Slovenia, and occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina) formed the Yugoslav Committee in concert with the already independent Serbian parliament, eventually declaring a unified Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes with the Serbian King Alexander I as head of state. This new country, which also included Serb-controlled Montenegro and Macedonia, was informally called "Yugoslavia" from the beginning. The name was officially changed in 1929.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: King Richard I of England

Returning from Crusade against Saladin (1192), King Richard I of England sailed home by way of the Adriatic, because of French hostility, and a storm drove his ship ashore near Dubrovnik, where he took refuge. Dubrovnik was the 'open city' of the time.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: A fraudulent election

There had been an election for a local office in Zagreb which was won, under fraudulent pretenses, by the preferred candidate of the ruling Hungarian majority. Members of the People's Party went to St. Mark's Square to protest when a protest swung at an officer with a sword. The incident led to the mistaken belief that the army was ordered to fire on the protestors. In total, nineteen people were killed and dozens of other injured. Today, the victims of this event are called the July Victims and are memorialized with a lion statue in St. Mark's.

From Quiz Croatia: A Historical Landscape

Answer: Ante Pavelic

The Ustashe (Croatian for "Insurrection") were a political force in Croatia throughout the interwar period, and they were widely acknowledged to have played a part in Yugoslav King Alexander's 1934 assassination. When Nazi Germany invaded in April of 1941, Ustashe supporters in the Yugoslav army revolted against their commanders, and that party declared an independent Croatia supported by the Axis powers. Pavelic returned from forced political exile to assume the title of 'Poglavnik', roughly analogous to Hitler's 'Fuehrer' or Mussolini's 'Il Duce'. The Ustashe carried out violent exterminations of Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, largely at their notorious death camp at Jasenovac.

From Quiz Croatia: A Historical Landscape

Answer: Josip Broz Tito

Unlike many Soviet-dominated countries in Eastern Europe that, in the words of one historian, "came to revolution at the point of a gun," the Yugoslav communists were very much in control politically after the war. As such, Tito was not beholden to Stalinist dictates, and openly broke with the Soviet Union in 1947. Though Tito did come to friendly terms with the USSR in 1955 and the country did utilize many of the central planning strategies common to postwar communism, Tito was more generally a leader in the "nonaligned" movement. These newly independent countries walked the middle ground though the Cold War, situating themselves between the USSR-led Warsaw Pact states and the allies of the United States, including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Serbia

Serbian King Dusan sold Stonski Rat to Dubrovnik in order to concentrate on southward expansion. Under this agreement, the Orthodox inhabitants of Stonski Rat were granted religious autonomy. After the fall of Serbia to Turkey, though, the agreement became void and people were gradually pressed to convert to Catholicism.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: General Post Office

The event was called the Sabotage at the General Post Office and was perpetrated by members of the local Communist Party. Croatia had become a puppet state of Nazi Germany during the War and the bombing was a coordinated effort to disrupt the lines of communication between Zagreb and its Nazi allies. Inside the post office was the mainline for the telephone facilities which, because of the destruction, were out for over seven months. The bombing was partially an inside job as members of the Communist Party involved in the plot also worked inside the post office.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: The attempted invasion of England

Dubrovnik financed and sent men-of-war and ships as an aid to Spain in its ill-fated attempt to invade England. Ships were of the Caraca type, a Ragusan mercantile version of lighter caravel ship. Almost all ships were lost, but Republic managed to improve its position among Catholic rulers of the time.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: A butcher who was murdered in 1991

Mihajlo Zec, his wife, and daughter were all murdered by members of a paramilitary troop in Zagreb on December 7, 1991, during the Croatian War of Independence. Zec was accused of being part of a group of rebel Serbs. Zec was shot as he ran from his home into the street. His wife and three children were bound and transported to a secluded area in the mountains. Two of the children escaped , but his wife, Marija, and 12-year old daughter, Aleksandra, were murdered and dumped in a garbage pit. Controversy followed as perpetrators were never tried for the crime and the government refused to acknowledge the incident even happened until 2004 when compensation was paid out.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Ottoman Empire

In 1420, when Dalmatia was sold to Venice, Dubrovnik remained a free city in all but name. This was possible because Dubrovnik signed a strategic treaty with the Ottoman Empire (then at the peak of its power) that guaranteed Dubrovnik's liberty and maintained the opportunity for a major trading role between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Dubrovnik sold narrow strips of land on its western border (today Bosnia's 6km exit to the sea) and on its eastern border (today in the Prevlaka region of Bay of Kotor) to shield itself from Venetian aggression. In the 16th century Dubrovnik traded with countries as far away as India and the Americas.

From Quiz History of Zagreb

Answer: Reporter

Ivo Pukanic was a reporter, photographer, and editor who owned the Nacional newspaper. He was murdered by organized crime groups in Zagreb in October 2008 after years of reporting on their activities. In the past Pukanic had previously been the target of unknown assassins whose bullets missed him. The blast that killed Pukanic also killed Niko Franjic, the newspaper's marketing manager. Pukanic's assassination led to further discussions of the freedom of the press and speech within Croatia.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Battle of Lepanto 1571

As part of its policy of manoeuvring between powers, Dubrovnik provided military assistance and ships to both sides in battle of Lepanto (Oct. 7, 1571), naval battle between allied Christian forces and the Ottoman Turks in the Gulf of Patras, near Lepanto (Greece). Assistance for the Christian coalition was public, while assistance for Turks was kept secret. The purpose of assisting both sides was to save the Republic's freedom whatever the outcome of the battle.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Ivan Gundulic

Gundilic wrote in epic pentameter, a folk style of neighboring Slavs. He was a prolific writer. Inspired in general by the Italian Renaissance and in particular by Torquato Tasso's "Gerusalemme Liberata", Gundulic's "Osman" describes the Ottoman Sultan Osman II's defeat by the Poles at Khotin in Bessarabia (1621). The work comprises 20 cantos; cantos 14 and 15 are no longer extant. His verses, 'Oh, you beautiful, you golden, you sweet liberty!' became the basis of the motto of the Republic: 'Libertas'. Petar Hektorovic was an important poet in the Ragusan Renaissance literature ("Fishing and Fishermen's Talk", 1555 a pastoral and philosophic poem). Ivan Mazuranic is 19th century Croatian patriotic poet (famous epic "The death of Smail-aga Chengich"). Frano Lasic is contemporary actor and singer from Dubrovnik.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Enabled only the oldest son to inherit the land

In order not to divide further small land possessions, and thus to sustain agricultural productivity and feed the Republic in case of a total blockade, only the oldest sons of land owners were under law permitted to inherit land and thus to merry. Other sons of land-owners could opt: they either stayed on land, but without permission to marry, or they left in order to become sailors, merchants or other free professions. Republic also had rigorous fishing laws and quotas in order to preserve fish stocks for the future.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Marin Drzic

Marin Drzic wrote pastoral dramas and comedies lively portraying Renaissance Dubrovnik. Marko Marulic is a 15th-16th century Dalmatian writer from Split, author of the epic Judita (1501), a plea for the national struggle against the Turks. Hanibal Lucic is Dalmatian poet from island of Hvar, author of Robinja ("The Slave Girl"), the first South Slav secular play. Ivan Mazuranic is 19th century Croatian patriotic poet (famous epic "The death of Smail-aga Chengich").

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Vice Bune

Vice Bune, a Ragusan that served the Spanish Crown, became Viceroy of Mexico during the reign of Philip II (1527-1598). Petar Ohmucevic, a Croatian noble from Hercegovina, represented the King Philip II in Central America and was declared Captain General of the Indies. Ivan Ratkaj was Croatian Jesuit and explorer, who came to Veracruz, Mexico, in the 17th century, and Ferdinand Konscak, missionary and explorer, draw the maps of California in 1746.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Marin Getaldic

Marin Getaldic-Ghetaldus or Marino Ghetaldi in Italian (1568-1626) was born and educated in Ragusa, then he moved to Rome before traveling extensively in Europe. He gave an accurate table of specific weights of solids and liquids 1603. He also studied parabolas obtained as sections of a right circular cone. According to a letter of an Italian scientist Buratini we know that the city of Dubrovnik possessed a telescope before Newton's discovery. It is interesting to look at the kind of person Ghetaldic was. He turned down a chair at Louvain University when he was a young man. Descriptions of him say he had the 'morals of an angel' and to be a 'Ragusan gentleman of discernment'. Juraj Dragisic was a Franciscan from Bosnia who suggested a reform of the Julian calendar to Pope Leon X in 1514. Vinko Paletin, from island of Korcula near Dubrovnik, was professor of mathematics in Vicenza, and diplomatic missionary on behalf of the Spanish King Philip II. Frederik Grisogno from Zadar, Dalmatia (1472-1538), was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer and physician.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Rudjer Boskovic

Rodger Joseph Boscovich (Rudjer Josif Boskovic, as he signed himself, or Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, in Italian) was born in Dubrovnik in 1711 and died in Milan 1787. His father, Nikola Boskovic, a wealthy Serb trader from the nearby town of Trebinje, married a Ragusan girl of Italian origin, Pavica Betere, and moved to Dubrovnik where he converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism in order continue in commerce. Rudjer went to Jesuit schools in Dubrovnik, and later studied in Italy. He made valuable scientific contributions in the field of the movement of planetary bodies. His main work was "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" ("The Theory of Natural Philosophy"). Werner Heisenberg (winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1932) wrote of his work: ' "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" put forward hypotheses which were confirmed only in the course of last fifty years'. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a member of St.Petersburg Academy, a "membre correspondant" of the French Academie Royale des Sciences, a professor at many European universities. Very delicate work on repairing the cupola of St. Peter's church in Vatican was given to Boskovic. Marin Getaldic was also Ragusan physicsist and mathematician of 16-17th centuries. Franciscus Bosniensis is a Bosnian medieval composer. Juraj Klovic was a 16th century Croatian painter.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Earthquake

In 1667 an earthquake (and subsequent fire) destroyed parts of the city, and about one-fifth of the inhabitants perished. However, the city was already in decline, caused by re-direction of European trade from Asia Minor to the Atlantic seaboard and the Americas. Only during the Napoleonic Wars did the republic briefly regain its prosperity. From 1800 to 1805, as the only neutral Mediterranean state, it secured a large share of trade.

From Quiz Dubrovnik - Pearl of the Adriatic

Answer: Napoleon

Napoleon I subjugated Dubrovnik in 1808, and opened its walls without fight. More than thousand years of continuous freedom of the small Republic was gone for ever. The politics of balancing between opposing powers thus came to its end. Aristocrats in Dubrovnik refused to marry foreigners, and the aristrocracy soon became extinct. The Congress of Vienna (1815) gave Dubrovnik to Austria; in 1918 it was incorporated into Yugoslavia and became a part of its history. A historical reflection. Dubrovnik kept its freedom not by being simply neutral, but by being cunningly proactive. This tiny republic managed to flourish for such a long time under extremely difficult conditions: tiny in size as it was, it was great in spirit: it brilliantly mixed various cultures, Eastern and Western. Being Roman, it was open to Slavs. Being Slavic, it kept many Roman traits. It also provided the best example of true southern Slavic integration: mostly Serb by its language and ethnicity, mostly Croat by its religion and political orientation, it was a miniature but true Yugoslavia, for centuries before Yugoslavia as a name was even invented. Thus with this quiz we pay tribute to this true gem of the Adriatic.

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Last Updated Apr 22 2024 11:05 AM

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