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DUBROVNIK is a beautifully preserved fortified town pressed against the sea within magnificent medieval walls. Considered the jewel in the crown of Croatian tourism, Dubrovnik was the subject of a largely spiteful attack by Yugoslav forces in autumn 1991. Bombarding the town from the rocky heights above, and aided by a blockade by the Yugoslav navy, they subjected Dubrovnik to an eight-month siege that was only broken by the UN-mediated ceasefire of May 1992. Now almost totally rebuilt and restored, the town is back on the tourist map with a vengeance. Dubrovnik was first settled by Roman refugees in the early seventh century, when the nearby city of Epidaurus (now Cavtat) was sacked by the Slavs. They took up residence on the southern part of what is now the old town, then an island, and gave their settlement the name Ragusa. The Slavs, meanwhile, settled on the wooded mainland opposite, from which the name Dubrovnik (from dubrava , meaning a "glade") came. Before long the slim channel between the two was filled in and the two sides merged, producing a Latin-Slav culture unique to the region. Sandwiched between Muslim and Christian powers, Ragusa exploited its favourable position on the Adriatic with a maritime and commercial genius unmatched anywhere else in Europe at the time, and by the mid-fourteenth century, having shaken off the yoke of first the Byzantines and then the Venetians, had become a successful and self-contained city state, its merchants trading far and wide. Dubrovnik fended off the attentions of the Ottoman Empire with cunning and pragmatic obsequiousness - and regular payment of enormous tributes. It continued to prosper until 1667, when an earthquake killed around 5000 people and destroyed many of the city's buildings. Though the city-state survived, it fell into decline and, in 1808, it was formally dissolved by Napoleon.
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