Recent Croatian geography includes northern Dalmatia with Zadar (Zara), the island of Pag (Pago) and the Zadar archipelago and hinterland; central Dalmatia with Šibenik (Sebenico) and its archipelago and hinterland, Split (Spalato) with the large islands of Brač (Brazza), Hvar (Lesina) and Vis (Lissa), the coastal towns of Omiš (Almissa) and Makarska (Macarsca); finally southern Dalmatia, with the island of Korčula (Curzola), Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and the territory that was once the Republic of Ragusa (Konavle, Astarea, Ston, the Pelješac peninsula and the island of Mljet). The Dalmatian islands spread out over 400 kilometres; they include the large islands of Kvarner and those of central and southern Dalmatia. In the middle lies a scattering of small and medium-sized islands and rocky islets. As elsewhere in the Mediterranean, over the last 50 years, this world has been undergoing depopulation, tourism overload and a total transformation of what life on these islands means. The Dalmatian archipelago is a network of archipelagos, with sailing routes marked by kanali, corridors between inland seas such as the Murter opposite Šibenik or the small Novigrad Sea (Novegradi) below the Velebit mountains. There are four rivers that run into the sea along this coast: the Zrmanja River, behind Zadar; the picturesque Krka River, which flows into the bay of Šibenik; the Cetina River, which cuts across mainland Dalmatia; and the Neretva River (Narenta), which flows from Herzegovina and is the river of Mostar. Dalmatia was always polycentric and at the same time self-sufficient, if only because it is geographically well defined by mountains and the sea. Zadar or Zara was long the landmark city, to which in the last two centuries was added Split, which is today the second largest city in Croatia. The archipelago of the Dalmatian islands, a true Adriatic archipelago, should be examined separately, as a specific Mediterranean world, as a geographical and historic and anthropologic subject, because in the Mediterranean it is second only to the larger and more jagged archipelago in the Aegean Sea.
Bosnia and Herzegovina have a single maritime port – Neum – at the mouth of the Neretva River. This was a short-lived narrow Ottoman territory created in 1718 in the Passarowitz peace treaty by the Republic of Ragusa to avoid a direct border with the Republic of Venice. In 1945, the coastal strip was re-modernized in the new federal Yugoslavia, giving Bosnia and Herzegovina sea access. This is no small problem for Croatia, a member state of the European Union (EU), which finds itself territorially separated from the county of Dubrovnik, which is actually a territory of the former Republic of Ragusa. Just as Dalmatia is a typical Mediterranean region – the Mediterranean landscape stretches as far as the slopes of Mount Dinara, its natural border and the highest mountain in Croatia – so is Herzegovina, which is karst and barren, recalling the classical Mediterranean even though without the sea. Mostar is in many respects a Mediterranean city.
Along the coasts of Montenegro, the contrast between the towering mountains and the sea continues. The shore is still rocky in the lovely Bay of Kotor, which is made up of several connected inlets with Kotor (Cattaro) as its main city. The bay recalls the Nordic fjords or Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. It is a unique part of the Mediterranean. Towards the open sea, the coast is sandy from Budva (Budua). Bar (Antivari) and Ulcinj (Dulcigno) are the main Montenegrin ports, existing side by side with beach resorts. Montenegro was an independent state from 1878, and, after a period under Yugoslavia from 1918, it became independent again in 2007. It is probably the most distinctive arrangement of the eastern Adriatic: a league of clans and Dinaric mountain brotherhoods which formed in the fifteenth century and managed to retain autonomy under the Ottomans, formed a state and, in 1878, thanks to diplomatic treaties, obtained coastal access at Bar and Ulcinj, which were ports then inhabited by Albanians and Turks.
The Bojana River connects Shkodra and the lake of the same name, the largest in the western Adriatic, and the sea. Bojana also acts as a frontier between Montenegro (and once, therefore, Yugoslavia) and Albania. Albania has a 300 kilometre-long sea coast, most of which is sandy shallow shores, a series of inlets and mouths of a dozen rivers that cross the Albanian Plain where the main towns and cities are located, including Tirana. For centuries, watery land, swamps and small lagoons hindered development of the coast, which only in the latter part of the twentieth century took on greater importance in the redefinition of Albania, attracting a population that had previously inhabited the hills and mountains. There are two ports that have been important since Roman times: Durrës (Durazzo) and Vlorë (Valona). Between Vlorë, from the barren peninsula of Karaburn, and Saranda, the coast becomes rocky and uninhabited again. Historic Epirus is the last of the regions that line the Adriatic. It winds its way from the Gulf of Vlorë and the 100-kilometre Ceraunian mountain range to the Gulf of Arta on the Ionian Sea in Greece. Epirus is a mountainous region, and extends into the hinterland as far as the Pindus mountains that separate it from Macedonia. However, it is integrated in economic terms with the Ionian Islands. Albania, like Montenegro, is an Adriatic and a Balkan state, albeit with few maritime traditions.
The Adriatic world
While it was essentially the Adriatic that determined the characteristic appearance of the Apennine Italian peninsula, this was not the case in the Balkans. The question arises as to what the Balkans actually are.11 To be precise, it is not really a peninsula but rather a Balkan region, as the base of the peninsula that lies between Rijeka and the mouths of the Danube is actually wider than the longitude area between the Danube and Sava rivers and the Peloponnese peninsula: the 1,100-kilometre base is longer than the 1,000-kilometre European isthmus between Odessa and Kaliningrad. The northern border of the Balkans runs from east to west, following the course of the Danube, Sava and Kupa rivers, as far as the Gulf of Rijeka. Between Rijeka and Karlovac lies the threshold to Croatia, the shortest route between the Mediterranean and the Pannonian Plain, which is where the Balkans and central Europe end. Starting from the concept identified by the renowned Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijić, later developed by other experts, the Balkan region can be conceived as a trapezoid with northern vertexes along the Rijeka–Belgrade–Dubruja axis, and southern vertexes along the Bay of Vlorë–Thessaloniki–Istanbul axis.12 Or, again, using Cvijić’s concept, it could include Epirus and part of Macedonia, between the gulfs of Arta and Thessaloniki, then onwards to Istanbul. The Greek peninsula, which extends from this Balkan bloc, should be examined separately. Considering the Balkan region in these terms, it is characterized by mountain ranges, few accessible roads and therefore relative isolation, especially as far as the Mediterranean and Pannonian context is concerned. It is nevertheless clear that no matter how this part of Europe is defined, the Adriatic makes up its western side. With this in mind, it is not surprising that whether Istria, Trieste, the Karst area and Rijeka should be positioned in the Italian or in the Balkan geographical region was greatly discussed throughout the twentieth century, with no common view emerging.
Today, the geographic space, the geographic text, can be interpreted in various ways. Considering Europe as a giant peninsula divided into different branches or other peninsulas that emerge from its continental mass, the Balkans could be perceived as a mountainous extension of Eastern Europe that joins the Mediterranean at the Adriatic, the Ionian and the Aegean seas. Or perhaps, following the ideas of the well-known Balkan scholar Traian Stoianovich, the region could be considered as a shield that extends from the Adriatic across the Aegean towards Anatolia, its Asian counterpart, forming a single world – a bridge between Asia and Europe, a place where Europe and Asia come together. After all, in the nineteenth century, the Balkans were still the Near East and therefore Asia. In all this discussion about geographical facts, it is clear that the Adriatic surrounds a Balkan world that is important to the continent.
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