One might argue that the Slav of Dalmatia had no gratitude, because
when Serbia and Bosnia were utterly under the Turk, when the Slovenes
of Carniola, Carinthia and Southern Styria suffered between 1463 and
1528 no less than ten Turkish invasions, when in the middle of that
fifteenth century the crescent floated over all Croatia and only the
fortified towns of the seacoast and the islands remained in the
Christian hands of Venice, whom a fair number of these towns and
islands had called in to protect them, surely one might argue that it
was not seemly if the local population, Croats and Serbs, detested the
Venetians. And on hearing that not long ago an orator in the Italian
Parliament exclaimed, "I cani croati!"--a description that was greeted
with a whirlwind of applause--you possibly might argue that the
Speaker should have reprimanded him because ingratitude is not a
quality associated with dogs.
As we gaze at the splendid structures, the palaces, the forts, the
magnificent cathedral of [vS]ibenik that was begun in 1443, the loggia
of Trogir and Hvar, the loggia of Zadar--"a perfect example," we are
told, "of a public court of justice of the Venetian period"--the
towers on the old town-walls of Kor[vc]ula, as we gaze at all those
elegant and useful and robust and picturesque buildings which bear the
sign of the Lion of St. Mark, do not the complaints of the disgruntled
population of that period tax our patience?
We may waive the fact that the [vS]ibenik cathedral was left
unfinished for centuries, being only completed by public subscription
under the Austrians; we may overlook the fact that the Lion of St.
Mark was sometimes placed on a building not erected by the Venetians.
This we can see at the Frankopan Castle on Krk, and elsewhere. But it
would be unjust if we held Venice up to blame on account of some
exuberant citizens. There are many other buildings in Dalmatia which
undoubtedly were built by the Venetians: palaces and forts and walls
and loggia which are perfect examples of a Venetian court of justice.
Some one may ask why the Venetians built no churches that were half as
beautiful as those--say, St. Grisogono at Zadar, the cathedrals of
Zadar and Trogir, and so forth--which were constructed under the
Croatian kings. Well, the possession of such churches would have been
a source of pride to the Dalmatians (and have kept awake the national
spirit more than did the forts and loggia), and the Venetians wanted
to preserve the people from the sin of pride. There was also a feeling
that the Dalmatian forests were a source of pride to the people. So
the Venetians removed them. They were able to make use of the wood for
their numerous vessels, for the foundations of their palaces, and as
an article of export to Egypt and Syria.[20]
Then some one else may ask about the schools. One must confess that
the Venetians built no schools. But, nay dear sir, contemplate the
curious carving round the windows of that palace, and then there is
that perfect example of a Venetian court of justice. Was it not
unreasonable for some of the Dalmatians to be discontented it they and
their countrymen were allowed no schools, seeing that one did not need
a school in order to be eligible for the army or commercial navy,
which were the professions open to the natives of Dalmatia? With
regard to those natives who really wanted to have a University
diploma--well, the University of Padua was prepared to grant one
without an examination; the "overseas subjects" could become doctors
of medicine or of law on the simple production of a certificate from
two doctors or two lawyers of their country, stating that the
candidate was a capable person. Thereupon he was allowed to
practise--in Dalmatia. And Venice herself was disposed to grant
privileges, such as an exemption from all taxes, to those noblemen and
burgesses and highly placed clergy who were well disposed to her. But
as for schools, she could not ignore an anonymous work of the end of
the sixteenth century, which was attributed to Fra Paolo Sarpi, the
learned councillor of the Republic; he warned them in this book that
"if you wish the Dalmatians to remain faithful to you, then keep them
in ignorance," and again: "In proportion as Dalmatia is poor and a
wilderness, so will her neighbours be less anxious to seize her."
With regard to roads--how could Venice be expected to build roads?
They might have been of service to the population of the interior, but
they would have caused a certain number of those people to devote
themselves to trade, and thus would have prevented them from guarding
the land against the Turk, which was the unquestioned duty of a man
who lived in the interior.
When the Venetians retired from Dalmatia in 1797, after holding it for
three to four hundred years, the country as a country was not
flourishing. The total of exports and imports was such as would now
satisfy a single large trader. But, of course, the land possessed
those buildings with the Lion of St. Mark upon them--which were
possibly put up with the idea of enhancing the prestige of the
Republic--and it possessed the loggia.
In 1797 when the Austrians arrived they found in the prisons of Zadar
that, out of two hundred convicts, fifty were beyond human punishment,
and of these one had been dead for five years. The system was that the
Government allotted to the prisoners for their subsistence a sum that
was so inadequate that they were obliged to borrow from the warders;
and when the prisoner had served his sentence and was unable to repay
the warder, this functionary kept him under lock and key. There in the
same dungeon lay the untried and the convicts and the insane, for whom
there was no separate habitation. It was impossible, said those who
set them free, to describe the horrors of filth, the bare ground not
being even covered with straw, the windows being permanently closed
with blocks of wood, so that the poor inmates could never get a
glimpse of the loggia, that perfect example of a Venetian court of
justice. The hospital at Split was a damp cellar, and outside it was a
ditch of stinking water. The foundling home, which was called _Pieta_,
was a room so horrible that, out of six hundred and three new-born
children who had been there in ten years, _not one had gone out
alive_.
But were not these abuses general at that epoch? And can we demand
that the Venetians of that time shall answer the reproaches which it
pleases us to make? And what answer did they give to the reproaches of
their subjects, illustrious Dalmatians, such as Tommaseo and Pietro
Alessandro Paravia, who, although belonging to the Italophil party,
passed the sternest judgment on the authorities? What excuse could
there be in 1797, seeing that, the wars having concluded at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, Venice was free to undertake a
humanitarian and civilizing work? Venice was by no means in a
disarming state of decrepitude. On her own lands she had brought her
stock-raising, her agriculture and her industries to such a pitch of
development that she had the experience, as well as the initiative and
the means, to do something for the Dalmatians who, and especially in
the interior, knew no other trade than that of arms. Terrible was the
desolation of those days; over large areas there was no
drinking-water; the land was merely used to pasture the herds of
almost wild cattle; instead of the superb forests were hundreds of
miles of naked rock; and nowhere had the Venetian families, to whom
the Government had given great holdings, come to settle down among
their peasants. Nothing at all had been done in the way of
canalization or of drainage, so that the land was devastated with
malarial fever. In 1797 only 256,000 inhabitants remained; a hundred
years later the number had doubled. It had much more than doubled if
we take into account those who emigrated from a land which could no
longer support the population of the early Middle Ages.
In 1797 the Venetian democrats begged Napoleon not to take Dalmatia
from them, since the harbours and the population were indispensable to
them. They made no allusion to the sentiments of affection which
united these provinces to the Mother Country.
But are we unfair to the Venetians? Are we omitting the salient fact
that, even if they were not model administrators, they at all events
kept out the Turk, who would possibly have been more nefarious than
themselves?... When troops were needed to fight the Turk these were
for the most part provided, in the several long campaigns, by the
Croats and Serbs of Dalmatia.
And what has been the fruit of all this? Let us take an Italian
writer's observations on the people of the interior, the Morlaks.[21]
In his book _I Morlacchi_ (Rome, 1890), Signor Francesco Majnoni
D'Intignano says that they are "endowed with courage and, like all
courageous people, with frankness. They say what they think and their
sentiments are openly displayed. Thus, for example, they do not
attempt to conceal their antipathy against the Italians. They are no
longer mindful of the benefits which they received in the past nor of
the fact that the Venetians freed them from the Turkish yoke; and this
is so not only because of the lapse of years, but because under the
Venetian rule they did not feel themselves independent; they saw in
the Italian merely that astuteness which knows how to profit from
other people's toil, and which has no thought of making any payment.
In the Italian they have no faith, and so their 'Lazmansko Viro'
(Italian fidelity) is equivalent to the Romans' expression 'Greek
fidelity.' But all this does not prevent them, when they have occasion
to offer hospitality to an Italian, from offering it with every
courtesy."
It is hardly worth while inquiring whether the Venetians or the Turks
wrought more evil against their Yugoslav subjects. But though the
modern Italian claim to Dalmatia and the islands may appear to us--in
so far as it is based on historical grounds--to have small weight,
nevertheless we must not allow it to make us insensible to the
Venetian's good qualities. It may not nowadays be reckoned as
meritorious that, after her own interests had been safeguarded, she
did not interfere with the privileges of the small class of nobles,
the "magnifica communita nobile," but at any rate it could be said of
her that she left intact the local privileges. One must also bear in
mind that the majority of her subjects in those parts had, through one
cause or another, a prejudice against innovations which could only be
broken down very gradually.
Nor were the Turks altogether vicious. Those who came first into the
Yugoslav lands were under a severe discipline, and, preserving the
austere habits of a warlike race, they were not guilty--generally
speaking--of excesses. As the first comers were not very numerous,
they contented themselves with occupying the strategic points; and as
the Yugoslavs were accustomed to the life of a State not being very
prolonged, they were cheered by the thought that their subjugation to
the Turk would fairly soon come to an end.