History

Korcula Island was inhabited in prehistoric times, but traces of ancient life have been discovered in many places. The oldest finds are Neolithic stone knives on the islet of Badija near Korcula. The richest and best explored is the Neolithic Vela Cave site in Vela Luka. In the 6th century BC, the island was settled by the Greeks, first near Vela Luka, and the colonists were Knidians who called the island KorkyraMelaina (black). A little later, at the other end of the island, in what is now Lumbarda, the Greeks came from the island of Vis (Issa), establishing a significant settlement referred to by the inscription PSEFIZMA, found at the end of the 19th century, dating from the 3rd century BC. In the 1st century AD, the island, like all of Dalmatia, was conquered by the Romans, calling it CorcyraNigra. In the 7th century, the Slavs – Croats penetrated the Adriatic coast and soon established their own state, which was first a principality, and from 925 onwards by the coronation of the first king Tomislav became a kingdom. Korcula was also within that state. Fleeing the Slavs from Salona, ​​the Roman population came to the islands of Brac, Hvar and Korcula, and after settling down, most returned to their old places of residence and the others assimilated with the settlers.

From 1804 to 1805, Korcula changed its masters: the French and the Russians, and from 1807 to 1813 it was ruled by the French and then by the English until 1815, when the new borders of European states were decided at the Congress of Vienna. Dalmatia came under Austrian rule and remained until the end of the First World War, but it was not until 1921 that it was annexed to the newly created state of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was then named Yugoslavia. After the 1990 multi-party elections, the population of Croatia declared itself in favor of leaving Yugoslavia in a referendum and declared itself an independent state of the Republic of Croatia.