Vis (Italian: Lissa and ancient Greek Ίσσα, Issa) is a protruding Croatian island in the Adriatic Sea. It is 45 km away from the mainland. The area of the island is 89.72 km2, a commercial line from Split runs to the island two to four times a day, and in summer it has a connection with Ancona in Italy. The total length of the coast of Vis is 84.9 km.
The climate on the island is Mediterranean with hot summers. Since the island is quite far from other islands and the mainland, that is, it is quite lonely on the high seas, Vis is exposed to stronger winds than the neighboring Adriatic islands. The average is over 2600 hours of sunshine a year. Temperatures are above 24 ° C in summer and above 6 ° C in winter. Less than 800 mm of precipitation falls annually.
The island was inhabited in prehistoric times.
It was a place of ancient Greek settlement, and the ancient
settlement of Issa dates from that time. Later it passed under
ancient Roman rule.
In the early Middle Ages it was located
in the old Croatian state. Afterwards, he often changed rulers, that
is, he had Venetians as rulers. Then Vis was attacked by the
Catalans in the service of the King of Naples, who ravaged the
island. Due to the need for defense, they built the fortified
settlements of Kut and Luka, which gave rise to modern Vis. In
Napoleonic times, the rulers were the French and even the English
(then cricket was played on the island, for the first time in
Croatia). After the fall of Napoleon and the Venetian Republic, Vis
came under Habsburg rule.
With the further administrative
reorganization of the monarchy, Vis became part of the imperial
province of Dalmatia, which after the Austro-Hungarian division of
the monarchy fell under the Austrian part. In the vicinity of the
island of Vis, the Battle of Vis took place in 1866, which greatly
influenced the further development of events on the eastern Adriatic
coast. With the victory of the Austro-Hungarian navy, the Italian
encroachments on Vis and the whole of Dalmatia were temporarily
stopped.
Vis in the 20th century
With the disintegration
of Austro-Hungary, Vis fell under Italian occupation (1918-1921),
and then became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Although the Treaty of London in 1915 promised the island to Italy,
its army still had to withdraw from Vis. There is a story that at
the last moment at the peace conference in Paris, Italy was given
Lastovo to leave Vis, which was of symbolic importance to it due to
the defeat of 1866. It is believed that the main role was played by
Ante Trumbić, who was also a representative of the island of Vis.
The era of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, or later
the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, was the period of the first crisis of the
island, caused by the loss of a large market. There was also a
conflict over the division of colonial land, which was used by the
then Greater Serbia circles from Belgrade. They promised land to the
Visans who converted to the Orthodox faith, which a large group of
farmers did. According to the data of the Hvar diocese, from
1925-1933. 292 people converted to Orthodoxy, only in Vis, of which
58 returned to Catholicism over time, and by the end of World War II
only 3 remained in Orthodoxy. A large Orthodox church was built in
Vis in 1933 (damaged in 1944 when the Third Reich bombed Vis, and
demolished in 1963 in preparation for the 20th anniversary of Tito's
arrival on Vis) and the conversion to Orthodoxy continued. This
caused severe conflicts, including physical ones, among the locals,
which were sharply divided into two irreconcilable sides. With the
founding of the Banovina of Croatia, the pro-Croatian current
prevailed on the island, and the Orthodox movement disintegrated,
only to disappear completely during the war.
Vis in the
Second World War and the postwar period
After the outbreak of
World War II, the island of Vis was again occupied by Italy in 1941,
which immediately began to pursue a policy of general
Italianization, especially in the town of Vis itself, where it had
some supporters. They especially targeted members of the HSS, using
the method of expelling more prominent Visans in the NDH. With the
rise of partisan actions, methods of governing became increasingly
cruel, including the shooting of hostages in Vis and Komiža and the
burning of houses in Vis villages. After the capitulation of Italy
in September 1943, the Partisans took power on the island. Vis is
the only part of the former Yugoslavia that was never occupied by
the German army. At that time, the Allied military airport was
located on it (today under the vineyards). Tito took refuge on Vis
in June 1944 after the German landing on Drvar. Until the capture of
Belgrade in October 1944, the island functioned as a center of
partisan authorities and allied military missions. All the island's
population that was not able to fight was evacuated by the British
to the El Shatt camp in Sinai, where many Visans died due to poor
living conditions. The return from Egypt was made during 1946.
In socialist Yugoslavia, Vis was an island closed to foreigners
due to its strategic position (the ban on the arrival of foreigners
was lifted only in 1989) and the whole was turned into a large
military fortress. Covering an area of only 90 km2, there were
more than 30 military facilities, including an underground military
hospital and a tunnel to shelter warships. The consequence of half a
century of isolation was economic backwardness and the impossibility
of tourism development, and the associated large emigration of the
population. The Yugoslav army left the island only on May 30, 1992,
4 and a half months after Croatia's international recognition.