History
Senj has been inhabited since the prehistoric times. A settlement called Attienities in today's Senj was mentioned in Greek documents dated 4th century BC. The Romans used Senia as a stronghold against the Illyrians in the 2nd century BC, and it was a thriving town in their province of Dalmatia. The Avars and the Croats settled Senj in the 7th century (AD).
The Senj Catholic diocese was established in 1169. Croatian-Hungarian king Béla III gave the town to the Templars in 1184, and in 1271 it became the property of the counts of Krk, the Frankopans.
In 1248 the bishop of Senj was allowed by the Pope Innocent IV to use the Glagolitic alphabet and the vernacular language in liturgy. A Glagolitic printing press was set up in 1494, and produced the incunabula "The Glagolic Missal" and "Spovid općena".
The military captaincy of Senj was established in 1469 in order to defend from the invading Ottoman and Venetian armies, and the town sheltered thousands of refugees from the nearby occupied areas. The fortress Nehaj was completed on the hill Nehaj in 1558 that in that time was beside the town. This hill is today in the towns borders. The wars with the Ottomans lasted well into the 17th century. In that time in Senj lived uskoci, that where a tribe that dwelled in the fortress Nehaj. For the wars with the Ottomans they were important because they were small units of men rowing swift boats, and so they proved to be very efficient guerrilla forces.
The 18th century brought some prosperity, especially with the construction of the Josephina (named after Emperor Joseph II) linking the Adriatic coast via Senj to Karlovac. The railway line built in 1873 between Fiume (Rijeka) and Karlovac didn't go past Senj and this deterred its further development.
In the fall of 1943, during World War II, when Fascist Italy capitulated, the Partisans took control of Senj and used it as a supply port. Subsequently, the Luftwaffe started bombarding the city. By the end of the year they had demolished over one half of the city buildings as well as caused numerous civilian casualties.
Read more about this topic: Senj
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In the history of the United States, there is no continuity at all. You can cut through it anywhere and nothing on this side of the cut has anything to do with anything on the other side.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“The history of mankind interests us only as it exhibits a steady gain of truth and right, in the incessant conflict which it records between the material and the moral nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)