Hvar in the Modern Age

A history of southeast Europe and the Adriatic Sea since 1800 through the lens of the Croatian island Hvar, focusing on changing states, modernization, identity and tourism.

In this open-access book, Florian Bieber traces the history of the Adriatic island of Hvar over half a millennium, from the advent of Venetian rule in the 15th century to the end of Yugoslavia in the late 20th century. The history of Hvar tells a larger story about modernity, the changing states and identity, tourism and the transnational entanglements of the Adriatic and Southeastern Europe. It shows how ordinary people dealt with the challenges of the rise of nations, transnational connections such as migration and tourism, and the shifting empires and states. Based on a wealth of archival materials from Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, the UK, and the USA, Hvar in the Modern Age also reveals the complexities of the history of the Venetian Republic, the Habsburg Monarchy and Yugoslavia from a bottom-up perspective and the realities and challenges of island life in southeast Europe during the modern period.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).