Croatia, Island Hvar

History of the Island

The name of the island is without doubt Greek in origin, from Pharos (lighthouse). From it the Romans derived the name Pharia. The Dalmatian Romans then derived from this Fara, and the newly settled Croats in the early Middle Ages changed this to Hvar, as the old Slavonic consonant f was subsumed by the consonant group hv. The Dalmatian Romans, under the influence of Croatian pronunciation in the medieval documents spelt the name as Quara or Quarra.

At the end of the 11th century the Italians called it Lesina, or in Venetian dialect Liesena or Liesna. This was derived from an old Croatian adjective meaning "forest", which actually corresponded to the appearance of the island at the time of the Neretljani. The eastern part of the island, Plame, has the shape of a cutting edge which gets narrower towards "the top of Hvar" and corresponds well to the medieval Venetian name Liesna which means "awl". This is what it looked like to the Venetian seamen who sailed past the island on their way to the Neretva Channel, near the massif of Krajina where threatening pirates were waiting in their lairs.

A number of other island place-names describe its original wooded appearance. For example, Velo and Malo Grablje are derived from the word "grab" (hornbeam); Gin (a name identical to that of the Polish port of Gymea) also indicates a wooded place; Vrbanj and Vrboska are derived from "vrba" (willow), and Vrisnik from "vrijes" (heather). In the 3rd century BC the Hellenistic poet Apollonius of Rhodes introduced the name "Piteyeia", which is probably de rived from "pitys" Greek for spruce, or even from an old Illyrian name for the village of Pitve.
The inscription recording the victory of the inhabitants of Pharos over the Jadasini and their allies, one of the oldest known inscriptions in Croatia, 4th C BC.

The name of the Island | Page 1 of 2 | History

Hvar famous people

Hvar has produced many famous men and women, celebrated both at home and abroad. It was one of the most important centres of Croatian Renaissance literature, producing poets and writers such as Hanibal Lucić, Petar Hektorović, Jeronim and Hortenzije Bartučević, Mikša Pelegrinović, Vinko Pribojević, Marin Gazarović, Martin Benetović, who together formed a veritable humanistic centre of Dalmatia. In the 17th century, Ivan Franc Biundović wrote an excellent history of the British civil wars while living in England.

Ivan Vučetić, a police official, was the first person in the world to perfect dactyloscopy, the identification method by fingertips.

Father Šime Ljubić was the leading Croatian archaeologist in the 19th century, leading a series of other Hvar researchers. How ever, the most important scientific researcher on the island was Grgur Bučić. He was the first in Croatia to begin excavating the prehistoric tumuli and caves of Hvar. Petar Nisiteo, a historian, was also a prominent man of Hvar.
After them came the historians and archaeologists Grga Novak and Marin Zaninović. The most recent political historian from Hvar was Niko Duboković Nadalini who was a visionary of "the sustainable development of the island" in accordance with its traditions and original characteristics.