Mljet
The island of Mljet [ mʎɛt ] (Italian Meleda, latin Melitussa ), also called " Odysseus island ", is located in the Adriatic Sea, about 30 km northwest of Dubrovnik. The island has an area of approximately 100 km ². With a forest coverage of 90 percent, it is one of the most heavily forested islands in the Mediterranean Sea.
Geography
The western part of the island forms the Mljet National Park, which includes surrounding marine area. Politically, the island of Mljet is today a municipality in the Dubrovnik-Neretva county with 1,111 inhabitants ( 2001) in a number of settlements which lie mostly in the interior. Capital is the settlement Babino Polje in the center of the island.
History
In antiquity, the island was inhabited by the Illyrians as a notorious pirate nest. For this reason, attacked Augustus Mljet let out a section of the population into slavery or on the rowing benches, kill the rest of the population and henceforth use the island as a place of exile.
Mljet is in addition Malta and ( according to a recent theory, but which may also be based on a local tradition ) Cephallenia one of the islands, which claims to be the island of Melita, where, according to Acts 27.27 et seq of the Apostle Paul shipwrecked suffered. This is first mentioned in the De Imperio administrando of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos. This theory follows the reference in Acts. 28.2 4, the inhabitants were " barbarians " (ie, non-Greeks and non- Romans ) was, however, the further course of the journey of the Apostle ( and with a ship of Alexandria, which had wintered in the island in question and then went first to Syracuse from there to Rome) seen as a geographic argument against this theory.
Since the 6th century Mljet belonged to the Byzantine Empire. It was built in the 8th century in the newly formed topic Dalmatia. Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos mentioned Mljet to 950 in his previously mentioned treatise De administrando Imperio as one of the islands that are controlled by the Slavic Narentanern.
1151, the island came into the possession of the Benedictines of Monte Gargano in Apulia Pulsano on, turn the suzerainty of the Serbian Nemanjic recognized. The Benedictine monks founded the monastery of St. Mary's, the church was founded by Stefan Nemanjić. 1357 appropriated over the Serbian Emperor Stefan Uroš V. his henchman Balša I. sovereignty over the island. A little later formed on the island a free commune with their own statutes.
1410 annexed the Republic of Ragusa Mljet. The islanders had to pay a tribute to the Government of the Republic. The Benedictine monastery was also under the rule ragusanischen in bloom. It was the leading abbey named after him Congregation Melitensem, which included all Benedictine monasteries on the territory of the Republic of Ragusa. Abt was a renowned poet Mavro Vetranović of the 16th century. In the 18th century the seat of the Congregation of Mljet was moved to St. Jakob in Dubrovnik and the island monastery lost its importance. Under the Napoleonic rule, it was dissolved in 1809. In the Austrian time it was the seat of the forest administration and came after the First World War in the possession of the diocese of Dubrovnik. Expropriated after 1945, the monastery in the 1950s, at the time when the Order, the Abbey had long since abandoned, converted into a hotel and used since 1960, the hotel until it was restituted to the bishopric of 1998. Recently, a revival of the monastery is sought by the Benedictines.
In 1910 a large part of the island has been declared a nature reserve, established in 1958 a National Park.
Gallery
Small lake
Port of Pomena
Monastery of St. Mary