Gudić, Jerko.
(2015).
Logistika prehrane i izloženost gladi u dalmatinskim komunama u razvijenom i kasnom srednjem vijeku.
Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of History.
[mentor Gračanin, Hrvoje and Vedriš, Trpimir].
Abstract
This thesis is dealing primarily with the logistics aspects of the diet of the medieval dalmatian communes. It studies and compares the needs, the means and the actions taken by each commune respectively, and puts them into perspective with one another. It takes raw statistical data to create a realistic background for the well known story of the struggle of the Dalmatian cities against a poor, hostile and war ridden background, and examines the very steps the communes needed to take to scrap out a living.
By comparing the communes, it also reveals glaring differences in the way the communes were run, and especially in the vision their respective leaderships had for their development. The very dominating conclusion is definitely that Dubrovnik, although sharing much of the geopolitical framework with the other communes examined, had done a remarkably different job on maintaining and establishing itself as an independent player on the international stage, an achievement that all other Dalmatian communes had failed at. As the data shows, Dubrovnik had a less fortunate position to begin with compared to other Dalmatian communes, but this only served to fortify its' will and cohesion, which is the opposite of what happened in the "more fortunate" communes to its north. What was achieved in the relatively short period of 300 years which I examined was nothing short of miraculous given the starting positions, and these achievements set out Dubrovnik as an unique example of management and vision on not just the national, but also continental scale. Through detailed examples on the individual level as well as the communal level, I was able to show that neither of the communes was able to satisfy their own needs locally, and were thus forced to turn to the international market for survival. This gravely dictated their political, social and economical outlook in a way that made hegemony of their provider inevitable. The relative poverty of the immediate political background, the geographic layout and the isolation from the major land trade routes and rivers also made things very complicated. All communes except Dubrovnik were unsuccesful in overcoming these obstacles and functioned as merely microregional trade centres, both in terms of vision and in terms of success.
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