Koločep

Kalamota: the first settlers

Koločep, which locals call Kalamota, is the closest of the Elafiti islands to Dubrovnik and one of the longest inhabited. The name of the archipelago, 'Elafiti', comes from the Greek elaphos, 'deer', and is already mentioned by Pliny the Elder in the 1st century, proof that these islands were known to the sailors of antiquity. Before Rome, the region belonged to the Illyrian world; later it was absorbed into the Roman province of Dalmatia. Remains found on Koločep attest to early occupation, encouraged by its fertile soil, its pine woods and its position right off the coast, on the sea routes of the Adriatic. After the end of the Western Roman Empire, the area passed into the Byzantine orbit and saw, between the 7th and 9th centuries, the arrival of Slavic populations who settled on the islands. Koločep's closeness to the emerging city of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) would shape its fate very early on, binding it tightly to the history of the future republic.

An early treasure: the pre-Romanesque churches

The most surprising thing about small Koločep is its religious heritage, above all for its age. The island preserves several pre-Romanesque churches and chapels, dated between the 9th and 11th centuries, which are among the oldest Christian buildings in the whole Dubrovnik region. Modest stone churches, dedicated to saints such as St Anthony, St Nicholas or Saints Sergius and Bacchus, are scattered across the island and its two villages, and they speak of how early and how deeply Christianity took root on these islands, long before the Republic's heyday. That so small a place should hold so many churches from so remote a period is remarkable, and it turns Koločep into a genuine open-air museum of early medieval religious architecture on the Adriatic. These churches, tucked among pine woods or beside the houses, are today one of the island's great draws for anyone willing to look beyond its beaches.

Under the Republic of Ragusa

Like its neighbours Lopud and Šipan, Koločep was taken into the territory of the Republic of Ragusa, to which it belonged for centuries. Its extreme closeness to the city — it is the first island you meet on leaving the port — made it especially valuable: it was at once kitchen garden, refuge and maritime outpost for Dubrovnik. The island supplied sailors to the Ragusan fleet and lived from fishing and from growing olives and citrus, which still scent its pine woods. Under the umbrella of the Republic's diplomacy and prosperity — it managed to keep its independence between Venice and the Ottoman Empire — Koločep enjoyed centuries of relative stability. Like all these islands, though, it was exposed to the threat of the pirates and corsairs who roamed the Adriatic, against whom Ragusa's protection was essential. Island life, simple and tied to the sea and the land, went on practically unchanged for generations.

From the fall of Ragusa to depopulation

The end of the Republic of Ragusa in 1808, in the context of the Napoleonic wars, changed Koločep's fate: it passed first into French hands and then, after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, to the Austrian empire. Through the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, the island went on living from fishing and farming, but, like so many Adriatic islands, it began to lose its inhabitants to the cities and to overseas emigration. After the First World War it became part of the kingdom that gave rise to Yugoslavia, and after the Second World War it formed part of socialist Yugoslavia. Depopulation sharpened over the 20th century, and Koločep, like its neighbours, watched its population shrink and its houses and churches fall silent. Its great advantage against complete abandonment was precisely its closeness to Dubrovnik, which let it keep a permanent link with the city and, in time, find a new purpose in tourism.

Koločep today: the green island at Dubrovnik's door

With Croatian independence in 1991 and the later tourism boom in the Dubrovnik region — which endured the siege of the war of independence in the early nineties before recovering — Koločep found its present role. Today, with barely some hundred and fifty permanent residents, the island lives essentially from tourism, and above all from visitors who come over for the day from the city. Its car-free status, its pine and olive groves, its clear water, its beaches and the famous Blue Cave (Modra špilja) have made it one of the best-loved escapes around Dubrovnik: the quickest and simplest to reach, barely half an hour away by ferry. To that natural appeal is added its exceptional heritage of pre-Romanesque churches, which rewards anyone willing to walk its paths. Koločep manages to combine two things that rarely go together: the convenience of being almost next door to a major tourist city and the feeling of having stepped, as you get off the ferry, into a green, quiet, ancient world.

📚 Bibliography

• Wikipedia (EN) — «Koločep»: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolo%C4%8Dep
• Wikipedia (EN) — «Elaphiti Islands»: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elaphiti_Islands
• Wikipedia (EN) — «Republic of Ragusa»: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Ragusa
• Enciclopedia Croata (Hrvatska enciklopedija) — «Koločep»: https://www.enciklopedija.hr/
• Turismo de Dubrovnik y la Riviera (TZ Dubrovnik): https://www.experiencedubrovnik.com/