History
Premuda — from antiquity to today
A small island with a big history: Romans, Ottomans, a First World War sea battle and the long struggle against depopulation and forgetting.
Geography
Premuda is roughly nine kilometres long and at most about 1.6 km wide, with an area of around 9 km². It sits south-west of Silba and north-west of Škarda, making it one of the outermost inhabited islands seen from the Croatian mainland. Low stone walls, pine woods, olive groves and aromatic scrub cover a landscape shaped by wind and sea.
The name
The island appears on the ancient Roman road map, the Tabula Peutingeriana, as Pamodos. By the 7th century it is recorded as Primodia, from the Latin primus — "the first" — because it is the first island you meet sailing into the Zadar Channel from the north-west. In old Glagolitic texts it also carried the name Dlačnik.
Raids and hard times
During the 16th and 17th centuries the island was repeatedly raided by Ottoman corsairs, who carried islanders off into slavery. By 1608 the population had fallen to just a few dozen people. Premuda has always lived close to the edge of what the sea gives and takes away.
The naval battle of 1918
On 10 June 1918 the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought SMS Szent István was struck by two torpedoes from the small Italian motor boat MAS-15, commanded by Luigi Rizzo, and capsized off Premuda. It was the only battleship sinking of the First World War to be captured on film. The wreck lies at around 68 metres and is a protected cultural monument with restricted access.
Premuda today
The island's population peaked at well over 500 in the mid-19th century and has fallen steadily since, as families moved to Zadar, Rijeka and overseas. Today the single village has only a few dozen permanent residents, swelling in summer. People still tend olives and sheep, and increasingly welcome a small number of visitors who come for the quiet, the water and the diving.
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