DIZFUL, or Diz-Pul (“fort-bridge”), a town of Persia, in the province of Arabistan, 36 m. N.W. of Shushter, in 32° 25′ N., 48° 28′ E. Pop. about 25,000. It has post and telegraph offices. It is situated on the left bank of the Dizful river, a tributary of the Karun, crossed by a fine bridge of twenty-two arches, 430 yds. in length, constructed on ancient foundations. Dizful is the chief place of a small district of the same name and the residence of the governor of Arabistan during the winter months. The district has twelve villages and a population of about 35,000 (5000 Arabs of the Ali i Kethīr tribe), and pays a yearly tribute of about £6000. The city was formerly known as Andamish, and in its vicinity are many remains of ancient canals and buildings which afford conclusive proof of former importance. 16 m. S.W. are the ruins of Susa, and east of them and half-way between Dizful and Shushter stood the old city of Junday Shapur.
DJAKOVO (sometimes written Djakovar, Hungarian Diakovár), a city of Croatia-Slavonia, Hungary; in the county of Virovitica, 100 m. E. by S. of Agram. Pop. (1900) 6824. Djakovo is a Roman Catholic episcopal see, whose occupant bears the title “Bishop of Bosnia, Slavonia and Sirmium.” During the life of Bishop Strossmayer (1815-1905) it was one of the chief centres of religious and political activity among the Croats. The cathedral, a vast basilica built of brick and white stone, with a central dome and two lofty spires above the north entrance, was founded in 1866 and consecrated in 1882. Its style is Romanesque, chosen by Strossmayer as symbolical of the position of his country midway between east and west. The interior is magnificently decorated with mosaics, mural paintings and statuary, chiefly the work of local artists. Other noteworthy buildings are the nunnery, ecclesiastical seminary and episcopal palace. Djakovo has a thriving trade in agricultural produce. Many Roman remains have been discovered in the neighbourhood, but the earliest mention of the city is in 1244, when Béla IV. of Hungary confirmed the title-deeds of its owners, the bishops of Bosnia.
For a full description of the cathedral, in Serbo-Croatian and French, see the finely illustrated folio Stolna Crkva u Djakovu, published by the South Slavonic Academy (Agram, 1900).
DLUGOSZ, JAN [Johannes Longinus] (1415-1480), Polish statesman and historian, was the son of Jan Dlugosz, burgrave of Bozeznica. Born in 1415, he graduated at the university of Cracow and in 1431 entered the service of Bishop Zbygniew Olesnicki (1389-1455), the statesman and diplomatist. He speedily won the favour of his master, who induced him to take orders and made him his secretary. His preferment was rapid. In 1436 we find him one of the canons of Cracow and the administrator of Olesnicki’s vast estates. In 1440, on returning from Hungary, whither his master had escorted King Wladislaus II., Dlugosz saved the life of Olesnicki from robbers. The prelate now employed Dlugosz on the most delicate and important political missions. Dlugosz brought Olesnicki the red hat from Rome in 1449, and shortly afterwards was despatched to Hungary to mediate between Hunyadi and the Bohemian condottiere Giszkra, a difficult mission which he most successfully accomplished. Both these embassies were undertaken contrary to the wishes of King Casimir IV., who was altogether opposed to Olesnicki’s ecclesiastical policy. But though he thus sacrificed his own prospects to the cardinal’s good pleasure, Dlugosz was far too sagacious to approve of the provocative attitude of Olesnicki, and frequently and fearlessly remonstrated with him on his conduct. In his account, however, of the quarrel between Casimir and Olesnicki concerning the question of priority between the cardinal and the primate of Poland he warmly embraced the cause of the former, and even pronounced Casimir worthy of dethronement. Such outbursts against Casimir IV. are not infrequent in Dlugosz’s Historia Polonica, and his strong personal bias must certainly be taken into consideration in any critical estimate of that famous work. Yet as a high-minded patriot Dlugosz had no sympathy whatever with Olesnicki’s opposition to Casimir’s Prussian policy, and steadily supported the king during the whole course of the war with the Teutonic knights. When Olesnicki died in 1455 he left Dlugosz his principal executor. The office of administering the cardinal’s estate was a very ungrateful one, for the family resented the liberal benefactions of their kinsman to the Church and the university, and accused Dlugosz of exercising undue influence, from which charge he triumphantly vindicated himself. It was in the year of his patron’s death that he began to write his Historia Polonica. This great book, the first and still one of the best historical works on Poland in the modern sense of the word, was only undertaken after mature consideration and an exhaustive study of all the original sources then available, some of which are now lost. The principal archives of Poland and Hungary were ransacked for the purpose, and in his account of his own times Dlugosz’s intimate acquaintance with the leading scholars and statesmen of his day stood him in good stead. The style is modelled on that of Livy, of whom Dlugosz was a warm admirer. As a proof of the thoroughness and conscientiousness of Dlugosz it may be mentioned that he learned the Cyrillic alphabet and took up the study of Ruthenian, “in order that this our history may be as plain and perfect as possible.” The first of the numerous imprints of the Historia Polonica appeared in 1614, the first complete edition in 1711.
Dlugosz’s literary labours did not interfere with his political activity. In 1467 the generous and discerning Casimir IV. entrusted Dlugosz with the education of his sons, the eldest of whom, Wladislaus, at the urgent request of the king, he accompanied to Prague when in 1471 the young prince was elected king of Bohemia. Dlugosz refused the archbishopric of Prague because of his strong dislike of the land of the Hussites; but seven years later he accepted the archbishopric of Lemberg. His last years were devoted to his history, which he completed in 1479. He died on the 19th of May 1480, at Piatek.
See Aleksander Semkowicz, Critical Considerations of the Polish Works of Dlugosz (Pol.; Cracow, 1874); Michael Bobrzynski and Stanislaw Smolka, Life of Dlugosz and his Position in Literature (Pol.; Cracow, 1893).
(R. N. B.)