Montenegrin nationalism is thenationalism that asserts thatMontenegrins are anation and promotes the cultural unity of Montenegrins.[1]
From the beginning of the 18th century, the population ofMontenegro was torn between variants of Montenegrin andSerbian nationalism.[2] As opposed to Serbian nationalism, which emphasizes the ethnic Serbian character of the Montenegrins, Montenegrin nationalism emphasizes the right of the Montenegrins to define themselves as a unique nation, not simply as a branch of theSerbs.[3]
Montenegrin nationalism became a major political issue inWorld War I when a schism arose betweenMontenegro's tribes over plans to merge Montenegro with theKingdom of Serbia, between the pro-independenceGreen tribes, that included the King of Montenegro amongst them, versus the pro-unification White tribes.[4] Montenegrin ethnicity was recognized by the Communist government of Yugoslavia in the 1960s though it had been declared previously.[5]
During the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, Montenegro's PresidentMomir Bulatović supported unity and alliance with Serbia as well as supportingirredentist claims toDubrovnik and territory inHerzegovina that he stated were historically part of Montenegro.[6] The Serbian journalEpoha in 1991 declared that ifBosnia and Herzegovina'sBosniaks wanted to secede from Yugoslavia, that Eastern Herzegovina should be ceded to Montenegro.[7] TheInternational Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia declared that the Serbian and Montenegrin leadership during thesiege of Dubrovnik sought to annex Dubrovnik along with the "coastal regions ofCroatia between the town ofNeum,Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the north-west and the Montenegrin border in the south-east" into Montenegro.[8]
After 1998, Montenegro's government led byMilo Đukanović demanded greater autonomy within theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia.[2] In 2006, a majority of just over 55% of Montenegrin citizens voted in favour of independence from the state union withSerbia. Contemporary Montenegrin nationalism cites that an independentMontenegrin culture separate fromSerbian culture arose after Serbia was taken over by theOttoman Empire in the 14th century while Montenegro remained independent for many years.[4]
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| Jovan Plamenac, political leader of theGreens. | Krsto Popović, commander of the Greens. |
Montenegrin nationalism first strongly arose in the aftermath ofWorld War I when Montenegrins became divided over whether to join theKingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) under theKarađorđević dynasty. The Montenegrin government in 1917 agreed to merge Montenegro into a South Slavic federation, however a political group known as theGreens that included the King of Montenegro and several powerful tribes opposed unification and advocated an independent Montenegrin state. The faction in favour of unification was theWhites, who desired unification of Montenegro with Serbia.[4]
The feud between the anti-Karađorđević Greens and the pro-Karađorđević Whites over Montenegro's joining with Yugoslavia continued and escalated in the 1920s. The Greens were infuriated with the MontenegrinPetrović dynasty being dismantled in favor for the Serbian Karađorđević dynasty. In response to perceived Serbian domination over Montenegro, the Greens initiated several revolts in the 1920s.[4]
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Montenegro possessed little power and had little influence in the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Power was being concentrated inBelgrade and had shifted away fromCetinje, which was relegated to the status of provincial irrelevance. ThePodgorica Assembly, theChristmas Uprising and the loss of institutions and symbols of Montenegro’s statehood had collectively caused significant grievances, andKing Alexander's decision to place the Montenegrin Church under the jurisdiction of the Serbian patriarch in Belgrade was a further insult to Montenegrin pride. The early postwar period was characterized by intense armed struggle within Montenegro, economic marginalization and the formation of new political parties. The Greens channeled their support towards two sources – theMontenegrin Federalist Party and the emergentCommunist Party of Yugoslavia.[9]
The Montenegrin Federalist Party was the only political organization in Montenegro that did not have its headquarters in Belgrade. The party’s theoretician,Sekula Drljević, promoted ideas of a separate Montenegrin ethnicity (ideas that become more extreme throughout the 1930s), arguing that the Montenegrins were ofIllyrian as opposed to Slavic descent and that the Serb and Montenegrin mentalities were so different as to be irreconcilable.[9] He wrote:
Races are communities of blood, whereas people are creatures of history. With their language, the Montenegrin people belong to the Slavic linguistic community. By their blood, however, they belong [to the Dinaric peoples]. According to the contemporary science of European races, [Dinaric] peoples are descended from the Illyrians. Hence, not just the kinship, but the identity of certain cultural forms among the Dinaric peoples, all the way from Albanians to South Tyroleans, who are Germanized Illyrians.[10]
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| Sekula Drljević | Savić Marković |
It was, however, the Communist Party that made inroads into Montenegrin political life. Most importantly, the Montenegrin communists dropped their initial commitment to Yugoslav unitarism, instead embracingLenin’s principle ofself-determination. Thus, the Montenegrin communist party began its struggle for an "independentSoviet Republic of Montenegro as part of the futureBalkan Federation". The party attracted the support of many Greens and, in the 1920 elections, won 37.99 per cent of the popular vote in Montenegro, which would influence its later commitment to recognizing Montenegrins as a separate nation. It was, however, outlawed in 1921 and was unable to continue its political activities through democratic channels.[9] The party formally recognized Montenegrins as an oppressed nation at their4th Congress inDresden.[11]
Democracy was proving to be unworkable in Yugoslavia, and King Alexander imposed the6 January Dictatorship in 1929, following a series of grim events including the murder in parliament ofCroatian Peasant Party leaderStjepan Radić in June 1928. Intended to mitigate the intensifying political crisis, Alexander suspended the constitution, banned political parties and installed his own government. Many opposition politicians were arrested and imprisoned, serving to isolate Yugoslavia’s non-Serbs further. In an attempt to create a genuine Yugoslav identity, all nationalist sentiment was crushed andYugoslavism aggressively imposed from above. Montenegro ceased to exist as a geographical term, its territory becoming instead largely incorporated into theZeta Banovina. Following the murder of King Alexander in 1934 and theCvetković–Maček Agreement in 1939, the Montenegrin Federalist Party supported the agreement, believing it would lead to greater independence for Montenegro. However, a status such as that achieved by theCroats with theBanovina of Croatia would fail to materialize for the Montenegrins.[9]
Following theApril War and the occupation of Yugoslavia by theAxis forces, nationalistMontenegrin Federalist Party offered to collaborate with theItalian Fascists, demanding a "Greater Montenegro" fromNeretva river inHerzegovina to Mata in Albania; it would also includeMetohija andSandžak. A much smaller "Kingdom of Montenegro" was proclaimed on Saint Peter's Day Assembly on 12 July 1941, with the territorial claims of theUstaše andAlbanians being relatively more favoured by theNazis.King Nicholas I' grandson and successor as heir to the throne,Prince Michael of Montenegro, was invited to be its King and puppet head of state, but he vigorously refused claiming that he would not cooperate with Nazis. The restored Montenegro lost Metohija and its eastern lands to a Greater Albania, but managed to gain the Serbian part of Sandžak. All other political parties were outlawed and a dictatorship underSekula Drljević under Italian protection was proclaimed. A number of Montenegrin Federalist Party members, headed byNovica Radović, opposed this decision, because the territorial claims were not accepted and it failed to reinstate thePetrović-Njegoš dynasty.[12]
Only a day after the puppet state of Montenegro was proclaimed, Partisans staged the13 July Uprising, and the Montenegrin Federalist Army went to exile. It reorganised inZagreb, theIndependent State of Croatia's capital, as the Montenegrin State Council aimed at eventually creating an independent and large national state of the Montenegrin people. It associated itself with the Ustaše and aided their regime.
In 1945, Montenegrin Federalist Party formed its ownMontenegrin People's Army out of formerChetniks led byPavle Đurišić who broke his allegiance toDraža Mihailović and wanted to retreat to Slovenia in return for nominal recognition of Drljević's movement. However, this alliance between Drljević and Đurišić was short-lived and ended withBattle of Lijevče Field between the Ustaše and Đurišić's troops. With the impending Allied victory in 1945, Montenegrin Federalist Party dispersed, retreating with other Axis collaborators in late 1945 after its own Montenegrin Army turned against it.
After World War II and the rise of the Yugoslav Partisans to power in Yugoslavia underJosip Broz Tito, Montenegrin nationalism subsided for thirty years as a result of efforts by Yugoslavia's government to placate Montenegrins. Such efforts included: creating aconstituent republic of Montenegro within the Yugoslav federation, recognition of a Montenegrin nationality, sponsoring industrial development of the previously rural economy of Montenegro, by providing financial aid to Montenegro that was the poorest of the six constituent republics and including substantial numbers of Montenegrins within the civil service. Montenegrin nationalism arose again as a movement from 1966 to 1967 when an effort was initiated to resurrect the separateMontenegrin Orthodox Church.[4]
After Tito's death in 1980, nationalism in Montenegro and elsewhere in Yugoslavia surged. Beginning in 1981, Montenegrin nationalism grew in strength with its supporters demanding more autonomy for Montenegro within Yugoslavia, however a government crackdown against Montenegrin nationalists between 1982 and 1984 stifled the nationalist movement's efforts.[4]
During the collapse of communism and breakup of Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1991,SR Montenegro and its communist government found itself in a turmoil. The rise to power ofMomir Bulatović who supported Serbian PresidentSlobodan Milošević and unity with Serbia, quashed the efforts of the dissident tribes to move Montenegro away from Serbia. After Yugoslavia dissolved in 1991, the Montenegrin government continued to support unity with Serbia and Montenegrin soldiers took part in the wars against the seceding republics.[4] During the Yugoslav Wars, Montenegro's President Bulatović sought to satisfy both Montenegrin and Serbian nationalist factions in Montenegro by supporting Montenegrin irredentist claims toDubrovnik andHerzegovina that he stated were historically part of Montenegro.[13] The Serbs ofEastern Herzegovina hold strong cultural connections with the people ofOld Herzegovina in Montenegro.[14] Serbian and Montenegrin reservist soldiers from theJNA entered Herzegovina in September 1991 in preparations for an attack on Dubrovnik.[15] Many Montenegrins at the time supported the irredentist aim of unification of Dubrovnik with Montenegro.[16] During the Yugoslav Wars,Montenegrin Prime MinisterMilo Đukanović, then a supporter of President Bulatović and union with Serbia, supported irredentist claims upon Croatia, claiming that Montenegro's post-World War II borders (the current borders of Montenegro) were designed by "semi-skilled Bolshevik cartographers" and Đukanović declared that Montenegro should "draw demarcation lines vis-à-vis the Croats once and for all".[17]
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| Milo Đukanović | Ranko Krivokapić |
Dissatisfaction with perceived domination from Serbian circles resulted in Montenegrin nationalism becoming a strong movement in Montenegro. The1992 referendum was held to determine whether Montenegrins should remain united with Serbia or be independent resulting in 96.82 percent of Montenegrins preferring to remain in a union with Serbia versus 3.18 percent preferring independence. Frustration with the union with Serbia grew in the 1990s in response to FR Yugoslavia becoming an internationalpariah due to its involvement in theYugoslav Wars, and frustration over Serbian nationalists dismissal of Montenegrin culture as being a sub-sect of Serbian culture. By 1997 most Montenegrins desired looser ties with Serbia and closer relations with theEuropean Union. By the1997 presidential election, Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Đukanović had abandoned his previous support for Montenegrin unity with Serbia, and ran against pro-Serbian President Bulatović. The election of Milo Đukanović asPresident of Montenegro in 1998 resulted in the ascendance of a Montenegrin nationalist government to power and a fundamental change of attitude by the Montenegrin government to the Serbian government of Slobodan Milošević. Similar to the violence between the Greens and the Whites after World War I, violent confrontations occurred between supporters of Đukanović and pro-unity President Bulatović. The Montenegrin government refused to support federal government actions in theKosovo War of 1999, and the Montenegrin government officially declared its neutrality in the conflict, resulting in NATO forces focusing air strikes on Serbia alone, although somefederal military targets in Montenegro were hit.[4]
James Minahan claims that the causes that resulted in the development of contemporary Montenegrin nationalism have been dated back to the mid-14th century when Montenegro first became a sovereign state. While Montenegrins have been regarded as a subgroup of Serbs, the independence of Montenegro during the period of Ottoman rule over Serbia resulted in a profoundly different culture emerging in Montenegro as compared with Serbia. Montenegro at this time developed into a tribal warrior society that was quite different from the culture of Ottoman-controlled Serbia.[4]
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The idea of astandardizedMontenegrin language separate from theSerbian language appeared in the after thebreakup of Yugoslavia, through proponents of Montenegrin independence from theState Union.[18] By 1993, a number of Montenegrin intellectuals were claiming that Montenegrin was a separate language and should be recognized as such. The central aspect to this claim was that the Montenegrin language required the use of three extra sounds (and thus characters), and that therefore theMontenegrin alphabet is composed of 33 characters, as opposed to the 30 used in the Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian alphabets. In 1994, theMontenegrin PEN Center published its Declaration on the Endangerment of Montenegrin Culture, People and State, the central claim of which was to highlight what it argued was the attempted assimilation and destruction of all aspects of Montenegrin cultural identity. In Article 5 of the declaration, it is stated that, "the Constitution, among other things, declares Serbian as the language of the Montenegrins, in spite of thefact that the Montenegrin language has its own history and confirmation in literature". That the Montenegrin language is described in the constitution as Serbian of theijekavian dialect, they argued, was just one of many examples of the marginalization of Montenegrin identity. Central to this argument was the claim that the Montenegrin language, despite forming the basis for the Serbian,Croatian,Bosnian and Montenegrin languages, had been largely destroyed byBelgrade andZagreb, which had imposed the standardSerbo-Croatian, following theNovi Sad Agreement in 1954.[19]
During the 2003 population census in Montenegro, the issue of the Montenegrin language was contentious and hotly debated. In March 2004, the Montenegrin education council proposed changing the official language of the republic from Serbian toMaternji jezik (mother tongue). The proposal caused outrage among ethnic Serbs, who saw it as an attempt by the Montenegrin government to marginalize aspects of Serbian identity.Jevrem Brković, president of theDoclean Academy of Sciences and Arts, hailed attempts to change the name of the language as a "transitional phase to the establishment of the Montenegrin language in the constitution of the republic".[20]
TheConstitution of Montenegro from 2007 states that Montenegrin is theofficial language of the country, while Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian andAlbanian are languages in official use.[21]