History of Montenegro

The early written records of the history of Montenegro begin with Illyria and its various kingdoms until the Roman Republic incorporated the region into the province of Illyricum (later Dalmatia and Praevalitana) after the Illyro-Roman Wars.

[2][3] Along the seaboard of the Adriatic, the movement of peoples that was typical of the ancient Mediterranean world ensured the settlement of a mixture of colonists, traders, and those in search of territorial conquest.

The Romans mounted several punitive expeditions against local pirates and finally conquered the Illyrian kingdom in the 2nd century BC, annexing it to the province of Illyricum.

Because the terrain was extremely rugged and lacked any major sources of wealth such as mineral riches, the area that is now Montenegro became a haven for residual groups of earlier settlers, including some tribes who had escaped Romanisation.

[citation needed] In the second half of the 6th century, Slavs migrated from the Bay of Kotor to the River of Bojana and the hinterland of it as well as surround the Skadar lake.

The local ruler, Jovan Vladimir Dukljanski, whose cult still remains in the Orthodox Christian tradition, was at the time struggling to ensure independence.

For 180 years after their first appointment, the Vladikas were elected by the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć and the clans — an arrangement which was ultimately abandoned in favour of the hereditary system in 1696.

The refusal of high-spirited Montenegrin clans to pay tax any longer was the cause of the Pasha's invasion during the reign of the Hadjuk Bishop Rufim, when the Turks were driven back with heavy loss in Battle of Lješkopolje in 1604.

Much light is thrown upon the condition of Montenegro at this period and the causes of its invariable success in war even against fearful odds are explained by the accounts of a contemporary writer, Mariano Bolizza.

This author, a patrician of Venice, residing at Kotor in the early part of the seventeenth century, spent a considerable time in the Old Montenegro, and published in 1614 a description of Cetinje.

However, the captured city of Skadar had to be given up to the new state of Albania at the insistence of the Great Powers despite the Montenegrins having invested 10,000 lives for the conquest of the town from the Ottoman-Albanian forces of Essad Pasha Toptani.

A newly convened National Assembly of Podgorica (Podgorička skupština, Подгоричка скупштина), accused the King of seeking a separate peace with the enemy and consequently deposed him, banned his return and decided that Montenegro should join the Kingdom of Serbia on December 1, 1918.

The puppet Kingdom of Montenegro was created under fascist control while Krsto Zrnov Popović returned from his exile in Rome in 1941 to attempt to lead the Zelenaši ("Green" party), who supported the reinstatement of the Montenegrin monarchy.

At the leadership level, disagreements regarding state policy (Centralist monarchy vs. Federal Socialist republic) eventually led to a split between the two sides; they then became enemies from thereon.

The monarchist Chetniks had influential scholars and revolutionaries among their supporters, such as Blažo Đukanović, Zaharije Ostojić, Radojica Perišić, Petar Baćović, Mirko Lalatovic, and Bajo Stanišić, the hero of the anti-fascist uprising.

The de facto leader of the Chetniks in Montenegro, Pavle Djurisic, along with other prominent figures of the movement like Dusan Arsovic and Đorđe Lašić, were held responsible for massacres of Muslim population in eastern Bosnia and Sandzak during 1944.

Their ideology of a homogeneous Serbia within Yugoslavia proved to be a major obstacle in recruiting liberals, minorities, and Montenegrins who regarded Montenegro as a nation with its own identity.

During this period Montenegrin Communists such as Veljko Vlahović, Svetozar Vukmanović-Tempo, Vladimir Popović and Jovo Kapicić held key positions in the federal government of Yugoslavia.

Montenegro's historic capital Cetinje was replaced with Podgorica, which in the inter-war period became the biggest city in the Republic – although it was practically in ruins due to heavy bombing in the last stages of WW II.

Podgorica had a more favorable geographical position within Montenegro, and in 1947 the seat of the Republic was moved to the city, now named Titograd in honor to Marshal Tito.

Youth work actions built a railway between the two biggest cities of Titograd and Nikšić, as well as an embankment over Skadar lake linking the capital with the major port of Bar.

Montenegro's industrialisation was demonstrated through the founding of the electronic company Obod in Cetinje, a steel mill and Trebjesa brewery in Nikšić, and the Podgorica Aluminium Plant in 1969.

The breakup of communist Yugoslavia (1991–1992) and the introduction of a multi-party political system found Montenegro with a young leadership that had risen to office only a few years earlier in the late 1980s.

All three appeared devout communists on the surface, but they also had sufficient skills and adaptability to understand the dangers of clinging to traditional rigid old-guard tactics in changing times.

Due to its favourable geographical location (access to the Adriatic Sea and a water-link to Albania across Lake Skadar) Montenegro became a hub for smuggling activity.

The entire Montenegrin industrial production had stopped, and the republic's main economic activity became the smuggling of user goods – especially those in short supply like petrol and cigarettes, both of which skyrocketed in price.

Bulatović and his followers broke away to form the Socialist People's Party of Montenegro (SNP), staying loyal to Milošević, whereas Đukanović began to distance himself from Serbia.

This distance from the policies of Milošević played a role in sparing Montenegro from the heavy bombing that Serbia endured in the spring of 1999 during the NATO air-campaign.

"[23] In June 2017, Montenegro formally became a member of NATO, an eventuality that had been rejected by about half of the country's population and had triggered a promise of retaliatory actions on the part of Russia's government.

[32] In March 2023, Jakov Milatović, a pro-western candidate of the Europe Now movement, won the presidential election run-off over incumbent Milo Đukanović to succeed him as the next President of Montenegro.