Vasojevići
The Vasojevići (Montenegrin and Serbian Cyrillic: Васојевићи, pronounced [ʋâso̞je̞ʋit͡ɕi]) is a historical highland tribe (pleme) and region of Montenegro, in the area of the Brda.
It is the largest of the historical tribes, occupying the area between Lijeva Rijeka in the South up to Bihor under Bijelo Polje in the North, Mateševo in the West to Plav in the East.
The Vasojevići are located in the area between Lijeva Rijeka in the south up to Bihor near Bijelo Polje in the north, Mateševo in the west to Plav in the east.
At that time, they were not described as a tribe but as a people, as they had not fully formed yet but were still a clan organized as a katun typically used by Vlach and Albanian pastoral communities.
[12] The report speaks of the Vasojevići (and of their leader Vaso[13]) as when, together with the Bjelopavlići and the Piperi, they attacked Ragusan merchants and did some material damage to them near the village of Rječica (now Lijeva Rijeka).
[14] The Vasojevići are not mentioned in the Vranjina treaty of 1455, which may be explained by the fact that at that time they were apparently a small community in the territory of Piperi, which in the second half of the 15th century encompassed present-day Bratonožići and Lijeva Rijeka.
[21] In 1658, the seven tribes of Kuči, Vasojevići, Bratonožići, Piperi, Kelmendi, Hoti and Gruda allied themselves with the Republic of Venice, establishing the so-called “Seven-fold banner” or “alaj-barjak”, against the Ottomans.
[23] During the Austro-Turkish War, which began in 1737, the Serbian patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanović Šakabenta organized an uprising and the Orthodox population of Serbia and the Brda revolted.
Alongside the patriarch, chiefs of the Vasojevići and other Brda tribes joined the Austrian forces in Serbia and helped them take Niš and Novi Pazar, in July 1737.
[24] Led by the Serbian patriarch and the voivode Radonja Petrović of the Kuči tribe, another 3,000 highlanders arrived in a deserted Novi Pazar, a day after the Austrian forces had withdrawn.
[25][26][27] The Ottoman reprisals against the insurgents began in October 1737 and had terrible consequences for the people living in the valleys of the Ibar, West Morava, Lim and Tara rivers.
The Ottoman army of Hodaverdi Pasha Mahmudbegović burned and destroyed every village in its path, which caused the migration of thousands of Serbs and also Catholic Albanians.
[26] By the end of 1737, the Ottoman army had ravaged the entire Vasojevići region, burning and destroying almost every village from Bijelo Polje to the Komovi Mountains.
The defeat of Austria against the Ottomans led to a massive migration of the population of the Upper Lim valley, which became depopulated while part of its inhabitants was enslaved or even exiled to Metohija in 1739.
[35] With the help of paramilitaries from Rugova, Plav, Gusinje and other neighboring areas, the Ottoman regular army was able to suppress the revolt and devastated the Lower Vasojevići villages and crops, while the monastery of Đurđevi stupovi was looted and burned.
A prominent member of the Vasojevići, the Brigadier-General Radomir Vešović was given the task of disbanding the Montenegrin army and negotiating terms with the occupying forces.
[42] On 12 July 1994, at a traditional St. Peter's Day gathering, prominent members of the tribe decided that their region would join Serbia if Montenegro was to secede from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
[49] During the War in Ukraine, some locals of villages of Andrijevica, part of the Vasojevići tribe, decided to sell and give up land for free to Russia, stating that "we are brothers".
In particular, the woman's garment, a woolen bell-shaped skirt called oblaja or džupeleta,[54] is similar to the xhubleta worn by Albanian women from neighbouring Malisor tribes.
[61] The name Has was then used by the Ottomans to designate an administrative unit of which Berane was the center, and its inhabitants were called the Ašani not only by the Vasojevići, but by the mountain tribes in general.
[65] Vaso's descendants gradually expanded to the north-east and inhabited the region by the river Lim, called Polimlje – the area around the Komovi mountains, Andrijevica and Berane.
According to it the first direct male ancestor of the Vasojevići was Vas Keqi, son of a Keq a Catholic Albanian who fleeing from Ottoman conquest settled in a Slavic-speaking area that would become the historical Piperi region.
According to one such folk legend, an elder of the Vasojevići, Stanj, foretold Greek priests the advent of a Serbian messiah, a dark man (crni čovjek) who would liberate the Serbs from the Turks.
It happens that with a very distant genealogy, slight variations of names, chronology and relationships exist simultaneously, but there is no doubt among the Vasojevići members as to which family belongs to which brotherhood, branch and sub-branch.
