History

Montenegro’s history is filled with colorful events. Just like any other dealings in history, Montenegro has had its shares of victories and defeats, struggles and success. Its strive for freedom has lingered throughout the course of its history and every Montenegro resident will tell the curious traveler fascinating stories and facts about its past, and how it motivated the country and its people to be the Montenegro of today. Even though it is rather small, the country still stands proud to embrace its history.

The term “Crna Gora”, or Montenegro was mentioned in the Charter of King Milutin in 1276. It is believed that its name was derived from the dense forests that covered most of Mount Lovcen. Former inhabitants say that forest is so dark, that settlers often coined this as “black” mountain.

Montenegro was initially inhabited by the Illyrians before the Slavs in the Balkans arrived in the country. After countless struggles against local pirates, the kingdom was finally conquered by the Romans in AD 9 and was renamed to the province of Illyricum.

The division of the Roman Empire, particularly between the Roman and Byzantine rule and of the Latin and Greek churches was districted by a line that ran from Skadar through the modern day Montenegro. This marked the status of the region as a perpetual marginalized zone between the economic, cultural and the political worlds of both the Mediterranean people and the Slavs. It was during the fall of the Roman power that this part of the Adriatic coast suffered from the continuous invasion of nomadic hordes, specifically the Goths, during the late V century and was also ravaged by the Avars in the VI century. These were later replaced by the Slavs who was massively recognized by the middle of the VII century. The untouched terrain and the lack of major wealth resources made Montenegro a haven for enduring groups of earlier settlers, including various tribes that escaped Romanization

During the VI century, the Slavs colonized the Balkan Peninsula. The colonization was later achieved during the middle of the VII century and was believed that the antecedents of the natives of Montenegro came from the region of Polabje, located between the Baltic Sea and the modern day Hanover, Germany. However, Montenegrin ancestors who were more commonly known as the Velets and the Odobrite tribes did not hail from Germany, since the Germans occupied these territories after they moved to Adriatic.

Consequently, north bound Slavs settled in the province of Prevalis, where they in turn lived together with the neighboring urban Romans and Illyrian tribes. The Slavs settled along the tribal lines, and was headed by a zupan, or chieftain. Newly arrived Slavs learned to live in harmony despite the hostility of the natives, and forged the Slavo-Romanic modus Vivendi and accepted Christianity which was introduced to them by the locals. Within the Byzantine Kingdom, they united their respective tribes under the single name of Scklavinia Doclea.

Montenegro struggled during the 20th century: it lost its independence and at the same time disappeared from the political map of Europe. Montenegro sided with Siberia during the World War I. in 1916; King Nikola went to exile after surrendering to Austro-Hungary. Serbia then replaced Montenegro in 1918, losing everything that it gained throughout the course of the century.

After the Kingdom of Yugoslavia bowed to the fascist Germany in World War II, Montenegro proved that its flame of freedom never perished: On July 13, 1941, a large number of the Montenegrin population stood up against its Italian occupiers.

Montenegro improved its legal state status and became one of the six equal republics of the Yugoslav federation after World War II ended.

In the end of the 20th century, Montenegro remained the union with Serbia, forming the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro.