Post by Emperor AAdmin on Oct 15, 2007 11:38:45 GMT -5
The first settlers of Montenegro were the Illyrians. Romans conquered these southern Illyrians in AD 9, annexing them to the Roman province of Illyricum. The historian Theodore Mommsen wrote (in his The Provinces of the Roman Empire) that all Illyricum was fully Romanised and Latin speaking by the fourth century.
The division of the Roman Empire between Roman and Byzantine rule – and subsequently between the Latin and Greek churches – was marked by a line that ran northward from Skadar through modern Montenegro, symbolizing the status of this region as a perpetual marginal zone between the economic, cultural, and political worlds of the Mediterranean peoples and the Slavs. As Roman power declined in the fifth century, this part of the Adriatic coast suffered from intermittent ravages by various semi-nomadic invaders, especially the Goths in the late fifth century and the Avars during the sixth century. These soon were supplanted by the Slavs, who became widely established in the Balkans by the middle of the seventh century.
The Romanized Illyrians escaped to the mountains and survived mainly as shepherds, and were named morlachs (dark "vlachs"), and eventually losing their original Romance language by being assimilated with the Slavs. This extinct neo-Latin language can be found in the toponimy of many places of Montenegro, like the name of the mount Durmitor, that means "place where to sleep" in the language of those Vlachs.The last morlachs, called Vlasi Ridani, moved from Durmitor area in the 15th century, escaping the Ottoman conquest, and found refuge in Dalmatia and Istria.
Slav tribes, mixed with the descendants of the romanized Illyrians, formed the semi-independent dukedom of Duklja by the tenth century. In 1077, Pope Gregory VII recognized Duklja as an independent state, acknowledging its King Mihailo (Michael) (of the Vojislavljević dynasty founded by nobleman Stefan Vojislav) as rex Docleae (King of Duklja).[8][9] The kingdom, however, paid tribute to the Byzantine Empire and later to the Bulgarian Empire; it gave birth to the medieval kingdom of the Serbian Grand Prince (Serbian: župan) Stefan Nemanja, who was born in Ribnica, a settlement near Doclea, renaming the country "Zeta".
The Principality of Zeta asserted its independence in the 1360s.[10][11]The House of Balšić (1360s–1421) and the House of Crnojević (1421–1499) ruled Zeta. Although the Ottoman Empire controlled the lands to the south and east from the 15th century, it never fully conquered Zeta.[citation needed]
Most of the coast of Montenegro was controlled by the Republic of Venice from the 13th century to the Napoleon times(1420-1797) although Bar and Ulcinj were conquered by the Ottomans in the 1570s. The area was called Albania Veneta.
During those centuries the Venetian language, from which the word "Montenegro" comes, was the lingua franca of the Adriatic coast of Montenegro. In the area of Bay of Kotor there were Venetian speaking populations until the first half of the 20th century. For example, in the Austrian census of 1880, Kotor had 930 ethnic Italians in a total population of 2910 people.
In 1516, the secular prince Đurađ Crnojević abdicated in favour of Archbishop Vavil, who then made Montenegro into a theocratic state[12] under the rule of the prince-bishop (known as владика, vladika) of Cetinje, a position held from 1697 by the Petrović-Njegoš family of the Riđani clan. Petar Petrović Njegoš, perhaps the most influential vladika, reigned in the first half of the 19th century. In 1851, Danilo II Petrović Njegoš became vladika, but in 1852 he married, left the priesthood, assumed the title of knjaz (Prince), and transformed his land into a secular principality. Montenegro officially confirmed its independence and became a principality in 1878. Later, it was transformed into a kingdom in 1910, under the rule of King Nicholas I. [13][14]
In 1910, Prince Nicholas I became King of Montenegro. Two years later, in October 1912, King Nicholas declared war on the Ottoman Empire, preceding the two Balkan Wars. The Montenegrin army attacked the Ottoman fortress city of Shkodër, and forced the empire to gather a large army in neighbouring Macedonia. This Ottoman army was then attacked by the forces of Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria which entered the war by pre-arrangement. This resulted in the redefinition of borders in the Balkans according to the Treaty of London in 1913.
Montenegro emerged from the Balkan Wars doubled in size, receiving half of the former Ottoman territory known as Sandžak, but without the city of Shkodër, the country's major goal in the war. The London Conference awarded Shkodër to an independent country of Albania.
During World War I, Montenegro was part of the allies. In the Battle of Mojkovac. Montenegro's army bravely defended the fallback for Serbian troops withdrawing across Albania. In the course of the war, Montenegro was occupied by Austro-Hungarian troops. Feldmarschalleutnant Viktor Weber von Webenau became Military Governor of Montenegro on February 26, 1916.
In 1918, the Podgorica Assembly, whose legality is questioned up to the present, voted for uniting Montenegro with the Kingdom of Serbia. [15][16] However, pro-independence Montenegrins revolted on Christmas Day 1919 (January 7, 1919, Christmas Day by the then-prevailing Orthodox calendar) against Serbia.[17] The revolt was finally suppressed in 1924, although guerrilla resistance remained in the Highlands for many years after.
During WWII Italy occupied Montenegro in 1941 and annexed the area of Kotor[18], where there was a small Roman population (also, the Queen of Italy, Elena of Montenegro, was daughter of the former king of Montenegro), to the Kingdom of Italy. The Independent State of Montenegro was created under fascist control when Krsto Zrnov Popović returned from exile in Rome in 1941 to attempt to lead the Zelenaši ("Green" party), who supported the reinstatement of the independent Montenegrin monarchy. These forces were called the Lovćen Brigade. Montenegro was ravaged by a terrible guerrilla war, mainly after Nazi Germany replaced the defeated Italians in September 1943.
After World War II, from 1945 to 1992, Montenegro became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in its own right. It was during this time that the present capital Podgorica was renamed Titograd, after Josip Broz Tito, communist ruler of Yugoslavia. Over the next half century, Montenegro remained one of six constituent republics of Yugoslavia.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montenegro#History
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Montenegro