part 2, chapter 11-13.

BALKAN: 14th-19th Centuries: (Montenegro) The new Servia.

"The people that inhabit the two territories known on the map as Servia and Montenegro are one and the same. If you ask a Montenegrin what language he speaks, he replies 'Serb.' The last of the Serb Czars fell gloriously fighting at Kossovo in 1389 [see TURKS: A. D. 1360-1389]. To this day the Montenegrin wears a strip of black silk upon his headgear in memory of that fatal day. ... The brave Serbs who escaped from Kossovo found a sanctuary in the mountains that overlook the Bay of Cattaro. Their leader, Ivo, surnamed Tsernoi (Black), gave the name of Tzrnogora (Montenegro) to these desert rocks. ... Servia having become a Turkish province, her colonists created in Montenegro a new and independent Servia [see TURKS: A. D. 1451-1481]. The memory of Ivo the Black is still green in the country. Springs, ruins, and caverns are called after him, and the people look forward to the day when he will reappear as a political Messiah. But Ivo's descendants proved unworthy of him; they committed the unpardonable sin of marrying aliens, and early in the 16th century the last descendant of Ivo the Black retired to Venice. {250} From 1516 to 1697 Montenegro was ruled by elective Vladikas or Bishops; from 1697 to 1851 by hereditary Vladikas. For the Montenegrins the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries formed a period of incessant warfare. ... Up till 1703 the Serbs of the mountain were no more absolutely independent of the Sultan than their enslaved kinsmen of the plain. The Havatch or Sultan's slipper tax was levied on the mountaineers. In 1703 Danilo Petrovitch celebrated his consecration as a Christian Bishop by ordering the slaughter of every Mussulman who refused to be baptised. This massacre took place on Christmas Eve 1703. ... The 17th and 18th centuries were for Montenegro a struggle for existence. In the 19th century began their struggle for an outlet to the sea. The fall of Venice would naturally have given the mountaineers the bay of Cattaro, had not the French stepped in and annexed Dalmatia." In 1813, the Vladika, Peter I., "with the aid of the British fleet ... took Cattaro from the French, but (pursuant to an arrangement between Russia and Austria) was compelled subsequently to relinquish it to the latter power. ... Peter I. of Montenegro ... died in 1830, at the age of 80. ... His nephew Peter II. was a wise ruler. ... On the death of Peter II., Prince Danilo, the uncle of the present Prince, went to Russia to be consecrated Bishop of Montenegro. The czar seems to have laughed him out of this ancient practice; and the late Prince instead of converting himself into monk and bishop returned to his own country and married [1851]. ... Prince Danilo was assassinated at Cattaro (1860). ... He was succeeded by his nephew Nicholas."

_J. G. C. Minchin, Servia and Montenegro (National Life and Thought, lecture 19)._

"The present form of government in Montenegro is at once the most despotic and the most popular in Europe--despotic, because the will of the Prince is the law of the land; and popular, because the personal rule of the Prince meets all the wants and wishes of the people. No Sovereign in Europe sits so firmly on his throne as the Prince of this little State, and no Sovereign is so absolute. The Montenegrins have no army; they are themselves a standing army."

_J. G. C. Minchin, The Growth of Freedom in the Balkan Peninsula, chapter 1._

_A. A. Paton, Researches on the Danube and the Adriatic,