From 'and' to 'either/or': Nationhood in Montenegro during the Yugoslav twentieth century

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published online 6 September 2013East European Politics and SocietiesPieter Troch

Twentieth CenturyFrom "And" to "Either/or": Nationhood in Montenegro during the Yugoslav

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East European Politics and Societies and CulturesVolume XX Number X

Month XXXX xx-xx© 2013 Sage Publications

10.1177/0888325413502284http://eeps.sagepub.com

hosted athttp://online.sagepub.com

From “And” to “Either/or”: Nationhood in Montenegro during the Yugoslav Twentieth CenturyPieter TrochGhent University

The politicized polarization of Montenegrin society around the question of Montenegrin statehood in the context of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, finally leading to Montenegrin independence in 2006, is accompanied by a remarkable identity change toward a clear division between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood. I situate this development within the long-term interference between Montenegrin and Serbian cat-egories of identification in elite articulations of national identity in Montenegro during the twentieth century. In the early twentieth century, the Montenegrin and Serbian categories were concurrently available for national identification in the context of political modernization in the country. Reflecting the lasting political and broader soci-etal relevance of nationhood during the Yugoslav twentieth century, diverging interpre-tations of the relation between both categories of nationhood have continuously substantiated political divides in Montenegro. One part of the political spectrum sub-ordinated Montenegrin regional identity to Serbian nationhood, the other part attached increasingly far-reaching political demands to Montenegrin national identity while maintaining a sense of Serbian national identity in the domain of culture and ethnicity. In the course of the Yugoslav twentieth century, the complementary relation between both categories of nationhood was challenged by exclusive definitions of Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood, a development which has to be related to the continuous questioning of relations between various concurring categories of national identity available in Yugoslavia. The current institutionalization of Montenegrin nationhood in independent Montenegro and the development toward clear-cut Serbian and Montenegrin mono-national identities is leading to the regression of multiple nation-hood among the broader population.

Keywords: Montenegro, Serb-Montenegrin national polarization, Yugoslavia, multiple nationhood

Introduction

Since the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, Montenegro has been the scene of a striking change in the proportion of Serbs and Montenegrins by nationality, as revealed by a comparison of the results of the population censuses of 1981, 1991, 2003, and 2011 (Table 1). This change has not been the result of major migrations, but rather indicates an identity change whereby the Slavic-Orthodox population of



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Montenegro, who in the context of Socialist Yugoslavia predominantly declared themselves Montenegrins, are now divided between Montenegrins and Serbs.

This identity change is taking place against the background of the polarization in Montenegrin society around the question of Montenegrin statehood and its relation with Serbia. In the context of the harsh economic crisis, ethno-national antagonism, and Serbian national mobilization of the 1980s, the violent disintegration of Socialist Yugoslavia, and the Democratic Party of Socialists’ (DPS, Demokratska stranka socijalista, the successor of the Communist Party of Montenegro and the convincing winner of the first free elections of 1990) reliance on and alliance with Serbian strongman Slobodan Milošević, 95.4 percent of the voters supported an association of Yugoslav successor states on the occasion of a referendum held in March 1992. This led to the formation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Montenegro and Serbia.1

However, in the 1990s the Montenegrin political leadership gradually moved away from unconditional alliance with Milošević’s government, disenchanted by the latter’s international isolation, conservatism, and hegemony and put under pres-sure by the economic and social hardships caused by the wars and international sanctions. The elections for the Montenegrin presidency in October 1997 marked the

Table 1Share of declared Montenegrins and Serbs by nationality in Montenegroa

Year of census 1981b 1991c 2003d 2011e

Montenegrins (%) 68.54 61.89 43.16 44.60Serbs (%) 3.32 9.34 31.99 28.49

a. The most prominent population groups other than Serbs and Montenegrins, with their share of the population according to the 2011 census, are Bosniaks (8.57 percent), albanians (4.87 percent), Muslims (3.28 percent), and Croats (0.96 percent). after the codification of the term Bošnjak to denote Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the early 1990s, there has been a lively and so far unsettled dis-cussion among the South Slav Muslim population in the Montenegrin Sandžak whether or not they should take over this name or stick with the old name Muslim, hence the continuing distinction between Bosniaks and Muslims in Montenegrin censuses. Šistek František and Bohdana Dimitrovova, “National Minorities in Montenegro after the Break-up of Yugoslavia,” in Montenegro in Transition: Problems of Identity and Statehood, ed. F. Bieber (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 107–37, 167–68.b. Source: Florian Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics since the Disintegration of Yugoslavia,” in Montenegro in Transition: Problems of Identity and Statehood, ed. F. Bieber (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 11–42, 12.c. Source: Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics,” 12. d. Source: Republika Crne gore, Zavod za statistiku, Popis stanovništva, domaćinstva i stanova u 2003. Stanovništvo: nacionalna ili etnička pripadnost (Podgorica, 2004), 12. http://www.monstat.org/cg/page.php?id=222 &pageid=57 (accessed 7 august 2012). e. Source: Republika Crne gore, Zavod za statistiku, Popis stanovništva, domaćinstva i stanova u 2011. Podaci o stavovništvu, http://www.monstat.org/cg/page.php?id=533&pageid=322 (accessed 7 august 2012).



Troch / From “and” to “either/or” 3

crystallization of two groups within DPS, one around Milo Đukanović, which criti-cized the authoritarian rule of Slobodan Milošević and called for economic and political reforms, and one around Momir Bulatović, which propagated a status quo. Đukanović narrowly won the elections and the Bulatović wing of the party formed a new party, the Socialist People’s Party (SNP, Socijalistička narodna partija). The period subsequent to the fall of Milošević in Serbia in 2000 saw the development into new political alliances around the issue of Montenegrin statehood. The Democratic Party of Socialists, which remained the leading governing party throughout the period under scrutiny, led the pro-independence camp, while the Socialist People’s Party was the main propagator of the continuing alliance between Serbia and Montenegro.2 In 2003, Serbia and Montenegro formed a loose state union, and in May 2006 a referendum was held on Montenegrin independence. This time, 55.5 percent of the voters voted for independence with a turnout slightly above 85 percent. On 3 June 2006, the Montenegrin parliament proclaimed Montenegrin independence.3

There is an obvious correlation between the political and societal polarization concerning the question of Montenegrin statehood and the changing national identi-fication patterns during the last decades.4 In an opinion poll organized by the Center for Democracy and Human Rights in april 2006, 72.2 percent of the self-declared Montenegrins indicated that they would vote for independence, 14.6 percent would vote against. The share of self-declared Serbian pro-independence voters in the poll was only 6 percent, against 82.5 percent no-voters.5 The political polarization on Montenegrin statehood was also accompanied by Serb–Montenegrin polarization in elite articulations of national identity. In the course of the 1990s, a number of intel-lectuals and newly formed cultural institutions, such as Matica crnogorska, the Duklja academy of Sciences and arts (DaNU, Dukljanska akademija nauka i umjetnosti), the Montenegrin PeN Center, and the Montenegrin Orthodox Church have taken the lead in the codification of a distinct Montenegrin national identity.6 Vojislav Nikčević, a historian of literature by education, published a work on the historical development of the Montenegrin language, and a grammar and orthogra-phy of the Montenegrin language, receiving support from the Montenegrin PeN Center and DaNU. The most salient specificities of Nikčević’s Montenegrin lan-guage are three distinct phonemes and corresponding letters, ś (sj), ź (zj), and з (dz); hyper-ijekavizations in morphology; and lexical specificities.7 Historians like Radoslav Rotković, Sreten Zeković, Novak adžić, Mijat Šuković, Danilo Radojević, and Milorad Popović have codified a Montenegrin national continuum from the arrival of a distinct Montenegrin ethnic community in the Balkans to the modern era, finding expressions of Montenegrin national consciousness in literature, statehood, and religion.8 The Montenegrin Orthodox Church was conceived as the re-establish-ment of the autonomous Bishopric of Cetinje, which had allegedly served as a Montenegrin national institution until it was forcefully merged into the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1920. at the same time, opponents of Montenegrin independence




have based their arguments on Serbian national unity and the Serbian nationhood of Montenegrins.9 This camp has received support from the Serbian Orthodox Church and historians who have incorporated Montenegrin history within a Serbian histori-cal continuum.10 The national polarization accompanying the question of Montenegrin independence has found its clearest expression on the internet, where numerous websites present pseudo-scientific proof of the exclusive Montenegrin or Serbian identity of the Montenegrin state and people,11 and forums provide room for every-day engagements with Serb–Montenegrin national polarization.12

The purpose of this article is not to provide a detailed examination of the short-term identity change in Montenegro or the codifications of national identity that have accompanied this process but to situate these events within the context of long-term trends in articulations of Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood in the course of the twentieth century. I argue that the relation between Montenegrin and Serbian nationhood in modern Montenegro is not one of stable and clear-cut competition but one of interference, which can be complementary or exclusive. This approach relies on alexander Maxwell’s notion of multiple nationalism, denoting invocations of multiple national identities, that is, Hungarian, Slovak, Czechoslovak, and Slav, by Slovak intellectuals in the second half of the nineteenth century, and his call to allow for more than one national identification at a time.13 analogically, historians of the region have convincingly showed that regional and national identities are not mutu-ally exclusive, but concurrent, interactional, and intertwining categories for collec-tive identity.14 This observation can be transferred to various categories of national identity, in conformity with the notion of multiple nationhood. The example of the Yugoslav identification of many Croatian intellectuals in the period preceding, dur-ing, and immediately after the First World War can substantiate this claim. Their Yugoslav national identification was informed by a Croatian national point of view and did not replace or exclude Croatian national identification. In this case, it is bet-ter to speak of multiple Croat–Yugoslav nationhood.15

The suggestion that Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood were in fact concurring trajectories in modern Montenegro is by no means novel. Bieber and Winterhagen speak about double identity and situate Montenegrin collective identity on a con-tinuum between a Serbian and Montenegrin pole.16 Srdja Pavlović refers to the multilayered character of Montenegrin identity and the politicization of Montenegrin identity as either Serb or Montenegrin throughout the twentieth century.17 Malešević and Uzelac relate the contemporary identity change in Montenegro to the institu-tional ambiguity of Socialist Yugoslavia, which institutionalized earlier elite-articu-lated ambiguities concerning the relation between Serbian and Montenegrin identity and “was founded on the principle of not opposing the categories of Serb and Montenegrin, and keeping the three forms (including Yugoslav) of collective attach-ments deeply inclusive of one another.” This policy provided for the crystallization of political and historical divides into ethno-national divides in the context of the disintegration of Yugoslavia.18




The goal of this article is to elaborate on the interference between Serbian and Montenegrin categories of nationhood during the twentieth century. Inspired by Maxwell’s notion of multiple nationhood and his remark that the unwillingness of scholars of nationalism to consider more than one nation at a time has led them to overstate conflict, I allow for concurrence of Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood, without assuming that there must be a predetermined conflict or mutual incompati-bility between them.19 From this point of departure I argue that the continuous political and broader societal questioning of nationhood throughout the Yugoslav twentieth century brought with it the retreat of multiple nationhood and the rise of an exclusive relation between the Serbian and the Montenegrin categories of nation-hood in elite articulations of nationhood. In that sense, not only scholars of national-ism have been unwilling to consider more than one nation at a time but also Montenegrin elites involved in articulations of nationhood in the context of the Yugoslav twentieth century. The present identity change toward a clear-cut distinc-tion between Montenegrin and Serbian nationhood among the broader population indicates the societal expansion of such exclusive mono-nationalisms.

The Rise of the Modern Political Society and the Nascent Divergence on Montenegro’s National Status

In the course of the gradual strengthening of Montenegrin statehood during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, two categories of collective identity domi-nated the thinking on statehood by Montenegrin elites, the Serbian and the Montenegrin. It is important to stress that these categories were not mutually exclu-sive or incompatible, but rather relevant within different contexts. The Serbian cat-egory of collective identity was relevant within the broader Orthodox battle against Ottoman oppression and relied on the memory of the medieval Serbian empire. The Montenegrin category of collective identity was relevant in the concrete, more small-scale resistance against Ottoman rule, in the institutions of the common coun-cil (Zbor) of Montenegrin tribes, and the political-religious authority in the person of the Metropolitan or vladika of Cetinje. It relied on the historical memory of the fifteenth-century Montenegrin principality under the dynasty of Crnojević.20 The growing salience of Serbian and Montenegrin collective identities was accompanied by the gradual incorporation of other categories of collective identity available: that of the Slavs (especially based on the longstanding alliance between Montenegro and the Russian empire), the region, and the tribe. The heartland of Montenegrin state-hood was the region of Old Montenegro, comprising four districts or nahiyes around Cetinje, which received tax privileges from the Ottomans and preserved a degree of autonomy under the common rule of the vladika and the Zbor.21 The region of Brda or Highlands is located to the north of Old Montenegro across the river Zeta. It had been brought under the rule of Cetinje in the late eighteenth century and frequently




revolted against later measures toward state centralization.22 The region of eastern Herzegovina around the town of Nikšić was conquered by the Montenegrin state in the late 1850s. The southern part of the Sandžak of Novi Pazar, north of the river Tara, was placed under Montenegrin rule after the Balkan Wars, along with lands around the Lake of Skadar with substantial albanian population groups. The Bay of Kotor, finally, remained part of austrian Dalmatia until the First World War.23 These historical regional divides still inform national identification in Montenegro: the heartland of Old Montenegro is the stronghold of independence and Montenegrin nationhood; the Sandžak is the unionist and Serbian national center.24 The tribes, finally, had become the dominant economic and social organizational unit on the present-day Montenegrin territory during Ottoman rule.25 The tribes of Old Montenegro and to a lesser extent Brda occasionally cooperated against the Ottomans, as is illustrated by the inter-tribal institutions of the council and the vladika in Cetinje, but almost all tribes also assisted the Ottomans at one time or another against a competing tribe. Thus, “in the Montenegro of the 17th and 18th century, it was the tribe and not the state/central authority that nearly exclusively provided the mechanisms of horizontal identification for individuals.”26

This changed with the strengthening of Montenegrin statehood in the course of the nineteenth century. Within the context of the modernization of Montenegrin society under the long rule of Prince Nikola, who ascended to the throne in 1860, the Serbian and Montenegrin categories of collective identity occupied a dominant posi-tion in increasingly broad political debates on Montenegrin statehood. On 18 October 1905, Prince Nikola granted the people of Montenegro—at that time a state of slightly more than 200,000 inhabitants comprising the present Montenegro with-out the Sandžak and the adriatic coastline save for a small strip of land containing the towns Bar and Ulcinj—a constitution and a parliament. at its first meeting, the constitutional assembly unanimously approved the constitutional proposal of Prince Nikola and his government, which installed a constitutional monarchy and subordi-nated the legislative power of the parliament to the Prince.27 although these reforms granted only limited possibilities for democratic participation in the politics of the state, they marked the rise of political life in the country and with that the first diver-gences concerning the national status of Montenegro and its inhabitants. In the winter of 1905–1906, a group of Montenegrin university students in Belgrade pub-lished a number of proclamations that criticized the reforms in Montenegro and blamed the autocratic rule of Prince Nikola for the backwardness in all branches of Montenegrin society. additionally, they accused Prince Nikola of pursuing a separa-tist and provincial policy that clashed with the national interests of Serbdom.28 In the course of 1906–1907, the reform-oriented majority in the parliament formed the first political party in Montenegro, the Popular Party (NS, Narodna stranka). In line with the demands of the Montenegrin university students, the members of the Popular Party, commonly called klubaši after the parliamentary club out of which the party




was formed, demanded the modernization and democratization of Montenegrin soci-ety, along with the strengthening of Serbian national culture and consciousness in all layers of the population. The foreign policy of Montenegro had to be directed toward unification with Serbia.29 In other words, the reform-orientated, progressive opposi-tion against the rule of Prince Nikola added articulations of Serbian nationhood and unity with the Kingdom of Serbia to its demands for the modernization and democ-ratization of Montenegrin society.

Prince Nikola and his political followers in parliament, called pravaši after the True Popular Party (Prava narodna stranka), the name of the loosely structured political alliance they formed in opposition against the Popular Party, repudiated the political activities of the klubaši as anarchistic, revolutionary, and terroristic.30 Crucially, the pravaši increasingly stressed the tradition of Montenegrin statehood and dynasty to counter the growing hegemony and appeal of the Kingdom of Serbia both within the South Slav Balkans and within Montenegro proper after the ascen-sion to the Serbian throne of King Petar Karađorđević in 1903, which brought with it a certain degree of democratization and international assertiveness. The culmina-tion of this development came with the official elevation of Montenegro to the rank of kingdom on 15 august 1910, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Nikola’s rule. King Nikola and the government of Lazar Tomanović justified the proclamation of the Montenegrin Kingdom by co-opting the tradition of Montenegrin statehood and its long struggle for freedom against the Ottomans. King Nikola no longer represented himself as the successor of the dynasty of Nemanjić, which ruled over medieval Serbia, but rather as the successor of the dynasty of Vojislavljević, which ruled over the state of Duklja, the eleventh-century autonomous Slavic state centered around Old Montenegro. as Duklja had become an independent kingdom some fifty years before Nemanja’s Raška, it had in fact been the first Serbian kingdom. as the successor of Duklja and thus the oldest Serbian kingdom, Montenegro could rightfully claim the rank of kingdom alongside and even superior to the Kingdom of Serbia.31

This interpretation marks a subtle change in the ideology of the Montenegrin state authorities under the rule of Nikola. Until the early twentieth century, Prince Nikola understood the Montenegrin state question within the broader framework of the liberation of the Serbian Orthodox people from Ottoman rule. Importantly, Nikola glorified the heroism of the Montenegrin tribes as the best part of the Serbs and the only Serbs who had retained a degree of autonomy after the Battle of Kosovo as a vehicle for claiming the leadership of himself and his dynasty over the revived Serbian empire.32 “Under the umbrella of such common denominators (eastern Orthodoxy, Serbdom, and the belonging to the South Slavic world), the conflicting concepts of Montenegrin historical distinctiveness and political individuality on one hand and the all-inclusive notion of being an integral part of Serbdom on the other did not collide but seemed somehow connected.”33 In the wake of nascent political




divides in Montenegro, Nikola countered the increasing appeal the Kingdom of Serbia enjoyed in the region by allowing two distinct traditions of statehood within Serbdom, of which the Montenegrin state was the oldest and most heroic.34 In the words of Prime Minister Lazar Tomanović: “It is true that Serbia is larger, more developed, and richer, but the nature of the land, the spirit of the people and the his-tory of Montenegro can stand next to those advantages of Serbia, not to mention the independence of Montenegro since its formation.”35

The political modernization and changing international scene of the early twenti-eth century thus brought with them diverging interpretations of the mutual relation between Serbian and Montenegrin categories of collective identity, revolving around the issue of Montenegrin statehood and, increasingly, nationhood. Both klubaši and pravaši saw the Montenegrin state and people as part of the broader Serbian nation. However, whereas the former considered the Kingdom of Serbia to be the core of the Serbian nation and connected no political claims to Montenegrin collective identity, the latter assumed a distinct position of the Montenegrin dynasty and state within Serbian nationhood, and connected national claims to both categories of collective identity. In response to the increasing appeal of the Kingdom of Serbia, King Nikola and the pravaši attached ever stronger political claims to the Montenegrin category of nationhood. Importantly, their definitions of Montenegrin nationhood relied exclu-sively on symbolic resources related to the history of Montenegrin statehood; other symbolic resources for national identity, such as language, origins, or religion, were irrelevant for the definition of Montenegrin national identity and were framed within Serbian national identity.36 This line of thinking thus did not think in terms of an exclusive relation between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood but relied on the complementarity between and different contextual relevance of both categories of nationhood. It can be categorized as an expression of multiple nationhood.

The Balance between Montenegrin and Serbian Nationhood within the Context of the Balkan Wars, the First World War, and

the Formation of the Yugoslav Kingdom

The changing context of the Balkan Wars and the First World War, and the sub-sequent formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (from 1929 Kingdom of Yugoslavia) greatly affected the relation between Montenegrin and Serbian categories of national identity. Throughout the Balkan Wars and the First World War, Serbia and Montenegro were close military allies. However, the pros-pects of the end of Ottoman and austro-Hungarian rule over the Balkans made the question of the mutual relation between the two states much more acute. Political elites in the tradition of the klubaši, most vocally represented by the Montenegrin Committee for National Unification led by the former Prime Minister andrija Radović, demanded the integral unification of Serbia and Montenegro, the




abdication of the Petrović dynasty, and the subsequent merging of the unified Serbdom with Croats and Slovenes.37 Such demands were based on the common historical identity of Serbs and Montenegrins, which was symbolized by the glorious medieval Serbian empire and expressed in the continuous struggle for Serbian lib-eration and unification by the Montenegrin tribes.38

King Nikola and the government-in-exile in Neuilly, France, countered these demands on the basis of the historical state right of Montenegro. The government con-tinued to propagate the unification of Serbdom, but with the preservation of Montenegrin statehood. Toward the end of the World War, the government co-opted the idea of Yugoslav unification, which had been marginal in Montenegro before the First World War, as a vehicle to preserve the tradition of Montenegrin statehood and its dynasty within a decentralized Yugoslav state. In a proclamation of 20 October 1918, King Nikola called for the unification of Montenegro with her South Slav brothers in a Yugoslav confederation “where all can preserve their rights, faith, prescriptions, and customs and nobody can force hegemony upon the other, but where everybody will be equal in the virtuous bosom of mother Yugoslavia, to work brotherly and harmoniously for her progress and greatness in an association of free and developed peoples.”39 The usage of the Yugoslav idea, which provided room for various historical constituents within an overarching South Slav whole, countered political claims of Belgrade hegem-ony ascribed to the Serbian category of national identity. although this national thinking was not fully elaborated on, it relied on the complementary relation between the Yugoslav, Serbian, and Montenegrin categories of national identity. Political actions were only attached to the Yugoslav and the Montenegrin categories.

These diverging approaches to nationhood also informed the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in Montenegro. In October and November 1918, Montenegro was liberated by Serbian troops. Simultaneously, a committee for the unification of Serbia and Montenegro, which was supported by the Serbian gov-ernment, organized a campaign throughout the liberated areas in favor of the imme-diate unification of Serbia and Montenegro. In the course of November, the committee organized elections for a great Popular assembly, which was to decide on the future of the Montenegrin state. The elections were done by indirect, public voting during meetings at which the Serbian army was prominently present. Possible opponents of the unconditional unification with Serbia were prevented from return-ing to the country and in Cetinje they were even removed from the polling place. On 24 November 1918, the assembly gathered and on 26 November it agreed on the abdication of King Nikola Petrović, the unification of Serbia and Montenegro, and its subsequent entry into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The unification of Serbia and Montenegro was justified on the basis of complete national identity of the Serbian people in blood, language, aspirations, faith and customs, history, ideals, popular heroes, and suffering.40

In the electoral meetings preceding the great Popular assembly, a group of candidates from the Cetinje area, predominantly linked to the Montenegrin state




apparatus, rejected the unconditional unification of Serbia and Montenegro and instead argued that Montenegro should enter the new Yugoslav state as a distinct constituent entity and that it should be represented by its elected parliament and government. This group was called the greens (zelenaši), after the color of the paper on which their list was printed. Their opponents were analogically called the Whites (bjelaši). In time, the distinction between greens and Whites was used to denote the diverging lines of thinking on Montenegrin statehood.41 In the after-math of the assembly, armed resistance broke out against the unconditional unifi-cation. Rebels laid siege to Cetinje and other towns in Montenegro, and on 6 January 1919, Christmas eve according to the Orthodox calendar, they attempted to take control of the state institutions, calling for the annulling of the decisions of the assembly and new, free elections for a temporary government which would represent Montenegro in the Yugoslav constituent assembly. The rebels received only minor, mostly moral and organizational, support from the Montenegrin gov-ernment-in-exile and proved no match for Montenegrin paramilitary troops, the Serbian army, and its international allies, although mutual harassment, reprisals, and guerilla activities continued until 1924.42 Simultaneously, King Nikola contin-ued to call for the entrance of Montenegro as a sovereign entity in a Yugoslav confederation until his death in exile in March 1921, after which the Montenegrin government-in-exile and the small Montenegrin army, which was stationed in Italy, gradually dissolved.43

The division between zelenaši and bjelaši continued that between pravaši and klubaši, save for the addition of a Yugoslav category of collective identity. In the national thinking of the Whites, the Serbian category was predominant. any Montenegrin collective identity was completely subordinated to Serbian national identity, both in terms of definitions of national identity and political claims attached to it. The national thinking of the greens too was informed by a category of Serbian national identity, but it was complemented by the Montenegrin category of national identity, in the sense that it accepted a distinct Montenegrin entity within the whole of Serbdom and attached political claims to this entity on the basis of the tradition of Montenegrin statehood. The focus on the Montenegrin tradition of statehood was accompanied by definitions of national identity in terms of his-torical individuality. Representatives of the Montenegrin government-in-exile fre-quently used the argument that the Montenegrin state tradition was older than the Serbian state tradition and that the Montenegrins, again unlike the Serbians, had always fought for freedom and had not been willing to conform to Ottoman rule, thereby showing a sense of Montenegrin historical individuality and superiority.44 Other resources underlying definitions of national identity like language, geogra-phy, or descent, however, remained framed in terms of Serbian national identity, and even the Montenegrin historical individuality was considered complementary with Serbdom. In a declaration to the local authorities, one of the leaders of the




greens in Rijeka Crnojevića explained that the Montenegrin people had enthusias-tically awaited the arrival of the Serbian army, inspired by “the ray of Serbian freedom they had defended for 600 years and which had never faded away in Montenegro.” The people had been forced to revolt against the nonbrotherly and unjustifiable way in which the unification was carried out, not against Serbian national unity proper.45

The Emergence of Exclusive Interference between Montenegrin and Serbian Nationhood during the Interwar Period

The establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in December 1918 was not accompanied by the reduced relevance of nationhood and the relaxa-tion of national polarizations. against the background of the continuing political disputes concerning the centralist or decentralist organization of the state, which were increasingly perceived along Serb-Croat national lines, the relation between Yugoslav nationhood and the national identities of primarily Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes became a central theme of political and cultural-intellectual discussion. In this context, the division between greens and Whites continued to influence the political scene in Montenegro. The high absenteeism of 34 percent in the elections for the constitutional assembly of November 1920, in some areas of Old Montenegro amounting to more than half of the eligible voters, and the strong showing of the Communist Party, which received almost 40 percent of the votes, indicate dissatis-faction with the new order that was certainly partly related to the green–White divergence.46 In the early 1920s, a group of Montenegrin politicians under the leadership of Sekula Drljević and Mihailo Ivanović, both former ministers in pre-war Montenegro and klubaši, formed a distinct Montenegrin political alliance and from 1925 also party under the name Montenegrin Party (Crnogorska stranka), typically known as the Montenegrin Federalist Party. Clearly influenced by the (con)federalist program of the Croatian Peasant Party, the undisputed political rep-resentative of the Croats during the period, the Montenegrin federalists demanded a degree of autonomy for Montenegro as a distinct unit within a federalized Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The party received 24.3 percent of the Montenegrin votes in the elections of 1923, becoming the second largest party in Montenegro just after the Radical Party, the major Serbian political party. In 1925, it won the elections in Montenegro with 25.7 percent of the votes. In 1927, the share of votes for the Montenegrin Party dropped to 14.9 percent, largely the result of disputes within the party over a possible coalition with the Croatian Peasant Party.47

The national idea behind the federalist program of the Montenegrin Party relied on a complementary relation between the Yugoslav, the Serbian, and the Montenegrin




categories of national identity. The Yugoslav category reflected the common politi-cal interests of “the most related among the most related of the same race” but was nothing more than a state idea; in other words, it did not imply full cultural unity.48 The Serbian category of national identity relied on ethnic unity. Within this Serbian ethnic unity, however, Montenegrins were a political people, with a distinct histori-cal individuality.49 In a speech to parliament in February 1924, Ivanović explained that Serbs and Montenegrins were ethnically and religiously one and the same nation, but “we Montenegrins are a political people that has established its state by its own proper strength and has preserved it in the most difficult moments in the history of our race.”50 Crucially, in the national thinking of the Montenegrin federal-ists, germs for dissociation from Serbian nationhood rose to the surface. In that light, it is important to point to the distinction between Srbijanac-srbijanski and Srbin-srpski. While the former refers to the pre–First World War Kingdom of Serbia and its population, the latter indicates the broader category of the Serb ethnic nation. Montenegrin federalists claimed that Montenegrins had preserved the pure Serb (srpski) national spirit, even under the harsh circumstances of Ottoman rule, whereas the national identity of the Serbians (Srbijanci) had been distorted by foreign influ-ences during Ottoman rule (greek, Vlach, Turkish, etc.). This distorted national identity was reflected in the hegemonic position the Serbians occupied within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and in their authoritarian relation to their Montenegrin co-nationals more specifically.51

Reflecting the increasing political and national polarization in Yugoslavia during the Royal Dictatorship of King alexander (which introduced an authoritarian cen-tralized state structure based on the ideology of integral Yugoslav national unity and the withering away of Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, or any other sub-Yugoslav col-lective identities, but instead faced increasingly vocal and exclusive nationalist opposition movements, especially from the Croatian side), in the course of the 1930s a small number of Montenegrin intellectuals adopted Croatian racial theories and categorized Montenegrins as a distinct offspring of the Croatian nation, thus radi-cally repudiating earlier assertions of the ethnic unity of Serbs and Montenegrins. This development marked the first articulations of Montenegrin nationhood in which there was no place for Serbian national unity. The most prominent Montenegrin representative of this line of thinking, Savić Marković Štedimlija, argued that the Montenegrins formed a separate nation that originated from the ethnic intermixing of a Croatian tribe and the Illyrian autochthonous inhabitants of the so-called Red Croatia. Štedimlija based this argument on a contested theory of a number of Croatian historians from the early twentieth century, who argued that the medieval state of Duklja was in fact a part of the Croatian medieval state, which was known as Red Croatia and was inhabited by Croats. Štedimlija adapted this theory by stress-ing the distinct national development of the population of Red Croatia as a result of its isolated geopolitical character. With the expansion of the Serbian medieval state,




the Ottoman invasion, and the Serbian migrations to Montenegro, Štedimlija contin-ued, Montenegro and its population became influenced by Serbian political ideals and in this context the Serbian political name became widespread in Montenegro. “That way gradually a new type of state was formed with the national name of the immigrants (Serbian) and the political ideals they brought with them, and the cul-tural orientation and civilization of the autochthones, which they inherited from their ancestors, the Red Croats.”52 against this background,

Montenegrin nationalism was formed between two in a way related and at the same time opposite nationalisms, Croatian and Serbian. While the process of Montenegrin cultural nationalism developed in parallel with Croatian nationalism, as a result of the shared origin, church, language, and general cultural orientation, the process of the development of political nationalism evolved in parallel with Serbian nationalism, because of the similar historical destiny and consequent creation of a shared name and enemy.53

Crucially, the balance between the Serbian political orientation to the east and the Croatian cultural orientation to the West inclined toward the latter; the evidence for this consisted, in Štedimlija’s view, of the long tradition of Catholicism, the national Christianity of the Montenegrins and their autocephalous Orthodox Church, which was Orthodox only in name, the ijekavian dialect, and the supreme Western culture of which Petar Petrović Njegoš was the most representative exponent. Finally, mod-ern Montenegrin nationalism developed as the Montenegrin state was consolidated in the nineteenth century, but only in the interwar period the intermingling of it with Serbian political nationalism was correctly rejected by Sekula Drljević.54

after the capitulation of the Yugoslav Kingdom on 17 april 1941, the so-called Petrovdan parliament proclaimed the independence of Montenegro under an Italian protectorate. The leading figures behind this act were old zelenaši and members of the Montenegrin Federalist Party, among them Drljević. One day after the inaugura-tion of the Montenegrin state, on 13 July 1941, a communist-led rebellion led to the premature end of this Italian protectorate and the political death of the old generation of zelenaši. Some of them, including Drljević and Štedimlija, found shelter in the Independent State of Croatia, others joined the zelenaši guerrilla movement led by Krsto Popović, a former leader of the Christmas Uprising of 1919 and of the Montenegrin army-in-exile.55 although ideas like that of Štedimlija represent only a marginal branch of the thinking on nationhood among Montenegrin elites of the interwar period, they do indicate the nascent relevance of an exclusive dissociation between the Montenegrin and Serbian categories of national identity within the con-text of the continuous questioning of nationhood in the First Yugoslavia. Whereas federalists in the 1920s still thought in terms of a complementary relation between Serbian ethnic nationhood and Montenegrin political-historical nationhood, in the




1930s Drljević and Štedimlija repudiated Serbian ethnic nationhood altogether and turned to an exclusive Montenegrin national identity, which relied not only on the historical individuality of Montenegro but also on its specific racial descent and cultural distance from the Serbian nation.

Throughout the interwar period, Montenegrin bjelaši continuously rejected demands for a distinct Montenegrin political unit within Yugoslavia, basing their argument on the full national unity between Serbs and Montenegrins. This national unity did not only rely on the ethnic unity of Serbs and Montenegrins but was also expressed in the history of the Montenegrin state, which demonstrated Serbian national consciousness as it brought together the most conscious and heroic Serbs in their battle against the Ottomans. The works of Drljević and Štedimlija were denounced as Croat-sponsored attempts to disintegrate the Serbian nation.56 In con-trast to the changing reasoning on the relation between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood by zelenaši, the national idea of the bjelaši remained consistent, although the growing hostility toward any expressions of Montenegrin collective identity—even those complementary with Serbian nationhood—has to be understood within the context of the polarization with Montenegrin autonomists. The most salient representative of the White line of thinking on nationhood in Montenegro during the Second World War was the royalist and Serbian nationalist četnik movement of Draža Mihailović and its branches in Montenegro.57 However, it would be short-sighted to presume that all bjelaši supported the četnik movement, or to repudiate this line of reasoning on the basis of its association with the četnik movement, as it would be equally short-sighted to discredit the green line of thinking on the basis of Drljević’s collaboration with the Italian and Nazi german occupier.

Between Complementarity and Exclusivity: Montenegrin and Serbian Nationhood in Socialist Yugoslavia

Initially a strong proponent of Yugoslav national unity, from the second half of the 1920s the Communist Party of Yugoslavia rejected Yugoslav nationhood and called for the dissolution of Yugoslavia on the basis of the self-determination of the Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin, and Macedonian nations. Under the strong influence of the Comintern, the party repudiated Yugoslavia as an imperialist creation which put Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins under the oppression of the great-Serbian bourgeoisie.58 Regional representatives of the Communist Party in Montenegro propagated the Montenegrin right of self-determi-nation on the basis of Montenegro’s distinct historical, economic, and cultural devel-opment.59 although the Royal Dictatorship and the Comintern’s purges had disintegrated and almost destroyed the Yugoslav communists, they also led to a rebirth of the Communist Party in Yugoslavia during the 1930s. First, in the context




of the Royal Dictatorship, communism held an enormous attraction for the radical-ized young intellectuals. Second, from the mid-1930s, a new generation of commu-nists took over the lead of the party and reorganized and united its structure. The leadership also overcame the isolation into which the party had been pushed during the 1920s and especially the early 1930s and, within the framework of the Comintern’s policy of the Popular Front, strove for cooperation with progressive and democratic forces against fascism. With regard to the national question in Yugoslavia, the party took a more moderate position. It withdrew its demand for the dissolution of Yugoslavia and instead called for the federalization and democratization of Yugoslavia on the basis of solidarity between the fraternal nations of Yugoslavia. although the party continued to call for national equality in Yugoslavia, it did take a more critical position against extreme nationalism, especially that of Croatian fascists. Thus, the communists continued to take as their starting point Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian, and Montenegrin nationhood, but at the same time recognized the Yugoslav state and an overarching Yugoslav supranational fraternity and solidarity.60 In Montenegro, the Communist Party became the leading opposi-tional force against the dictatorial regime, especially by means of demonstrations and meetings. Typically, the communist-led protest against the Serbian hegemonic regime strongly relied on Montenegrin collective identity and the Montenegrin right of self-determination. Dissociation from Serbian nationhood was, however, not evi-dent in the national program of the communists in Montenegro.61

after coming to power, the Yugoslav communists substantiated the new Socialist Yugoslavia as the expression and guarantee of both Yugoslav unity and the national equality of the constituent nations. andrew Wachtel has defined this nationalities policy as “a balancing act between separate national and supranational cultures.”62For Montenegro, it is in fact better to speak of a threefold balancing act between the Yugoslav, Serbian, and Montenegrin categories of national identity.63 In an article in the party’s newspaper Borba of 1 May 1945, Milovan Đilas, member of the nar-row Central Committee and Politburo and one of the major ideologues of the party, formulated the authoritative outline of the Communist Party’s position on Montenegrin nationhood. The Yugoslav communists dissociated themselves from the battle between zelenaši and bjelaši, as both had compromised themselves through collaboration during the war. Instead, Đilas argued for a middle ground which evoked complementary Serbian and Montenegrin categories of national identity. In brief, Montenegrins belonged to the Serbian branch of the South Slav people, as expressed in the common battle against the Ottomans, the shared religion and language, and the common historical traditions. However, the distinct develop-ment into a modern nation had differentiated Montenegrins from Serbs. When the Serbs developed into a modern nation during the nineteenth century, Montenegrin leaders continued the premodern Serbian struggle against Ottoman feudalism. The development into a modern Montenegrin nation had only started in the twentieth century and was finished with the Second World War.64 This point of view became




the official party line on Montenegrin nationhood. It combined Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood, denoted as the development from one Serbian premodern people (narod) into two distinct nations (nacija).65 Montenegrin nationhood was institutionalized politically in the form of the People’s Republic of Montenegro and culturally through media and numerous cultural-intellectual institutions, like the University of Montenegro in Titograd, the present Podgorica, the Montenegrin academy of Sciences and arts, and the Historical Institute of Montenegro. This institutionalization of Montenegrin nationhood, however, did not imply a negation of Serbian national identity, which found its expression in close cultural ties result-ing from the shared Serbian ethnicity.66

On top of the Serbian and Montenegrin national identity, from the early 1950s the League of Communists of Yugoslavia also promoted the idea of cultural rapproche-ment between the various national cultures of Yugoslavia as the exponent of a dis-tinct socialist form of Yugoslavism.67 This turn to Yugoslavism, however, generated many controversies and discussions, especially concerning the position of the con-stituent national cultures, and by 1963–1964 the equilibrium shifted from the pole of Yugoslav Unity to the multinational Brotherhood of different Yugoslav peoples. at the eighth congress of the League of Communists in 1963, Tito decisively rejected the creation of a common Yugoslav culture and instead defined the Yugoslav state as a multinational socialist state, which merely reflected the common interests of different nations, instead of some form of (socialist) cultural unity. This turn toward the autonomy of the constituent nations went hand in hand with the decen-tralization of Yugoslavia, the anti-statist ideology of the “withering away of the state”, and the localization of the economic organization of the country.68 Its clearest expressions were the increasingly vocal and exclusive Croatian nationalism of Matica hrvatska during the Croatian Spring of 1967–1971 and the unrests in Kosovo in the late 1960s.69 It was also reflected, more latently, in the institutionalization of a specific Bosnian Muslim nation,70 and the return to the Serbian national question by Serbian intellectuals like Dobrica Ćosić.71

In this context of the renewed questioning of the relation between national identi-ties available in Yugoslavia, that between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood was again discussed along the lines of a continuum from exclusive Montenegrin nation-hood, via the multiple nationalism of Đilas’s definition of Montenegrin nationhood, to exclusive Serbian nationhood.72 a prominent representative of the official party line was the leading historian of modern Montenegrin history, Dimitrije Vujović, who took as his starting point the common Serbian ethnic origin of Serbs and Montenegrins and their distinct development into modern nations.73 In the late 1960s, this multiple nationalism was increasingly challenged from an exclusive Montenegrin point of departure. a number of linguists and historians of literature like Radoje Radojević, Vojsilav Nikčević, Branko Banjević, and Radoslav Rotković developed the thesis of a separate Montenegrin national language and literature, strongly influenced by




similar statements from Croatian linguists of the time.74 In 1974, Savo Brković pub-lished a book on the origin and development of the Montenegrin nation that was explicitly directed against the moderate line of Đilas and Vujović and argued that the Montenegrins were characterized by a distinct national development since their arrival as Slavs on Montenegrin territory in the seventh century, claiming Montenegrin national consciousness from the earliest state formation in the region in the ninth century. The confusion with Serbian nationhood was the result, accordingly, of the common adherence to the Orthodox Church and the aggressive assimilation program of the Serbian bourgeoisie, and did not express any substantial national or ethnic unity.75 These developments mark the expansion toward an all-encompassing and exclusive elite definition of Montenegrin national identity, not only comprising Montenegrin historical individuality but also symbolic resources that had typically been framed within Serbian national identity, especially language and ethnicity.

In the 1980s, the elite discussion was continued with vigor. In 1980, the leading daily Pobjeda published a series of five articles by Špiro Kulišić on the ethno-gen-esis of the Montenegrins, which in essence elaborated on the argument made by Savo Brković, claiming that Montenegrins constituted a distinct ethnic community from the time they had arrived on Montenegrin territory.76 In 1990, Sreten Zeković published a collection devoted to “The Montenegrin nation and the Serbian political genocide against them,” consisting of historical sources substantiating this claim and a number of articles by leading proponents of exclusive Montenegrin nationhood like Radoslav Rotković, Vojislav Nikčević, Jevrem Brković, Sreten Zeković, Dragoje Živković, and Savo Brković. This work can be seen as a synthesis of earlier trends toward the codification of an all-encompassing Montenegrin national identity, which relied on an exclusive relation with Serbian national identity. Rotković argued that Montenegrins were descendants of a distinct Slavic tribe and had no specific bonds with the Serbian nation; Nikčević explained that the Montenegrin nation had spoken a distinct language ever since its arrival on the Balkans; and Danilo Radojević stated that the autocephalous Montenegrin Bishopric was the religious expression of the distinct Montenegrin national identity.77 Reactions from the Serbian national pole followed suit, in the form of numerous ethnographical and historical accounts of the Serbian identity of the Montenegrins, especially based on auto-identifications with Serbian national identity by Montenegrin rulers and intel-lectuals.78 The degree of openness toward Montenegrin individuality in these accounts varied. Whereas Batrić Jovanović recognized a distinct Montenegrin his-torical individuality, but subordinated it to their Serbian national consciousness,79

Milislav glomazić denounced the idea of Montenegrin nationhood as the Serbo-phobic ideology of fascists like Drljević and Štedimlija, which was completely incompatible with the Serbian ethno-national identity of Montenegrins.80

The leadership of the Communist Party of Montenegro continuously denounced exclusive Montenegrin and Serbian nationalist claims and instead repeated the




official party line that Serbs and Montenegrins were closely related and connected nations.81 In a reaction of 1981, Vujović explained: “Montenegrins simultaneously felt and declared themselves Serbs and Montenegrins. . . . as a result of the specific historical conditions of the development of different parts of the Serbian ethnic mass two national individualities have originated out of it.”82 The historian Branislav Đurđev followed the moderate line of Đilas and Vujović but traced the beginning of the distinct development of the modern nation back to the Montenegrin state under the dynasty of Crnojević in the fifteenth century.83 However, against the background of the growing ethno-national polarization in Yugoslavia during the 1980s, in Montenegro too the moderate line that argued for a complementary relation between Montenegrin and Serbian nationhood lost its societal relevance.

The Expansion of Exclusive Nationhood?

In this article, I have shown the rise of diverging interpretations of the relation between the Serbian and Montenegrin categories of national identity during the Yugoslav twentieth century in Montenegro. In the early twentieth century, both the Montenegrin and the Serbian category were available for national identification in the context of political modernization in the country. Klubaši and later bjelaši sub-ordinated Montenegrin regional identity to Serbian nationhood and attached no political claims to Montenegrin collective identity; pravaši and zelenaši recognized the complementarity of Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood. The latter model of multiple nationhood was also adopted in the nationalities policy of Socialist Yugoslavia. The existence of the Yugoslav state brought with it the rise and growing salience of an exclusive relation between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood alongside the gradual retreat of multiple nationhood. I argue that this development was not predetermined but has to be situated within the context of the continuous questioning and re-interpretation of relations between various concurring categories of national identity available in Yugoslavia, from the Yugoslav level to that of the Croatian, Serbian, and Slovenian nation and finally that of distinct parts of the latter level, like the Bosnian Muslims, Montenegrins, and Macedonians. In this context, multiple Serb-Montenegrin nationhood never became self-evident and banal, but was constantly reinterpreted and questioned to substantiate political divides.

as pointed out in the introductory section, this trend continued during the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia, when the dispute about Montenegrin statehood was accompanied by an elite discussion of the status of the Montenegrin nation, which took as a starting point an exclusive relation between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood. Remarkably, in this period Serb–Montenegrin national polarization did not dominate the political debate surrounding Montenegrin statehood. The major pro-independence party, the DPS, recognized Montenegrin nationhood especially on the basis of its historical individuality but was much more reluctant to attach other




markers of national identity, such as language or ethnic origins, to the Montenegrin category of nationhood and remained silent about the relation between Montenegrin and Serbian nationhood. a more exclusive Montenegrin national program was adopted by smaller pro-independence parties like the Liberal alliance of Montenegro, which supported the Montenegrin Orthodox Church and the codification of the Montenegrin language. The pro-union parties repudiated the attachment of demands for independence to Montenegrin collective identity, but in this camp too radical Serbian nationalist negations of Montenegrin collective identity occupied only a peripheral part of the political discourse.84

after the formation of the state-union of Serbia and Montenegro and continuing after the independence, however, the Montenegrin DPS-dominated government has taken a more affirmative position toward institutionalizations of Montenegrin nation-hood, as exemplified by the official recognition of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church as a religious community in 2000; the new flag and national hymn that go back to pre–First World War Montenegro and interwar Montenegrin autonomists; the refer-ence to Serbs and Montenegrins, alongside Croats, Bosniaks, albanians, and Muslims, as constituent nations of Montenegro in the constitution of October 2007; the installa-tion of the Montenegrin language as the primary language of office in the state, along-side Serbian, Bosnian (bošnjački), Croatian, and albanian, in the constitution and in the school curricula; or the Montenegrin framework in history and geography curric-ula.85 In January 2008, the government formed a council for the standardization of the Montenegrin language, under the presidency of Branko Banjević, president of Matica crnogorska, which led to the publication of a new Montenegrin orthography in June 2009 and a Montenegrin grammar in June 2010. This standardization of the Montenegrin language confirmed many of Nikčević’s norms, save exceptions like the letter з, or the allowance for both short and long, hyper-ijekavized pronominal and adjectival endings (-ih alongside -ijeh, -im alongside –ijem, etc.).86

Results from recent censuses reveal the expansion of exclusive Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood among the broader population. In the first place, the Serb-Montenegrin divergence has followed the contours of a territorialized, north–south division, whereby self-declared Serbs form a majority in the northern communities of the Sandžak, which were only subjected to Montenegrin state authority after the Balkan Wars, and self-declared Montenegrins comprise the majority in central and coastal Montenegro, the historical heartlands of the Montenegrin state.87 The change in the composition of the Montenegrin population by mother tongue in recent years further confirms the rise of a clear-cut distinction between Serbian and Montenegrin nationhood. In 2003 and 2011, the census for the first time presented the option of the various successors of what was called Serbo-Croatian during the existence of the Yugoslav state, that is, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian (bosanski and bošnjački), Montenegrin, and from 2011 also Serbo-Croatian and the novel but not very popular compounds Montenegro-Serbian (crnogorsko-srpski, 369 speakers) and Serbo-Montenegrin (srpsko-crnogorski, 618 speakers).88




In the 2003 census, 63.49 percent of the population gave Serbian as their mother tongue, against 21.96 percent Montenegrin speakers, whereas the percentage of self-declared Serbs by nationality was only 31.99 percent (against 43.16 percent Montenegrins). approximately half of the self-declared Montenegrins did not give Montenegrin as their mother tongue but rather Serbian. analogically, roughly half of the Bosniaks/Muslims did not indicate Bosniak or Bosnian as their mother tongue but in all likelihood Serbian (Table 2). These data indicate either the continuing relevance of Serbian nationhood—as marked by the Serbian language—alongside Montenegrin or Bosniak/Muslim national self-identification, or the lack (for some people, at least) of any national meaning ascribed to the Serbian language. In any case, Montenegrin and Serbian categories of collective identification were not seen as mutually exclusive.

In 2011, the share of Serbian speakers had dropped to 42.53 percent, against 36.66 percent speakers of Montenegrin and 2 percent speakers of Serbo-Croatian. Whereas an overwhelming majority of 97.22 percent of self-declared Serbs gave Serbian as their mother tongue, the self-declared Montenegrins were less decided: 66.29 percent of them gave Montenegrin as their mother tongue, 26.83 percent Serbian, and 2.5 percent Serbo-Croatian. Still, the growing share of speakers of Montenegrin indicates the increasing convergence between declarations of Montenegrin nationality and Montenegrin as mother tongue in comparison to the census of 2003, when almost half of the self-declared Montenegrins did not give Montenegrin as their mother tongue. apparently, the Serbian language is increasingly seen as incompatible with Montenegrin nationhood. Remarkably, Bosniaks are now divided between speakers of Bosnian and speakers of Montenegrin and the majority of Muslims gives Montenegrin as their mother tongue, whereas in 2003 a large part of Bosniaks/Muslims had still indicated Serbian as their mother tongue (see Table 3), indicating a shift from Bosniak/Muslim-Serb to Bosniak/Muslim-Montenegrin multiple nationhood.

These developments reveal the further decline in the compatibility of, or fluidity between, the Montenegrin and Serbian categories of nationhood, and the expansion

Table 2Selected Census Results of 2003 for Nationality and Mother Tongue

Nationality Number Mother Tongue Number

Serb 198,414 Serbian 393,740Montenegrin 267,669 Montenegrin 136,208Bosniaks 48,184 Bosniak (Bošnjački) 19,906Muslims 24,625 Bosnian (Bosanski) 14,172

Source: Republika Crne gore, Zavod za statistiku, Popis stanovništva, domaćinstva i stanova u 2003. Stanovništvo: nacionalna ili etnička pripadnost; Stanovništvo: vjeroispovjest, maternji jezik i nacionalna ili etnička pripadnost prema starosti i polu (Podgorica, 2004), 10. http://www.monstat.org/cg/page.php?id=222&pageid=57 (accessed 7 august 2012).




of two exclusive and clear-cut national identities among the broader population, not only in terms of political affiliation and position in the disputes surrounding Montenegrin statehood but also with regard to previously neutral factors like terri-tory and mother tongue. Thus, the development toward exclusive definitions of Montenegrin and Serbian nationhood in elite articulations of nationhood in Montenegro during the existence of the Yugoslav state is being disseminated among the broader population in the context of the polarization of Montenegrin society concerning the question of Montenegrin independence. The question remains as to whether, within a context of lower salience of nationhood both in Montenegrin society and in the broader region of the former Yugoslavia, the model of multiple nationhood could again gain relevance, or whether we are witnessing the crystal-lization of clearly divided Serbian and Montenegrin national entities in Montenegro.

Notes

1. Florian Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics since the Disintegration of Yugoslavia,” in Montenegro in Transition: Problems of Identity and Statehood, ed. F. Bieber, 11–42 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 13–21.

2. Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics,” 34–42; Beata Huszka, “The Dispute over Montenegrin Independence,” in Montenegro in Transition: Problems of Identity and Statehood, ed. F. Bieber, 43–62 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003).

3. amaël Cattaruzza, Territoire et nationalisme au Monténégro (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010), 125–33. 4. Florian Bieber and Jenni Winterhagen, “erst der Staat – dann die Nation: Staats- und Nationsbildung

in Montenegro,” Südosteuropa 57 (2009): 14–15; Siniša Malešević and gordana Uzelac, “a Nation-State without the Nation: The Trajectories of Nation-Formation in Montenegro,” Nations and Nationalism 13 (2007): 695–716.

5. Center for Democracy and Human Rights, Political Public Opinion in Montenegro, April 2006, 12, http://cedem.me/en/newsletters/2007/finish/42-political-public-opinion/234-political-public-opinion-ref-erendum-in-montenegro-april-2006.html (accessed 6 august 2012).

6. Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics,” 26–27; Bieber and Winterhagen, “Staats- und Nationsbildung,” 12–14; Cattaruzza, Territoire, 36, 69–77, 178–91.

Table 3Selected Results for Indication of Mother Tongue by Nationality

in the 2011 Census

Nationality Total Number Serbian Montenegrin Bosnian Bosniak Serbo-Croatian

Serbian 178,110 173,156 1,360 52 – 2,523Montenegrin 278,865 74,806 184,866 83 33 6,860Bosniak 53,605 250 17,381 31,871 3,290 74Muslim 20,537 1,103 17,693 547 250 255

Source: Republik Crne gore, Zavod za statistiku, Popis stanovništva, domaćinstva i stanova u 2011. Podaci o stavovništvu. http://www.monstat.org/cg/page.php?id=533&pageid=322 (accessed 7 august 2012).




7. Bernhard gröschel, Das Serbokroaticshe zwischen Linguistik und Politik (Munich: LINCOM, 2009), 286–301.

8. Saša Nedeljković, “antropološki pristup proučavanju etnogeneze: etnogeneza Crnogoraca,” in Antroplogija savremenosti, ed. Saša Nedeljković, 36–75 (Belgrade: Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropolo-giju Filozofskog Fakulteta Univerziteta u Beogradu / Srpski genealoški centar, 2007), 60–63; Šerbo Rastoder, “Istorijagrafija u Crnoj gori 1989-2001,” Forum Bosnae 32 (2005), 191–92.

9. Bieber and Winterhagen, “Staats- und Nationsbildung,” 18–22; Malešević and Uzelac, “Nation-State without a State,” 708–10.

10. Rastoder, “Istoriografija,” 192. 11. For a good example of the Montenegrin national point of departure, see www.montenet.org, for a

Serbian point of view see www.njegos.org (both accessed 6 august 2012). 12. Čarna Brković, “Floating Signifiers. Negotiations of the National on the Internet Forum Café del

Montenegro,” Südosteuropa 57 (2009): 55–69. 13. alexander Maxwell, “Multiple Nationalism: National Concepts in Nineteenth-Century Hungary

and Benedict anderson’s ‘Imagined communities,’” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 11 (2005): 385–414. 14. Celia applegate, “a europe of Regions: Reflections on the Historiography of Sub-national Places

in Modern Times,” American Historical Review 104 (1999): 1157–83. 15. For an elaborate examination of Croat-Yugoslav multiple nationhood in commemorative activity

in the interwar period, see Pieter Troch, “Interactive Nationhood: The Relation Between Croatian and Yugoslav National Identity in the Interwar Period,” Nations and Nationalism (forthcoming).

16. Bieber and Winterhagen, “Staats- und Nationsbildung,” 3–6, 14–16.17. Srđa Pavlović, “Who are Montenegrins? Statehood, Identity and Civic Society,” in Montenegro

in Transition: Problems of Identity and Statehood, ed. F. Bieber, 83–106 (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2003), 83–102.

18. Malešević and Uzelac, “Nation-State without a State,” 702–5, quotation on 704.19. Maxwell, “Multiple Nationalism,” 405–7. 20. Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 1984), 274–76; Srdja Pavlović, Balkan Anschluss: The Annexation of Montenegro and the Creation of the Common South Slavic State (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 2009), 48–52.

21. Živko andrijašević and Šerbo Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore (Podgorica: Centar za iseljenike Crne gore, 2006), 73–91, 111–16.

22. Ibid., 129–33, 166–67, 195–97. 23. Ibid., 177–280. 24. Cattaruzza, Territoire, 239–42. 25. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 81–88. 26. Pavlović, “Who are Montenegrins?,” 86. 27. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 254–55; Nikola Škerović, Crna Gora na osvitku

XX veka (Belgrade: Naučno delo, 1964), 86–87, 97–99. 28. Jovan Đonović, Ustavne i političke borbe u Crnoj Gori, 1905-1910 (Belgrade: knjižara Koste J.

Mihailovića, 1939), 52–54, 60–72; Škerović, Crna Gora, 91–117. 29. Škerović, Crna Gora, 157–62. 30. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 256–59; Đonović, Ustavne i političke borbe,

121–79; Škerović, Crna Gora, 261–97, 472–537. 31. Lazar Tomanović, Pedeset godina na prestolu Crne Gore, 1860-1910 (Cetinje: državna

štamparija, 1910).32. Banac, Yugoslav National Question, 276–77; Pavlović, Balkan Anschluss, 52–59. 33. Pavlović, Balkan Anschluss, 53–54. 34. Banac, Yugoslav National Question, 277–81. 35. Tomanović, Pedeset godina, 9. 36. Oliver Zimmer has coined the notion of symbolic resources to denote cultural resources that

“provide the symbolic raw material . . . social actors use as they define national identities in public dis-




course.” Oliver Zimmer, “Boundary Mechanisms and Symbolic Resources: Towards a Process-Oriented approach to National Identity,” Nations and Nationalism 9 (2003): 173–93, 180.

37. Ferdo Čulinović, Jugoslavija između dva rata, vol. 1 (Zagreb: Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti, 1961), 131–33; Pavlović, Balkan Anschluss, 119–32.

38. andriya Radovitch, Le Monténégro et ses tendances nationales (Paris: Imprimerie Slave, 1918). 39. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 305–6. 40. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 306–9; Čulinović, Jugoslavija, 135–37; Pavlović,

Balkan Anschluss, 147–63.41. Pavlović, Balkan Anschluss, 153–54. 42. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 309–14; Banac, National Question, 285–87;

Pavlović, Balkan Anschluss, 163–68.43. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 315–27. 44. Jovo Popović, “Pogled na crnogorsko pitanje. Memorandumjn podnesen konferenciju mira u

Parizu,” in Elementa montenegrina 1/90: Crnogorski narod i srpska politička genocida nad njim, ed. Sreten Zeković, 266–77 (Zagreb, 1990 [1919]); Pavle Popović, “geneza srbijanskog/crnogorskog pitanja,” in Elementa montenegrina 1/90: Crnogorski narod i srpska politička genocida nad njim, ed. Sreten Zeković, 153–64 (Zagreb, 1990 [1920]).

45. Quoted in Dimitrije Vujović, Ujedinjenje Crne Gore i Srbije (Titograd: Istorijski institut NR Crne gore, 1962), 354–55.

46. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 383–85; Banac, National Question, 287, 330.47. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 377–79, 385–90. 48. Sekula Drljević, Centralizam ili federalizam? (Zemun: M. Mlađan, 1926), 10. 49. Ibid., 19–21. 50. Quoted in Batrić Jovanović, Crnogorci o sebi (od vladike Danila do 1941): Prilog istorije

crnogorske nacije (Belgrade: Narodna knjiga, 1986), 309. 51. Dimitrije Vujović, Crnogorski federalisti, 1919-1929 (Titograd: Crnogorska akademija nauka i

umjetnosti, 1981), 186–87. 52. Savić Marković Štedimlija, “Osnovi crnogorskog nacionalizma,” in Tri zabranjena knjiga Savića

Markovića Štedimlije, 193–275 (Podgorica: Dukljanska akademija nauka i umjetnosti, 2008 [1937]), 217. 53. Ibid., 253. 54. Ibid., 193–275. 55. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 407–8, 417–18. 56. Jovanović, Crnogorci, 289–92.57. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 414–17. 58. aleksa Djilas, The Contested Country: Yugoslav Unity and Communist Revolution, 1919-1953

(Cambridge, Ma: Harvard University Press, 1991), 83–89. 59. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 381; Vujović, Ujedinjenje, 537.60. Djilas, Contested Country, 89–102. 61. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 399–403. 62. andrew Wachtel, Making a Nation, Breaking a Nation: Literature and Cultural Politics in

Yugoslavia (Stanford, Ca: Stanford University Press), 134. 63. Malešević and Uzelac, “Nation-State without a State,” 704. 64. Milovan Đilas, “O crnogorskom nacionalnom pitanju,” Borba, 1 May 1945, http://www.srpsko-

nasledje.co.rs/sr-l/1998/11/article-12.html (accessed 7 august 2012). 65. Jovanović, Crnogorci, 399–400. 66. andrijašević and Rastoder, Istorija Crne Gore, 471–77. 67. Hilde Katrine Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia: Tito, the Communist Leadership and the

National Question (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 133–93; Dejan Jović, “Yugoslavism and Yugoslav Communism: From Tito to Kardelj,” in Yugoslavism: Histories of a Failed Idea, 1918-1992, ed. Dejan Djokić, 157–81 (London: Hurst, 2003); Wachtel, Making a Nation, 128–72.




68. Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 157–58, 180–86; Jović, “Yugoslavism,” 168–81; Wachtel, Making a Nation, 179–81, 184–89.

69. Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 227–62. 70. Husnija Kamberović, “Bošnjaci 1968: Politički kontekst priznavanja nacionalnog identiteta,” in

Rasprave o nacionalnom identitetu Bošnjaka, ed. Husnija Kamberović, 59–81 (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 2009).

71. Nicholas J. Miller, “Reconstituting Serbia: 1945-1991,” in State-Society Relations in Yugoslavia 1945-1992, ed. Melissa Bokovoy, Jill Irvine, and Carol Lilly, 291–314 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997).

72. Rastoder, “Istoriografija,” 188–89.73. Vujović, Ujedinjenje, 16–17, 520–23. 74. Ksenija Cvetković-Sander, Sprachpolitik und nationale Identität im sozialistischen Jugoslawien

(1945-1991): Serbokroatisch, Albanisch, Makedonisch und Slowenisch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2011), 266–75; Haug, Creating a Socialist Yugoslavia, 219–20; Miloš Okuka, “Montenegrin vs. Serbian, or: Is There a Separate Montenegrin Language at all?” in Lexical Norm and National Language: Lexicography and Language Policy in South-Slavic Languages after 1989, ed. Radovan Lučić, 38–49 (Munich: Otto Sagner, 2002), 38–39.

75. Savo Brković, O postanku i razvoju crnogorske nacije (Titograd: grafički zavod, 1974). 76. Špiro Kulišić, O etnogenezi Crnogoraca (Titograd, 1980), http://montenegrina.net/pages/pages1/

antropologija/o_etnogenezi_crnogoraca.htm (accessed 6 august 2012). 77. Elementa montenegrina 1/90: Crnogorski narod i srpska politička genocida nad njim, ed. Sreten

Zeković (Zagreb, 1990).78. Nedeljković, “antropološki pristup,” 39–47. 79. Jovanović, Crnogorci, 398. 80. Milislav glomazić, Etničko i nacionalno biće Crnogoraca (Belgrade: Panpublik, 1988), esp. 200. 81. Jovanović, Crnogorci, 400–1. 82. Quoted in ibid., 401–2. 83. Branislav Đurđev, “Ponovo o postanku crnogorskog naroda,” Istorijski zapisi 54 (1981), 135–58. 84. Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics”; Bieber and Winterhagen, “Staats- und Nationsbildung.”85. Bieber, “Montenegrin Politics,” 26–27; Bieber and Winterhagen, “Staats- und Nationsbildung,”

16–18, 20–22, Cattaruzza, Territoire, 61–68. 86. Pravopis crnogorskoga jezika i rječnik crnogorskoga jezika (pravopisni rječnik), (Podgorica:

Ministarstvo prosvjete i nauke Crne gore, 2009), http://www.gov.me/files/1248442673.pdf (accessed 6 august 2012); adnan Čirgić, Ivo Pranjković, and Josip Silić, Gramatika crnogorskoga jezika (Podgorica: Ministarstvo Prosvjete i nauke Crne gore, 2010), http://hr.scribd.com/doc/43618692/gramatika-crnogorskoga-jezika (accessed 6 august 2012).

87. Cattaruzza, Territoire, 239–42. 88. Republika Crne gore, Zavod za statistiku, Popis stanovništva, domaćinstva i stanova u 2011.

Podaci o stavovništvu, http://www.monstat.org/cg/page.php?id=533&pageid=322 (accessed 7 august 2012).

Pieter Troch is affiliated to the Department of Languages and Cultures at ghent University. He recently obtained a PhD in east-european Languages and Cultures from the same university with a dissertation on the possibilities of and limitations to Yugoslav nation-building in the domain of education in the First Yugoslav state (1918-1941).



From 'and' to 'either/or': Nationhood in Montenegro during the Yugoslav twentieth century

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