Montenegro and the Trials of Serbian and Croatian National Identity

The key challenge for Serbian communities (in Serbia, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina / Republika Srpska) regarding Croatian nationalism is that, despite a wealth of in-depth and high-quality research on its historical roots and modern developments—covering its political, cultural, and legal aspects—written by experts such as Radivoje Radić, Milorad Ekmečić, and Mirjana Stefanovski, public understanding remains surprisingly limited or entirely lacking. Besides the sensational rhetoric of figures like Šešelj, who spouts slogans like “Virovitica – Karlovac – Karlobag” or redundantly asks, “Where are the graves of Croatian kings?”, the discourse in Serbian regions reveals a notably poor grasp of the historical developments that have shaped and influenced Croatian national awareness.

The oversimplification of intricate processes

Such inquiries are particularly sensitive in Montenegro’s delicate post-Yugoslav landscape, which is experiencing escalating social fragmentation. This division arises from the schism between Serbian nationalists, claiming to embody the Montenegrin state’s original Serbian essence; Montenegrin nationalists, who aim to dissociate Montenegrin identity from Serbian identity; and the significant sway of neighboring Croatia—not only over the Croatian minority in coastal areas but also in the formulation of a distinct Montenegrin national identity.

Consequently, Mijajlo Backović, the Serbian Orthodox parish priest in Tivat, perhaps understandably exasperated by Zagreb’s condescending stance towards Montenegro, remarked that “until World War II, Roman Catholics in the Bay of Kotor (a bay on the Montenegrin coast) always identified as Bokešli, or Serbs”; he stated that “Ivo Andrić and Meša Selimović attest to this,” and in relation to an unspecified project, “there was a Croatisation of the bay’s Roman Catholics,” during which they were “compelled to embrace Croatian identity.” However, much of this narrative does not hold up under scrutiny. The reality is that many Roman Catholics in the bay defined their identities regionally, and some did identify as Serb Catholics—just as today, some embrace their identity as Montenegrins of Roman Catholic faith. However, the early signs of their gradual alignment with the Croatian national sentiment can be traced back well before World War II.

And no, not in the 7th, 10th, or 12th century as Backović would likely be countered by ill-informed advocates from the Croatian (and Montenegrin-nationalist) camp, who might refer to the mythologized medieval narrative from the 13th century known as the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja or the Bar Genealogy, trying to assert an unsubstantiated continuity of a thousand years between today’s inhabitants of the Bay of Kotor and the legendary Dukljan Red Croats. Instead, we should look to the late 17th century, when Russian traveler Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy recorded that “the town of Perast belongs to the Albanian principality (i.e., the Bay of Kotor—ed.), where live many Serbs of the Greek faith,” but also that “Croats live there: sea captains, astronomers, and sailors.”

Indeed, how could Croats exist in Perast by the end of the 17th century, when, according to the ideologues inspired by Šešelj, they theoretically shouldn’t be present at all? For context, Vojislav Šešelj is a Serbian radical nationalist ideologue known for the theory that all speakers of the shared Shtokavian dialect are, in essence, former Serbs who need to be renationalized—by whatever means necessary—so that the Serbian state can extend to the borders of Virovitica, Karlovac, and Karlobag in Croatia.

Considering that the Mediterranean at that time—including the Venetian Republic, which governed the entire Bay of Kotor—was a vibrant and fluid milieu where goods, capital, and individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds mingled freely, along with new ideas about national belonging, and if we acknowledge the possibility that the Croats encountered by Count Tolstoy were actually sailors and scholars from Dalmatia or their descendants living in one of the cities of their Venetian state—then we must ask: what is the true essence of this phenomenon?

How does the presence of Croats in Perast in the late 17th century connect with the accounts written merely two decades later by Andrija Zmajević, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bar and Primate of Serbia, then based in Perast? In his writings, he refers to a shared Montenegrin heritage with the Serbian Patriarch Arsenije Čarnojević, describing himself as “by lineage a compatriot, a friend, and a fellow steward of the Kingdom of Serbia (in which we ourselves, despite our unworthiness, currently hold positions according to the traditions of the Holy Roman Church).”

Are we witnessing early forms of national self-conception that must be interpreted within the multicultural context of the Venetian realm? Could this represent a scenario of transitional, layered ethnic affiliation that does not yet align with the narrower, Romantic-era notions of nationhood? Or might it instead illustrate an early instance of cultural assimilation within the maritime mercantile environment?

Each of these suggestions constitutes a defensible historical hypothesis—one that necessitates moving beyond both political myths and simplified ethnonational narratives, whether they arise from Serbian (or Montenegrin) perspectives or Croatian ones.

A misapprehension of the pre-modern concept of the nation

Nevertheless, the Serbian perspective in Montenegro continues to wrestle with the notion of “Dukljanstvo”—a pseudo-historical narrative grounded in the political ideologies of Ante Starčević and his ideological successors, including Ivo Pilar, Milan Šufflay, Dominik Mandić, and Savić Marković Štedimlija. This narrative, now devoid of its explicit Croatian identity, is sustained by ideologues like Dragutin Papović. Currently, this concept is promoted as the foundation of a Montenegrin “homeland” identity and is essentially an adaptation of the former Red Croatian ideology—an ideology that served as a basis for the genocide and enforced assimilation of the Serbian populace during the Second World War.

It is crucial to grasp the origins of the belief that medieval Serbian territories, such as Dioclea (the majority of what is now Montenegro) and Raška (roughly present-day southwestern Serbia), are intrinsically Croatian—and to comprehend why this notion, at its outset, did not bear the overtly malignant connotation it would later assume. We previously referenced the medieval narrative, the so-called Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, which recounts a legendary tale about a ruler of the South Slavs—Svetopelk. It is suggested that, within an unspecified historical timeframe, he divided his expansive realm into Zagorje, or Surubia (comprising Serbia and Bosnia), and the Coastal region (White and Red Croatia).

It is essential to recognize that medieval geste were primarily political manifestos. Their aim was to glorify, legitimate, or mythologize the origins of a particular power, group, or state. In achieving this, facts were often obscured by a blend of oral tradition, legend, personal interpretation, and outright fabrication. This served the political motivations of those who commissioned such narratives.

Historian Tibor Živković identified Croatian Ban Paul Šubić as a potential patron of the Chronicle. During his rise in the 13th century, Šubić had ambitions regarding the Serbian crown and therefore sought a “historical” work that could lend legitimacy to those aspirations. Consequently, despite the strenuous efforts of politicized Croatian historiography during the 19th and 20th centuries, we find no trace—neither in historical documents nor physical artifacts—of Red Croatia or its supposed capital Dioclea (an ancient city corresponding to the site of modern Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica) in the era to which this imagined entity is retroactively ascribed. Nonetheless, the uncritical acceptance of the Chronicle‘s assertions played a role in inspiring the notions of Croatian pre-modern estate-based nationalism and its Illyrian pan-Slavist ideological direction—an intellectual line that predates, by centuries, the chauvinism and racialism of Ante Starčević, the founding ideologue of modern Croatian nationalism in the 19th century.

From Pan-Slavism to Pan-Chauvinism

The pivotal intellectual figure in this evolution was undoubtedly Croatian historian, writer, and lexicographer of German descent, Pavao Ritter Vitezović (1652–1713), rightly recognized as the father of pan-Croatianism—a doctrine asserting that all South Slavs, indeed all Slavs by origin, are, in truth, Croats.

In his memorandum Responsio ad postulata, Vitezović articulates an expanded vision of Croatian territory, which not only includes Croatia as conventionally defined, Dalmatia, and the islands but also Istria, Carniola, Bosnia, and Serbia. This conception of Croatia closely corresponds with Habsburg ambitions for territorial expansion during the Great Turkish War. Conversely, in his work Croatia, Vitezović delineates significantly tighter boundaries for Croatia, drawing them along a line from the Raša River to the Sava and Cetina, encompassing the County of Livno and all Dalmatian islands. In the treatise Dissertatio Regni Croatiae, he provides even more precise delineation, confining Croatia to the stretch between the Sava River, Borovo Mountain, and the mouth of the Cetina. However, in the piece that garnered the widest acclaim, Croatia Rediviva (“Revived Croatia”), Vitezović assigns to Croatia an extensive territory stretching from the Baltic to the Black and Adriatic Seas, even incorporating Hungary. Yet, in the memorandum Regia Illyriorum Croatia, he reverts to the original vision articulated in Responsio ad postulata, albeit this time excluding the Slovene territories.

Vitezović’s conceptualization of Croatia, grounded not in historical reality but in ideological fabrication, is fundamentally constructed upon a revival of medieval Croatian feudal law, which he endeavors to anchor as securely as possible in a mythical past. This intellectual framework would later be adopted in the 19th century by Ante Starčević. However, in contrast to Starčević, Vitezović displays no trace of Serbophobia—unlike another Croatian pre-modern estate-based nationalist, Juraj Ratkaj. In fact, the opposite is true.

In collaboration with contemporary Serbian intellectuals and clergymen—most prominently future Metropolitans of Karlovci, Sofronije Podgoričanin and Hristifor Dimitrijević—Vitezović authored the first comprehensive history of the Serbian people, which also served as a political guide for the restoration of Serbian statehood following the Ottoman expulsion: Serbia Ilustrata (“Revealed Serbia”). A key influence on Vitezović, alongside the controversial claimant to the Serbian throne Count Đorđe Branković and his Slavo-Serbian Illyrian state-building vision—which traced Serbian origins back to the Roman king Servius Tullius—was the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Jenopolje, Isaija Đaković.

Disillusioned with the Habsburgs for their focus on dynastic wars, Vitezović began to place his hopes for the liberation of a “revived Croatia” from Ottoman rule in the hands of Peter the Great’s Russia. As a result, his verses about the Serbs began to feature a decidedly pan-Slavic tone:

„After all, the original term “Syrb,” from which derive “Syrbal,” “Syrblanin,” “Syrbsko,” and so forth, in Latin would mean “itch” — and it might well be imagined that, indistinguishable from their fellow Slavs, the Syrbli took their nickname precisely from this word. They, like the others, are collectively known as “Slavs,” which means “the chosen” or “the glorious.” Yet some call themselves Hirvati or Ervati, from hrvanje, meaning “warlike”; others Hirli or Hrli or Vrli, meaning “valiant”; still others Vandals, meaning “the last to arrive”; some Pazinase, meaning “guard thyself”; and others by yet different names. But (according to my firm belief), the Syrbli were named for their itch — that burning desire — for heroic glory, for plunder, and for new homelands.“

Although Serbia Ilustrata remained largely obscure due to the author’s death, Pavao Vitezović, in 1713, and that of his patron, Metropolitan Dimitrijević, a year prior, its concepts did not simply disappear. Central among them was the notion that Serbs were “Croats by wrestling” (i.e., by arms, by struggle)—an idea which had likely been circulating among Roman Catholic Slavic-speaking intellectuals and ecclesiastical circles in the Habsburg Monarchy and the Venetian Republic, possibly at Vitezović’s prompting, even before Serbia Ilustrata was penned.

Over time, influenced by the intellectual elite, this narrative brought the Croatian designation increasingly close to the Roman Catholic populations originating from former Serbian territories—especially along the coast. This development ran parallel to broader European nation-building trends. The shift stemmed from an increasing conflation of the Croatian term with the medieval term Latinin (Latin Christian), whereas the Serbian designation became more firmly associated with Orthodoxy as the predominant religious tradition—even amid figures like Andrija Zmajević or Ivan Tomko Mrnavić, who perceived no contradiction between Serbian national identity and Roman Catholic faith.

Yet, religious affiliation would (or did) eventually emerge as the determining factor shaping the primary national self-identification of the majority within both Catholic and Orthodox communities.

The 19th century, however, introduced a fundamentally new reality. The title of “Father of the (Croatian) Homeland” was not conferred upon the pan-Slavist and Serbophile Pavao Ritter Vitezović—who, throughout his evolving views, repeatedly asserted that Serbs and Croats were largely identical—but upon Dr. Ante Starčević, a legal scholar. In alignment with the proto-fascist social Catholicism, Starčević, in his lesser-known work The Name Serb (Ime Serb), reinterpreted Vitezović’s Serbs—those supposedly driven by an “itch for heroic glory”—as a people whose very name stemmed from a disease (the itch) and who, by their very nature, symbolized a contagion.

There is little need to elaborate on the implications such racist interpretations had during the Second World War.

The Pointlessness of Croatian and Serbian Chauvinism

In the present day, with Marko Perković Thompson—the leading promoter of Starčević-style pan-Croatianism—drawing crowds of up to half a million in the heart of Zagreb, it is imperative for the intellectual elite of the Serbian community—especially in Montenegro—to confront such spectacles with maturity. This means addressing them not with the fabricated hysteria of Šešelj or the grim echoes of 1990s animosity, but with the recognition that nations are not final products, completed entities launching into the world fully formed from some nationalist deity’s magician’s hat—they are vibrant communities involved in a continuous process of construction and reevaluation.

In fact, Serbian critique of contemporary Croatian nationalism must fundamentally return to the incisive yet analytically tempered analysis of Starčević’s Rightism provided by Jovan Skerlić—a critique that remains profoundly relevant today:

“In the second half of the 19th century, when political and social ideals had been fully formed, when political and national movements everywhere had acquired a social or at least economic dimension, he (Ante Starčević) remained an anachronistic medieval jurist, utterly outdated in his fixation on the dead ideal of ‘historical right.’ Nothing could be more futile than his attempts to base the people’s struggle solely on legalistic principles, and nothing more paradoxical than his appeal to medieval treaties and charters—at a time like this, in this grim age of the ‘right of the stronger’ and the revival of the ‘law of the sword,’ when international law is a cruel joke for subjugated peoples and oppressed lands, and when treaties signed just yesterday are disregarded without a second thought.”

However, to cultivate such a mature perspective once again, it is essential to reclaim an intellectual gravity akin to Skerlić’s—something that is light years removed from the current confluence of Dragoslav Bokan-style Ljotićism and Dragoš Kalajić’s Nazi neopaganism, which perilously aligns the very concept of the Serbian nation with Starčević’s sterile, estate-based model. The presence of half a million Thompson supporters in central Zagreb sends a chilling message—not only to the dwindling Serbian population in Croatia but to the Serbian community at large.

Yet an even greater peril exists among those within that community who evidently cannot conceal their longing for a Starčević of their own, a Tuđman (a radical Croatian nationalist and Croatian president who led the Croatian independence movement from Yugoslavia during the 1990s) of their own, or a Thompson of their own—to rally them, glorify them, and march them into the fold of a “New Europe.”