MONTENEGRO, the Black Mountain, formerly a country of south-eastern Europe, its name being the Venetian variant of the Italian Monte Nero. It extended between 45° 55' and 43° 2I' N. lat., and between 18° 3o' and 2o° E. long., with a seaboard of 28 m. on the Adriatic sea. It included most of the basins of the Moratcha, and its feeder, the Zeta, flowing into Lake Scutari, and that of the Piva, while the river Tara formed its north-east bound ary. It was mostly difficult mountain-country, with some rich grassy uplands and small cultivable basins around Cettigne, the former village capital, and a fairly rich belt along the Zeta. The north was largely composed of forested heights among which the rivers ran in deep gorges, and to the west of Cettigne stands Mount Lovchen (5,633 ft.), the dark mountain which is the reason for the country's name and the centre of the region's history because it was an asylum for the Serbian nobles after the defeat by the Turks at Kossovo (1389). See YUGOSLAVIA.
Crna Gora, the Black Mountain, better known as Montenegro, which did not become a separate unit of its own till the 14th century, was really a development from one of the earliest of Serb state formations, the so-called Zeta, which comprised the districts round the river of that name, with Skutari and its lake, the Bocche di Cattaro, and a part of what was after wards Hercegovina. It gradually came to be merged in the mediaeval Serbian State under the Nemanja dynasty (q.v.), though retaining a certain rude autonomy under Zupans of its own. After the death of Tsar Dugan (1356) the central authority weakened, and a number of great feudal lords asserted their independence. While King Vukagin and Marko Kraljevie ruled in part of Mace donia, and Stephen Vukeie established the Duchy of St. Sava, the Balga family, cousins of Tsar Urog, asserted control in the Zeta, holding Skutari and Dulcigno as their two chief strongholds. The Balga ruled from about 1358 to 1421, offering a refuge in their mountains to Serbs flying from the Turkish advance, and on the other side holding in check the designs of Venice on the Southern Adriatic. They were succeeded by another Serbian dynasty, the Crnojevie, which was related to the Albanian hero Scanderbeg, and also allied itself with Venetian patrician families. As the Turks successively conquered Serbia, Bosnia and Albania, the Black Mountain found itself in a position of growing isola tion. In 1479 the Venetians surrendered Skutari to the Porte, in 1482 Hercegovina was overrun, and in 1484 No the Black was obliged to burn his tiny capital at Zabljak on the north-eastern shore of the Lake of Skutari, and to withdraw to the more in accessible village of Cetinje, perched beneath the great peak of Loveen. Here No laid the independence of Montenegro, founded a monastery and bishopric and won a name in legend and popular poetry, as a kind of Barbarossa or Boabdil who after long slumber in the bowels of the mountain would one day come forth to free the Serbian race. The spirit animating No and his followers is revealed in the law which prescribed that any man leaving the field of battle without orders or showing signs of fear, should be dressed as a woman and then driven by the real women out of the country, as a coward and a traitor. Yet these broken men were
not untouched by the new culture from the west : for Ivo's son George bought a printing press from the Venetians and erected it at Obod, where some of the earliest Slav books were printed. Only too soon it had to be melted down to provide leaden bullets against the Turks.
The last Crnojevie re , signed office in 1516, and from that date till 1696 the mountaineers were ruled by their Vladikas or Bishops, elected by popular assem blies and consecrated by the Serbian Patriarch of Pee (Ipek). This was a period of perpetual warfare with the Turks and of
periodic ion, Cetinje being captured in 1623 and 1687. By
' the close of the 17th century Muslim intruders were beginning to levy dues upon the peasants, mosques were being built and there was a certain apostasy to Islam. In 1697 the irreconcilables met the growing danger by granting to the Vladika, Danilo Petro vie of Njegoi, the right to select his successor among his own kin and thus found a new dynasty. In 1700 he received consecra tion from the Serbian Patriarch at his new home in Karlovci (Karlowitz) and in 1702 organized the famous "Montenegrin Ves pers," by which almost all the Muslims were massacred and their few survivors forced to be rebaptized. Danilo was the first to establish those relations with Russia which were to become a tradition of his family, and in 1711 took up arms against the Turks at the instance of Peter the Great, with the result that Cetinje was sacked for the third time. In 1716 Danilo visited St. Petersburg and obtained an annual subsidy from the tsar. His two successors Sava and Vasili also paid visits to Russia, and on the latter's death there, in 1766, an impostor named Stephen the Little obtained the throne of Montenegro by claiming to be the murdered Tsar Peter III., so strong was the appeal of Slav senti ment. After Stephen's murder in 1774 the aged Sava resumed office. His nephew Peter I. (1782-183o), the greatest of the Vladikas, again joined Russia in war upon the Turks, from 1787 onwards, but after peace was left alone to face their vengeance. In 1796 at Krusi he won a great victory over the vizier of Skutari, whose head was long preserved as a trophy in the monastery of Cetinje. After Austerlitz he co-operated with the Russian fleet against the French in Dalmatia and laid siege to Ragusa : but he failed in his design of acquiring the Bocche di Cattaro, which fell to Austria in 1814. At home Peter I. discouraged the blood feud and introduced a rough code of law, and the rudiments of an administration. After his death he was canonized by popular sentiment. His nephew Peter II. (183o-51) was not only remark able as warrior and statesman, but is recognized as the greatest of Serbian poets (for his two epics "The Mountain Garland" and "Light of the Microcosm"). He established a senate in 1831, was interested in education and showed his belief in national unity by cordial relations with Alexander of Serbia and Ban Jela '6.6 of Croatia. He was buried on the summit of Mount LovCen.