Montenegro, prince-bishopric of

Most historians believe that the Croats are a purely Slavic people who probably migrated to the Balkans from present-day Ukraine.

A newer theory, however, holds that the original Croats were nomadic Sarmatians who roamed Central Asia, migrated onto the steppes around 200 BCE, and rode into Europe near the end of the fourth century CE, possibly together with the Huns.

The Sarmatian Croats, the theory holds, conquered the Slavs of northern Bohemia and southern Poland and formed a small state called White Croatia near present-day Kraków.

The Croats then supposedly mingled with their more numerous Slavic subjects and adopted the Slavic language, while the subjects assumed the tribal name "Croat."

A tenth-century Byzantine source reports that in the seventh century Emperor Heraclius enlisted the Croats to expel the Avars from Byzantine lands.

The Croats had overrun the Avars and Slavs in Dalmatia around 630, then drove the Avars from today's Slovenia and other areas.

In the eighth century, the Croats lived under loose imperial rule, and Christianity and Latin culture recovered in the coastal cities.

The Franks subjugated most of the Croats in the eighth century and sent missionaries to baptize them in the Latin rite, but the Byzantine Empire continued to rule Dalmatia.

Croatia emerges as an independent nation in 924.

Tomislav (910-ca. 928), a tribal leader, establishes himself as the first king of Croatia, ruling a domain that stretches eastward to the Danube.

The Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosnians, Macedonians, and Albanians have virtually independent histories.

The Slovenes will struggle to define and defend their cultural identity for a millennium, first under the Frankish Kingdom and then under the Austrian Empire.

The Croats of Croatia and Slavonia will enjoy a brief independence before falling under Hungarian and Austrian domination; and the Croats in Dalmatia struggle under Byzantine, Hungarian, Venetian, French, and Austrian rule.

The Serbs, who will briefly rival the Byzantine Empire in medieval times, will suffer five hundred years of Turkish domination before winning independence in the nineteenth century.

Their Montenegrin kinsmen will live for centuries under a dynasty of bishop-priests and savagely defend  their mountain homeland against foreign aggressors.

Bosnians will turn to heresy to protect themselves from external political and religious pressure, convert in great numbers to Islam after the Turks invade, and become a nuisance to Austria-Hungary in the late nineteenth century.

A hodgepodge of ethnic groups will people Macedonia over the centuries.

As the power of the Ottoman Empire wanes, the region is contested among the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, and Albanians and also is a pawn among the major European powers.

Finally, the disputed Kosovo region, with an Albanian majority and medieval Serbian tradition, will remain an Ottoman backwater until after the Balkan wars of the early twentieth century.

Civil war in the Ottoman Empire saves Serbia in the early fifteenth century, but the Turks soon reunite their forces to conquer the last Serbian stronghold at Smederjevo in 1459 and subjugate the whole country.

Serbs flee to Hungary, Montenegro, Croatia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, and some form outlaw bands.

In response to the activities of the latter, the Turks disinter and burn the remains of St. Sava.

By the sixteenth century, southern Hungary has a sizable Serbian population that remains after the Turks conquer the region in 1526.

Montenegro, which had emerged as an independent principality after the death of Dusan, wages continual guerrilla war on the Turks and never is conquered, but the Turkish threat does force Prince Ivan of Montenegro to move his capital high into the mountains, where he founds a monastery and sets up a printing press.

In 1516 Montenegro becomes a theocratic state.

Albanian chieftains gather on March 1, 1444, in the cathedral of Lezhe with the prince of Montenegro and delegates from Venice and proclaim Skanderbeg commander of the Albanian resistance.

All of Albania, including most of Epirus, accepts his leadership against the Ottoman Turks, but local leaders keep control of their own districts.

Under a red flag bearing Skanderbeg's heraldic emblem, an Albanian force of about thirty thousand men holds off brutal Ottoman campaigns against their lands for twenty-four years.

Twice the Albanians overcome sieges of Krujë.

In 1449 the Albanians rout Sultan Murad II himself.

Later, they repulse attacks led by Sultan Mehmed II.

In 1461 Skanderbeg goes to the aid of his suzerain, King Alfonso I of Naples, against the kings of Sicily.

The government under Skanderbeg is unstable, however, and at times local Albanian rulers cooperate with the Ottoman Turks against him.

When Skanderbeg dies at Lezhe, the sultan reportedly cries out, "Asia and Europe are mine at last. Woe to Christendom! She has lost her sword and shield."

The Republic of Venice has dominated the coasts of today's Montenegro from 1420.

The area around Cattaro (Kotor) has become part of Venetinan Albania.

Zeta, which had emerged as an independent Serban principality after the death of Stefan Dusan in 1355, has waged continual guerrilla war on the Ottomans.

It had been annexed in 1421 to the Serbian Despotate but after 1455 another noble family from Zeta, the Crnojevićs, became sovereign rulers of the country, making it the last free monarchy of the Balkans before it fell in 1496 to the Ottomans, and became annexed to the sanjak of Shkodër.

The small country has never been conquered, but the Turkish threat had forced its Prince Ivan to move his capital high into the mountains, where he has founded a monastery and set up a printing press.

The first Sanjak-beg (governor) is Ivan Crnojević's son Staniša (Skenderbeg Crnojević), who converts to Islam, and governs until 1528.

Zeta during the reign of Crnojevićs becomes known under its current name—Montenegro.

Only small town centers are controlled by Ottomans, while the mountains and rural areas are de facto independent and controlled by Montenegrin clans ruled by chieftains, who also are military leaders.

All clan leaders meet up several times a year at the Zbor (assembly) in Cetinje, Montenegrin capital, to make decisions of importance for nation, to solve blood feuds and to declare wars.

Ali Pasha (1741-1822), the Lion of Janina, was born to a powerful clan from Tepelene and spent much of his youth as a bandit.

He had risen to become governor of the Ottoman province of Rumelia, which includes Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace, before establishing himself in Janina.

Like Kara Mahmud Bushati, Ali Pasha wants to create an autonomous state under his rule.

When Ali Pasha forges links with the Greek revolutionaries, Sultan Mahmud II decides to destroy him.

The sultan first discharges the Albanian from his official posts and recalls him to Constantinople.

Ali Pasha refuses and puts up a formidable resistance that Britain's Lord Byron immortalizes in poems and letters.

In January 1822, however, Ottoman agents assassinate Ali Pasha and send his head to Constantinople.

Nevertheless, it will take eight more years before the Sublime Porte willl move against Mustafa Pasha Bushati.

The Bushati family dominates the Shkodër region through a network of alliances with various highland tribes.

Kara Mahmud Bushati attempts to establish an autonomous principality and expand the lands under his control by playing off Austria and Russia against the Sublime Porte.

In 1785 Kara Mahmud's forces attack Montenegrin territory, and Austria offers to recognize him as the ruler of all Albania if he will ally himself with Vienna against the Sublime Porte.

Seizing an opportunity, Kara Mahmud sends the sultan the heads of an Austrian delegation in 1788, and the Ottomans appoint him governor of Shkodër.

When he attempts to wrest land from Montenegro in 1796, however, he is defeated and beheaded.

Kara Mahmud's brother, Ibrahim, cooperates with the Sublime Porte until his death in 1810, but his successor, Mustafa Pasha Bushati, proves to be recalcitrant despite participation in Ottoman military campaigns against Greek revolutionaries and rebel pashas.

He cooperates with the mountain tribes and brings a large area under his control.

The Montenegrins constantly battle the Turks and Albanians.

Cetinje is overrun by Turkish forces in 1692, on which occasion the defendants of the monastery fire the gunpowder supply, destroying the monastery, themselves, and many Turks.

The Montenegrins’ loss of their influential prince-bishop (vladika) Visarion Bajica, and the destruction, at Turkish hands, of Cetinje monastery, is accompanied in the last decade of the seventeenth century by devastating illnesses and starvation.

In a search for new vladika, Montenegrins refuse to nominate candidates of Serbian Patriarch Arsenije III Carnojevic, as well as one put forth by Patriarch Kalinik of Pec, who considers the diocese of Cetinje to be under his jurisdiction.

In a traditional popular assembly in 1694, Montenegrins instead elect as the new vladika a native son, Sava Kaludjerovic of Ocinici.