The Land of the Black Mountain | Page 7

"Vladika." Hardly more than half a century ago, the Vladika was Prince and Bishop in one. To-day the Vladika is absolute spiritual head of the Church in Montenegro, and only in matters pertaining to divorce are his rulings reversible by the Prince.
The hatred of the Roman Catholic religion is most marked. The term "Catholic" is an epithet of opprobrium. Hence the hatred of Albania, which on the borders is entirely Roman Catholic. The hated Catholics also, in the shape of Austria, hem in Montenegro on three sides, and this factor, added to the unfriendly part that Austria played at the Berlin Congress, may account for the growing animosity which is now slowly making itself manifest against her in Montenegro. Turkey is no longer feared; in fact, friendly relations are cultivated and steadily increasing; but against Austria very different feelings are held. Austria holds the Bocche de Cattaro, which the Montenegrins took possession of in the Napoleonic wars, commands Antivari, and has edged herself in between the kingdom of Servia and Montenegro in the Sandjak of Novipazar. The inhabitants of the Bocche and a large part of the population of Bosnia and the Hercegovina look to the Prince of Montenegro as their lawful ruler.
It is the oft and open stated dream of Prince Nicolas to see the great Serb-speaking nations re-united, and much as Russia has helped and is fostering this wish, Austria relentlessly checkmates every move in this direction. Austria is even striving to gain influence in Albania through the means of the Roman Catholic priests, who are said to be largely in her pay.
Thus Austria, surrounding Montenegro as she does at present, and enlisting the sympathies of the Albanians, can command every inlet to that brave little country. A "Schwab," as every German-speaking foreigner is termed, is consequently viewed with no friendly eyes; while the Russian is welcomed openly as a friend.
Russia, however, can never hope to buy the allegiance of the Montenegrins; for while appreciating friendly assistance, the faintest attempt to obtain undue influence of power would be sharply resented.
Montenegro will yield her absolute independence to none.
CHAPTER II
History from first conquest by the Romans, 300 B.C., down to the present Prince--Fruits of the last campaign--Education--The military system--Legal administration--Crime--Government--The educated classes.
The district which corresponds most nearly to Montenegro of the present day comes first into notice when the Romans attacked Queen Teuta and drove her back beyond the modern Podgorica in the third century B.C. From this time onwards Roman influence made itself felt strongly in the Pr?valitana, an outlying province of Illyria, and the city of Dioclea--whose ruins still exist in the neighbourhood of Podgorica, and which was to play such an important part in the germ state of Crnagora, or the "Land of the Black Mountain"--rose into being. Diocletian, the famous divider of the Roman Empire, was born there, and the city became the capital of the district to which it gave the name. The triumvirs placed the border-line of the Eastern and Western divisions at Skodra, or Scutari, as the Europeans call it. Under the early empire, the land was perpetually changing from East to West, but when the Western division fell under the weight of barbarian invasions Uin 476 A.D., it was finally incorporated in the East. This was a momentous decision, for the manners and habits of the people still remain tinged with Eastern life, and in the ninth century it secured their adhesion to the Eastern Church, which influences their policy to the present time. The principality of Dioclea, or Zeta, as it soon became called, was one of the confederate Serb states formed by Heraclius in 622 A.D., to act as a buffer state against the inroads of the Avars. Each state was ruled by a Zupan or Prince who owed allegiance to the Grand Zupan, the head of the heptarchy. But the confederation was very loose, the rival chieftains fighting amongst one another for the supremacy, for the Serb race has ever been noted for its lack of unity and corresponding love of freedom. The famous Bulgarian Czar Samuel, circa 980, who had overrun the rest of the Serb states, and made for himself a great empire, found that he was powerless to conquer the warlike John Vladimir of the Zeta; and again, nearly a century later, in 1050, we find the Zeta Zupa so powerful that their Prince assumes the title of King of Servia, and is confirmed in his right by Gregory VII., the famous Pope Hildebrand. Dissensions then broke out again, and for the next hundred years the land owned the sway of the Greek Empire. The two most celebrated Serb kings--Stefan Nemanja (1143) and Stefan Dusan (1336-1356)--both ascended to the head of the confederation from the principality of the Zeta. The latter raised the Serb kingdom to