Petar Petrovic Njegos

Short Biography

Petar II Petrović Njegoš (13 November 1813 - 31 October 1851) was the Prince-Bishop of the Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro, the Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan of Cetinje and philosopher and poet, who, through his establishment of Montenegrin secular organs, is considered to have been responsible for the secularization of Montenegro.Njegoš was born in the village of Njeguši, near the town of Cetinje. Growing up amongst illiterate peasants, he left his home at age eleven to be educated in the Cetinje monastery, at that time the only place of learning in Montenegro. Upon the death of his uncle, Peter I, Njegoš became the Prince-Bishop of Montenegro at the young age of seventeen. As a ruler and reformer, one of his greatest achievements was persuading the feuding clan chiefs of Montenegro to introduce fair taxation, as well as a codified set of laws based upon common rights, into their primitive mountain communities. He became a leading proponent of liberating and uniting the Serb people, willing even to concede his princely rights in exchange for a union with Serbia. Although this did not occur during his lifetime, he successfully laid foundations for political and cultural ideas of Yugoslavism and at the same time introduced modern political concepts to Montenegro. He held the position of Prince-Bishop until his death of tuberculosis at the age of 37 in 1851.Venerated as a poet and philosopher, Njegoš is especially known for writing the epic poem The Mountain Wreath, which is considered to be a masterpiece of Serbian and South Slavic literature, as well as the national epic of Montenegro, Serbia and both the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Following his death, he was buried in a small chapel atop Mount Lovćen, which was destroyed by the Austro-Hungarians during the First World War. Afterwards, his remains were moved to the Cetinje Monastery and were then again moved to the rebuilt chapel in 1925. The chapel was then, somewhat controversially, replaced by Ivan Meštrović's mausoleum in 1974, with the support of Yugoslavia's communist government.