Today i present you something from the part of European history not many members are familiar with. Yes, the history of the Balkans. I also hope you won't find a discussion about something as unpopular to talk about as, well, law. I'm sure some of you do like that branch of science but where i live only people who informally discuss it are the ones who have it as a profession.


Quay of the Montenegrin city Perast - Juliya Zhukova

So, the Montenegro's first piece of written law came fairly late. Mostly because you can't just percieve Montenegro as a region independent from Serbia throughout history. Inhabitants of Montenegro, till the 7th century to today are of Serb descent. Therefore, technically speaking, what belongs to Serbian Serbs belongs to them as well.


Serb lands in 10th century

"The Montengrin, General and Mountain Code", or if you will "The Code of Peter the I" as it was it's alternative name was brought up in the late 18th century. Montenegro's statesmen agreed upon bringing it in while having a meeting in the Stanjevići Monastery. The first 16 articles were given to it in October of 1798. That wasn't it though, the Code was expanded with 17 additional articles in August of 1803.


Bishop Peter the I - the later on canonized in the Serbian Orthodox church as Saint Peter of Cetinje, the back then theocratical ruler of Montenegro.

The Code brought to the state law the following sanctions for crimes: TREASON - punished with deportation, FIRST DEGREE MURDER - punished with death, SECOND DEGREE MURDER, GIVING ONE PHYSICALL INJURIES, THEFT, ABDUCTION OF A GIRL- various, jury to decide. The Code demanded that every dispute must be solved in front of a jury, while the tribal elements of self-judgment and vendetta were strictly forbidden. In fact, the Code was brought up in the first place in an intention to detribalize the Montenegrin land and decisively fight the vendetta sanction which was deeply rooted in the Montenegrin society's functioning. That much rooted that it exists in some rural parts of Montenegro to this day.

The articles that were about the civil law varied from quite developed for that European time to utterly primitive. All for a reason actually, the bishop wanted accomodate it's tribal people at least to some extent since the Code itself was really too much to take for them. Examples of the articles are following: right to buy a relative or a neighbor(for the richer), the right of parents or custodians to forbid a girl to marry some unwanted, right to recieve a fee for a carelessly comitted property damage etc.

What did the Montenegrin society hate the most about it's first code? No doubts there, those were the taxes. As you probably now, the tribal societies all accross Europe tent to see the presence of taxes as a sort of a slavish impost. And the Montenegrin tribes were no different, that's exactly how they looked at it. Therefore, several years passed until the state of Montenegro could successfully collect all taxes of it's citizens. The tribe members, aka 90% of Montenegrin citizens, decisevely opposed it and used to frequently oppose it with deadly weapons.

How were the statesmen managing to apply any of the Code's articles then? Well, it's fairly simple. Bishop Peter the I had a great reputation in society. To some extent, he was viewed as a supreme savior of the Serb folk. Especially after Montenegro demolished the Turkish army in two battles under his leadership. The Bishop ordered the gallows to be made, and shortly after the first death sentences were perpetrated. Not forcefully either, most of the tribe members trusted him and stayed away from doing their vendettas when someone gets murdered. Most of other sanctions from the penal law were also implemented without much opposing. Therefore, Montenegro really has Peter the I to thank for it's quick and sudden development.

Why was Montenegro so primitive at the time? Why were, per example, the people in Serbia so much more developed? The answer is not complex at all - the Ottoman occupation is completely to blame. I have no second thoughts when I say that Montenegro was at least 5x more developed in 11th century than in the 18th. Guess what - there were no tribes back then. In fact, the first Serb king wasn't from Serbia but from Montenegro. His name was Mihailo Vojislavic, the man who united the Serb seaside principalities and got coronated by the Pope in 1077. But anyhow, Serbia still has the merit to a first Serb-made constitution, which is the Dušan's Code in 1349. Nonetheless, let's get back to the Montenegrins. Why did the Ottomans make them so primitive? First off, they had no basic human rights, were exposed to brutal slavish imposts just because they were Christian and their children were frequently kidnapped to be made into Ottoman soldiers, islamized and turkicized at a very young age in order to forget who they actually are(sc. Devsirme). You see, that phychologically breaks everyone into pieces. Those people had nothing except modest set of rights, as well as the constant fear for their own lives. In an environment like that you can't exactly be developed as Russia. Nevertheless, the people in Serbia were significantly more developed because they had relatively more priviliges and were bigger in numbers. Why more priviliges? Well, the Ottoman beast feared uprisings from a group of people that were fairly quite large in numbers. And the minor uprising were very frequently striking both in Serbia and Montenegro, and after those they were harassed even more. For that reason, many Serbs fled to Austria, a place where they were treated like human beings and had all rights.

Anyhow, in later years Montenegro rapidly developed itself in an environment of long expected freedom from the Turkish tyrants. After several new, more beneficial, codes it succeded in bringing in it's first constitution in 1905. under Petrović dynasty and later on heroically fought the Austro-Hungarian aggressor.


The Code's cover (Serbian)