Montenegro
The small Balkan nation of black mountains and the Adriatic shore, a proud Orthodox people of warriors and epic poets, of the gusle and the slava, of smoked ham and the unhurried life. The complete guide.
Montenegro is a small country in the western Balkans of southeastern Europe, on the Adriatic Sea, bordered by Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania, home to about six hundred and twenty thousand people. Its name means Black Mountain, after the dark forested heights of Mount Lovćen, and the land is one of dramatic beauty, a tiny country packed with high mountains, deep canyons, and a stunning coast. The Montenegrins are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians, a Slavic people closely tied to the Serbs, with sizeable Muslim and Catholic minorities. They are known for a fierce, centuries-long tradition of fighting for their freedom, for their epic poetry and the one-stringed gusle, for warm hospitality, and for a proud and unhurried character. This guide walks through the land, the warrior heritage, the faith, the food, the question of identity, and the customs in turn.
Overview
Montenegro is a small country in the western Balkans, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea, sharing land borders with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania. It is a tiny but strikingly beautiful land, packed into a small area with a short but spectacular coastline, high and rugged mountains rising steeply behind it, deep river canyons, and glacial lakes. The country takes its name, Crna Gora, Black Mountain, from the dark wooded slopes of Mount Lovćen, long a symbol of the nation. About six hundred and twenty thousand people live there, with the capital and largest city at Podgorica and the old royal capital and cultural heart at Cetinje.
Montenegro is a parliamentary republic, with a president as head of state and a prime minister who leads the government. The current president is Jakov Milatović and the prime minister is Milojko Spajić, both young leaders elected in 2023. Montenegro regained its independence in 2006, when it left its union with Serbia, having long before been an independent kingdom. It is a member of NATO and a candidate to join the European Union, and it uses the euro although it is not yet an EU member. Most Montenegrins are Eastern Orthodox Christians, with significant Muslim and Roman Catholic minorities. The language is Montenegrin, very close to Serbian. The economy leans heavily on tourism along the coast.
A few deep forces shape life in Montenegro. There is the dramatic land of black mountains and the Adriatic shore. There is the proud, centuries-long heritage of struggle for freedom, and the epic poetry that carries it. There is the Orthodox faith and the family slava. There is the close question of Montenegrin and Serbian identity. And there is the warm hospitality and the proud, unhurried character of the people. The sections that follow trace these and walk through the food and the customs.
The Black Mountain country
Montenegro is, above all, a land of mountains, and its very name, Black Mountain, speaks to the dark, steep, forested heights that fill so much of this small country and have shaped its history and character. The rugged limestone ranges, hard to cross and easy to defend, long kept the highland Montenegrins free and apart, and bred a people of mountain warriors and herders. Mount Lovćen, rising above the old capital of Cetinje, is the sacred mountain of the nation, crowned by the tomb of the great prince-bishop and poet Njegoš, and a powerful symbol of Montenegrin identity.
For so small a country, Montenegro holds an extraordinary range of landscapes. In the north rise high mountains and the Durmitor range, with its peaks, glacial lakes, and forests, and the canyon of the Tara river, one of the deepest gorges in the world, cut between sheer walls. In the centre lie the rolling hills and the plain around Podgorica and the great Lake Skadar, shared with Albania. And along the southwest runs the short but glorious Adriatic coast.
The coast is the jewel of Montenegro and the heart of its tourism. Its centrepiece is the Bay of Kotor, a deep, winding inlet ringed by steep mountains, often likened to a fjord, with the walled medieval town of Kotor at its head, full of Venetian churches and palaces from the centuries when the coast looked to Venice across the sea. Along the shore lie the beaches and resorts of Budva, the tiny fortified island of Sveti Stefan, and the old towns of the seaboard, where the Mediterranean world of the coast meets the mountain world behind it. This division between the Venetian-tinged coast and the highland interior runs through Montenegrin culture.
The warrior heritage
The deepest thread in Montenegrin identity is the long, proud history of fighting for freedom, for Montenegro is famous as a land that, almost alone in the Balkans, was never fully conquered by the Ottoman Empire that ruled the region for centuries. From their mountain strongholds the Montenegrins kept up a ferocious resistance to Ottoman rule, generation after generation, and this long struggle bred a warrior culture, a cult of bravery, honour, and freedom that lies at the very root of how Montenegrins see themselves.
For much of its history Montenegro was governed in a remarkable way, as a kind of warrior theocracy ruled by Orthodox prince-bishops, the vladika, of the Petrović-Njegoš family, who were both the religious and the worldly leaders of the people. The greatest of them, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, who ruled in the nineteenth century, was not only a ruler but a philosopher and the national poet, whose epic poem The Mountain Wreath is regarded as the central work of Montenegrin literature. In time the prince-bishops gave way to kings, and Montenegro won full recognition as an independent kingdom in 1878 after further victories over the Ottomans.
This heritage gave Montenegrins an ethical ideal they call čojstvo i junaštvo, roughly humaneness and gallantry, the bravery of the warrior joined to the honour and decency of a good person. Courage, honour, loyalty, the keeping of one's word, and the defence of family and freedom are values still deeply respected. The warrior past, the resistance to the Ottomans, the heroes and the battles, are a deep source of national pride, remembered in story, song, and monument, and central to the Montenegrin sense of who they are.
The gusle and the eagle dance
The warrior heritage of Montenegro is carried above all in its epic poetry, one of the great living traditions of the Balkans. For centuries the deeds of heroes, the battles against the Ottomans, and the history of the people were preserved and passed on not in books but in long epic songs, recited or sung from memory by a bard, the guslar, to the accompaniment of the gusle, a simple one-stringed instrument played with a bow. The guslar held an honoured place, for he was at once the historian, the poet, and the keeper of the people's memory, and the epic songs, in their measured ten-syllable lines, stirred the pride and courage of the listeners.
This tradition of epic song, shared with the Serbs and other South Slavs, remains alive in Montenegro, especially in the mountain north, and the gusle is a cherished national emblem. The songs tell of the great heroes of the resistance and the tragic and glorious moments of Balkan history, and to hear the gusle is to touch the oral heart of the culture.
Montenegro keeps a rich tradition of folk dance and music as well. The most distinctive dance is the oro, the eagle dance, a circle dance in which the dancers form a ring and clap and sing while couples take turns leaping and dancing in the centre, sometimes climaxing in the building of a human pyramid, the dancers standing on one another's shoulders. The circle dance called kolo, shared across the region, is danced at weddings and celebrations. Traditional costume, with its red and gold, the round cap, and the old weapons worn by men, appears at festivals and on great occasions, and the folk songs, dances, and dress are kept with pride as marks of the nation.
The Orthodox faith and the slava
Most Montenegrins are Eastern Orthodox Christians, and the Orthodox faith has been bound up with the nation's identity, history, and resistance for many centuries, the prince-bishops having been both its spiritual and its worldly leaders. The great majority belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose monasteries and churches are spread across the land, among them the famous monastery of Ostrog, built into a sheer cliff face, one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Balkans, visited by Orthodox, Catholic, and Muslim pilgrims alike. In recent years a separate Montenegrin Orthodox Church has also taken shape, and the question of the churches has become tangled with politics and national identity.
Orthodox life in Montenegro follows the older Julian calendar, so that Christmas falls in early January, celebrated with the cherished custom of the badnjak, the oak branch or young oak brought into the home and burned on Christmas Eve, surrounded by old rituals. Easter, the greatest feast, is marked with midnight services and the dyeing of eggs. The most distinctive Orthodox custom of all is the slava, the feast of the family's own patron saint, which each family keeps once a year, gathering relatives and guests for prayer, the lighting of a candle, and a great family meal, a tradition shared with the Serbs and central to family and social life.
Montenegro is also home to significant religious minorities living alongside the Orthodox majority. There is a sizeable Muslim community, the Bosniaks and many of the Albanians, with their mosques in towns such as Podgorica and in the east and the coast. There is a Roman Catholic minority, especially among the Albanians and along the coast, where the Venetian centuries left fine Catholic churches. Montenegro is officially a secular state with freedom of worship, and the faiths have long coexisted, though religion remains closely tied to questions of national identity.
Montenegrin or Serb?
One of the most delicate and distinctive features of Montenegro is the question of national identity, for Montenegrins and Serbs are very closely related, sharing the Orthodox faith, a nearly identical language, much history, and many customs, and the line between being Montenegrin and being Serb is genuinely blurred and deeply felt. For long stretches of history Montenegrins were regarded, and regarded themselves, as a kind of Serb, the Serbs of the Black Mountain, while at other times a distinct Montenegrin identity was asserted, and the balance has shifted back and forth over the generations.
This question runs through modern Montenegrin life and politics. Some citizens identify firmly as Montenegrin, with a separate nation, church, and language; others identify as Serb, or as both, feeling a deep kinship with Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church; and the censuses show the population split between these identities. The matter touches language, religion, history, and politics all at once, and it has been at the heart of the nation's fierce political divisions since independence in 2006.
The language reflects the same closeness. What is officially called Montenegrin is, in plain terms, the same language that is called Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian elsewhere, all mutually understood, with only small differences, and written in both the Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet. For a visitor, this is a subject to approach with care and sensitivity, for feelings run deep on all sides; it is wiser to listen than to take a position. The closeness, and the tension, between Montenegrin and Serbian identity is one of the defining features of the nation.
Pršut, kajmak, and the mountain table
Montenegrin food divides, like the land, between the coast and the mountains. Along the Adriatic the cooking is Mediterranean, close to that of neighbouring Croatia and Italy, built on fresh fish and seafood, olive oil, grilled meats, and the wines of the coast, a legacy of the Venetian centuries. In the mountainous interior the food is heartier and more rustic, the cooking of herders and highlanders, rich in meat, dairy, and bread, with strong threads from the Ottoman and central European past.
Two famous products of the mountains stand at the heart of Montenegrin food, both from the village of Njeguši near Cetinje: the pršut, a prized smoked and air-dried ham, cured in the clean mountain air, and the rich Njeguši cheese, served together as the classic Montenegrin starter. Beside them stands kajmak, a thick, creamy clotted dairy spread eaten with bread and meat. The mountain table is rich in lamb and veal, often slow-cooked under a metal lid covered with embers in the old way; in cornmeal dishes such as kačamak and cicvara, mixed with cheese and cream; and in hearty stews and grilled meats.
From the Ottoman past come the dishes shared across the Balkans: the sarma of stuffed cabbage or vine leaves, the burek and other filled pastries, the grilled ćevapi, and sweets such as baklava soaked in syrup. To drink there is strong Turkish-style coffee, the powerful fruit brandy called rakija, offered to every guest, and the local wines, above all the dark red Vranac. Meals are generous and unhurried, a centre of family and hospitality, and a guest will be pressed to eat and drink well.
The unhurried welcome
Montenegrins are known for warm and generous hospitality, a deep tradition by which a guest is received with honour, fed and given drink generously, and treated with genuine warmth, a value rooted in the old code of honour and the close life of the mountains and villages. To welcome a guest well is a point of pride, and a visitor to a Montenegrin home will be offered coffee, rakija, food, and a warm welcome, and pressed to accept. Family lies at the centre of life, the bonds of kin close and strong, with deep respect for parents and elders and a wide circle of relatives who gather at the slava, at weddings, and at the feasts.
Montenegrins are also famous, including in their own fond self-image, for a proud, dignified, and notably unhurried approach to life, an easy-going refusal to rush or to be ruled by the clock, captured in much-loved jokes the Montenegrins tell about their own love of rest. Life, especially away from the tourist coast, moves at a relaxed pace, with time for long coffees, conversation, and company, and the cafe and the social gathering are central to daily life. This pride and ease of manner sit alongside the warrior sense of honour and the strong loyalties of family and clan.
For a visitor, the keys to Montenegro are to accept the hospitality graciously, to take time for coffee and conversation rather than rushing, to show respect to elders and to the deep feelings around faith and identity, and to dress modestly at monasteries and mosques. Greetings are warm, with a handshake, and friends embrace. The blend of fierce pride, deep hospitality, and an unhurried love of life is at the heart of the Montenegrin character.
The nation today
Montenegro today is a small, independent republic of about six hundred and twenty thousand people, governed from Podgorica by a president, Jakov Milatović, and a prime minister, Milojko Spajić, both elected in 2023 as part of a generational change in a politics long dominated by one leader. The nation is a member of NATO and a leading candidate to join the European Union, with talks well advanced. Its economy rests heavily on tourism, drawn by the spectacular coast and mountains, alongside energy and services, and the country has grown more prosperous, though it remains troubled by questions of corruption, the rule of law, and organised crime that it must address on its road into Europe.
The nation faces real challenges. Its politics are sharply divided, above all over the questions of national and religious identity, the relationship with Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the direction of the country. It works to strengthen the rule of law and tackle corruption as it pursues European Union membership. It must manage a tourism boom that brings wealth but strains its small and beautiful coast. And it weighs its deep ties to Serbia against its independent path and its turn toward the West. These are the concerns of a young, small nation finding its way.
Through it all, Montenegro keeps its strong identity. The black mountains and the Adriatic coast still shape the life and beauty of the land; the proud heritage of freedom and the epic songs of the gusle still stir the national pride; the Orthodox faith and the family slava still order much of life, alongside the Muslim and Catholic communities; and the warm hospitality and the proud, unhurried character still mark the people. Small, dramatic, and fiercely proud, Montenegro carries its long history of mountains, faith, and freedom into a modern European future.