Good morning! For the second year in a row, we celebrate Njegos Day as a national holiday. This year we do not work for two days. Will this holiday be accepted among people? Or will it just be marked as an extended weekend without school and work and the inability to go to the store?
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Do we need Njegos day?
When you look around in your cities, do you feel the festive atmosphere? Can foreigners staying in Montenegro feel that a holiday is in progress? Were there people yesterday in Cetinje, Njegusi, Ivanova Korita or in the Mausoleum? Are you going to make a holiday lunch today? Did the government organize something there? Where are you spending these days? What does Njegos mean to you?
Njegos is an unusual figure without meaning. A spark in the Montenegrin darkness of the 19th century. In order to be convinced of his timeless education, it is enough to visit his library and read the titles in it.
Politically, Njegos was controversial. He was a man in power. A man of unlimited power among Montenegrins. He had levers of power in his hands, which he did not hesitate to use. The fate of the Radonjic family is proof of the cruelty of the young bishop and his family.
He was an active participant and proponent of the unification of southern Slavs, adhering to the Serbian-Slavic ideology, which propagated Serbian rather than competing Illyrian, Yugoslav and Croatian concepts of unification. This is how his “Serbism” in his actions should be viewed – as agit-prop activity for the purpose of a concept sponsored by Russia and the Orthodox Church among the Slavs. The Mountain Wreath, which is based on historical events, but is not a historiographical work, should be read in the same way. In it, Njegos writes about the time that preceded his a little less than his time preceded ours. In that work, Njegos locates Vuk Mandusic, a historical figure, in time and space from the middle to the end of the 17th century, and from the surroundings of Sibenik to Montenegro. Vuk Mandusic was the Morlach general and he had nothing to do with Montenegro.
Today, Njegos is read in the wrong ways. While some of his works served as a soundtrack for genocide, others label him as a genocidal writer. Njegos was not an Islamophobe. The fact that he considered Emir Abdelkader and Imam Shamil, who fought against France and Russia, to be heroes and freedom fighters, and equated his struggle with them, shows that his struggle was not a crusade one. On the other hand, Njegos fought against one of the biggest world powers of that time and fought for freedom, he was not an aggressor but a freedom fighter. This cannot be said for those who have been referring to them for the past 3 decades in calls for Bosnia and Montenegro to be “cleansed of the Turks”.
We need to talk about Njegos, to learn to celebrate Njegos Day. We need to learn to create institutions, not only state, but also cultural ones. And the holiday is a cultural institution. Institution of memory. How will we remember Njegos, in what way will we celebrate this day, to make it a true holiday? Let’s go to the countryside, make brandy, make lunch, gather friends and relatives. Have we forgotten how to do it?
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
