Njegoš, Petar Petrovic

Born Nov. 1, 1813, in Njeguši; died Oct. 19, 1851, in Cetinje. Montenegrin poet and statesman. Ruled Montenegro from 1830 to 1851 as Petar II Petrović.

Njegoš defended his country from the encroachments of Turkey and Austria. He founded the country’s first school and printing press in Cetinje. He visited Russia in 1833 and 1837 and was well acquainted with Russian culture; during his second trip he visited the Sviatogorskii Monastery, where A. S. Pushkin was buried. The verse dedication “To the Shade of Aleksandr Pushkin” opens the collection of folksongs Serbian Mirror (1845), which also contains songs by Njegoš. The influence of the Serbian folk heroic epic may be seen in the verse collections Cetinje Hermit (1834) and Turkish Wrath (1834) and in the epic poem Freedom (1835, published 1854). Njegoš also wrote a “great triptych” of three narrative poems: Light of the Microcosm (1845), Mountain Garland (1847), and The False Tsar Stephen the Small (1847, published 1851). Njegoš’s highest achievement is the dramatic epic Mountain Garland, which portrays events from Montenegrin history and calls for a struggle for freedom and the unification of the Slavic peoples. In modern Yugoslavia his poems are regarded as the cultural heritage of all Yugoslavia’s peoples. A national literary award in honor of Njegoš was established in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963.