Crnojević noble family

The Crnojevic ( Serbian Cyrillic Црнојевићи ) were a significant Montenegrin noble family in the Principality Zeta. They ruled there an area in present-day Montenegro and Albania from 1427 to 1516.

Descent and ascent

The dynasty Crnojević is derived from the Serbian nobles Djurås Ilijić. This was a close follower of the Tsar Stefan Dušan, whom he had supported in his 1331 takeover of power in Serbia. The Tsar commissioned Djurås Ilijić 1355 with an expedition to southern Dalmatia, which was controversial at that time between the Serbian Empire, the Venetian Republic and the Kingdom of Hungary. Djurås and two of his nephews put on an army and conquered the end of 1355 the port city Skradin. Meanwhile Tsar Stefan Dušan was but died and his successor Stefan Uroš V. ordered Skradin to pass the Venetians. Djurås Ilijić received some possessions in the Zeta as compensation. In this way, the ancestor of the Crnojevic came into the territory of today's Montenegro.

In the area studied at the same time, the Balsici (Albanian Balsha or Balshaj ;) to draw their advantage from the disintegration of the Serbian Empire and to establish their own principality. This contrasted with the ambitions Djurås ' in the way and he was therefore killed in 1362 by Balša I.. During the next two generations the history of Ilijić (or Crnojević ) family was marked by the struggle for self-assertion on the Montenegrin coast, where the opposition to the powerful Balsici / Balsha was the defining element.

The three brothers Rade, Stefan and Dobrivoje called themselves the first of the Crnojević family. You could win the town of Budva and made ​​it the center of their realm. Rade maintained good relations with the Republic of Ragusa, which awarded him an honorary citizenship. Unsuccessful were his attempts to conquer Kotor, but during which he was able to bring the Serbian tribes Grbalj and Pastrovic in the hinterland of Zeta under his rule. 1396 Rade fell in battle against the troops of Stracimirs Balšić.

The Crnojevic as princes of Zeta

In the following generation, the brothers Đurađ and Aleksa could strengthen the position of Crnojevic in the Zeta on, while the power of Balsici was in decline. After the death Balšićs III. in 1421 and years of power struggles finally sat down by Stefan Crnojević. He was from 1427 to 1465 as the first of his family prince of Zeta. In his reign the Ottoman conquest of the Serbian state of Đurađ Brankovic and also the inclusion of Bosnia into the Ottoman Empire falls. Together with the Balsici and Albanian princes Zeta now stood at the forefront of the defensive struggle against Ottoman expansion.

Stefan married Mara, the daughter of Prince Gjon Kastrioti I of Kruja, the brother of the famous Gjergj Kastriota, called Skanderbeg was. 1444 he joined the League of Lezha formed by Skanderbeg, in which the Christian princes of the region were allied to fight against the Muslim Turks. 1455 saw Stefan at the nominal suzerainty of the Venetians, in order to secure in this way help against the Turks. When Stefan died in 1465, he bequeathed to his son Ivan - considering the difficult geopolitical situation - a reasonably secure principality.

In contrast to his father Ivan Crnojević ( reign: 1465-1490 ) broke the alliance with the Serenissima and tried to conquer their possessions in the Bay of Kotor. After the Turks in 1478 but zurückten to Shkodra and had conquered in the meantime Herzegovina, he again sought an alliance with the Venetians. He participated in 1478 in the defense Shkodras against the Turkish besiegers. When the Ottomans had this important bulwark in 1479 but taken, Ivan moved his seat of government of the endangered Zabljak on Lake Skadar in the mountains east of Lovćen. Here he founded in 1482 a Christian Orthodox monastery, which became the nucleus of Cetinje, the later capital of Montenegro. This event marks about the transition from medieval to early modern Zeta Montenegro.

From 1490 to 1496 ruled Đurađ Crnojević, Ivan's eldest son. The ruler formed in 1493 taught a printing press in Cetinje, were printed in 1496 to religious books in Church Slavonic language. Five titles have survived until today.

This was followed up in 1516, three other princes of the family Crnojević: Stefan II ( 1496-1498 ), Ivan II ( 1498-1515 ) and Đurađ ( 1515-1516 ). The latter resigned in the face of grim prospects to maintain his principality against the Ottomans in the long run. Meanwhile the Turks had northwest of Lake Skadar already taken the plains and the free Montenegrins remained only the barren mountain regions in the triangle between the mountains Lovćen, Orjen and Prokletija. Đurađ handed power to the Bishop of Cetinje and retired to Venice.

Other family members

• Skanderbeg Crnojević, last descendant of the dynasty Crnojević