Montenegrins

Montenegrins (, or, Montenegrini) are a South Slavic ethnic group that share a common ancestry, culture, history, and language, identified with the country of Montenegro.

Montenegrins are mostly Orthodox Christians, but also Catholics, Muslims and irreligious. The Montenegrin language is the official language of Montenegro.

Historically, the Montenegrin nation was made up of many tribes. Most tribes were formed in the 15th and 16th centuries, during and after the Ottoman conquest of the medieval state of Zeta. Today they are mainly studied within the frameworks of social anthropology and family history, as they have not been used in official structures since the time of the Principality of Montenegro, although some tribal regions overlap with contemporary municipal areas. The kinship groups give a sense of shared identity and descent.

Outside of Montenegro and Europe, Montenegrins form diaspora groups in the United States, Canada, Australia and Argentina. It is estimated that around 600,000 Montenegrins reside outside of Montenegro, according to descent. In 2023 there are 152,649 Montenegrins who hold Montenegrin citizenship and reside outside of Montenegro.

Genetics
According to one triple analysis – autosomal, mitochondrial and paternal — of available data from large-scale studies on South Slavs and their proximal populations, the whole genome SNP data situates Montenegrins with Serbs in between two Balkan clusters. According to a 2020 autosomal marker analysis, Montenegrins are situated in between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians.

Y-DNA genetic study done in 2010 on 404 male individuals from Montenegro gave the following results: haplogroup I2a (29.7%), E-V13 (26.9%), R1b (9.4%), R1a (7.6%), I1 (6.1%), J2a1 (4.7%), J2b (4.4%), G2a (2.4%), Q (1.9%), I2b (1.7%), N (1.4%), H (1.4%), L (1.2%), and J1 (0.49%). A 2022 study on 267 samples from northeastern Montenegro found that the "most common haplogroups are I2 and R1b, both identified in 23.97% of samples, followed by E (22.47%), J2 (11.61%), I1 (6.74%), G2 (3.75%), R1a (3.37%), I1 (1.12%), G (1.12%), N (0.75%), C (0.37%), T1 (0.37%) and Q1 (0.37%)".

Middle Ages
Slavs settled in the Balkans during the sixth and seventh centuries. According to De Administrando Imperio, there existed three Serb polities on the territory of modern Montenegro: Duklja, roughly corresponding to the southern half; Travunia, the west; and the Principality of Serbia, the north. Duklja emerged as an independent state during the 11th century, initially held by the Vojislavljević dynasty, later to be conquered and incorporated into the state of the Nemanjić dynasty. De Administrando Imperio does not mention which Slavic people lived in Duklja, but the state was considered to be one of the first Serb states, alongside Raška formed chiefly under the Vlastimirović and Vojislavljević dynasties respectively. Who exactly were the Slavic inhabitants of Duklja differs among authors, as other historians maintain that it is not possible to equate the people of Duklja with either Serbs or Croats, considering most historical Byzantian documents from that time.

In the late 14th century, southern Montenegro (Zeta) came under the rule of the Balšić noble family, then the Crnojević noble family, and by the 15th century, Zeta was more often referred to as Crna Gora (Venetian: Monte Negro). The Crnojevići were driven out from Zeta by the Ottomans and forced to retreat above the Bay of Kotor where they built a monastery and a royal court in Cetinje, the future royal capital of Montenegro, before eventually fleeing to Venice.

Yugoslav era
Annexation of the Kingdom of Montenegro on November 13, 1918 gained international recognition only at the Conference of Ambassadors in Paris, held on July 13, 1922.

Although Montenegrins comprised one of the smallest ethnic groups in the state (2.5% in 1971), they were the most overrepresented ethnic group in the Yugoslav bureaucracy, military, and communist party organs. In the Yugoslav People's Army, 19% of general officers and 30% of colonels were ethnic Montenegrins. Among party elites, Montenegrins made up 16% to 21% of senior officials throughout the existence of communist Yugoslavia, and comprised a similar portion of the state's diplomatic corps. The striking overrepresentation among elites, which has been compared to the role of senior Austrian officers and officials in Nazi Germany, has partly been attributed to the pre-war strength of the Communist Party of Montenegro, the high proportion of Montenegrins among partisan commanders and central committee members during the war, and a historically militaristic culture. During this period, ethnic Montenegrins also held about 15% of government jobs in Yugoslavia.

Language
39.23% of the young people under 18 in Montenegro say they speak Montenegrin, while 37.47% call their mother tongue Serbian, as reported in the census held from 1 to 15 April 2011.

Religion
Most Montenegrins are Eastern Orthodox, majoritarily adhering to the Serbian Orthodox Church while a minority adhere to the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is canonically unrecognised by the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Identity
Vlahović (2008) noted many anthropological studies which showed that Montenegrin people have a strong Dinaric type (with seaboard, central, Durmitor, mountain and other subtypes) autochthonous on the Dinaric Alps since the Mesolithic period. Dinaric peoples, including Montenegrins, are among the tallest people in the world. The type, particularly in Montenegro, is distinguished by brachiocephal shape, broad forehead, wide relief and strong face, wide jaw and noticeably flat notched head, while arms and legs are proportional to the body height. The hair color is commonly black, with black or blue eyes.

Anthropologist Božina Ivanović considered that the development of the Montenegrin Dinaric variety was influenced by gracilisation and brachycephalisation; they have characteristics which were not found in other Slavic and non-Slavic European populations, nor morphological properties from paleo-anthropological series originating from the Slavic necropolis from other South Slavic area. Also, the brachycephalisation and width of the face in the last five centuries is growing in Montenegrin, while decreasing among other Slavic and European communities, showing anthropological issues in Montenegro have deeper roots and broader scientific importance. Montenegrin historian Dragoje Živković (1989) noted that modern multidisciplinary research disagrees with older consideration how Sklavinias and Slavic states had ethnical identification, example Serb ethnos, until the 12th century. Slavs mixing with native populations (such as the Komani culture necropolis in Pukë) made a new cultural-historical drift of Albanian-Illyrian and Slavic built upon extinct and present La Tène, Greek-Illyrian, Illyrian-Roman, and Byzantine. He argued that the Slavs from Duklja promptly blended in social-economical of the natives who historically had a more developed society, as was in their interest to approach the Roman-Illyrian natives.