| Summary: | The poem
Mountain wrath (Gorski vijenac 1847) by the Serbian and Montenegrine author Petar Petrović Njegoš (1813–1851) revolves around
the act of extermination of montenegrian converts to islam. The poet
speaks as a ruler and represents this massacre as an inevitable part of
the liberation of Orthodox Christians from the Ottoman Empire. There
is, however, a remarkable difference from the folk epic poetry that
describe the same event, where the “Turks” (term designating both
the etnic Turks as the islamized Montengrin) are represented as being
intrinsecly evil whereas Njegoš tries to find ways of objective representation of islamized compatriots: Vladika Danilo calls the Montene grine Muslims to negotiate, before the final massacre is ordered, and constantly doubts that the violence is the only solution. The dialogue
between the ortodox and muslim Montenegrines arranged by Vladika
Danilo (verse 676–1043) and the scene of the Muslim-Montenegrine
mixed wedding procession (1755–1912) are therefore scenes in which
Njegoš expresses himself as a modern and humanist poet and not only
as a ruler.
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