Ivan I Crnojević

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The drawing of Ivan I Crnojevic

Ivan the Black (born Ivan Crnojević, Serbian Cyrillic: Иван Црноjeвић; also known as Ivan-bey, in national telling Ivo (Иво)) was the medieval ruler of Zeta and first lord of the Principality of Montenegro from 1465 to 1490.

In his youth he was in the many raids against the domains of the Bosnian Duke Stefan Vukčić Kosača of Hum, and on one occasion he was captured. For a very long time was he the Herzog's servant before release. Ivan married Goislava, the sister of the Albanian lord George Arianite of the Comnenus dynasty, and became related with Serbian titular Despot Stefan Branković across his wife from the same family. In the beginning of his reign Ivan was at very bad relations with the Venetians, whom he saw as occupiers of his cities. In return, the Venetians have put a price on his head in 1465. But thanks to moves of the SaintAbbaside Duke Stephen and Albanian Lord Scanderbey, in 1466 he became a Duke under payment from the Venetian Republic with the capital in Žabljak at the Lake Skadar. His payment was quite fair, 1,200 ducats annually.

In 1469 Ivan remarried. His next spouse was Mara, the daughter of the Herzegovinian Duke Stephen.

Ivan Crnojević fought fearsomely for the Venetians in its wars against the Ottomans. The Venetian Captain of Upper Zeta and Duke was accepted thus in 1473 into the ranks of Venetian nobility. The next 1474 he further honored his obligations and defended Skadar from an Ottoman attack. After this success, Duke Ivan planned to liberate Herzegovina from Ottoman occupation for the brother of his second wife, Duke Vladislav Hercegović. Conflicts came out over discussions regarding the future border between the realms of Montenegro and Herzegovina, which allowed Sultan Mehmed II to take initiative and invade Montenegro, and with Duke Stephen's help the Turks cease Ivan's throne of Žabljak in 1478. The next 1479 Ivan gave up on Montenegro and fled to Italy, forced to leave his realm in Ottoman hands.

Legendary Stag of the Crnojevics

After Sultan Mehmed II's death in 1481, Ivan Crnojević came back to occupied Montenegro. Using the civil war that erupted between Mehmed's heirs, Bayezid and Jem, he restored control with the help of the people that welcomed him gladly as a liberator. The new Ottoman sultan Bayezid accepted the reality, but Ivan-bey anyway sent his youngest son Staniša in 1482 as a hostage to Istanbul as a sign of accepting vassalage, where he naturalized as "Scander". The center of his renewed realm was at Obod above the Crnojević River. Wishing to preserve the realm of Zeta and it's independence from the Turks because he didn't feel safe at the edge and the border, Ivan moved it's capital deep into the hills and at the foot of Mount Lovćen. He also moved the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Metropolinate to the Cetinje Monastery. He had his court built in the field of Cetinje in 1482. In 1485 Ivan built the monastery of the Mother of Christ in Cetinje as a personal endowment to the Serbian Orthodox Church too. It was known as the Monastery of Crnojević. The new capital Cetinje that remains the Montenegrin capital to this day, was thus founded. Ivan Crnojević died in 1490, when he was succeeded by his son Đurađ Crnojević.

During his long-lasting reign, Ivan I he tried, in order to consolidate his country, to maintain good relations with the Venetians and Turks. That way, he found favor with those two powerful countries for his successor. He brought a range of legislative acts that was later of great importance for the legal and cultural history of a future Montenegro.

Ivan was the father of Đurađ IV Crnojević. Ivan has become already in his life a living legend and one of the greatest Montenegrin and Serbian national heroes.

[edit] Culture

"Авај, царе, ранах допануо, живога те Срби распарали, са тобом се људи подругали, Москови ти царство разорили! Буд' ли си ми потурчио сина - јер му даде за пашалук клети моје земље и моје државе, јер му ђецу покла, нечоече?"

Addressing to the Ottoman Emperor: "Alas, Emperor, wounds got thee, alive the Serbs slain thee, with thou men chattered, Moscowans your Empire destroyed! If it is thou turcified my son - given thou him the cursed pashaluk my lands and my states, slaughtered his children, inhuman?"