Špiro Kulišić

Špiro Kulišić (Perast 1908 — Belgrade 1989) was a controversial Montenegrin ethnologist and one of the founders of the Montenegrin autochthonist school. He came under heavy criticism in his lifetime from European and world ethnologists.

Work

He worked on ethnographic and ethnologic studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Belgrade during the Communist period in Yugoslavia. He studied Lepenski Vir and then published the "Serbian Mythological Dictionary" in 1970 together with Petar Ž. Petrović and Nikola Pantelić, dedicating himself to the research of Slavic mythology.

Kusulić always based his theory (or theories) on others (Engels' and Kosven's primarily) but somehow allowed his imagination to run away with him. He presents the hypothesis that the zadruga existed during the period of matriarchy and claims an analogy with Inuit (?) and West African Congo (?), thus arriving to uncertain conclusions that can only be deemed non-sequitur ("it does not follow").

Ethnogenesis of Montenegrins

His life's work was published in the Montenegrin capital of Titograd (modern-day Podgorica) by the state Pobjeda in 1980, known as "On the Ethnogenesis of the Montenegrins". This work sparked a huge amount of controversy in the public, as since the 1970s there was a developing theory on the authochthonous school about the Montenegrins' ethnic origin, whereas the dominant one until then was that Montenegrins were of Serbian ethnic background, this work being one of the key foundations of the theory. Almost immediately a discussion was opened by the Montenegrin elite & intelligentsia in Titograd's Marxist Center (pro-Serbian communists), where renowned Montenegrin academicians Dr Dimitrije Vujović, Dr Rastislav Petrović and Dr Nikola Vukčević discussed the conclusive elements of this work. Špiro Kulišić was invited to attend, but he chose not to, and remained silent regarding the countless critics until the end of his life. The Chairman of the Montenegrin Presidency Veljko Milatović defended his work in the discussion, but without presentation of arguments.

His main thesis centered on the uniqueness of the Docleans, residents of the ancient Slavic Duklja that existed partially on the territory of the Republic of Montenegro, a people distinct from Serbs or Croats, and how they are the common ancestors of the Montenegrins. He defined that the Docleans were a mixture-nation of the Slavic migrants and the autochthonous ancient romanized ancestral population of Duklja's territory (unlike the purely Slavic Serbs), and that the Serbs had never lived in Montenegro, except in the early Middle Ages and a small number of Croats, next to the Docleans. It is his argument that there weren't greater migrations of Serbs into Montenegro from the time of the arrival of the Ottoman Empire and that all of the migrations were local inter-Montenegrin, that the Zetans have kept until the end of the Middle Ages their distinctive identity, as well as that the Serbian intelligence Serbianized the Montenegrins in historical record, which also thus led to the alleged illusion in Montenegrin scholarship that the Montenegrins belong to the same people as the Serbs.

When the results of older and modern researching on Montenegro are studied more thoroughly, it becomes all clearer that the Montenegrin people is a separate ethnos, different to an extent from other South Slavic peoples, of course, with numerous common things with them. This distinctiveness of the Montenegrin people can be traced in the physical form, in the language, in traditional culture, especially in older societal organization in a line of specific traditions, both societal and religious, which were pointed out by Vuk Karadžić and an array of other researchers.

Critic

Špiro Kulišić had based his work on the original Byzantine sources like "De Administrando Imperio" during his studies. Kulišić primarily relied on sources like the Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos and Slovenian historian Ljudmil Hauptmann and on selective driven out of context takings from Serbian experts on the issue Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Jovan Cvijić and Jovan Erdeljanović. His claims were quite often compared to those of the Montenegrin Ustashas from the WWII era for a period of time, Savić Marković "Štedimlija" and Sekule Drljević. He fallaciously presented in his book as if Byzantine and other early Medieval sources as if they talk only about Docleans and sometimes Croats.

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos clearly states: "Croats, Serbs, Docleans and other neighboring tribes belong to the Slavs" - from this quotation is obvious that Porphyrogennetos distinguishes Docleans (Montenegrins) from Serbs and Croats.

Ideologists of "Greater Serbia" claim that Kulišić had turned out to be severely self-contradicting in his book, one of the examples being the impossible and historically incorrect claim that the Docleans were a mixture of romanized Vlachs and migrant Slavs, when science remembers that there could not have been any greater mixture of the majority Slavs with the others up to the 18th century, and then the subsequent talk about Vlachs far after the Medieval Ages. He mixed writers quite often, plausible connoting historical findings to them, such as in the case of John Skylitzes. Another fact was the claim of arrival of a Serbian national element into Montenegro across Serbia's dominating intelligence, quite fallaciously ignoring the countless of sources that signify the national Serb element all the way to the Medieval Age. One of the most outrageous things was blatant falsification of sources (such as those of Branislav Đurđev) which he called upon for the migrations period as evidence of solely inter-migrations within Montenegro, as pointed out by Prof. Dr Rastislav Petrović, when quite on the contrary evidence points out to up to 90% of Montenegro's population having roots outside Montenegro; or not pointing out that most of the migrants from Albania were of Slavic ethnic origin themselves. Some parts of Kulišić's book reach outright absurdity, such as with the claim on the origin of the "family" word in Montenegro, or comparing several Montenegrin traditions to the Caucasian as a proof of the autochthony of the Montenegrins, quite blatantly ignoring the fact that they are completely identical to those of Central Serbia. Most of Kulišić's arguments have limited themselves to plain unproven declarations, or scientifically contradicting ones like the claim that there is a unique Montenegrin dialect within the AVNOJ borders of Montenegro, when AFAIK the population of Montenegro speaks two carefully separated dialects of Serbo-Croatian: East Herzegovinian, which is also spoken by a huge mass of the Serbs, and partially Zetan-South Sandžak (Sjenica).

Dr Novak Ražnatović:

As it is well known, from the end of the 18th century, the liberation struggle of the Montenegrins and the Highlanders intensifies. That struggle was fought under the flag of the Serbian national idea, of which there are countless written testimonies. And today such testimonies are willingly ignored in an apparent idea to remove the Serb national component in the history of Montenegro.

Milija Stanišić:

Kulišić failed to prove and explain how the uniqueness of the Montenegrins was created. He addressed incorrectly the Byzantine sources from which it is clearly seen that Duklja was populated by Serbs. Science must explain the fact of the high degree of closeness in mentality, language and the way of life of the Montenegrins and Serbs in Croatia or Bosnia. From where comes the equality in such markings between the Serbs in Herzegovina and the Montenegrins? (Only two answers are offered: either the Serbs in Herzegovina are Montenegrins, or both are of Serb origins.)

Milija Komatina:

From the leaders of Montenegrin separatists Sekule Drljević and Savić Marković Štedimlija, who accepted Ustaša ideology, actually come the first categorical denials of any links of the Montenegrins with the Serbs [..] In newer time attempts arise to defeat the views that the Montenegrins and the Serbs have common ethnic origins. The first one in that aim was Savo Brković, and from recently also Špiro Kulišič.

Prof. Dr Rastislav Petrović:

Kulišić in truth, by his own choice, freely walks through historiography and in that manner serves with pseudo-science in an attempt to present everything in the previously positioned scheme of his "Ethnogenesis of the Montenegrins".

One of the greatest Montenegrin Communist academicians, Dr Dimo Vujović:

Kulišić's claim that the Byzantine writers of the 11th and 12th centuries do not mention Serbs in Duklja, is simply wrong.

Numerous other Montenegrin experts have questioned Kulišić's thesis such as Dr Đoko Pejović and later Batrić Jovanović, while the great Montenegrin ethnologue and historian Nikola Vukčević wrote a book in 1981 as a response known as "The Ethnic Origin of the Montenegrins" in greater detail than Kulišić's smaller book.

Kulišić's book was, however, positively criticized by the three prime leaders of Montenegrin distinctiveness. The first is the somewhat controversial linguist Dr Vojislav Nikčević, who from the 1970s presented the idea of separateness of a Montenegrin language away from Serbo-Croat as is the father of the Montenegrin language idea, considers Kulišić's work a "very valuable and important scientific work". The second is Dr Radoslav Rotković, who is known for his questionable studies of the Tribes in Montenegro, which he identified as if they have constituted themselves before their migration to the Balkans, on the soil of modern-day Germany, and as such migrated to the Balkans and preserved their identity. The third is a renowned Montenegrin historian by the name of Dragoje Živković, a moderate proponent of the Montenegrin distinctiveness from the Serbs, who claimed that Kulišić's work is the first to break the myths and illusions in Montenegrin history.

Over the years Špiro Kulišić's book has become the conceiving cradle of the Autochthonist Doclean school, centered on the establishment of a distinct Montenegrin language, a Montenegrin Orthodox Church and Montenegro's independence from its common state with Serbia, a view of history promoted throughout the 1990s by the Doclean Academy of Sciences and Arts. Since Montenegro's independence from Serbia and Montenegro and the other political changes of the 21st century, Kulišić's works and their continuations of members of his school have received a considerable growth and some popularity with the public.