Petar II Petrović-Njegoš occupation poet
Legacy
Njegoš is regarded as an ambitious, able ruler who was esteemed during and after his lifetime. He is remembered for laying the foundation for the modern Montenegrin state as well as for being one of the most acclaimed South Slavic poets of his time. Since his death, Njegoš has remained a Serbian political and cultural father. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a variety of political factions (including Serbian nationalists, Yugoslavs and communists) drew inspiration from his works. In the decades after Njegoš' death, Gorski vijenac became the Montenegrin national epic, reaffirming its connections to the Serbian and Christian worlds and celebrating the military skill of its warriors. For Serbs, the poem was significant because it evoked themes similar to the Kosovo epics and reminded them of their solidarity with Montenegro against the Ottoman Turks. 
Like many of his contemporaries, Gavrilo Princip, the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, knew Gorski vijenac off by heart.Njegoš's influence parallels that of Shakespeare in the English-speaking world and his language – though archaic – has supplied modern Serbian with a number of well known quotations. The epic has become the basic educational text for Montenegrins and Serbs. In Montenegro it was (and still is) learnt by heart, and has been integrated into oral tradition. Njegoš's picture can often seen in taverns, offices, hospitals, on Yugoslav and Serbian currency and in people's homes in Montenegro and Serbia.
After the founding of Yugoslavia in the early 20th century, Njegoš was twice declared Yugoslavia's national poet, by the royal government in the 1920s and by the communist authorities following the Second World War. In 1947, the 100th anniversary of the publication of Gorski vijenac, the government promoted Njegoš as a Montenegrin poet rather than a Serb. The change in Njegoš's ethnicity may have been related to the communist policy of Brotherhood and Unity and its promotion of a Montenegrin ethnic identity (which the communists had proclaimed distinct from that of Serbs in 1943). Njegoš' works, particularly Gorski vijenac, have been sources of collective identity for Serbs, Montenegrins and Yugoslavs. Njegoš's works have been removed from school curricula in Bosnia and Herzegovina so as not to incite ethnic tensions, given the divisive nature of some of his works.
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