Špiro Kulišić

Špiro Kulišić (Perast 1908 - Belgrade 1989) was a controversial Montenegrin ethnologist and one of the founders of the Montenegrin autochtonist school.

He worked on ethnographic and ethnologic studies in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Belgrade. 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.

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 authochtonous 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 founders of the theory. Almost immediately a discussion was opened by the Montenegrin elite & intelligence in Titograd's Marxist Center, where renown Montenegrin academicians Dr Dimitrije Vujović, Dr Rastislav Petrović and Dr Nikola Vukčević discussed through the fallacious 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 valiantly, but remained only on word and without presentation of arguments.

His main thesis centered on the uniqueness of the Docleans, residents of the ancient Slavic Doclea 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 autochtonous ancient romanized ancestral population of Duklja's territory (unlike the purely Slavic Serbs), as well as that never ever had the Serbs lived in Montenegro, just only in the early Medieval Ages one 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 with the Serbs.

Critic

Špiro Kulišić had never ever touched original sources during his studies, he only relied on secondary sources like primarily the Croatian 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, when actually they quite continually talk about Serbs for Doclea.

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, falsely 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 autochtonousness 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 Sanjak (Sjenica).

Dr Novak Ražnatović:

Milija Stanišić:

cquote|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 Doclea 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:

Prof. Dr Rastislav Petrović:

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

Numerous other Montenegrin experts have questioned Kulišić's thesis like Dr Đoko Pejović or later Batrić Jovanović, while the great Montenegrin ethnologue and historian Nikola Vukčević even wrote an entire book in 1981 as a response known as "The Ethnic Origin of the Montenegrins" in far greater detail and sourceness that Kulišić's far 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 other is Dr Radoslav Rotković, who is known for his a bit questionable studies of the Tribes in Montenegro, which he identified as if they have constituated 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 renown 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 brake the myths and illusions in Montenegrin history.

Over the years this book of Špiro Kulišić has become the conceiving craddle of the Autochtonist Doclean school, centered at 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 Montenegrp 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 amongst the public.