The last of them, Petar II Njegos (1830-1851) continued the work of his/her uncle Petar I er (1782-1830) while proceeding to many reforms. It transformed the principality into State and created, on the council of the Russians, a senate of twelve members. Anxious to find an outlet on the sea, from which the country was separated by the Austrian territory, it seized into 1832 Zabljak (Shkodër) on the lake Scutari. But there remains especially known like the author of a great epic poem the Garland of the Mountains, which excites the Serb nation and the orthodoxe faith.

Its nephew and successor, the prince Danilo II (1852-1860), proceeded, with the agreement of Russia and Austria, with the secularization of the State in 1852. It gained in 1853 and 1858 of the victories over the Turks, who ensured the independence of the whole of Montenegro, recognized definitively with the congress of Berlin.

Under Nicolas I er (1860-1918), Montenegro increases considerably at the expense of the Ottoman Empire and was transformed into kingdom (1910). Combined in Serbia against Austria at the time of the First World War, it was invaded by the Austrian army in 1915 and was released only at the end of the hostilities. It was built-in 1918 with the kingdom of Serb, of the Croats and the Sloveniens, future Yugoslavia. The Italians occupied it during the Second world war and tried to resurrect, under their control, independent Montenegro.

Yugoslavia and the conflict in Kosovo

The country became, in 1945, one of the six federate republics of Yugoslavia. Elected in 1990, Momir Bulatovic took the presidency of the new State made up since April 27th, 1992, with Serbia: the new Federal republic of Yugoslavia (not recognized by UNO), and named Milo Djukanovicà the head of the government. In deep dissension with the policy followed by Serb president Slobodan Miloqevic, Mr. Djukanovic presented his resignation (March 25th, 1997) to the president Montenegrin (ally of Miloqevic).

At the conclusion of the organized presidential elections in January 1998, the former chief of the government, supported by the democratic opposition, was elected in charge of the State and appointed Filip Vujanovic Prime Minister. This last formed a coalition government gathering the Democratic party of the Socialists, the Popular party, the social democrat Party and the Party of the democratic action. However, on on May 19th, S. Miloqevic designated its main adversary, Momir Bulatovic, at the post of First federal minister. But the verdict of the ballot boxes reduced the range of this operation, and at the time of the legislative elections, the coalition led by Mr. Djukanovic, who profited from the support of the occident, obtained one crushing victory with 42 seats out of 78 compared with only 29 for the party of Mr. Bulatovic.  

Since his nomination, the president of Montenegro continues to have the appearance of “a troublemaker” within the Yugoslav Republic. In addition to its choice of fast economic reforms, he indeed affirms his will to found “a report of equality” with Serbia inside the Yugoslav Federation, and of autonomy, ensuring that “Montenegro will not accept any more to be the satellite of an central authority”, and to want Montenegro multi-ethnic and multi-cultural.

Thus, during the conflict in Kosovo (1999), it defended the principle of a maximum autonomy of the Albanians inside the Yugoslav Federation, proclaimed its neutrality while refusing to found the state of emergency required by Belgrade, at the time of the first strike air NATO, and accommodated Kosovan refugees on his territory, that in spite of the threats of coup d'etat which brought, on on March 30th, 1999, the United States to warn Belgrade. However, to become to it small State remains closely related to that of Serbia, with the image of its adhesion, in April, with the union economic, scientific, technological and cultural of Russia and Bielorussia.