180 benjamin arbel
and Austria.202 Tsar Peter the Great, however, perceived the potential of
collaboration with the Slavs in the Balkans against the common Ottoman
enemy. In the famous manifesto addressed to the Slavs in 1711, the tsar
called upon them to join him in the holy struggle against the infidels.
Religious terminology was prominent in his appeal. The manifesto was
brought in 1712 to Montenegro by two special envoys, who also carried
an appeal addressed to the inhabitants of the independent principality
of Montenegro (Crna Gora) and to its ruler, the bishop-prince (vladika)
Daniel (Danilo). The latter document, also phrased in a mixture of religious
and ethnic terms (such as “the noble Slavic blood”), contained promises of
privileges, exemptions, and liberties that the Montenegrins would enjoy
in return for their alliance with Russia.203 This was the beginning of a
long Russo-Montenegrin alliance, which was always expressed by Russia
in religious symbols and terminology204 and ultimately had serious
repercussions on the Venetian-ruled territories in the western Balkans
and the Ionian Sea.
In 1767, a certain “Stephen the Small” (in Serbian: Šćepan Mali), a char-
ismatic figure who had been active as a healer in Venetian-held Budua,
succeeded in convincing the Montenegrins that he was none other than
the Russian tsar, Peter III (who, in fact, had been assassinated in jail after
his deposition). Consequently he was accepted as the principality’s new
ruler, instead of its vladika, Sava. He even succeeded in getting the recogni-
tion of the Serbian Patriarch of Ipek, who, at that moment, was a refugee in
Montenegro. Before long, the enthusiasm aroused by the impostor crossed
the border to the Venetian provinces of Montenegro and to Ottoman
Albania, causing great preoccupation both in Venice and in Istanbul.205
These developments ignited a virtual revolt in Venetian Albania
(actually Montenegro), to which Venice responded by force of arms. An
offensive against Montenegro itself apparently failed,206 but within the
Venetian territories, Serbian Orthodox monasteries were occupied by mil-
itary units, and military measures were also taken against several villages
located in the southern part of the province. However, it did not take long
202 Heinrich Kretchmyr, Geschichte von Venedig, 3 vols in 2 (Gotha, 1905–34; repr.
Aalen, 1964), 3:349.
203 Paul Coquelle, Histoire du Monténégro et de la Bosnie depuis les origines (Paris, 1895),
pp. 201–03, 215, 218.
204 Ibid., 209–10; Roberts, Realm of the Black Mountain, p. 140.
205 Coquelle, Histoire du Monténégro, pp. 223–28.
206 Ibid., pp. 227–28.