Evolution of the national identity in the independent Montenegro

National identity has been the guideline of the independence process of the Republics of Federal Yugoslavia. Because of such a principle, the smallest of them, Montenegro, became a sovereign state in 2006 and cut its boundary with Serbia, the last residue of the Tito-inspired federation that was created after WW2. However, the political and cultural context in which the independence forces of this country operated was completely different from the one that existed in the early years of the ’90s, when in 1991 Slovenia and Croatia gained independence, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992, and Macedonia followed in 1993. In fact, during those years the ruling classes attempted to gain consent among public opinion that it was necessary to start the independence project, taking advantage of the climate of deregulation that could be felt not long after the fall of the communist regimes in Europe, and also of the benevolent implicit consent of some European states that quickly recognized as sovereign states these republics that proclaimed their independence unilaterally, without any negotiation with the opponents. On the contrary, when it came to Montenegro, a decade of wars in Europe on nationalist bases (at least officially), its exit from the federal state was far more complex. In fact, a victorious referendum and negotiations with Belgrade were not enough to reach such a result, but it was necessary to obtain the EU’s consent, since it had become a judge in Balkan politics, which was not so different from the Great Powers of The Congress of Berlin, that had the power to establish the regional settings. However, today’s Montenegrin nation has changed as a result of the last few years’ events, also because of the multiculturalism of the new state’s people; it gained some characteristics that identify the nation more as a model of civic nationalism, than as the nationalism of ethnic origins that made the base of the independence processes of other republics such as Slovenia and Croatia.