The history of Montenegrin identity debates in the first half of the twentieth century has been relatively little known even to Balkan specialists. However, competing visions of the country’s past and future, the increasingly contested nature of national identity of the predominantly Orthodox population (defined either as Serb or exclusively Montenegrin) and other themes of intellectual debates deserve more attention for their relevance in the wider ex-Yugoslav, Balkan and East European contexts. This interesting but generally overlooked history of Montenegrin intellectual debates in the first half of the 20th century provides several new examples of historical myths and narratives, competing national projects, visions of past and future, discursive battles over identity, cases of domestication and transformation of ‘Western’ ideas and concepts. Hence, the research project aims at

• A careful reconstruction of the emerging identity discourses in Montenegro between 1900 and 1945;
• An analysis of their strategies, origins, and contribution to the modernity debates there, and the ways they influenced economic reasoning;
• The documentation of the spread of European ideas in early-twentiethcentury Montenegro (especially those of an alleged racial purity), resulting from multifaceted receptions, domestication processes, and intraregional transfers there.

At a wider scale, the project hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the intellectual history of Yugoslavia. Montenegro was often regarded as a peripheral part of the ‘Serb ethnic space’; nevertheless, its distinctive political history and perceived racial qualities of its population significantly influenced the development of modern concepts of Serbian identity.

The research proposes a new assessment of the Montenegrin material, which can provide some fresh insights especially in comparison with other cases of ‘delayed’ and similarly contested ethnic groups throughout the Region (Macedonians, Bosniaks/Muslims, Ruthenes etc.), and whose modern national identity developed during the twentieth century.