A New Nation
The BBC reports that Montenegro ‘chooses independence’. This vote is the final nail in the coffin of yet another bad idea foisted upon people by the European powers after World War One. Serbia and Montenegro were the last vestiges of the European construct of Yugoslavia, and now they are “divorced”.
The independent Republika Crna Gora [Republic of the Black Mountain] has less than a million people and is slightly smaller than Connecticut at 5,333 mile², but it has a coastline.
This change makes Serbia a landlocked country.
6 comments
Hmmmm…wars have been fought over access to the ocean. Is Serbia likely to accept this peacefully?
At this point they don’t have much choice, there are too many people watching them and their behavior will determine whether or not they get into the European Union.
This was done in accordance with the treaty of confederation and with a turn out of 86%, a 55% vote is pretty definitive.
The Serbian people are pretty fed up with everything going to the military, as it did under Milosevic. They they aren’t going to back any new wars.
There will be a lot of shouting, but it won’t get anywhere.
Cool flag, too.
Without the crest on the breast of the eagle it is the flag of the last Byzantine emperor and the basis for the Russian arms. The arms on the shield are those of the last King of Montenegro, while the Russians use the arms of the Great Prince of Moscow.
It’s a Slavic claim to the Byzantine empire.
Didn’t/doesn’t the Albanian flag also have a double-headed eagle? What’s the story behind that symbol?
Wikipedia has the scoop on the imperial eagle as the symbol of the Comnenus and Palaeologus emperors of Byzantium.
The Montenegrans claim full secular [scepter] and religious [orb] power over an empire [the crown] as do the Russians. Both a Montenegan King and a Great Prince of Moscow married members of the Imperial family, giving a dynastic claim to the arms and the title.
Tsar means Caesar in Russian.
The Albanians claim a lesser position in the Empire, so their eagle is black [a shadow] and is uncrowned and it has broken it’s “chains” to the Empire.
The Serbs use a white version and it is on the arms of the Patriarch of Constantinople.