Montenegrin troops in 1918.

The Serbian National Council, the body representing Serbs in Montenegro, on Thursday asked permission to use the main hall of the Montenegrin National Theater to celebrate the unification of Serbia and Montenegro – an event that the government believes should not be celebrated at all.

The council, which represents the 30 per cent or so of Montenegrin citizens who consider themselves Serbs, is seeking to use the theatre from November 25 to December 5 to mark the centenary of the Podgorica Assembly, also known as the Great National Assembly of the Serbs in Montenegro.

As World War I drew to a close, the assembly convened in November 1918 decided to unite the old kingdom of Montenegro to the Kingdom of Serbia.

The two sides the debate were known as the “Greens” and the “Whites”, the former favouring continued independence and the latter backing Montenegro’s unification into a larger state. The formation of Yugoslavia followed.

The union lasted for the best part of a century, But in 2006 Montenegro split from Serbia, following the independence referendum.

The Serbian Council said that under the Constitution of Montenegro, Serbs have the right to celebrate their national holidays.

“We very much want this event to be held in the National Theater, as a relatively large majority in Montenegro, and finally to begin to cooperate with state institutions,” the Council press release said, “because Montenegro is our state, and state institutions are the institutions of the Serbian people in Montenegro”.

The government has yet to respond to the demand; the National Theatre is a public institution managed by the Culture Ministry.

But earlier, the government has condemned all announcements about such celebrations, noting that the Podgorica Assembly led to the “disappearance of Montenegro” as a state.

The announcement of the celebrations it considered inappropriate for the memories of “all those in Montenegro who were killed during the [royal Yugoslav] dictatorship, which began in the Podgorica Assembly”.

Culture Minister Aleksandar Bogdanovic said on August 6 that Montenegro should remember, celebrate and honour lots of events from its past but the Podgorica Assembly should not be one of them.

On Thursday, pro-government media sharply criticized the demand of the Serbian Council and the web sit CDM ran a story with the headline “The Provocation”, saying that the government had said no celebration would be allowed.

Meanwhile, Serbian organizations are planning other celebrations of the unification of Serbia and Montenegro across the country in late November, which will include numerous political and cultural events.

Some Montenegrin organizations and some of the ruling parties have countered this with their own demand for state institutions to formally revoke the Podgorica Assembly’s decision on unification.

Read more:

Centenary of Serbian Union Reopens Montenegro’s Old Wounds

Divided Montenegro Marks Decade of Independence

Centenary of Strange Vanishing Act Still Haunts Montenegro