[SPEECH - VUKOTIĆ (Duke Petar)]
Speech is a secret weapon, one of the subtle instruments of diplomacy, both in the craft and in the effect of diplomatic action. If we look in parallel towards creativity, the written, discursive genre, we can freely call the oral diplomatic act a spoken (oral) genre. As there is epistolary, so there is spoken diplomacy. Speech is creativity sui generis.
After all, our tradition is a tradition of spoken genres that it cannot even be compared with any other genre field - that's how dominant our languages are. A man in the age of empires, especially an official, what else is it if not a speech (oral) act? The state profile of Montenegro in the XNUMXth century was significantly determined, given its tone, by speech creativity and extremely influential speech genres.
French diplomat Jules Cambon, governor of Algeria, a younger contemporary of the duke Petar Stevan Perkov Vukotić (1821-1903), who is discussed in this unit on speech and spoken diplomatic creativity, says that the living word is the best instrument to convince the other government of its goals. Spoken word of a decent man - the spoken word of a steadfast man, it is the strongest weapon of one government to convince another (see more: Diplomacy: Sir Harold Nicolson, Oxford, 1968, 92).
Of the many speaking missions of Duke Peter, during the six decades of his brilliant, military, political, once simultaneously diplomatic career - in the XNUMXth century it was inseparable - two stand out, towards Russia. Danilo I Petrović sent him, in a sensitive hour, after the victory in the battle of Grahovac, which Peter commanded, as his special envoy, to Dubrovnik, the Russian consul general, Petkovic, who himself was a special imperial envoy for Montenegro on the eve of the battle - with his (Danilov's) letter, addressed to the Russian impetor, through his confidential diplomat (decent man). He is a diplomat in the colloquial sense.
History will not look favorably on Danilo's earlier intentions, when he sent his men to Čevo to kill the young Petar Vukotić, although he later ironed out his intention with honors. Soon after, the Český senator, on behalf of the prince, begs the Serbian government through diplomatic channels for permission to move 500 families from Montenegro to Serbia, and performs other diplomatic duties. his father, Stevan Perkov (1781-1867), adviser to the young Njegosha, we know more through the character of Abbot Stefan in Mountain wreath, which the poet built according to his loyal collaborator, so that Petar was already prepared for a statesman as a boy. Danilo Petrović saw his future military leader immediately upon his return to his homeland, in order to ascend the throne, when he met him in Kotor in the fall of 1851. He got to know him best in 1852, when Petar took his father's place in the Senate, shortly after Njegoš's death. Young Petar also got to know Njegoš closely during his schooling in Cetinje - he was his teacher, poet, secretary, also a diplomat, Dimitrije Milaković.
Petar led the Montenegrin-Turkish negotiations for the establishment of peace in Herzegovina in 1856, held in Kotor, after, a year earlier, the Herzegovinian champions sent signals for peace negotiations (cf. Serbian diary, Novi Sad, 1865, 22). That era was looking for a military leader and a diplomat in the same person, and it found him, as we, today, find on the trail of archives, Petar, as a member of the Montenegrin delegation, sent in 1856. in Constantinople, regarding the international recognition of Montenegro. The instructions of the legendary head of Russian diplomacy date from that time. Prince Gorchakov, to the details of the case, to his consul in Dubrovnik PN Stremouhova.
There are times whose depth of risk is best seen in the political light, and this is one of those, because the young duke is forced against the wall to swear allegiance to Danilo right before the life of Saint Peter, in which 30 citizens of Čevlja support him (Serbian diary, VIII, 1857). Already at the end of the same year, he manages the uprising movement in Herzegovina.
One science, even if it was called history, is not enough to describe people of that type and to penetrate into their hearts. At that time, he began his service in Sarajevo, but he was also active in Herzegovina and Montenegro, a man of the Renaissance, a diplomat AF Gilferding (born in 1831 in Warsaw, but converted to Orthodoxy as a boy, scholar and philologist, connoisseur of classical languages, sided with the Slavophiles in the division of Russian diplomats into Slavophiles and Westerners), who will owe the cultures of the Balkan Slavs, but a lot of them, in manuscripts, and take with you. Legate Aleksey Uvarov in Petersburg, Minister of Education and influential figure of Imperial Russia (son of Count Sergej Uvarov whom history holds responsible for the death Pushkin), which today contains manuscripts from St. Trojica, the monasteries of Đurđević Tara, Šudikovo, Dobrilovina, among others, an extremely important manuscript about the Bogumils, as well as the works of a great painter and zoographer Andrija Raičević, from the XNUMXth century, was collected by Giljferding.
The moment, and the context, after the battle at Grahovac, which opened the door to international relations for Montenegro, is such that it cannot be more sensitive. Straight from the bloody field, the duke of Čevsko headed to some chambers, veiled, with a heavy canopy, which he could not have known until then. It was at the beginning of July 1858, and already on July 22, the Russian ambassador to Habsburg, KV Knorring, reports, from Vienna, to his head of diplomacy, Gorčakov, about the speech of the special envoy, who arrived practically from the battlefield of Grahovački, and about the prince's letter addressed to the emperor (see more: GARF, State Archives of the Russian Federation, GA-339, 114).
At the beginning of the next, in 1859. French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Marquis Charles de La Valette (1806-1881), Anglophile, familiar with the situation in the region (ambassador in Constantinople before the Crimean War, later in the Vatican) initiated the formation of the Commission for Border Determination. Vojvoda Petar was a member of the commission and had the support of Russian and French representatives. He wrote scrupulously about his diplomatic actions regarding state borders Dušan Vuksan in his work Prince Danilo, eighth year of government.
Negotiator
year In 1860, Petar Stevanov resides in Moscow, as a representative of the Senate, and a young man Prince Nikola, for talks with the Russians about the foreign policy of Montenegro after Danilo's death. He was received by Gorchakov, with the remark that he attaches great importance to the conversation, with the hope that, as the new ruler, he will continue the traditional foreign policy of his country. Petar, for his part, tested the terrain and the Russian mood for the actions of Montenegro towards Herzegovina, and for a port on the Adriatic coast. The duke was honored with a reception by the emperor, who presented him with the Order of St. Ana II degree.
After the war with Turkey in 1861-62, in which he commanded Montenegrin and Herzegovina detachments, and beat, under incomparably more difficult conditions, a well-known tactician, Dervish Pasha, the duke conducted demarcation negotiations with Cevdet Pasha, in Spuz. According to witnesses, he "barely made it out alive". People who create history do not have time to write it, they understand it verbally, which is to say undeniably, lightning-fast and alive, and that is why speech genres are the secret weapon of the past of the Balkan peoples. Apart from the field of battle and speech - when you look at the matter realistically - there may not be, in the short life of a knight, room for anything more. The speech is preventive, in relation to history, i.e. to fatigue from its slow text. The Duke of Čevo, in his capacity as a special envoy, head of the Montenegrin delegation, was given the opportunity to meet the Russian emperor in person again in May 1867, and convey Prince Nikola's message to him. Duke Petar was the head of the Montenegrin delegation at the All-Slovene Exhibition in Moscow. He gave a speech before the emperor and courtiers at the main reception. A court diplomat and official, a writer, responded with an official speech on behalf of the court Orest Miller, otherwise the first biographer and personal friend of the novelist FM Dostoyevsky (cf. Serbian newspaper, 1867, no. 68). Members of the delegation met then, in the capital, with diplomats and public workers, among others with Dostoevsky's best friend, the poet Apollon Majkov, which I wrote about in the study Dostoyevsky and the West (Oktoih, 2012, 232). The irony of fate wanted divisional Petar Vukotić, head of the Montenegrin military deputation, to lay a wreath on the grave of the emperor who was assassinated in March 1881 at the funeral ceremony in Moscow.
Once upon a time, special envoy had the rank of minister plenipotentiary, the first after ambassador, and today, in diplomatic practice, he is synonymous with ambassador with a special task, in the relationship between heads of state or government. He is a speaking diplomat, relatively speaking in the widest, genre, radius, diplomatic technique. Petar participated in all Montenegrin wars and major battles during the era of Njegoš, Danilo and Nikola Petrović - four decades - and he performed diplomatic duties for half a century, and it is not surprising that his speech, his better and more natural side, and diplomatic weapon, was .
Petar took part, albeit secretly, in the diplomatic negotiations after the Krivošija Uprising in 1869, which were also secretly negotiated by the writer and diplomat. Stefan Mitrov Ljubiša. In the negotiations after the uprising, the key negotiator was a mutual friend of both, the Austrian general, baron Gavrilo Gabriel Rodić (1812-1890). (See more about Ljubiša's diplomatic work in Vienna in my book Our writers and their auras, JU Museums and Galleries Budva, 2018).
The head of diplomacy describes his influence Gavro Vuković: "Duke Petar Vukotić, father-in-law of Knjažev, was the most influential person in the country. He is consulted in the first place in all matters of foreign and domestic policy" (cf. in more detail: Memoari, Obod, Cetinje, 1996, 129-30). In the course of internal politics, "his word was the latter", says the legend, and in foreign policy, it had its weight, of course, due to the respect of Turks and Westerners. Some European newspapers wrote, in an epic manner, without which the nineteenth century would have been confused and sketchy, when he died, in Čevo, that "the hill of Montenegro collapsed", and the state coronation in Cetinje lasted fifteen days.
[DEMOCRACY - PLAMENATZ (John)]
It can be seen in two aspects John Plamenatz was part of the English liberal thought of his time, for parliamentary rule, on the trail Tocqueville, consequently - the first aspect is this: "Democracy comes easily to collaborators when they are few, and leadership does not require long training or rare skills, especially when all collaborators belong to the same social class." (Democracy comes easily to collaborators when they are few and leadership calls for no long training or rare skills, especially when the collaborators all belong to the same social class. Cf. John Plamenatz: Karl Marx's Philosophy of Man, Oxford, 1975, 391).
And the second aspect, with him, confirms Tocqueville's idea of politics, with the difference that it is no longer Plamenche's, but classic English skepticism in relation to extreme variants of democracy, and here Tocqueville is closer to the English than to his own, French, liberal thought: "Democracies are inclined to listen to impulse rather than prudence, and to abandon maturity in the general picture for the gratification of momentary passion." (There is a propensity that induces democracies to obey impulse rather than prudence and to abandon a mature design for the gratification of momentary passion: - Alexis de Tocqueville).
[DRAMA - ĐILAS (Milovan)]
We follow the drama, in diplomatic thinking and action, only later, after everything is over. It's not that drama, Aeschylus, on stage, which is followed by the gaze while it lasts. Diplomatic drama is usually hidden from view. We understand it, usually, a posteriori, through creativity - through notes, observations, in the case of career diplomats, who are usually short in writing, and through a broader lens in the case of others - diplomats from linguistic creativity. Of the older ones, in our country, the closest to drama are the Petrovići, the dramatic Petrović tradition, from the younger ones Djilas - here is a testimonial:
"The coming years, until Stalin's death in 1953, represent a very dramatic period of Yugoslav foreign policy. Milovan Đilas then had, together with other political figures, very important tasks in foreign policy. He spoke twice at the sessions of the UN, in New York in 1949 and in Paris in 1951, defending the then Yugoslav policy of independence from the Soviet Union and its satellites. At that time, there was also a thawing of politics towards the Western countries.
Yugoslav communists established a series of contacts with Western left-wing movements and parties, some of which were in power for a certain period, such as the British Labor Party. An important figure, if not a leader, in these activities was Milovan Đilas." (Cf. Aleksandar V. Miletić: Foreign political activity of Milovan Đilas 1944-1953, in: Yugoslav diplomacy 1945-1961, Belgrade, 2002, 293.)
Drama, both in business and in the linguistic creativity of diplomats, first passes, ends one way or another, the document covers are closed, and only then, subsequently, is it seen with other eyes. Diplomatic drama is one thing, while it takes place in silence, in forced cooperation between the actors, under living repressive circumstances, and something else when it takes place in front of the eyes of the public who only interpret it.
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