The Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) submitted an author's text by its member, historian Dragutin Papović.
We transmit the text in its entirety:
"Andrija Mandić, in his congratulatory message on the occasion of December 19, Podgorica Day, stated that the medieval settlement of Ribnica, as the forerunner of Podgorica, was the birthplace of Stefan Nemanja and that it was therefore "rightly recognized as Nemanja's city". This statement is incorrect and serves the needs of propaganda of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its political wing, the so-called New Serbian Democracy.
Data on Ribnica and the birthplace of Stefan Nemanja are scarce. Before the 13th century, there is no news about the town of Ribnica or that Stefan Nemanja was born there. The Chronicle of the Priest of Dukljan, most likely composed in the second half of the 12th century, contains an impeccable overview of the historical geography of the Dukljan (Zeta) counties and does not mention Ribnica, either as a region or as a settlement. In his Chilandar Charter from 1198, Stefan Nemanja did not state where he was born or what his father and grandfather were called. In this charter, Nemanja succinctly says about his reign: "I acquired [captured] Zeta and its cities from the sea land". Nemanja clearly stated that he had captured Zeta, but did not state that he was born there or that his ancestors came from there. Nemanja's son and successor, Grand Prefect Stefan Nemanjić (from 1217, the First-crowned Serbian King), in his Charter of Hilandar, written between 1200 and 1202, in reference to his father's relationship with Zeta, points out that "[Nemanja] acquired [added, annexed] Zeta and its towns from the sea". The First-crowned actually only copied about Zeta what Nemanja had written in his Charter of Hilandar. Therefore, it can be concluded that neither Ribnica nor the place of Nemanja's birth is mentioned in contemporary and early narrative sources of the Nemanjićs.
Only Nemanja's youngest son Rastko (Sava) in the "Life of Saint Simeon Nemanja", written around 1207, was the first to state that Nemanja was born "in Zeta na Ribnica", that he was baptized there and that, as a child, he was baptized a second time in the Church of the Holy Apostles (Peter and Paul) near today's Novi Pazar. According to Sava's record, Nemanja lived for 86 years. He died in 1199 (there is an opinion that it was in 1200), which means that he was born around 1113. This means that it was only after almost a hundred years since Nemanja's birth that he was first recorded. Sava did not explain how Nemanja was born in Zeta, and considering that Nemanja did not state that he was born and baptized in Zeta, this information from Sava is doubtful. The information about double baptism is also questionable, because church regulations strictly forbid double baptism, unless the first ceremony was performed by heretics. However, Sava does not mention that Nemanja was first baptized by Catholic priests, whom the Orthodox considered heretics and vice versa.
Sava Nemanjić is the creator of the thesis that Nemanja was born "in Zeta on Ribnica", and this thesis was later repeated and expanded by Stefan Nemanjić in the "Life of Saint Simeon", which he wrote between 1208 and 1216. While he remained silent about Nemanja's birth in his Chilandar Charter, Stefan states in the introductory part of his father's biography: "...I do not remember what happened about his [Nemanja's] birth, but I have heard that there was great turmoil in this part of the Serbian land, Diocletian and Dalmatia and Travunia, and that his [Nemanja's father's] brothers, out of envy, took away his land. And he emerged from their rebellion in the place of his birth, called Diocletian... in a place called Ribnica". Stefan repeats Sava's thesis that Nemanja was born in Duklja (Zeta) in Ribnica and explains that he was born as the child of a political emigrant who came to Diocletian from Serbian land, but does not state the names of Nemanja's father and his brothers, nor when the "commotion" between them occurred. He does not state with whom Nemanja's father took refuge in Duklja and, most importantly, he did not write down from whom he heard that Nemanja was born in Zeta in Ribnica. Stefan then repeated Sava's information about Nemanja's double baptism. Unlike Sava, Stefan emphasizes that Nemanja was first baptized by Catholic priests, but does not specify the place of baptism. He says about this: "And since there are also Latin priests in that country [Diocletian - Duklja], it is God's will that he be granted Latin baptism in that temple as well." This is the canonical justification for Nemanja's second baptism, which occurred when Nemanja's father returned from Doclea "to the seat", i.e. to Serbia (Raška). Stefan states that Nemanja was then baptized for the second time "in the middle of Serbian land" in the church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, which was under the jurisdiction of the Ohrid Archbishopric and the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which means that a Greek rite was performed. When describing Nemanja's conquest of Doclea and the destruction of its cities, Prvovenčani stated that Diocletian and Dalmatia were Nemanja's "fatherland and birth" and "ancestry". The biographer Domentijan in the "Life of Saint Sava", written in the mid-13th century, states that Nemanja was born "in a place called Diocletian, which is called a great kingdom from the beginning". Domentijan in the "Life of Saint Simeon" repeats (rewrites) the position of Prvovenčani that Diocletian and Dalmatia were Nemanja's "fatherland and birth". However, Domentijan does not mention Ribnica. Neither the biographer Teodosije, who wrote the "Life of Saint Sava" at the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century, mentions Ribnica, nor any other place of Nemanja's birth.
Based on these sources, it can be concluded that Stefan Nemanja did not state that he was born in Duklja (Zeta) and that he did not consider it his fatherland, but a conquered (annexed) land. This was also initially claimed by Stefan the First-Crowned. Later, Sava and Stefan the First-Crowned wrote in their glorifying lives of their father that Nemanja was born “in Zeta on Ribnica”, and Stefan says that he heard this from someone. Domentijan and Theodosius do not mention that Nemanja was born in (in) Ribnica. In addition, it is obvious that Prvovjenčani invented the thesis about Duklja as Nemanja’s fatherland and ancestral home in order to subsequently try to obtain historical legitimacy for the Nemanjić rule in Duklja.
Despite the lack of contemporary sources, inaccuracies and obvious later additions in narrative sources regarding the place of Nemanja's birth, many historians have believed that Nemanja was born in the settlement of Ribnica (near the confluence of the Ribnica and Morača rivers in present-day Podgorica) and that this was the first name of Podgorica. They have ignored not only the lack of original or archaeological data on the settlement of Ribnica, but also the lack of evidence that Podgorica was ever called Ribnica. This has been critically commented on by the Serbian historian Mihailo Dinić. He noted that the word "place" in the Life of Nemanja, written by Stefan the First-Century, does not denote a settlement, but suggests that it is a region, given that Stefan also calls Diocletian (Duklja) a place. That this is a correct interpretation is indicated by the fact that Domentian also called Diocletian's "great kingdom from the beginning" a place. In addition, as Dinić explains, it is not natural that “a settlement would change one of our names to another, also ours, even before the Turkish conquests”. Essentially, Dinić’s conclusion is that “there is no evidence that Ribnica as a settlement existed at all”, and that the first written records about Podgorica date back only to 1326. Therefore, it is almost certain that the settlement of Ribnica did not exist, that it could not have been the place of Nemanja’s birth and that it could not have been the forerunner of Podgorica. It is possible that Nemanja was born in Duklja, but the exact place of birth is unknown, and Ribnica is only the result of arbitrary interpretations. It is obvious that Nemanja’s sons Sava and Stefan did not know the geography of Duklja (Zeta), so they turned the Ribnica River into a settlement and region. Even if it were accepted that Nemanja was born “in Zeta on Ribnica”, it is clear that he was born as the child of a political emigrant from Serbia (Raška) and that on this basis the alleged Ribnica or Podgorica absolutely cannot be called Nemanja’s city. In order for a city to be named after a ruler, it is necessary that he was its founder or that he raised it to the highest status, which Nemanja did not do for either the fictional Ribnica or the real Podgorica. Nemanja clearly stated that he had conquered Zeta (Duklja), and his son Stefan the First-Crowned stated that Nemanja, apart from Kotor, "overthrew and demolished other cities, and turned their glory into a wasteland." These were: "Danj grad, Sardoniki grad, Drivast, Rosafa grad called Skadar, the city of Svač, the city of Ulcinj, the famous city of Bar."
There is another thesis about the place of Nemanja's birth. Metropolitan Vasilije Petrović wrote down (transmitted) the legend in his "History of Montenegro" in 1754 that Nemanja's father was named Bela Uroš, that he lived in Zeta and that three sons were born to him in the town of Spuž: David, Konstantin and Stefan Nemanja. In fact, Nemanja's father was named Zavida and he never ruled Zeta, and Nemanja's brothers were named: Tihomir, Stracimir and Miroslav, while the first mention of Spuž dates back to the end of the 14th century. The thesis that Nemanja was born in Spuž arose much later than the time of Nemanja and his sons and there is no evidence for it, so it has been almost completely rejected in historiography. Metropolitan Vasilije wrote down a local tradition that Simeon Nemanja "the founder of the Serbian Empire... destroyed the city of Diocletian, so that Christians would not live in it, as can be seen to this day". However, Stefan the First-Crowned does not mention Duklja in the list of Duklja towns destroyed by Nemanja. In the "Short Description of Zeta and Montenegro" from 1774, it is repeated that the city of Diocletian was completely destroyed by the first king Simeon Nemanja, the founder of the Serbian state, but this thesis is impossible to verify in contemporary sources.
The thesis about Ribnica as the city where Nemanja was born was affirmed only in the second half of the 19th century within the framework of mythological and romantic historiography. Despite clear evidence that it is a fictional thesis, it has gained a prominent place in Serbian historiography and politics. Today, it is used primarily by the Church of Serbia and Andrija Mandić to Serbianize the history of Duklja and thus dispute Montenegrin national and state uniqueness. This is a transparent and futile effort," Papović writes in his author's text.
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