"Grand Vožd Karageorge and Bishop Rade-Njegoš", acrylic on canvas, 18x24, by Bishop Maxim, 2022

Ivo Andrić, the 1962 Yugoslav Nobel prize laureate, called the Montenegrin Bishop Rade-Njegoš (1830–1850) “the Jeremiah of Kosovo” who carried “the message of Obilić.” In his philosophical epic, The Mountain Wreath, Njegoš prophesied, “the name of Montenegro will be resurrected from the Kosovo graveyard.” “Praise to the ashes of Serbia’s father (Karageorge),” wrote the poet: “…Their crowns will shine again …The dawn is coming to our mountains!” The Kosovo tradition also deeply influenced the revolutionary youth in Bosnia. Gavrilo Princip knew Njegoš’s Mountain Wreath by heart. “There was not a single struggle of the people for liberation in which the heroes from the Kosovo battle were not present. The Montenegrins, fighting in their rocky mountains quenched their thirst from the Kosovo spring. Karageorge breathed the air from Kosovo” (Čedomilj Mijatović).