Petar II Petrović Njegoš (born as Radivoje Petrović; nr Četinje 1813 – Čentinje 1851) was the nephew of the Orthodox bishop of Montenegro, who in an arrangement dating back to c.1700, was also the autonomous ruler, under Ottoman suzerainty, of the Montenegro Vilayet, a Serbian-speaking pastoral and tribal territory. This office was hereditary in the Njegoš family, but owing to the mandatory celibacy of the higher ranks of the Orthodox clergy it passed from uncle to nephew rather than from father to son. Accordingly, Radivoje was selected to succeed his uncle Petar I Petrović-Njegoš (r. 1784-1830). Petar I had, in the years 1805-10, supported the Karađorđe Uprising in Serbia, lobbying with the Russian tsar to establish an independent Montenegrin-Serbian state (1807); he had managed to consolidate Montenegrin autonomy by the end of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29. He died the following year and was succeeded by his nephew Radivoje, who at age 17 became prince-bishop (vladika) of a tribal, warlike and distinctly non-modern territory. He adopted his uncle’s given name upon his succession as Petar II.

Petar II had had a monastic education but for some years was tutored by the colourful figure of Sima Milutinović, then his uncle’s secretary, who broadened his cultural interests, deepened his Serbian cultural nationalism and sharpened his anti-Turkish feeling. The initial months of his reign were spent suppressing challenges from pro-Austrian factions; once his rule had been somewhat stabilized, he resumed the country’s Slavophile, pro-Serbian and pro-Russian orientation. He travelled to St Petersburg twice, in 1833 and 1837 (the first time to be consecrated bishop); in each case he won Nicholas I’s patronage, financial assistance, and support against the country’s pro-Venetian/Austrian factions. On both journeys he stopped over in Vienna, where he met Vuk Karadžić, whose language reforms he endorsed. His Pan-Serbian cultural nationalism was manifested in the fact that the military decoration he instituted was named after Miloš Obilić, the hero of the medieval Battle of Kosovo, whose cult was developing at the time.

At home, Njegoš ruled in the mode of Enlightenment despotism, autocratically trying to reduce domestic factional rivalry while strengthening state institutions (raising taxes, attempting educational and literacy programmes) and building a status-raising palace for himself. At the same time, he had to face repeated military threats from neighbouring Ottoman pashas – initially Ali Pasha Rizvanbegović/Rıdvanoğlu of the Hercegovina vilayet, who was supported by the able Bosnian cavalry general Smaïl-Aga. By 1838 Njegoš managed to fight them to a standstill, and helped engineer an assassination plot against Smaïl-Aga (1840), a feat which was later celebrated by Ivan Mazuranić in his epic poem Smrt Smail-Aga Čengić (“The death of Smaïl-Aga Čengić”, 1846). Osman Pasha, Smaïl-Aga’s son-in-law and vizier of the Scutari vilayet, retaliated by invading southern Montenegro in 1843. Njegoš’s inability to repel this challenge (international aid was not forthcoming) provoked factional rebellions and unrest which lasted until 1848. By now, Njegoš was relying increasingly on an alliance with Serbia.

The ruthlessness of the Christian-Muslim campaigns between Montenegro and its neighbouring Ottoman warlords is reflected in the literary work for which Njegoš is chiefly remembered today, Gorski vijenac (“The mountain wreath”), an epic-dramatic poem of almost 3000 lines in the mode of oral epic but written for printed publication; it was published in Vienna in 1847, printed at the Mekhitarist Monastery, which had also published Karadžić’s works. It evokes the policies of Njegoš’s ancestor/predecessor Danilo (r. 1696-1735) to deal with exactly the problems that his descendant was facing, notably the pressure of Ottoman hegemonic power. The poem grimly evokes Danilo’s persecution of Islamic converts (like Smaïl-Aga Čengić, an ethnic Serbian); dedicated to the memory of Karađorđe, it came to be read as a bloody-minded call to total war between Serbian Christians and Muslim Ottomans. Other anti-Turkish and pro-Serbian poems by Njegoš, betraying the influence of Milutinović, are Lijek jarosti turske (“A cure for Turkish fury”, 1834) and Ogledalo srpsko (“The Serbian mirror”, 1835). More contemplative-philosophical (but still in the oral-epic decasyllabic metre) is the religious poem Luča mikrokozma (“The microcosm’s light-beam”, 1845).

Njegoš undertook foreign travels in search of a cure for the tuberculosis which had shown its first symptoms in 1849. He died in 1851, two weeks before his 38th birthday. His chosen burial-place, on top of Mount Lovćen, was subject to repeated remodellings in the course of the 20th century’s regime changes.