Globalizing Southeastern Europe by Brunnbauer Ulf;

Author:Brunnbauer, Ulf; [Brunnbauer, Ulf]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Independent States

In contrast to Croatia, the independent states at least enjoyed the privilege of legislative autonomy. The four countries discussed here, namely Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia, developed different responses to emigration. These responses were shaped by the country’s external policies, its migration dynamics, and its dominant conceptualization of nation and state. A particularly interesting case is provided by two neighbors of the Habsburg Monarchy, Montenegro and Serbia, because their migration policies were closely interrelated.

While Montenegro experienced significant out-migration, Serbia was an immigration country for the majority of the period under discussion. For Montenegrins, for a long time Serbia was the most important destination country for settlement, whereas for Serbia settlers from Montenegro were for many years the largest immigrant group. These different but complementary migration dynamics resulted from the economic conditions of these two countries, both of which became autonomous in the first half of the nineteenth century and gained full independence in 1878. For much of the nineteenth century, population density was very low in Serbia, and the government had an interest in seeing this under-populated country settled so that land could be cleared for farming. Montenegro, which consists mainly of barren karst, experienced over-population and could hardly feed all of its inhabitants. The government therefore traditionally supported emigration as the only way to prevent starvation. This was why the ruler of Montenegro repeatedly lobbied his Serbian counterpart to maintain an open door for immigrants from Montenegro. As the following discussion will detail, it was a change in Serbian immigration policies that led to a radical redirection of emigration from Montenegro towards America. These two countries are thus an excellent case study for the interrelation of national migration regimes and for the unexpected consequences of policy changes. In their specific ways, both countries manifested the importance of control over movement in space as a hallmark of statehood in the area of territoriality. I argue that governments’ attempts to steer migration contributed to the transformation of these two polities from tribal confederations into more or less modern states.

On October 14, 1882, the Montenegrin government received disturbing news. A brigadier in the Montenegrin army stationed at the border with the Ottoman Empire, which separated Montenegro from Serbia, sent a telegram to the Minister of Interior reporting that

I learned [in Serbia] that the Serbian government has absolutely outlawed the entry of Montenegrin families and that several families are already suffering at the border between Serbia and Turkey. This has been confirmed by the kaymakam [district captain] of Berane in his letter. Since the Serbian government has definitely banned the entry of Montenegrin families, I recommend that these families do not depart as long as the border remains closed.114

As a matter of fact, six weeks later the Minister of the Interior sent an order to the district captains to not issue any passports for Serbia, as Serbia refused to admit any new immigrants from Montenegro. The Minister told the officials that the Serbian government planned to deport many Montenegrin families to the Ottoman Empire.

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