Piperi (tribe)

Oral traditions and fragmentary stories were collected by writers, who travelled in the region, about the early history of Piperi. An interdisciplinary and comparative approach of those stories with recorded historical material has yielded more historically-grounded accounts in 20th and 21st centuries.

Johann Georg von Hahn recorded the oral tradition about Piperi's origins in the mid 19th century. The same oral tradition with minor variations is preserved in other communities of the region. According to it the first direct male ancestor of the Triepshi was Ban Keqi son of Keq, a Catholic Albanian who fled from Ottoman conquest and settled in a Slavic-speaking area that would become the historical Piperi region. His sons, Lazër Keqi (ancestor of Hoti)), Ban Keqi (ancestor of Triepshi), Merkota Keqi, Kaster Keqi (ancestor of Krasniqi) and Vas Keqi (ancestor of Vasojevići) had to abandon the village after committing murder against the locals, but Keq and his younger son Piper Keqi remained there and Piper Keqi became the direct ancestor of the Piperi tribe.[1] The name of the first ancestor, Keq, which means bad in Albanian, is given in Malësia to only children or to children from families with very few children (due to infant mortality). In those families, an "ugly" name (i çudun) was given as a spoken talisman to protect the child from the "evil eye.[2]

Historical research has shown that Piperi is not a tribe (pleme) of common patrilineal ancestry.[3] It formed in the period between the mid 15th century and the 16th century by communities that settled in different periods in Piperi, where they also found an already settled population. Piperi appears in the defter of the Sanjak of Scutari in 1485 and in 1497. The population of Piperi more than doubled from 167 to 347 households from 1485 to 1497. 121 of those households were of unmarried men and 38 of widows. This indicates that many of the newcomers were refugees from areas conquered in Montenegro and northern Albania. In the supplementary defter of 1497, there are several kin groups in the region of Piperi, which appears as a distinct nahiya divided in three timars under local Christian Ottoman spahis.[4] Many communities of the villages of Piperi were categorized as already settled or newcomers from other areas. In the villages, the communities formed clusters of households according to their kinship tries. This separation of settlements by kinship persisted even in the early 20th century. The villages of Piperi in 1497 were Luskozhupa, Drezka, Strahalic, Belica, Moracica, Dug, Mirasnica, Dobrico, Radushev do, Brestica, Dirnovica, Merka. The biggest distinct tribal communities that inhabited Piperi at the time were Lužani, Bukumiri, Bushati and others.[4] The Slavic anthroponymy at that time in Piperi is mainly attributed to the Lužani while the Albanian anthroponymy to Bukumiri, Bushati and some smaller communities.[4] Other communities like the Macure and the Mataruge had also settled in Piperi. Their traces can be identified mainly within the Lužani whom they had joined by that time in historical record. The toponym Macur jama (pit of Macura) in today's Piperi is linked to them.[5]

Piperi was first mentioned in Venetian documents at the beginning of the 15th century. Mariano Bolizza recorded in 1614 that the Piperi had a total of 270 houses, of Serbian Orthodox faith.[6] The 700 men in arms were commanded by Radoslav Božidarov. Giovanni Bembo, the Doge of Venice (1615–1618), had defeated the Serb pirates (Uskoks), whom the Austrians had employed against the Republic of Venice; they were forced to take refuge at Nikšić and Piperi, and established themselves in the villages and tribes, under the later leadership of the Petrović-Njegoš family that held the office of Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan of Cetinje (later Vladika, Prince-Bishop) after 1694.[7] They fought Osman Pasha in 1732, and Mahmut Pasha in 1788. They are mentioned as a "Serbian Orthodox clan" in a historical and geographical survey from 1757 and a letter sent by the Clan federation to Russia from 1789.[8] Documents, especially the letter of Ivan Radonjić from 1789, show that the Montenegrins were identified as Serbs, and that the Banjani, Kuči, Piperi, Bjelopavlići, Zećani, Vasojevići, Bratonožići were not identified as "Montenegrins" but only as Serb tribes. They were all mentioned only in a regional, geographical, and tribal manner, and never as an ethnic category.[9] In 1796 they fought Mahmut Pasha again, in the Battle of Martinići (in modern Danilovgrad). They fought Tahir Pasha around 1810.

Prince-Bishop Petar I (r. 1782-1830) waged a successful campaign against the bey of Bosnia in 1819; the repulse of an Ottoman invasion from Albania during the Russo-Turkish War led to the recognition of Montenegrin sovereignty over Piperi.[10] Petar I had managed to unite the Piperi and Bjelopavlići with Old Montenegro.[10] A civil war broke out in 1847, in which the Piperi, Kuci, Bjelopavlici and Crmnica sought to confront the growing centralized power of new prince of Montenegro; the secessionists were subdued and their ringleaders shot.[11] Amid the Crimean War, there was a political problem in Montenegro; Danilo I's uncle, George, urged for yet another war against the Ottomans, but the Austrians advised Danilo not to take arms.[12] A conspiracy was formed against Danilo, led by his uncles George and Pero, the situation came to its height when the Ottomans stationed troops along the Herzegovinian frontier, provoking the mountaineers.[12] Some urged an attack on Bar, others raided into Herzegovina, and the discontent of Danilo's subjects grew so much that the Piperi, Kuči and Bjelopavlići, the recent and still unamalgamated acquisitions, proclaimed themselves an independent state in July, 1854.[12] Danilo was forced to take measurement against the rebels in Brda, some crossed into Turkish territory and some submitted and were to pay for the civil war they had caused.[12]

Petar II Petrović-Njegoš founded the police force (gvardija) throughout the Prince-Bishopric of Montenegro, as part of his transformation from a tribal federation to a proper state; 26 existed in Piperi.[13]

Jovan Erdeljanović, a renowned Serbian ethnographer, stated that the four main bratstva (clans) of Rogami (a region corresponding to ancient Duklja), the Rajkovići, Stamatovići, Vučinići and Vukanovići, had become pobratim (blood brothers) and that they all venerated Archangel Michael as their patron saint (the Serbian Orthodox tradition of slava).[14]

Piperi was one of the tribes that constituted the "Greens" (Zelenaši), a political faction that saw the unification of Montenegro to Serbia in 1918, as the annexation of Montenegro, and instead supported an independent Montenegro. The Greens instigated the Christmas Uprising on January 7, 1919, which was crushed by Serbian troops.

During World War II the majority of the tribe supported the Yugoslav Partisans.[15] The Montenegrin committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party was dominated by Piperi clansmen prior to the war, and they were instigators of the July 1941 uprising. One of the most famous Piperi communists was Dr. Vukasin Markovic, a personal associate to Lenin, who came back after the October revolution from Russia to Montenegro, planning to stage a Soviet revolution. After its failure and his arrest, he fled to the USSR, where he assumed party duties.