Његош у времену техничких достигнућа и Велике светске изложбе
Njegoš in the epoch of technical achievements and the Great World Exhibition

Summary/Abstract: The incentive for this observation of Njegoš’s interest in science, technical achievements based on science, and their employ in Montenegro lies in one of the entries in his Notebook in which he writes of the Crystal Palace, raised in London to house the first Great Exhibition of 1851. The event was the sublimate sum of merits of „Romanticism science“ which through the passion of her actors transformed the rationalism of the previous Age of Enlightenment and the reception of science in public opinion. As an intellectual, a poet, a ruler and a great traveller, Njegoš was a participant in this process. His interest in the Great Exhibition which took place in the year of Njegoš’s grave illness and death, is the final manifestation of his long standing dedication to this field of knowledge and activity. Such an inclination stems from his vivacity of spirit, creative passion, intellectual habitus and constant striving to modernize his country. Grounded on technical achievements, Njegoš initiates, or has a desire to initiate, capital state projects (construction of roads, factories, mines, wells, ships...), creates a strategy of visual representation of his country (commissions a map, acquires apparatuses for the production of medals and photographs...), enhances ephemeral spectacles and the culture of everyday living. In so doing, he expresses an awareness of Montenegro as an entity and of himself as its ideator and ruler. Njegoš had especially intense encounters with the modern age, that is with the technical wonders of the day – steamships and trains, in the course of his travels. His poetry, letters and notes testify of this. Many of Njegoš’s strivings came to fruition at the time Montenegro became an independent state, and a sort of fulfilment of his note on the Crystal Palace, which reflected the light of the new, modern era, came through the visits Prince Nikola made to the Great Exhibitions in Paris and Vienna and the participation of the Principate of Montenegro at the Great Exhibition of Liege in 1905

• Details
• Contents