To Whom Does Rumija Belong? A Dispute Over a Place of Memory and Transformation of Religious Tradition in Montenegro
Abstract
The chapter tries to examine a protracted dispute, caused by an attempt at physical appropriation and ethnocentric reinterpretation of an important multicultural place of memory - the top of the Rumija Mountain (1594 m) towering over the Montenegrin town of Bar. This is an ethnically and religiously mixed region in which Orthodox religion, Catholicism and Islam meet.
The local population claims the Montenegrin, Serbian, Bosnian (Muslim), Albanian and Roma ethnic origin. The top of the hill is associated with the cult of Saint Vladimir Dukljanski (+1016).
Annual pilgrimages are held there during which a relic (a wooden cross) associated with the saint is carried to Rumija. In the past, the pilgrimage was attended not only by Christians (Orthodox and Catholic), but also Muslims.
In 2005, a helicopter of the former army of Serbia and Montenegro installed a tin chapel, belonging to the Serb Orthodox Church, on top of the hill without permission from the Montenegrin authorities. This move triggered considerable disagreement among the non-Serb population.
The effort at the removal of the one-sidedly installed chapel and its replacement with a different artefact has lasted until now. Since then, the tradition of annual pilgrimages to the top of the hill has undergone considerable changes, having basically lost its previous multicultural nature