Plav Municipality

Plav reveals that treaties matter less than who holds the guns. The Treaty of Berlin awarded this municipality and neighboring Gusinje to Montenegro in 1878, but the 65.64% Bosniak population of 9,050 refused incorporation. The League of Prizren—a coalition of Albanian and Bosniak leaders resisting partition of Ottoman territories—defeated Montenegrin forces under Marko Miljanov at the Battle of Novšiće on December 4, 1879. For 33 years after the treaty, Plav remained outside Montenegro's control despite international recognition of Montenegrin sovereignty. Geography enabled defiance: the Prokletije (Accursed) mountains and glacial Lake Plav at 906 meters created defensible terrain that made conquest costs exceed the prize.

The European powers that drew borders in Berlin had no interest in enforcing them with troops. When Montenegro proved unable to take Plav and Gusinje by force, the Ottomans offered a trade in 1880: give Montenegro the Adriatic port of Ulcinj instead, keeping Plav in the empire. This bargain held until the First Balkan War in 1912, when Ottoman collapse finally transferred Plav to Montenegrin administration—34 years late. The municipality's current Bosniak majority (65.64%), along with smaller populations of Serbs (17.08%), Albanians (9.43%), and Montenegrins (4.11%), reflects the Ottoman Sandžak region's Islamic heritage. The borders moved; the people stayed.

Plav sits at the Lim River's springs, where the water that flows north through Bijelo Polje to Serbia originates from mountain snowmelt and the glacial lake. Yugoslav planners invested minimally in this remote, ethnically distinct municipality. No major industries established here, no Yugoslav heroes justified renaming it, no ski resorts competed with Kolašin. The population of 9,050 in 2023 represents minimal growth from post-WWII levels. As mayor Amir Canović noted in April 2025, the municipality seeks 'credible investors' for basic infrastructure—roads and water supply that most of Montenegro built decades earlier. Prokletije National Park attracts hikers to one of the Balkans' most rugged mountain ranges, but tourism infrastructure lags behind Durmitor and Biogradska Gora.

By 2026, Plav faces the peripheral zone's dilemma: too ethnically distinct and geographically remote to attract national investment, too small to generate economic momentum independently, and watching working-age residents leave for Podgorica or abroad. The municipality that fought 33 years to stay outside Montenegro now struggles with the consequences of winning: it stayed poor, stayed isolated, and stayed Bosniak in a country where those three conditions correlate. Defensive victories sometimes just delay the terms of surrender.