Montenegro, Me, and F. Scott Fitzgerald

In May 2024, I traveled to Montenegro in southern Europe with my husband Mitch, my son Collin and his wife Gabby, and my daughter Katherine and her husband Andrija. The purpose of our trip? To celebrate Katherine’s and Andrija’s marriage at a reception for local family and friends, which was hosted by Andrija’s parents, Marko and Marija Markovic. From their home base in the capital city of Podgorica, our hosts provided us with an unforgettable introductory visit to a country I admittedly knew little about.

True, I had known that Montenegro had been part of Yugoslavia during most of the 20th century, and that the U.S. had supported Montenegro during the Bosnian War of the 1990s. But honestly, my knowledge about the Balkans was scant… embarrassingly so. However, — and remember that I’m a high school English teacher, so that explains what follows — my main familiarity with Montenegro was due to its brief appearance in my favorite novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Montenegro appears in chapter 4, when the tragic hero Jay Gatsby, tells his neighbor, the novel’s narrator Nick Carraway, about his service as a soldier in World War One:

“Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took two machine-gun detachments so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn’t advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration — even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!”

Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them — with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro’s warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.

He reached in his pocket, and a piece of metal, slung on a ribbon, fell into my palm.

“That’s the one from Montenegro.”

To my astonishment, the thing had an authentic look. “Orderi di Danilo,” ran the circular legend, “Montenegro, Nicolas Rex.”

“Turn it.” “Major Jay Gatsby,” I read, “For Valour Extraordinary.”

It’s interesting to note that when Gatsby tells his suspiciously grandiose story about receiving a “decoration” from every Allied nation, he specifically mentions Montenegro and then even carries that particular medal, the “Orderi di Danilo”, in his possession. (The inscription on the medal, by the way, refers to the Montenegrin Prince Danilo Petrovic Njegos who ruled from 1851-1860 and his successor, his brother’s son, King Nicholas I who ruled as prince from 1860-1910 and as king from 1910-1918.)

This high school English teacher will tell you that authors make specific choices for specific reasons; therefore, there was a reason Fitzgerald employed Montenegro in this passage. He could have used France, but he didn’t. He could have used Belgium, but he didn’t. So why Montenegro? Did Montenegro possess a characteristic that Fitzgerald sought to personify in Jay Gatsby? Did he merely prefer the swingy sound of the sentence… “even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!” Did he want to draw parallels between the small, yet independent and determined, Balkan nation and Gatsby’s always optimistic, hardscrabble persona?

Obviously, I will never know Fitzgerald’s intent, but it’s fun to think about. Of all the nations, Montenegro was the one he chose. I’m sure it’s a detail I will return to again and again when I teach the book in my classes each year. Of course, we plan to return someday to Montenegro to see our new family members there and also more of the country. Perhaps on that return visit, I will come closer to pinpointing the connection Fitzgerald wished to make between Montenegro and Jay Gatsby.

Until then, here’s another photo from our daytrip to Kotor, a medieval village in Montenegro.