Petar II Petrović-Njegoš
Petar II Petrović-Njegoš was born Radivoje "Rade" Petrović on in the mountain village of Njeguši, near Cetinje. His father, Tomislav "Tomo" Petrović (b. 1762–63), was a member of the Petrović clan of the Njeguši tribe of Katuni "nahiya". Njegoš's mother, Ivana Proroković, hailed from the hamlet of Mali Zalaz and was the daughter of Njeguši captain Lazo Proroković. There is no reliable information about her exact year of birth, but it is believed that she was about ten years younger than her husband. Tomo and Ivana had five children; their eldest son was Petar ("Pero"), Rade was their middle son and Jovan ("Joko") was their youngest. The couple's daughters were named Marija and Stana; Marija was married to a Montenegrin chieftain named Andrija Perović, the "serdar" (count) of Cuce, while Stana was married to Filip Đurašković, the "serdar" of Rijeka Crnojevića.
Petar II Petrović-Njegoš
In 1837, the czar gave Njegoš permission to visit Saint Petersburg, just as a severe famine began to affect Montenegro. Immediately, Njegoš sensed that his second visit to the Russian capital was going to be different than the first. He was not greeted as warmly as he had been in 1833 and the Russians used the opportunity to call him out on several instances of "unmonkish" behaviour, particularly his fondness for being in the company of women. Despite this, Russia increased its annual subsidy and provided wheat to Montenegro's famished citizens. While Montenegro's dependence on Russia often provided the impoverished statelet with desperately needed funding, it was geopolitically disastrous for the Montenegrins, as both the Ottomans and Austrians believed that Montenegrin access to the Adriatic would constitute "de facto" Russian penetration into the Mediterranean given the nature of Russo−Montenegrin relations.