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
By the mid-1840s, the idea of unifying all South Slavs into a common state had gained much support from Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims living in the Austrian Empire. Njegoš's travels to Austria and Italy exposed him to many of the concepts that eventually formed the backbone of the Illyrianist movement, notably that all South Slavs share common cultural and linguistic traits and are, as such, one people. His correspondence with South Slavic nationalist leaders in neighbouring lands disturbed the Austrians, who wished to avoid a South Slav uprising in the Habsburg territories. Consequently, Vienna increased its surveillance of the "vladika" and intercepted all his correspondence, amid widespread turmoil during the revolutions of 1848. That year, Njegoš supported the efforts of the pan-Slavist "Ban" Josip Jelačić to resist the implementation of Hungarian as the official language of Croatia. Njegoš soon became disillusioned with Jelačić due to his siding with the House of Habsburg against the Hungarians, believing that such an alliance was ultimately detrimental to the goal of South Slavic unification. Later that year, Njegoš began exchanging letters with Prince Aleksandar of Serbia and the politician Ilija Garašanin, who sought to acquire Serbia access to the sea and revive the medieval Serbian Empire. Montenegro's geographic location made it particularly significant to Garašanin because of its proximity to the Adriatic. In April 1848, Njegoš secretly hosted Serbian emissary Matija Ban in Cetinje. The two discussed plans for instigating an uprising in Bosnia, Herzegovina and "Old Serbia" (Kosovo and Macedonia), seeking to take advantage of the revolutionary fervor sweeping through Europe. Whereas the Serbians were more focused on destabilizing the Ottoman establishment in Kosovo and Macedonia, Njegoš was more immediately concerned with the situation in neighbouring Herzegovina. Despite these differences, Njegoš and Prince Aleksandar agreed that, in the event of a unified Serbian state, Prince Aleksandar was to be proclaimed the hereditary secular leader of the Serb people while Njegoš would become the Patriarch of a unified Serbian Orthodox Church.