In suffering one learns who is the hero!" (137–138) Background During the Great War of Vienna European powers united with the goal of weakening Ottoman influence and pursued a policy of enforcing Christian populations. In 1690, Patriarch Arseny III Čarnojević encouraged Serbs to revolt against the Ottomans. During the same year, a Montenegrin movement of liberation began, initiated by Venice, thus creating resentment between Christians and Muslims leading to the events. Danilo I then decided, after a series of severe conflicts, that the Muslims and Christians could no longer live together. In the plot of The Mountain Wreath, two assemblies of Christian Montenegrin chieftains gather, one the eve of Pentecost, and the other on the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, with the decision to drive out the Turks. Some Balkan historians doubt the massacre ever occurred. Massacre According to Montenegrin folklore, the massacre was carried out on Christmas Eve, however there are disagreements of the date of the massacre, stretching from 1702-1702, and 1709-1711. The main driver was Bishiop Danilo Šćepcević, native of Njegoš, who was elected as bishop in 1697 and consecrated by Arsenius III Čarnojević in 1700 in Secu. Danilo gathered the chieftains and ordered them to exterminate "native Turks" who refused to be baptized. Serb historian Vladimir Corovic states that the action was directed by Vuk Borilovic and the Martinovic brothers, along with several bureaucrats. At Christmas, before dawn, they killed the Muslims of Cetinje. Thousands were massacred, but only one of the bishop's men was wounded. In the following days, many Muslims were expelled from surrounding settlements. Men, women and children were slaughtered. Literature Pavle Rak, a Serb-Slovenian journalist, describe the massacre as a "total inversion of the meaning of Christmas celebration that should bring peace to God to the whole world" as Christian values were abandoned for politics. Author Rebecca West, an admirer of Montenegrin culture who published "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" (1941), is described as an admirer of the alleged massacre. Literary critic Vojislav Nikcevic stated that the poem was artistic with a lively spirit to make reader and scholar experience the depicted event as reality. Ideological controversy Historian Srđa Pavlović points out that The Mountain Wreath has been the subject of praise and criticism, frequently used to support diametrically opposing views. Regardless of their political agendas, ideological preferences or religious persuasions, every new generation of South Slav historians and politicians appropriates Njegoš's