Radovan Karadžić was born in the Yugoslav republic of Montenegro, a land of soaring mountain peaks, roaring rivers, deep ravines, and sparsely vegetated plateaus. Widely dispersed human settlements in this mostly barren land are often marked by a Serbian Orthodox church, typically a small windowless chapel made of local stone hewn from the mountains. Less conspicuous are Serbian Orthodox monasteries, isolated and remote from villages and from one another, also made mostly of gray stone from the mountains that seclude them. The landscape bears evidence of its inhabitants’ struggle to wrest a living from the angular land. Sheep graze on sparse grasses and shrubs, and shepherds shelter from frequent wind, rain, and snow in tiny mountain huts. Peasants plow scattered hillside patches of fertile land in horizontal bands to minimize erosion.

Like most rural dwellers in the Montenegrin highlands, Radovan’s parents led a spartan life. His mother, Jovanka, born in 1923 to the Jakić family from Dobrijeh Sela near Pljevlje, grew up a scrappy, energetic peasant girl without attending school. She helped the family eke out a living from the scarce arable land. The eldest of six children, she cared for her younger siblings after her father died when she was twelve. In her late teens, Jovanka met Vuko Karadžić, a cobbler twelve years her senior, from the nearby village of Petnjica. Vuko was well known locally for his mastery of the double flute and the gusle, a traditional one-stringed folk instrument often played to accompany the singing of epic poems. In 1943, during World War II, Jovanka married him, both for love and from fear of being unprotected in the midst of war. She moved to the Karadžić family compound in Petnjica, and there, on June 19, 1945, she gave birth to their first child, Radovan.