A very basic aspect of a culture is it's language. The Adriatic population in nowadays Croatia and Montenegro independent of using a Slavic Language (Croatian or Montenegrin) and are still descendants of a Illyro-Roman population that did fuse with the new Slavic settlers after the Fall of the Roman Empire. This heritage shouldn't be forgotten, since it is part of these peoples identity, making every region or city unique.
With the Renaissance period, the middle ages ended resulting in our modern way of life, changing Europe's face drastically. During the 15th ad 16th century embracing this heritage resulted in an Renaissance in the dalmatian Region. This is a very important aspect, which seems to be forgotten. This only was initially possible due to the Romance Speaking population in this area who were part of this process of reviving the ancient Roman ideas. Of course the Slavic speaking population joined and shaped this periods results. This Romance heritage has been ignored during the nationalist movements during the 20th century, still the people of this region feel somehow connected with this period.
The first step to connect further is to be aware of this essential ancestors and their language since the language is a key element of culture, influencing ones way of thinking. There has been a continuous Romance Population in the Balkans after the fall of one of histories greatest civilization: ROME. Like in France, Italy, Spain, Romania and Portugal. A similar process of transition from vulgar Latin to a distinct romance language took place, leading to different dialects of the "same" language group: Dalmatian. Every city had it's own dialect during the 15th century of the Dalmatian Language as it can be seen below:
