Lješanska nahija included the area to the Riječka nahija, and was the most impoverished and smallest part of the Principality of Montenegro, consisting of several brotherhoods, which due to some differences among them (especially religious) could not in its entirety establish itself as other tribes.[1]
It was also home to the Albanian tribe of the Goljemadi.
The region was bordered by Lješkopolje, an Ottoman frontier which was not part of Montenegro prior to the Congress of Berlin (1878).[2]
The toponym derives from a Slavicized variant of the Albanian masculine name Lesh (Lješ). According to a local tradition, the ancestor arrived from the city of Lezhë, however the actual name is regarded as being much older since
as early as 1496 Đurađ Crnojević mentions the nobleman Radovan Lъšević (Lješević) in the area of Lješanska nahija, while its inhabitants as Lьšane (Lješane).[3]
The name (Lješanska nahija) is first mentioned in 1692.[4] Traditionally, Vojvodas (The Dukes) came from the House of Uskoković.
^Srpski etnografski zbornik. Vol. 39. Akademija. 1926. За назив Љешанска Нахија имали бисмо, колико нам је познато, први спомен у извештају Николе Ерице од 1692 го- дине.
