1. Skip to content
  2. Skip to main menu
  3. Skip to more DW sites
Live TV
Latest audioLatest videos
In focus
Russia's war in UkraineIsrael-Hamas warIndia elections

Macedonia: Monumental Battle

March 25, 2014

"Skopje 2014" is the name of an expensive government project that is increasingly dividing the country. From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa, the city is covering itself with more and more statues.

https://p.dw.com/p/1BVKW
Statue Alexander der Große
Image: Petr Stojanovski

When building began two years ago, "Skopje 2014" was meant to beautify the old town center. But it is now clear to everyone involved that it has much more to do with the issue of whose history is being immortalized in bronze and whose isn't. In a small country in which Macedonians, Turks, Albanians, Serbs and Roma live more alongside than with each other, each new statue leads to a heated dispute. The Albanians in partricular feel they're inadequately represented in the sea of monuments, and a statue of Stefan Dušan, the self-proclaimed medieval Emperor of the Serbs, has infuriated the mainly Muslim Albanian minority.

Mazedonien Denkmal Filip II in Skopje
Image: picture-alliance/dpa