Prof. Dr. Ali Pajaziti*

Abstract

CAPITAL-DIVISION AND ETHNO-URBANIZATION INMACEDONIAN WAY: CASE OF “SKOPJE 2014”

Macedonia is historically known as ‘CatenaMundi’ (The Clasp of the World) due to itsfavorable geographical position as a crossroadplace of important routes, civilizations andreligions. According to some analysts, theprocesses of globalization have enhanced a moreaggressive search of identity in the frames of theBalkan peoples, who wish to exclude the other. InFYROM homo politicus from its independence till now isfollowing the steps of homo balkanicus, nationalism,ethnicization, exclusivism, etc.

One of the most destructive components ofnation-building in this society is VMRO-DPMNEgovernment’s antiurban-project “Skopje 2014”,described by analysts as “architorture andentombment”. The project based on the concept for“the past”, “prehistorical”, “mythical”,“antiquisation” and “the folklore”, which costsaround 200 million € is purely ethnic-Macedonianproject, Slavic, and Orthodox and which iscontradicted by a considerable number of citizens,as it favors only one culture, one history, onereligion, one nation, and ignores inheritance,

* SEE University, Tetovë, Macedonia.1

tradition of the city and the whole societalreality. It uses architecture and sculpture tosupport the culture of the party in power and themonoethnization of the state.

This paper tries to analyse from theperspective of urban sociology the repercusions ofthis project for the lifespace, urban ecology,social cohesion, its disintegrative dimension,destructive aspects for coexistence andmulticultural geist.

keywords: antiquisation, ethno-urbanization, cultural exclusivism, urban ecology, urban pathology, anti-multiculturalism

“Skopje is an earthly representation of the heavenly garden”Ibn Kemal (XVI-th cen.)

1.From post-Yugoslavian society to post-Ohridone: Turbulences as destiny

The Republic of Macedonia is one the statesthat were born after the dissolution of ex-Yugoslavia, a process that caused interethnic andinterreligious conflicts, social traumas, the“social tsunami” and a very pesimistic view as tothe future of Balkan. Like most of Balkan countries,Macedonia was taken by macabre conflictuality aswell. The year 2001 brought the state to the verge

2

of dissolving but it was the internationalintervention and the Framework Agreement of Ohridthat opened a new page in the history of thecountry, that of passing from a monoethnic politicalsociety (1989,1991) into a multiethnic,multicultural one. The Ohrid Agreement brought achange in the character of the state, a promotion ofpeaceful and harmonious development of the societyby respecting the ethnic and religious interests ofall RM (Republic of Macedonia) citizens, equalrepresentation of all ethnities in all sociallevels. This new order of the state we can call the“post-Ohrid Macedonia” or “Third Macedonia”. It wasthis spirit of Ohrid that cooled the passions downat the beginning of the new millenium whensoteriologists are waiting for salvation whereas wehad the crisis.

When we talk about transition societies orpost-Yugoslavian ones, we generally imply thosesocieties that still suffer from independencefevers, societies of permanent crisis and which arein search for the course towards real stability. Inits natural structure, Macedonia is amulticultural, anthropologically polymorphoussociety but which has not found yet what is calledthe common ground that would enable the societalstabilization. The reality of today’s Macedonia isthat of a divided society, of a society with“ethnicizing of all spheres of life” (Atanasov,2003: 141) in which nationalism is “a constitutiveelement of political action and identity” (Warren,1993: 17).1

1 Ali Pajaziti, Culture and the Quality of Life: The Case of Macedonia, Logos-A, Skopje, 2011, p. 44.

3

Twenty years after its independence and tenyears after the conflict Macedonia still remains avictim to micronationalisms, unsolved issues, ofits identity contested by its three neighbors, oflanguage and church, Macedonian-Albanian relationswithin the country etc. The name issue isparticularly keeping the country in a socialpurgatory, rendering Euro-Atlantic integrationimpossible. As Mathew Branwasser says, “theambitious redefinition of this small country’sidentity as a particular Balkan expression ofhypernationalism, accompanied by trumpeting aboutthe antique roots of Macedonia (or Macedoniansbetter - A.P.) generates a rise of anxiety ininternational dimensions regarding the growth ofauthoritarianism”.2

The patriotic program of the government findsno support among Albanians who make up 25% ofpopulation. Albanian political parties continuouslypropagate that the “antiquisation” of Macedonianidentity alienates RM’s friends from EU. In a studycarried in May 2010, 78% of respondents haveexpressed the opinion that Albanian-Macedonianrelations are gravely impaired.3 This shows we areliving in a state of pathological multiculturalism.4

The International Crisis Group, anongovernmental organization devoted to thesolution of conflicts, in its report published inAugust 2011, says: “The growing Macedonian ethnic

2 http://www.plusinfo.mk/mislenje/334/Raste-zagrizhenosta-za-avtoritarizmot-vo-Makedonija/15.10.20113 A1, May 19, 2010. 4 Niezgoda, Marian et. al., Culture in Transition-Transition in Culture, JagiellonianUniversity: Institute of Sociology, Krakow, 2009, p. 15.

4

nationalism, the authoritarian management with thestate by the PM and his party, the decliningindependence of press and courts, the growingdivisions in education and the sluggarddecentralization are threatening a multiethniccivil state as Macedonia could be.”

German eurodeputy Doris Pack, in a meeting withmembers of Foreign Policy Commission of theEuropean Parliament, has drawn attention thatnationalism is on rise in Macedonia and that therecent developments are dangerous for the country.Pack said she didn’t believe that Macedonia couldget the date for starting membership negotiationswith EU, especially after the last changes inGreece and that came out to be right. According toher, “such a situation is dangerous becauseMacedonia was really on a good path after the OhridAgreement, whereas now there are many signals aboutthe growth of nationalism.” (NOA)5

European Council’s 2011 report states that theinterethnic relations have been charged andaccompanied by some incidents. The “famous” Skopje2014 project is also contested here: “The urbanproject ‘Skopje 2014’ has created interethnictensions. Members of non-majority communities havecomplained about forgetfulness towards theirhistorical culture.” There is a political andethnic selection in the distribution of the meansfor rural development and those for the developmentof agriculture. EC’s report also points out thatinvestments in projects of culture and educationare not carried equally in all communes and do not

5 Koha, 19.11.2011.5

reflect the multiethnic composition of thecountry.6

 

 

2.Authentic Skopje, cohabitation and culturalpluralism as opposed to artificial Skopje

The notorious austrian thinker and philosopherIvan Illich, within the frame of his controversialdiscourse, says: “You can wipe a city out bycutting its breath.”7 The hermeneutics of thissentence makes us understand that cities are livingorganisms, with body and spirit, “with cells andtissues”, they are breathing beings, that evenrebel when someone takes their power, they areentities that never forget (M. Armagan) but thatcan cease existing in case we don’t cultivate andculturalise them. Comte did also consider cities as“real organs”. Since the oldest cities (Byblos,Damascus, Jericho) to this day, together with thecities that have brought civilization, a particularculture has developed that distinguishes it fromthe rural geist, the rural way of life. This culturehas been overcalled city culture or urban culture,shehirli culture8 until a few decades (in some Balkancities), taking the form of urban life in dailyuse.

6 http://www.rdk.org.mk/lajmet-lista-rdk/215-e-verteta-mbi-raportin-e-ke-se-per-progresin-e-maqedonise/28.11.20117 Mustafa Armağan, Şehir Asla Unutmaz, İz Yayıncılık, Istanbul, 1996, p. 15.8 See: Burcu Akan Ellis, Shadow Genealogies: Memory and Identity Among Urban Muslims in Macedonia, The American University, Washington, D.C., 2000.

6

The city is a specific social and culturalform, a source of certain social relationships9, alocus where the phenomenon of the growth ofrationality is observed. The city is sociologicaland economical majesty, a technical, cultural andanthropological artefact. The city is a complexpublic space, a work of art.

Cities change very fast today10. The grow andwiden by changing their form and structure. Theepoch of modernity has rendered the city moredynamic, has saved it from being a victim tonarrowness and clanism, has cosmopoliticized it andhas made it more open to the world. Today is spokenabout underground cities, undersea cities, citiesthat fly in the stratosphere, cities that walk onearth like monstruous metallic insects.11

Unfortunately Balkan as an unlucky space ofhistory offers views of destroyed cities, ofsuffered cities that marked the last century awaywith the horror they passed through. Sarajevo andVukovar are examples of dead cities, damaged byhuman hand. These cities were once destroyed byexplosion, whereas many cities of countries intransition are destroyed by implosion, masovichorizontal mobility towards the epicenter,unnatural migration of people looking for salvationin capitals (like Prishtina and Tirana). They aredeformed by overpopulation, by rurbanization. Theyhave not been projected for such a high number ofinhabitants. They don’t have infrastructural

9 Gjyldane Mulla, Sociologjia urbane, University of Prishtina, Prishtina, 2000, p. 101. 10 Богдан Богдановиќ, Градот и иднината, Темплум, Skopje, 2011, p. 13.11 Богдановиќ, p. 15.

7

capacities to face the phenomenon of the enormousgrowth of inhabitants, cars, houses…

Skopje is a settlement with dimensions of aglobal city, in which not only various cultures andethnic identities meet but which also is a city ofhistorical and civilizing paradigms. It’s a citywith a notorious history of cohabitance andmulticulturalism. In fact, it is Macedonia itself.A capital where roads cross, where interests ofrulers clash and where many cultures, traditionsand languages melt with each other.12 Some havecalled Skopje l’ombeliuco del mondo, kernel of the worldand Macedonia catena mundi. An academic andpolitician of Turkey, Davutoglu (2010), describedthis country as the center and heart of the Balkan.

Together with Sarajevo, Skopje has one of themost beautiful bazaars in the Balkan. One can findthere the qeleshe of the Albanian, Macedonian hat,the headscarf of the Muslim woman, Turkish musicand baklava, the Torbesh garbanzo roasters and theGipsy wagoner. “Deset kebapi ve molam!” (Ten kebabsplease!), “Simit pogaçë”, “Buyrum, buyrum!”, “Sa janëmollat?” (How much the apples?), “Kumanovo,Kumanovo”.... calls Allahu Ekber, Allahu Ekber, the soundof the bell of Saint Spas Church are part of thesilhouette and live theatre of Skopje.

Tourists or travelers from abroad today, assoon as they enter Macedonia receive a SMS thatsays: “Welcome to the cradle of civilization!” aborrowing that was previously used for Egypt andMesopotamia. The cultural mosaic called Macedonia,distinguished by “deep diversity” (Taylor, 1994) is

12 Kim Mehmeti, Shkupi, Logos-A, Skopje, 2011, p. 73. 8

a natural state. It is a “civilization corridor”where East and West meet. Skopje is a child of twoparents! Today, in 2012, five decades after thecatastrophal earthquake, Skopje has dignitarilychanged from Kenzo Tange’s utopia for an open citytowards a divided one. The organic and naturalSkopje has been replaced by another, artificialone, the GMC Skopje (genetically modified city),harmful to the social health of its inhabitants.This city has passed through many periods, fromSkupi of Titus Livi, first century B.C., theOttoman Uskub (1392-1912), the Shkupi of 1912,Skoplje (between the two world wars), the BulgarianSkopia of WW2 and the Skopje/Shkupi of thecommunism and transition periods. Once the pride ofthe Dardans, today the “stolen city”13 overcome byurban delirium and collective political neurosis,by the ideology of alexandrist nationalism(although nations did not exist in the time ofAlexander and mobility and pluralism were dominant)that damaged the view of this pearl of the Balkan.

3.“Skopje 2014” as a metaphor of irrationality:the second Berlin on stage

Yesterday (25 November 2011) I was fulfillingmy routine media ritual, watching TV I saw thatanother grand project is being prepared forMacedonia, the “Macedonia 2014” to which theLiberal Democrat Party strongly reacted. The homopoliticus of the party in power since 2006 VMRO-DPMNE,besides causing a tensioning of the situation that13 Shih: Дејан Буѓевац et. al., Крадат град, Темплум & Плоштад Слобода, Skopje, 2010.

9

continues still, also generated über-Mazedonischeidentity projects like Skopje 2014, a step of the“Gruevskian trans” which creates permanent internaland external conflicts through the old policy ofidentity.14 In 2006, one year after theadministrative decentralization, the newly electedpopulist and conservative party started enliveningfrustrations after the conflict about identity andthe pressure of Europeanization until this attitudetook visual urban forms (Skopje 2014).15 Thisproject follows the line of monolithic andmonocentric identity of the old profile of Europeancities that now has been given up in the name ofvariety of scenes and meanings which offers notonly cultural diversity but economic potential aswell. For this reason, for economic reasons,advanced nations are giving up harsh identitiestoday, as national economies can not survive in theepoch of uncompromising globalization.

Through this project Skopje has been dividedinto the right side Skopje (Macedonian) and leftside Skopje (Albanian). Analyst Kim Mehmeti saidabout this that “somebody wants separation andwalls”.16 According to him, “divided into itssouthern and northern parts, Skopje is a city wherethose who today consider themselves ethnicMacedonians build their nonexisting past whileAlbanians and others who live today in the citywant to preserve by any means the present that isdeeeply rooted in the illyrian past of the city.”17

14 Никола Гелевски, Архитортура и гробаризација, Темплум, Skopje, 2010, p. 17, 21. 15 Mijallkoviq & Urbanek, Shkupi: Bastardi i botës, Goten, Skopje, 2011, p. 76. 16 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kV3N7xtBo417 Kim Mehmeti, Shkupi, Logos-A, Skopje, 2011, p. 28.

10

Photo. 1 View from “Albanian Skopje” and “Macedonian Skopje”

So we have to do with an emotive metaphysicsand identities for daily political use, with aconjuncture of the shamanistic party in power. Itseems that some people forget that identificationin the city differs from that as part of thenational corpus.18 Through this delirium tremens, Skopjeis slowly becoming the ugliest city in Europe, anexample of kitsch and tastelessness. Historicalinferiority and primitive consciousness have turnedthe plaza into a place where the identity of theover-Macedonian or Macedonoid is being forged.19

Critics from international instances continueto come while the search for identity is beingintensified.20 The city center has become a18 Gelevski, p. 29, 41. 19 Gelevski, p. 73. 20 Minister of Finances Zoran Stavrevski said in a declaration he made: “It’s about rebuilding our identity. We are trying to resurrect our

11

hotchpotch of historical statues that do notcorrespond to each other (20 big and 100 smallones). Within a small radius visitors see Alexanderthe Great in bronze (as mythical model Macedoniansuperman), Justinian, the Orthodox saints Cyril andMethodius from the 9-th century, Tzar Samoil, DameGruev, Goce Dellcev and many others. Therecontinues the construction of the National Theater,of Macedonian Struggle Museum, of State Archive, ofArchaeological Museum, of Constitutional Court, ofProsecution, Financial Police, of the EyeBridge...21, all in baroque style, together with therenewal of the facades of building at MacedoniaSquare. One of the buildings of this anti-urbanproject is the 22 meters high Arch of Triumph,called “the Arch of Misery” by an analyst and whichaccording to surveys results to be the most hatedobject among those of “Skopje 2014” (R. Ramadani)and in the solemn inauguration of which theAlbanian party in the government (BDI) andopposition parties did not take place. A citizenasked what victory will the Arch of Triumphcelebrate?22 Another one who asked CNN to be keptanonymous said:

“Now I try to avoid the city square. It has become a theme park.Wherever you turn to you find new bronze statues and sculptures. It’slike they are trying to create a national identity. I can’t imagineanother city that builds an Arch of Triumph in the 21-st century.”23

identity lost during the communism”. (Mathew Brunwasser, “Concerns Grow About Authoritarianism in Macedonia”, The New York Times, October 13, 2011).21 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBK1vfjJwg22 “The capital city gets a controversial facelift”, The Economist, August 26, 2011.

12

Skopje has turned into a Luna Park ofmonuments24, a history in miniature, a legoland, aneverland with a little antiquity, a little Rome, alittle Paris, a little Vienna. “Expo 2014” hasbecome a metaphor of total space and historicism,postmodern syntax, buffer zone, a space forcreating the new identity.

Photo 2. Alexander the Great and postmodern lions

The well-known architect Miroslav Grchev saysthe project is an architectonic remain, a kitsch,an absurdity that is costing 300-400 millionEuros.25 23 Catriona Davies,, “Is FYROM”s capital being turned into a theme park”, CNN, October, 4, 201124 Bogdanovic, p. 62. 25 Official declarations mention a spenditure of about 80 million Euros while critics say the final bill will be about 500 million Euros (http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/gallery/skopje-2014)

13

The ex-PM of Macedonia Ljupco Georgievski saidto a Bulgarian TV about Skopje 2014:

“The center of Skopje is similar to Disneyland or to Asterix park inParis. The remaining part of Macedonia has no repaired road, nocultural manifestation. It is a peculiar conceptual cartoon in thecapital of Republic of Macedonia.”26 All these are efforts to make this a

monoreligious, mononational country and to give ita monocultural connotation that is opposed toreality.

“The planned reconstruction of buildings representative to the Slavicperiod of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1930’s) will have to createconnections to the European, Christian and borgeois city, although Skopjehas never been such, and deny its oriental and Muslim past.”27

It is horrifying that all this strategy isrealized arbitrarily, as pointed out by EUambassador Fuere according to whom if Delchev andKarev were asked they would not want their statuesbuilt without the opinion of citizens.28 Anotheranalyst sarcastically said that if it continuesthis way, RM will se the “Bruce Lee Phase”,referring to the case in Mostar where citizenscould not agree about the sculptures to be erectedand so decided for the representation of the well-known artist.29 Macedonization as a Slavian-Orthodoxideology is opening its wings like a true lucifer.It’s a provocation and tendency to surroundAlbanians and Muslims in a ghetto and give theimpression that Macedonia and the Church are one,that antiquity and Ottoman objects will now on

26 albeu.com/30.01.201227 Mijalkoviq & Urbanek, p. 11.28 Alsat-M, 17 maj 2010.29 Suad Misini (Rruga drejt..., Alsat-M, March 25, 2010)

14

represent Orthodoxy.30 The absurdity is also evidentfrom the fact that an orthodox church and statuesof Slavian heroes are planned to be built in placeswhere they have never existed before.31

Photo 3. Sequences from Skopje 2014: Antiquity, baroque and history

One of the most famous Macedonia film directors,Slobodan Unkovski, talks about the general troubledsituation in Skopje and the responsibility towards thiscommon entity:

“After the unleashing of the spirit of hate against different thinking(articulated also in the procedures for Skopje 2014) and beating ofstudents in the square, everything became allowed and possible.This was shown by all events, the pressure, exiling, imprisoning,killing, overlooking protesters, closing of media, despising of theparliament, the ruining of weak capacities of the country, calls forlynching, the nontransparent spending of our money, thedevelopment of individual unsecurity.”

The history of Skopje (of Macedonia to put it better,since this cancer has spread all over the country) will alsomention the period under the occupation of aggressivenationalism. It says that we didn’t have to surrender Skopjeto the baroque dragon without trying to protect it, withouttrying to save it from this primitive invasion of

30 Pajaziti, p. 41. 31 Mehmeti, p. 28.

15

tastelessness and arbitrarity, diletant architecture,pathetic symbolics and recomposed quasipatriotism.32

The international factor, from politicians to media,also has a dissapproving attitude towards this project. TheWall Street Journal has out the title “A Face-Lift in Macedonia”regarding Skopje 2014, criticizing Gruevski’s populism andpointing out that while boosting the national pride ofMacedonians this urban project troubles the cultural andpolitical controversies.33 Another analyst says the projectcauses quarrel not only within Macedonia but also abroad,with the neighbor countries (Greece considers the project asprovocative, while Bulgaria has in its own cities some ofthe figures in the Skopje square). He holds that it isabsurd to spend all this money while 1/3 of the populationlives on the poverty line.34 In October, last year, New YorkTimes threw a title to describe the situation with us:“Worries on rise regarding authoritarism in Macedonia”.35 ACroatian portal described the celebration of the 20-thanniversary of independence around the “antique horseman” as“circus under Alexander’s horse”, comparing Gruevski to thepost-Soviet dictators like Nazarbayev or Turkmenbashi andhis speech to that of Chavez.36

The idea and utopia of the ideator of the post-earthquake (1963) Skopje, the Japanese Kenzo Tange, was anopen, rational, egalitarian city (UN, 1963), a city offlexible bridges of the civilising aparatus,37 whilebuildings and walls that divide the capital into the rightand left sides, into northern and southern parts are being

32 Utrinski Vesnik, 14.02.2012.33 “The capital city gets a controversial facelift”, The Economist, August 26, 2011.34 Erhan Turbedar, “Skopje 2014, Not Just An Urban Project”, http://www.trt.net.tr/International/newsDetail.aspx?HaberKodu=48545f9a-77f2-47e3-8044-70a75df95653/retrieved on March 20, 2012.35 Brunwasser, op.cit.36 http://www.tportal.hr/vijesti/svijet/147500/Cirkus-pod-Aleksandrovim-konjem.htm37 Mijallkoviq & Urbanek, p. 28.

16

erected reminding old Berlin as a symbol of divided andnonfunctional cities.

“Skopje 2014” is opposed also by citizens. According tothe survey conducted in the period between 30th August and4th September 2012 on a representative sample of 1165respondents by Brima Gallup even 57.8 percent of citizensare against “Skopje 2014” (extremely high 42.7 percent ofrespondents have a very negative opinion about the project,and negative opinion have 15.1 percent). On the other hand,are 10.9 percent of respondents with a very positiveassessment of the project and 15.5 percent positive, or atotal of 26.4 percent of the citizens have a positiveopinion about the project. Indifferent are 15.8 percent ofcitizens (Illustration 1).

47.2

15.1 15.8 15.510.9

05101520253035404550

very negative,  negative,  neithernegative norpositive, 

positive very positive

Illustration 1. Citizens opinions on Skopje 2014 (2012)If we analyze the answers of respondents by ethnicity

there are registered drastically different perceptions amongAlbanians, on the one hand, and the Macedonians and theother communities on the other. However, the mood ofMacedonians to project "Skopje 2014" is predominantlynegative with almost half of respondents with a negativeresponse and a third with positive.

17

39

26.4

3

15.8

58 57.8

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Рејтинг 2010 (Дневник) "TNS Brima Gallup Intl 2012

positiveno answernegative

Illustration 2. Change of citizens’ opinions on “Skopje 2014”within three years

If we compare the results of this survey with those ofDnevnik in 2010 survey conducted by the Rating Agency, wewill see that the percentage of respondents who see theproject negatively is without significant change. But, thesupport for the project is drastically fallen by a thirdfrom 39 percent to 26.4 percent.38

In sum, building monuments along the line of ethnicdemarcation is the worst thing that could happen to thecapital and the country, say experts in Macedonia. On theright bank - monuments figures of Macedonian history, on theleft - from Albanian. Vardar River from natural hydrologicalsymbol of the city gradually transformed into a symbolicline of ethnic disintegration (Deutsche Welle) and “physicalbeiruzation of the city” (Grchev).39

4.Conclusions

Skopje is one of the most important historical,cultural and political centers of the Balkan. Thereasonable citizens of RM nowadays is witnessingthat the more the Macedonization of Skopje rises,

38 http://www.mactel.com.au/php/sr_news_flash.php?newsid=28089/12.11.201239 Katerina Blazhevska, “Beautification or Beirutization of Skopje?”, Deutche Welle, 27.12.2012.

18

the more grows the division of the city and of thesociety in general. The city square is not an areaof relax anymore but of tension. Any non-Macedonianthat passes there is overcome by feelings ofindifference and disapproval towards the governmentthat has divided the city into two, “ours” and“theirs”. This form of national urbanization, ofethno-urbanization with kitsch hardens the view ofthis city to which they want to give colors ofbaroque and classicism. We don’t believe in thesisthat “Balkan is a ground where the seeds ofmulticultural states do not grow, that in theselands it is hard for politicians of the sameethnicity to agree, not to speak about thosedivided by language, religion and the past”, webelieve in the positive human gene regardless ofgeography.

Skopje is a city that somebody is trying tostrip off its past. At this moment there is thetendency to cleanse its Albanian and Islamicelements. With this course RM has no healthy futurewhen its capital undergoes a breach, a process ofinterethnic division. Skopje is not Skopje if ithas two view, the urban and the “rurban” one; onewith lighting, tall buildings, halls and culturalobjects, and the other a city of misery, of theruins of Gazibaba, Serava and Dizhon, of tinneighborhoods and narrow streets, one of themunicipalities with the highest population density in Europe(in Çair 18,400 residents live in one square kilometer).40

In this atmosphere Macedonians ever more rarelypass the Stone Bridge to visit the “Albanian” part40 http://www.cair.gov.mk/index.php?topmenuitem=Popullsia/retrieved in March 26, 2012.

19

of Skopje.41 This city overcalled “Skupimetropolis”(Marcelin Komes) is daily losing its identity frompopulism and imperial obsession that generates onlyclashes like those of March 2012. Sociologicallyand architecturaly, the project of nationalistaesthetics results harmful to the cohesion of amulticultural society like RM. We suggest the civilsociety to be more active in correctingauthoritarian policies, for the awareness ofcitizens about the repercussions of immature stepsand of the reaction of extreme factors in order topreserve the multiculturalism of this societyfacing the pains of passing into the post-transitional phase.

5.References

ARMAĞAN, Mustafa, Şehir Asla Unutmaz, İz Yayıncılık, Istanbul, 1996.ÂSIM BEY, Salih, Üsküp ve Civarı, Rumeli TürkleriVakfı, İstanbul, 2004. BLAZEHVSKA, Katerina, “Beautification orBeirutization of Skopje?”, Deutche Welle, 27.12.2012. БОГДАНОВИЌ, Богдан, Градот и иднината, Темплум, Skopje, 2011.BOSTON, William, “A Face-Lift in Macedonia”, The WallStreet Journal, , May 18, 2011.BRUNWASSER, Mathew, “Concerns Grow About Authoritarianism in Macedonia”, The New York Times, October 13, 2011.БУЃЕВАЦ, Дејан et. al., Крадат град, Темплум & Плоштад Слобода, Skopje, 2010.

41 Mehmeti, p. 39.20

DAVIES, Catriona, “Is FYROM”s capital being turned into a theme park”, CNN, October, 4, 2011.ГЕЛЕВСКИ, Никола, Архитортура и гробаризација, Темплум,Skopje, 2010.КУМБАРАЏИ-БОГЕВИЌ, Лидија, Османлиски споменици во

Скопје, ИЗ во РМ, Скопје, 1998.MEHMETI, Kim, Shkupi, Logos-A, Skopje, 2011.MIJALLKOVIQ, Millan & Katarina Urbanek, Shkupi: Bastardi i botës, Goten, Skopje, 2011.MULLA, Gjyldane, Sociologjia urbane, University of Prishtina, Prishtina, 2000.NIEZGODA, Marian et. al., Culture in Transition-Transition in Culture, Jagiellonian University: Institute of Sociology, Krakow, 2009.PAJAZITI, Ali, Culture and the Quality of Life: The Case of Macedonia, Logos-A, Skopje, 2011.“The capital city gets a controversial facelift”, The Economist, August 26, 2011.Alsat-M, March, 25, 2010.TURBEDAR, Erhan “Skopje 2014, Not Just An Urban Project”, http://www.trt.net.tr/International/newsDetail.aspx?HaberKodu=48545f9a-77f2-47e3-8044-70a75df95653/retrieved on March 20, 2012.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOBK1vfjJwg/retrieved on March 21, 2012.http://www.cair.gov.mk/index.php?topmenuitem=Popullsia/retrieved in March 26, 2012.

21

Highly Urbanized City Shanty Town(Gazi Baba, Shuto Orizari, Vizbegovo)

22