Alexander the Great Statue to Appear on Central Square in Macedonia’s Capital
BalkanTravellers.com
A fountain will also be built nearby the ancient ruler's monument, and the square will also most likely get bronze statues of four lines and eight three-metre tall soldiers, the Vecher newspaper reported today.
The court decision also saw no impediments to the construction and installation of monuments of other important, albeit controversial, figures for Macedonian history, such as Gotse Delchev and Dame Gruev, both revolutionary leaders in the region while it was under Ottoman rule.
The court had to make a judgement following the Miryana Naychevska and two other citizens who claimed that the construction of 19 monuments by Skopje’s Centre Municipality is unconstitutional.
According to Vecher, monuments of Delchev and Gruev will be places in front of Skopje’s Old Stone Bridge, while Nikola Karev, another leader of what later became known as the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, will be immortalised by a statue placed in front of the Parliament.
Other prominent figures from Macedonia’s both ancient and more recent history, whose ownership is disputed by neighbouring countries, including Greece and Bulgaria, will also be memorialised by statues in Skopje.
The total value of the monuments, which are currently being made in Florence, is around 10 million euro, the publication reported. All the monuments are supposed to be installed by the end of next year.
Recently, Vecher reported, the Macedonian government has been in favour of the monuments’ installation, while the opposition was firmly against them, saying that this would be a part of the process of an unnecessary “antiquisation.”
Athens is also strongly opposed to the installation of the monument of Alexander the Great, which – along with the naming of the Skopje airport after him, it sees as a provocation. Greece has said it considers these actions as counterproductive and not in any way contributing to a settlement of the dispute over Macedonia’s constitutional name.
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