Capital-division and ethno-urbanization in Macedonian Way: Case of “Skopje 2014”

Abstract

Macedonia is historically known as ‘Catena Mundi’ due to its favorable geographical position as a crossroad place of the important roads, civilizations and religions. According to some analysts, the processes of globalization have enhanced a more aggressive search of identity in the frames of the Balkan peoples, who wish to exclude the other. In FYROM homo politicus from its independence till now is following the steps of homo balkanicus, nationalism, ethnicization, exclusivism etc. One of the most destructive components of nation-building in this society is VMRO-DPMNE government’s antiurban-project “Skopje 2014”, described by analysts as “architorture and entombment”.
The project based on the concept for “the past”, “prehistorical”, “mythical”, “antiquisation” and “the folklore”, which costs around 200 million € is purely ethnic-Macedonian project, Slavic, and Orthodox and which is contradicted by a considerable number of citizens, as it favors only one culture, one history, one religion, one nation, and ignores inheritance, tradition of the city and whole societal reality. It uses architecture and sculpture to support the culture of the party into power and the monoethnization of the state.
This paper tries to analyse from the perspective of urban sociology the repercusions of this project for the lifespace, urban ecology, social cohesion, its disintegrative dimension, destructive aspects for coexistence and multicultural geist.