MONUMENT DE KORČANICA

Set in the Grmeč Mountains, at an altitude of 830 m, this memorial to the socialist period (Spomenik na Korčanici) is abandoned. But it retains its elegant main monument designed by Serbian sculptor Ljubomir Denković (b. 1936): a concrete structure consisting of two half-spheres 15 m high and 10 m in diameter. Inaugurated in 1979, the complex was created as a tribute to the nursing staff engaged with the partisans during the Second World War. Indeed, the site housed the largest clandestine hospital in Yugoslavia during the conflict. Active for three months from November 1942, the nineteen-building complex was capable of treating up to 2,800 patients. It was evacuated in January 1943 and razed by the Germans the following month. According to their designer, the two half-spheres represent a bud in the process of blossoming. It is a symbol of life but also of a hospital constantly ready to receive the wounded arriving from the front. The work was noticed by the American director Ridley Scott who made it appear as a set piece in his film Alien Covenant, released in 2017: the monument is faithfully reproduced, constituting the main entrance of a large abandoned temple. It is much the same atmosphere that emerges from the memorial today, with all the other structures of the complex looted and falling into ruin, such as the nearby carcass of the large Korčanica Hotel, which was used to house veterans during ceremonies until 1991.