PARC DE LA COMBATTANTE

This small, tree-lined public park (Парк Жена-Борец/Park Žena-Borec) owes its name to a beautiful abstract sculpture paying tribute to the Yugoslav women who fought in the ranks of the partisans during World War II: about 1,700 of them died on the territory of present-day North Macedonia. Inaugurated in 1970, this stone work of about 2 m high is the work of the great Prilep sculptor Boro Mitrikeski (1927-2018). But not all the artists of the country have the same talent. You don't have to go very far to realize this. Within the framework of the "Skopje 2014" project, the same small park has been given a dozen kitsch, mediocre, ugly or pretentious monuments illustrating figures from the national narrative. One of them cumulates all the defects. It is the Monument to the Fallen Heroes of Macedonia. This vast white marble composition installed here in 2012 consists of a fountain adorned with a golden statue of the Greek mythological figure Prometheus, a tholos topped by a golden statue of the Roman allegory of victory and a portico supporting a quadriga not unlike the one at the Brandenburg Gate. The whole is accompanied by the pseudo-Latin inscription " Immortale, libertas, justicia " (in real Latin, it gives " Immortalitas, libertas, iustitia "). It is one of the most mocked monuments by Skopiotes. It is also one of the symbols of the mismanagement of the Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski (2006-2016), now sought by justice.