The Statue of Tzar Dushan in Skopje | Photo by: Sinisa Jakov Marusic

The erection of a statue of the Serbian Tsar Dusan in the Macedonian capital of Skopje has angered some representatives of the country’s sizeable Albanian minority.

The Statue of Tzar Dushan in Skopje | Photo by: Sinisa Jakov Marusic
An ethnic Albanian NGO in Macedonia called “Wake Up” has indeed woken up after the authorities put up a statue in Skopje of a medieval Serbian emperor.

According to historical records, Dusan was crowned Serbian Tsar in Skopje in 1346.

While Serbs honour Tsar Dushan as a national hero, the far-from-impressed NGO calls him an “occupier of the Western Balkans” who has no place in Skopje.

“Erecting a monument to a Serbian occupier speaks of an identity crisis, or of the Serbophilia of those who put it there,” the NGO said in a press release.

The statue was put up this week on the new “Bridge of Civilizations” in central Skopje, as part of the government-sponsored revamp of the capital known as “Skopje 2014”.

It stands among some 30 other statues representing historical figures from the region, from ancient to medieval times.

Dusan was one of Serbia’s most successful rulers and under his reign Serbia became the paramount state in the region.

In Skopje in 1349 he promulgated a constitution for the Serbian Empire, known as Dusan’s Code, seen as one of the most important acts of medieval Serbia. Dusan also ensured the promotion of the Serbian Orthodox Church from an archbishopric to a patriarchate.

Albanians in the Balkans, however, do not recall Serbian rulers with nostalgia or sympathy, largely because the Kingdom of Serbia made off with significant amounts of territory in which Albanians were the majority community following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Europe in 1912.

“Wake up” said the monument to Dusan, paid for by the government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and commissioned by the former leaders of Skopje’s municipality of Centar, confirmed the anti-Albanian character of the “Skopje 2014” project.

In October, the new head of the Centar municipality, Andrej Zernovski, agreed to the installation of monuments to well-known Albanians on the municipal territory in a bid to defuse tensions with the country’s large Albanian minority.

The mayor who took power six months ago said he would not obstruct the installation of three monuments of Albanians despite the fact that he opposes further work on “Skopje 2014” in general.

However, the statues of Albanian writer Pjetr Bogdani, writer Josif Bageri and Nexhat Agoli, a minister in the first Macedonian government in 1945, have yet to arrive on their pedestals, which have already been erected./balkaninsight/