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Accepted Paper:

(Re)construction of memories in Macedonia  
Meri Marija Todorovska

Paper short abstract:

The project called Skopje 2014- an idea for making the city nobler, has become a reconstruction of a past and a construction of a new national conciseness.

Paper long abstract:

In Macedonia, the shift from the former socialist system into a capitalistic one has been announced as general modernization of society which will be implemented through economic changes with a free market, political changes, urbanization, education free of ideology, industrial development, social security, shifting the system of values, as well as omnipresent ceation of possibilities for development and equal possibilities for all citizens - in a word, abolition of one-party monopoly and development of democracy in general. These changes, witness for the complete collapse of a previously praised ideology, creation and construction of a new history generally based on glorification of the national identity. This construction of memories is not only unstoppable, but over time develops faster and in the last few years it is leading toward reconstruction and complete change of the appearance of the capital city, Skopje. Thus, a whole period of its history is literally erased, that is, striving towards the cycle of the Modern architecture in the second half of the twentieth century. If we consider the fact that Skopje irretrievably lost a part of its history with the devastating earthquake in 1963, it seems that this tremendous construction intervention concentrated at the downtown core has a goal to erase another fifty years of its existence. This reconstruction of the city causes contrasting opinions in the public that is already divided on the basis of nationality and party affiliation.

Panel P005
Forms of memory transitions: processes and possible outcomes
  Session 1