Paper short abstract:

The ongoing construction of ethnocratic spatial order forces citizens of Skopje to forget values of diversity. Instead they turn to revitalize a heritage site that still cherishes old habits of negotiating diversity and long established customs of interethnic communication.

Paper long abstract:

The recent state sponsored onslaught on the public space called project Skopje 2014 aims at establishing ethnocratic spatial order to correspond with the rising ethnocracy in Macedonia. Instalment of countless monuments and dozen of new buildings and remaking of existing facades into historicist eclectic style turns the whole city into a museum that glorifies Macedonian nation as birthplace of European civilization. This pretentious goal rips the Macedonian society along ethnic lines. At the historical fault-line in the city, the nucleus of the old Skopje, and the new developments south of it, where the most of the project Skopje 2014 is located, a sudden renewal of almost forgotten shared public space signals resistance to the divisive tendencies. Citizens of Skopje turn to the intangible heritage of negotiating diversity as most recognizable characteristic of the Skopje Old Bazaar and flock to this ethnically diverse area against the top-down division of the city in two symbolically separated ethnic parts. The intangible heritage of daily inter-ethnic communication is a strong reminder of centuries of cohabitation and specific forms of civility arising from it. The Skopje Old Bazaar is one of the largest Ottoman bazaars still preserved in the Balkans but it has a heritage of regulating diversity that still preserves civil values above ethnic and/or religious belonging. Forced to forget their shared past and valued diversity citizens of Skopje revisit the place that enlivens their memories and hopes for the future.