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The Arts of Transitional Justice pp 173–193Cite as

(Mis)representations of Transitional Justice: Contradictions in Displaying History, Memory and Art in the Skopje 2014 Project

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Part of the book series: Springer Series in Transitional Justice ((SSTJ,volume 6))

Abstract

This chapter considers the politics of public art and memorialization in relation to policies of transitional justice in the context of the Macedonian Government’s project entitled “Skopje 2014”. Presented as a revision of the totalitarian communist heritage and employing arguments of transitional justice such as nation-building, memory preservation and the rehabilitation of victims of communism, “Skopje 2014” includes the erection of numerous prestigious public buildings, museums, memorials, monuments and statues. Despite its transitional justice claims, the project has been criticized for radically reshaping the identity of the city and the nation, and for deepening divisions in the Macedonian society. Focusing on the controversial display in public space of various architectural, artistic and memorial practices that are meant to illustrate the political will to reckon with the communist past and forge new public markers, this study questions the alleged dimension of the project as an initiative of symbolic reparatory transitional justice. Pointing out the dangers of certain instrumentalized applications of transitional justice in fledgling democracies and divided societies, it reflects on the complexities and contradictions of memory politics displayed in public spaces.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    “Macedonia’s Timeless Capital, Skopje 2014”, YouTube, last modified February 4 2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iybmt-iLysU.

  2. 2.

    Carlos Closa Montero, A Study on how the Memory of Crimes Committed by Totalitarian Regimes in Europe is Dealt with in the Member States (Madrid: CSIC, 2010), 13; Lavinia Stan, “Transitional Justice, a Definition”, Lavinia Stan's blog (blog), May 11, 2010 (10:54 a.m.), https://laviniastan.wordpress.com/2010/05/11/transitional-justice-a-definition/.

  3. 3.

    Christine Bell, “Transitional Justice, Interdisciplinarity and the State of the ‘Field’ or ‘non- Field’”, International Journal of Transitional Justice, Vol. 3 (2009): 7.

  4. 4.

    Stan, “Transitional Justice”.

  5. 5.

    Lavinia, Stan (ed.), Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Reckoning with the Communist Past, London: Routledge, 2009, 1.

  6. 6.

    Montero, Memory of Crimes, 14.

  7. 7.

    Jon Elster (ed.), Retribution and Reparation in the Transition to Democracy. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Mano Gabor Toth, Symbols in Transitions: Public Places, Reparatory Justice, and the Statue Park, Master’s Thesis (Budapest: CEU, 2011), 15; Mark S. Ellis, “Purging the Past: The Current State of Lustration Laws in the Former Communist Bloc”, Law and Contemporary Problems, 59/4 (1996):181–196.

  8. 8.

    Ellis, “Purging the Past”, 181.

  9. 9.

    VMRO-DPMNE, the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization and the Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, is a Macedonian Christian-Democratic party.

  10. 10.

    Despina Angelovska, “The Failure of Macedonian Post-Communist Transitional justice: Lustration, between Cleansing and Parody”, in Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans, edited by Olivera Simić and Zala Volčič, New York: Springer, 2013.

  11. 11.

    DUI, the Democratic Union for Integration, is the largest Albanian political party in Macedonia.

  12. 12.

    Csilla Kiss, “We are not Like Us. Transitional Justice: The (Re)construction of Post-Communist Memory”, in History and Judgement, edited by A. MacLachlan and I. Torsen, Vienna: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows' Conferences, Vol. 21, (2006): 3–4.

  13. 13.

    Ruti G. Tetel, “Transitional Justice Genealogy”, Harvard Human Rights Journal, Vol. 16 (2003): 71.

  14. 14.

    Ibid., 87.

  15. 15.

    Ruti G. Teitel, “Transitional Justice in a New Era”, Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 26, no. 4 (2002): 893.

  16. 16.

    Ibid.

  17. 17.

    Cf. Edward Said Orientalism, (London: Vintage, 1979).

  18. 18.

    Tatiana Zhurzhenko, “Geopolitics of Memory”, Eurozine (May 10 2007): http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2007-05-10-zhurzhenko-en.html.

  19. 19.

    Ibid.

  20. 20.

    Milan Mijalkovic and Katharina Urbanek, Skopje, the World's Bastard:Architecture of The Divided City (Klagenfurt: Wieser Verlag, 2011), 10.

  21. 21.

    Ibid, 83.

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    Majrola Rukaj, Milan Mijalkovic and Katharina Urbanek, ”Skopje, the Bastard City”, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso, (September 9, 2011), http://greengopost.com/skopje-the-bastard-city/.

  24. 24.

    Macedon, “Паско Кузман-Скулптурите во владата раскажуваат Македонска историjа стара 7.000 години”, Macedonian Civilization (blog), August 1, 2007, (12:02:21 am). http://my.opera.com/ancientmacedonia/blog/show.dml/1207581.

  25. 25.

    The term antiquisation is used by historians to refer to the Renaissance practice of giving a city the appearance of ancient Rome or Athens.

  26. 26.

    Macedon, “Паско Кузман”.

  27. 27.

    “Конкурс на Министерството за Kултура—На Скопjе му Недостасуваат Скулптури”, Culture Republic of Macedonia, accessed September 10 2012, http://www.culture.in.mk/story_mk.asp?id=23415&rub=54.

  28. 28.

    Resat Ameti, quoted by Mijalkovic and Urbanek in Skopje, 78.

  29. 29.

    Meaning a complacent and superficial girl obsessed with physical appearance.

  30. 30.

    Nebojša Vilić, Силуваjmе го Скonje, кн.1 (Skopje: 359 º, 2009).

  31. 31.

    Vilić, Скonje, 56; Jasna Koteska, “Troubles with history : Skopje 2014”, ArtMargins, December 29 2011, http://www.artmargins.com/index.php/2-articles/655-troubles-with-history-skopje-2014; Nikola Gelevski, “Спомениците и кичот”, Okno.mk, 4 October 2011, http://okno.mk/node/13998.

  32. 32.

    Vilić, Скonje, 30.

  33. 33.

    Mijalkovic and Urbanek, Skopje, 79.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 78.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 79.

  36. 36.

    “Владата Нема да го Запре Скопjе 2014”, Utrinski Vesnik, June 2 2010, http://www.netpress.com.mk/mk/vest.asp?id=73809&kategorija=7.

  37. 37.

    Koteska, Troubles with History.

  38. 38.

    Ibid.

  39. 39.

    Ibid.

  40. 40.

    Mia Swart, “Name Changes as Symbolic Reparation after Transition: the Examples of Germany and South Africa”, German Law Journal Vol. 9, no. 2 (2008): 106.

  41. 41.

    Ruti Teitel, Transitional Justice (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 125, 137.

  42. 42.

    Swart, “Name Changes”: 106.

  43. 43.

    “Transitional Justice”, Topic Guide, GSDRC, accessed September 10 2012, http://www.gsdrc.org/go/topic-guides/justice/transitional-justice.

  44. 44.

    Mirjana Spasovska, “Нова влада, нова историjа - нови поделби?”, Radio Slobodna Evropa, June 23 2012, http://www.makdenes.org/content/article/24623301.html.

  45. 45.

    Suzanne Buckley-Zistel, “Transitional Justice in Divided Societies—Potentials and Limits”. Paper presented at the 5th European Consortium for Political Research General Conference, Potsdam University, Germany, 10–12 September 2009: 16.

  46. 46.

    B. Hamber, L. Ševčenko, and E. Naidu, “Utopian Dreams or Practical Possibilities? The Challenges of Evaluating the Impact of Memorialisation in Societies in Transition”, International Journal of Transitional Justice, vol. 4, no. 3 (2010): 397–420.

  47. 47.

    Artemis Christodoulou, “Appendix 4, Part 1: Memorials and Transitional Justice”, Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, accessed 9 September 2012, http://www.sierraleonetrc.org/index.php/appendices/item/appendix-4-part-1-memorials.

  48. 48.

    Музеj на Македонската Борба-Скопjе, accessed September 2, 2012, http://mmb.org.mk/w/

  49. 49.

    Brianne Hwang, Constructing the Communist Other: A Comparative Study of Museum Representations of Communism, Master’s Thesis (Budapest: CEU, 2009), 100.

  50. 50.

    Cf. Homi K. Bhabha (ed.), Nation and Narration (London: Routledge, 1990).

  51. 51.

    “Transitional Justice”, Topic Guide.

  52. 52.

    Museum of the Macedonian Struggle, accessed September 2012, http://mmb.org.mk/w/.

  53. 53.

    Hwang, Communist Other, 22.

  54. 54.

    “Плоштад Слобода: Го Шириме Гласот”, Okno.mk, April 8 2009, http://okno.mk/node/401.

  55. 55.

    Christodoulou, “Memorials”.

  56. 56.

    Zistel, Transitional Justice, 2.

  57. 57.

    Ibid.

  58. 58.

    Alexander Laban Hinton, (2010) Introduction:“Towards an Anthropology of Transitional Justice”, in A. L. Hinton (ed.) Transitional Justice: Global Mechanisms and Local Realities after Genocide and Mass Violence. (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2010), 17.

  59. 59.

    Zistel, Transitional Justice, 15.

  60. 60.

    Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern, “Whose Justice ? Rethinking Transitional Justice from the Bottom Up. Journal of Law and Society”, vol. 35, no. 2, (June 2008): 265.

  61. 61.

    Ibid., 267.

  62. 62.

    Siobhan Kattago, “Agreeing to Disagree on the Legacies of Recent History” in Memory and Representation in Contemporary Europe : The persistence of the Past, (Farnham: Ashgatu Publishing, 2012), 30.

  63. 63.

    Aleksandar Dimitrijević, “Восочна Историjа”, Volan (blog), January 14, 2010, http://volanskopje.blogspot.com/2010/01/blog-post_14.html.

  64. 64.

    Kattago, “The Slippery Slope of Memory”, in Memory , 23.

  65. 65.

    Rukaj, Mijalkovic and Urbanek, Skopje.

  66. 66.

    Ibid.

  67. 67.

    Suzana Milevska and Jasna Frangovska, “Етика и Естетика”, Okno.mk, March 18, 2010, http://okno.mk/node/4932.

  68. 68.

    “Плоштад Слобода”, Okno.mk, last modified February 10, 2012, http://okno.mk/node/16977.

  69. 69.

    “Plostad Sloboda's Channel”, YouTube, accessed September 10, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/user/PlostadSloboda.

  70. 70.

    Henry Lefebre, Le Droit à la Ville (Paris: Anthropos, 1968).

  71. 71.

    “Under Pressure Raspeani Skopjani”, You Tube, last modified December 27, 2010.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Audiovisual arts, ESRA, Nikola Rusinski Street No. 1, 1000, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia

    Despina Angelovska

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  1. Despina Angelovska
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Correspondence to Despina Angelovska .

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  1. Faculty of Law, University of Melbourne, Carlton, VIC, Australia

    Peter D. Rush

  2. Griffith Law School Griffith University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

    Olivera Simić

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Angelovska, D. (2014). (Mis)representations of Transitional Justice: Contradictions in Displaying History, Memory and Art in the Skopje 2014 Project. In: Rush, P., Simić, O. (eds) The Arts of Transitional Justice. Springer Series in Transitional Justice, vol 6. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8385-4_10

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