The center of Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, a Balkan country born just 33 years ago as an independent state, is awash in history.
A statue of Alexander the Great looms over the central square. One of his father, Philip II of Macedon, towers above a nearby piazza atop an oversize pedestal. The city is also littered with tributes in bronze, stone and plaster to generations of other heroes from what the country sees as its glorious and very long history.
The problem, though, is that most of the history on display is claimed by other countries. Present-day North Macedonia, birthed by the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, has no real connection to Alexander the Great, who lived 2,000 years ago down the road in what is now Greece, and many of the other historical figures honored with statues are Bulgarian.
Slavica Babamova, the director of the national archaeological museum, has spent her career digging up and displaying ancient artifacts and has no problem focusing on the past. But she said she was unsettled by the plethora of statues, erected by her country in an effort to build a state and national identity.
“We have such a rich history of our own — and so many things to say. But I don’t see any need to push all this overdone marketing,” she said, gesturing toward the Alexander the Great statue during an interview.