Deviating from any historical precedent, the building was an apparent attempt to decorate Skopje with an anachronistic reason d' etre where FYROM is presented as the heir of Greaco-Roman antiquity. The preceding goal was not achieved due to the altered visual, cultural and perceptual reasoning of the 21st century. Apparently, the creators of the Skopje 2014 project, with their vision to build a "better and older Skopje", thought the reliefs with comical iconographic representations (Macedonian phalanx, Communist partizans etc.), a mix of FYROM pseudohistoricism and display of Hellenic motifs would be justified without critical repercussions. It has to be recognized that a number of people-perhaps the majority in Skopje - consider this part of "Skopje 2014" project as a successful one.
The building is not correlated with any recent military success so there's nothing to justify the epithet "triumphal". When this was noticed it was criticized both in the FYROM and abroad. In order to give meaning to the tructure, the designers modified the interior of the historically inaccurate and irrational structure with trivialities, such as souvenir shops and a restaurant and other establishments planned for the near future, the later being subject of public concession to work.
This reform of the until now passive, so-called "Triumphal Arch", regardless of the not-so-competent designers' wishes, may help cumulative experience of the "continuity" of the Slavic (Serbo-Bulgarian) population with the splendor of the Graeco-Roman classical antiquity (specifically the ancient Macedonian one). It happens to be a case that this didactic, comics-like external appearance of the arch may be reworked in a small, but typical mall, with greater conceptual exposure to people, giving them reasons to roam the structure.
The conclusion drawn from deeper analysis is that the so-called "Porta Makedonija" contains both camp elements: ridiculous matching of presumably pivotal historic and, in gross measure, militaristic symbols combined with everyday shopping trivia. The kitsch site reflects the attempt to embody a type of structure known in history as a symbol of national megalomania, aside the idiosyncratic symbols-of-the-foreign-era motifs.
The conclusion is that the pseudo-historical, improper "Triumphal Arch" with its commercial establishments, is most likely an attempt of the VMRO-DPMNE to expose the citizens to the Pavlovian reflex, by increasing the number of visitors. This mechanism of psychologically imprinting Pseudo-Macedonism may result to an Anti-Slavic, self-loathing ethnocentric cohesion against the historic truth cherising. This Self-loathing, Anti-Slavic policy is reflected upon the naive belief resulting from the arch's narrative which expresses the "Millenniums of 'Makedonska' culture".
Vladislav Perunovic
Skopje, FYROM
MacedoniaHellenicLand.Eu
Posts
