SKOPJE: Macedonia began assembling a giant bronze statue of Alexander the Great in the capital Skopje Tuesday, a move set to provoke anger in neighbouring Greece which also claims the ancient hero as its own.
Large sections of the bronze statue were brought in from Florence, Italy to a fenced-off area in the center of Skopje, with local authorities announcing the procedure of assembling the 22-meter (72-foot) monument would last two weeks.
Macedonia is already at loggerheads with Athens over its name. Skopje officially became a candidate for EU membership in 2005, but Athens has blocked it from accession to the 27-bloc and Nato saying that the name Macedonia implies a claim on the northern Greek region of the same name.
Almost two decades of UN-led negotiations over the name dispute have so far remained fruitless. Now Alexander The Great enters the fray.
The 10 meter (33-foot) high statue of the 4th-century warrior-king sitting astride his horse will be put on a pedestal with the whole monument, according to local media, costing nine million euros ($13 million).
Skopje authorities have officially called the statue, designed by local sculptor Valentina Stevanovska, a “Warrior On a Horse” in a bid to prevent Greek objections, but the face resembles numerous depictions of the ancient leader.
Both Macedonia and Greece claim Alexander the Great as their own. Born in Pella, in modern-day Greece, Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and much of the world known to ancient Greeks before dying in Babylon in 323 BC at the age of 32.
Macedonia decided to finance the statue in 2007, the year after it changed the name of Skopje airport to “Alexander the Great” in a move that also riled Athens.
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