Authorities take down one of 2,5-meter statues on new Foreign Ministry building

[Risto the Great]

http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n275521

11 April 2012 | 20:47 | FOCUS News Agency
Home / Southeast Europe and Balkans
Skopje. The authorities have taken down one of the 2,5-meter statues on the new building of the Foreign Ministry in Skopje, reported the Macedonian television Alfa.

After yesterday’s silence, today the government admitted immortalizing Simeon Radev, a member of the Bulgarian diplomatic delegation in Bucharest in 1913 when Macedonia was separated. According to the government’s statement Radev’s statue was erected out of carelessness. The monument will be replaced by another one – of Jean Monnet, ideologist and founder of European unification. It is not yet clear whether and where the marble sculpture will be put in the Museum of Macedonian Struggle. The director of the museum did not give an answer today.

According to the director of the Institute of National History, Todor Cepreganov, Radev’s monument should not be moved to the museum.
It is right that he was born in Resen and was a great diplomat, but throughout his whole life he worked for Bulgaria and it seems he denied the existence of the Macedonian nation, said Todor Cepreganov.

I don't know anything about Radev. But surely the Macedonian government does. What a joke.

[Big Bad Sven]

Looks like another classic example of the incompetent macedonian government making all macedonian people look like idiots who dont know who they really are and making us look like confused morons.

I agree that the government knew who this guy was and its really dodgy that they went so far as to creating the statue. I guess its true that a good majority of VMRO-DPME have bugaroman sympathy in it.

[MKPrilep]

Such things are the reason why the albanains and bulgariens laugh at us.

[Phoenix]

What morons...they pull down the bulgar only to replace him with another foreigner...what the fuck is the problem with these people and isn't it a bit premature to erect monuments to ideas of unification when Monnet's motherfucking successors have no European unification ambitions for Macedonia...?????

[George S.]

indecision & inaction is the sole hallmark of macedonian govt mindset.The'll erect any monument of someone regardess if what it means.

[lavce pelagonski]

This is the thread I started in the morning just click the link to Alpha TV and you can watch a clip. Radev was born in Macedonia but was for the Bulgarian cause and very anti-Macedonian.

http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php?t=6560

[Ljubanec]

Nothing wrong with the statue, though instead of calling it Simeon Radev they should just rename it "Bugaroman with a top hat". Stupid government.

[Big Bad Sven]

It is interesting that in macedonia they build statues of bulgarians that were anti-macedonian, and they have many statues of the greatest shiptar hero skanderbeg. There is even now a pretty museum dedicated to the shiptar "heroes" of 2001.

Yet the macedonians are scared to name the statue of alexander the great as their hero

[Soldier of Macedon]

To be honest, I don't have an issue with a Skenderbeg statue, his mother was at least partially Macedonian. I do, however, take issue with the manner in which he has been presented, which is essentially a figure of historical relevance for Albanians only. In Macedonia, the Macedonian element of his life should be exemplified above all, Macedonians should never think of him as a foreigner. The Ottomans respected his fighting ability, and his Macedonian heritage wouldn't have escaped their attention when they conjured the nickname 'Alexander' (Iskender in Turkish > Skender in Albanian).