Nikola Gruevski

[DraganOfStip]

https://globalvoices.org/2016/06/03/macedonias-ruling-party-has-resuscitated-socialist-realism-without-the-socialism/

Macedonia's Ruling Party Has Resuscitated Socialist Realism Without the Socialism
The independent news portal Nova revealed that Macedonia's ruling party placed an order for more than 50 enormous paintings depicting key historical moments that have occurred in the manner of former Communist Party.

The order is controversial for several reasons, not least of which is that the paintings were requested in the style of socialist realism, while the party, VMRO-DPMNE, styles itself as anti-communist, and is member of the “center-right” European People's Party. Many of the officials in this party, or their parents, are former members of Macedonia's ruling elite during Communist times.

The paintings also depict the current party leader Nikola Gruevski and his close associates in a very favorable light, seemingly adding to his personality cult. In some of the pictures, he's depicted with his wife, and allegedly one of the still undisclosed paintings will depict him with his daughters and mother. The dimensions of that painting are reportedly 4 by 8 meters (13 by 26 feet).
Even more importantly, the news portal Nova raised the issue of who is paying for the paintings, all of which come in gilded frames. The whole operation is worth several millions of euros. The authors are painters from Ukraine and Bulgaria who had previously received lucrative government contracts to work in the Skopje 2014 project.

Nova journalist Maja Jovanovska asked representatives of the VMRO-DPMNE if the paintings had been ordered as part of a public procurement contract, but the party's spokesperson, Ivo Kotevski, failed to respond to her calls and messages.

The paintings are bound for the seat of the VMRO-DPMNE party building in the center of Skopje, erected in July 2015. The party claims it did not spend a penny on the construction, as it had been built for free by a local contractor who plans to use part of the complex for a hotel. The contractor, Mincho Jordanov, is one of the richest men in the country, and his companies have also been involved in the Skopje 2014 project.
The little square in front of the party headquarters had been financed with public money through the City Government, adorned with symbols associated with the Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, a historic movement to which the party claims “descent.” Macedonian taxpayers also paid for the fountain as part of Skopje 2014 with an imitation of Trajan's Column and atop it the party symbol (the two-tailed lion).

With the ongoing “Colorful Revolution” protests, the party headquarters and the square remain the most inaccessible areas in Skopje, under constant guard by heavily armed police forces.
Social media users quickly draw parallels to other regimes that have used this art style in recent history, both in Europe and around the world.Photos of the paintings have allegedly been leaked by whistle-blowers.

Speaking to the radio Deutsche Welle, the painter Matej Bogdanovski said these paintings adopts a form of socialist realism, which in the Communist Eastern Bloc “served to show the spirit of the new time, the new ideology (Communism), the progress and the happy worker within it.” Bogdanovski calls these new paintings a “mutation” of the genre, however, arguing that the “realist expression” remains without the “happy worker.” The country's people are left out almost entirely, he says, saying this is a subtle attempt to cultivate the notion that “the state and the party are one and the same, and we are all unimportant.”

[DraganOfStip]

[Amphipolis]

I don't see why sosialist realism can not have an echo in modern art and politics. This genre has given masterpieces.

[Gocka]

Ok everyone lets go to the local plaza, jump up and down for a while, maybe throw some paint, and then go have a coffee. That will show them who's boss.

[Karposh]

This whole thing smells like false flag.I know Grujo is mad but I wouldn't bet on this thing being 100% accurate.
This is probably onion news (at least the Macedonian people hope it is).

This seems too silly to be true. It can’t be true, can it? If it is, then Gospod da chuva. Who does that? This whole “father of the nation” thing that all megalomaniacs portray to their hapless citizens died out with the village idiots of yesteryear.

The hero-worship of statesmen is surely a thing of the past that was embraced by naïve and illiterate peasants who didn’t know any better and lived out their lives in blissful servitude.

That's why I'm not buying into it (for now at least). I would first need to see this for myself before I can believe it. There is just too much ugliness going on at this point in time to believe anything that anyone says or writes. Until then, this thing about the paintings is just hear say.

Speaking of village idiots, it would seem Macedonia has plenty of them still. What struck me most about this “Colourful Revolution” is not so much the glee and enthusiasm with which they have taken to defacing and destroying those “kitsch” monuments which they see as symbols of an abuse of power but the aftermath of their actions. I was really moved (and pissed off at the same time) when I came across some photos in which I saw ordinary everyday citizens, still displaying some sense of self respect, honour and dignity with umbrellas in one hand and cleaning agents in the other and quietly going about trying to clean up what the scumbags had vandalised the night before.

Ova se veli, nekoj gradi a nekoj uriva. I guess they don’t make dictators the way they used to because a true dictator would have ordered the tanks in to run over all of those fucking cockroaches that took it upon themselves to destroy what their precious tax payers’ money have built.

[DraganOfStip]

This seems too silly to be true. It can’t be true, can it? If it is, then Gospod da chuva. Who does that? This whole “father of the nation” thing that all megalomaniacs portray to their hapless citizens died out with the village idiots of yesteryear.

The hero-worship of statesmen is surely a thing of the past that was embraced by naïve and illiterate peasants who didn’t know any better and lived out their lives in blissful servitude.

That's why I'm not buying into it (for now at least). I would first need to see this for myself before I can believe it. There is just too much ugliness going on at this point in time to believe anything that anyone says or writes. Until then, this thing about the paintings is just hear say.

Agreed.Just yesterday or the day before there was also a "news" that Grujo was regularly visited by a lady clairvoyant employed in the customs office,and that he based his personal and state decisions according to her predictions and visions.
I think Grujo's opponents went a bit too far with that too.

Speaking of village idiots, it would seem Macedonia has plenty of them still. What struck me most about this “Colourful Revolution” is not so much the glee and enthusiasm with which they have taken to defacing and destroying those “kitsch” monuments which they see as symbols of an abuse of power but the aftermath of their actions. I was really moved (and pissed off at the same time) when I came across some photos in which I saw ordinary everyday citizens, still displaying some sense of self respect, honour and dignity with umbrellas in one hand and cleaning agents in the other and quietly going about trying to clean up what the scumbags had vandalised the night before.

Just a correction - the so called "random concerned citizens" that came out "spontaneously" to clean the paint were in fact DPMNE members and sympathizers.In a video on Youtube,the old lady with glasses that allegedly came out to clean the monuments can be seen in a different video on a counterprotest saying "we'll crush those from SDSM":


On a different occasion one of the "random cleaners" was a grade school principle from DPMNE along with several others from her office.

There's more than meets the eye when you take a closer look.This is the propaganda machinery on full throttle.
Presenting their members and sympathizers as genuinely concerned citizens is just another trick in the book to distort the image of the citizen's revolt against the regime.

[Niko777]

There is massive propaganda from both sides Sdsm/Dpmne, no doubt about it,

But this story with the paintings caught my eye and I think it's probably true for several reasons, first being the unrealistic inflated costs of Gruevski's other projects (millions of euros for a single statue, millions of euros for a railing on a bridge, millions of euros for a "classical" plastic/foam facade on an existing building, millions of euros to light up the facades at night, etc.). Therefore why should the high cost of these paintings surprise anyone now? Unusually high costs have been documented since day one of the Skopje 2014 project.

Second reason is this "personality cult" phenomenon that has gripped this part of Macedonia since the days of Yugoslavia (I say "this part" because I can't say I've seen the same thing in Aegean Macedonia with Greek politicians, at least not to this extent). It seems that whoever comes into power (Gligorov, Georgievski, Crvenkovski, Gruevski, etc) there always seemed to be a tendency to make a personality cult with them where they are portrayed as the "saviour" of Macedonia and Macedonians. Could this be because Macedonians are desperate for a new "supreme leader" figure as Tito was in the past? I've seen it especially in the diaspora where older Macedonians go crazy defending Gruevski and his every action, the same was happening in the past with Georgievski. I mean have Macedonians not learnt anything? You can't put so much trust and faith in any Macedonian or Balkan politician. Some people act like the Macedonian Prime Minister is a god and as soon as you do that that's when they go drunk with power and take advantage of a people who are so easily manipulated.

Third reason is the style of the paintings. They are in the exact same style of the paintings in the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle in Skopje, which happen to also be painted by Ukrainian and Bulgarian artists. It's quite possible that Gruevski just hired the same painters again.

[Karposh]

Niko, I understand what you and Dragan are saying and as expensive and over-the-top, not to mention cringe-worthy, as some of the erected monuments are (e.g. ancient Macedonian maidens breast feeding babies – absolutely ridiculous) they are there to stay now and, who knows, years from now, people might even get quite used to them. The French almost tore down the Eiffel Tower when it was first built because they considered it a monstrosity at the time.

That’s why I get upset and can’t understand what can possibly be achieved in vandalising all these expensive items scattered about the place. It’s hard to sympathise with these people who are caught up in this mob mentality of wanton destruction. They can still make their point without resorting to shitting on their own living room rug.

My personal opinion is yes, the government did go way over the top with erecting monuments. I can probably understand the intention and it was perhaps well meaning but more consultation should have been made with the general public. There is nothing wrong with trying to beautify a city, especially the capital city of a country and try to instil some pride in people of their surroundings and where they live. There was nothing worse than seeing the same old drab, communist era style buildings around Skopje. The last time I was in Skopje, many years ago, I couldn’t wait to go back to my home town of Bitola. Skopje just didn’t do it for me at the time and it certainly didn’t have the feeling of a capital city.

I don’t think the money thrown on “The Warrior on A Horse” was a wasted effort. But if the intention was to boldly tell the world “Fuck You!” this is Macedonia not FYRoM and we are proud to be Macedonians why did they have to be so cryptic and bashful about it. On the one hand they are being brazen and bold and on the other - uncertain, awkward and almost scared to announce who that warrior on the horse is.

The airport and soccer stadium revamps were noteworthy investments too. The old ones were certainly in no way befitting of a national capital. As for the plastic/foam facades, fake as they are, they are much better than what was there before. Anything is better than what was there before.

But that’s where I think it should have stopped. Alex the Great was enough of a statement. The rest makes us look like, as the Greeks like to say, a Skopje Disneyland. Instead of throwing all that money on the other projects, they could perhaps have utilised a fraction of that money to add some greenery around the place, landscaping, tidying up and beatifying the Vardar quay area with additional planting, lighting, paved walkways, etc.

Also, if I’m going to be completely honest, I have been a VMRO DPMNE sympathiser for many years now as I have looked on them as at least trying to improve the situation in Macedonia over the years. I don’t think anyone can deny that they have managed to slash unemployment markedly and opened the country to new foreign investments that have created more jobs than ever before. Well, at least more so than their predecessors anyway. But, if what everyone seems to be saying here on this forum is true, that they reserve those jobs for their sympathisers and party members, then to hell with them too. That is no way to build a modern, democratic country.

I think another reason I have looked favourably on DPMNE is their prefix – VMRO. In my mind, as I’m sure in many others’ too, any party with those hallowed letters in their name must have Macedonia’s best interest at heart. I have never held a DPMNE red membership card but I have always been sympathetic to this party because of these letters - VMRO. Perhaps naively, it would seem.

[Niko777]

"The warrior on the horse" statue was enough.... but who knows how much he profited from it $$$ mu beshe mnogu slatko and he couldn't stop building statues after that.

As for the unemployment numbers, I am now sceptical about that too. Whenever a new factory opens the state media always reports the number of employees that the company "plans" to hire in the future, not what it has hired today. A factory that hired 100 employees is published in the media has "planning to hire upto 1000 employees in a few years...".

Also, could it be that unemployment numbers have dropped because of the mass exodus of the country? Look at the graph below, the number of people permanently leaving the country has been on the rise since Gruevski took power in 2006.



Throwing paint on the buildings and monuments is not the solution, but it probably started from people trying to express their anger... "lugjeto sakat da si go zvadat inaeto" as we say in my dialect.

[DraganOfStip]

Also, could it be that unemployment numbers have dropped because of the mass exodus of the country? Look at the graph below, the number of people permanently leaving the country has been on the rise since Gruevski took power in 2006.

The unemployment rate drops due to a few other reasons too.

One being that people that are irregularly reporting to the unemployment bureau are being erased from the list of unemployed people and therefore don't get counted in the official number.People here report to the unemployment bureau every month in order to get listed,and when they do they are given a date when they should report again.From different reasons not all can reach this deadline (people living in remote villages have transportation issues,some may be out of town or some may even forget the exact date,it happens) and even if they are 1 day late they get erased from the list for an entire year.

Other,and I'd add a more important one,is the government employments in state-run companies (not just government/parliament/municipality employees but also post office, army, police, theaters, universities, hospitals, public utility companies etc etc).
Just as an example,the number of city hall/municipality workers in my hometown of Stip has DOUBLED since 10 years ago due to party employments.So you do the math.
But you don't hear this in government-controlled media.Another example of how the propaganda machinery distorts the real picture.

[King Niko]

What the hell?

[Soldier of Macedon]

So has it been determined if this whole paintings/portraits debacle is true or a hoax?

[DraganOfStip]

The Supreme Leader's child on her first day of school.
Note the other kid's lineup on each side to welcome the royal family and the teacher (or headmaster?) accompanying them to the school.
The only thing missing is a little girl throwing rose leaflets in front of them for them to walk on...

[vicsinad]

No need to call her an it.

But yeah, over the top.

[DraganOfStip]

No need to call her an it.

Noted and corrected.
Thanks.