SKOPJE

Abstract

The article explores some of the ways in

which the citizens and officials of the

Republic of Macedonia commemorated on

July 26, 2003 the 40th anniversary of the

earthquake that destroyed much of Skopje,

the capital city of the Republic. The fragile

Republic in the center of the Balkans also

commemorated during the same week the

100th anniversary of the failed Ilinden

uprising against Ottoman Turkish rule,

August 2, 1903. The study aims at connecting

diverse expressions of how a

particular society remembers its disasters

and attempts to turn them towards redemption.

The Macedonian sociologist,

Ilja Acheski, used the term “permanent

earthquake” to describe the social fragmentation

of his city in the aftermath of

the 1963 earthquake. The article represents

an extensive commentary on this

theme. One of the characteristic responses

during the earthquake memorial was

nostalgic, perhaps “Jugonostalgic”. Several

people stressed to the ethnographer

how the world society – in the midst of

the Cold War – cooperated to help Skopje

during its moment of need. At the unveiling

of a monumental sculpture of a

suffering woman, who is meant to symbolize

Skopje, an older man told me how

America and Russia joined to help Skopje

in 1963. The commemoration of Skopje’s

earthquake, therefore, made it possible to

acknowledge once again the personal

leadership of Tito for his “Brotherhood

and Unity” policy and for his skill at

uniting East and West. Most of the article,

however, does not dwell on the site of the

monument. The author takes long walks

in Topaana, a Roma “slum”, Cair, a neighboring

Albanian “village”, and Lisece, a

Macedonian “barracks” suburb. This last

named site is one of the working-class

suburbs where the wooden frame houses

were built as contributions from abroad

to rehouse the victims made homeless by

the earthquake.