BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Kitsch or an extraordinary work of art? Depends on who you ask.
The president of Serbia on Wednesday night attended the unveiling of a large monument to a medieval monk and historical ruler who came under fire from critics who call it grand and kitschy.
President Aleksandar Vucic’s allies say the 23-meter-high (75-foot-tall), 70-ton bronze statue of the legendary founder of the Serbian state, Stefan Nemanja, will be placed on a gilded egg-shaped pedestal in downtown Belgrade. new beacon of the Serbian capital.
Opponents think the monument is a megalomaniacal and costly sign of Vucic’s populist and autocratic rule that needs to be removed.
Vucic told a crowd of thousands of his supporters, who kept no social distance amid the coronavirus pandemic, that ‘the’ beautiful ‘statue is an’ art masterpiece ‘that is a symbol of Serbian state capture and unity .
He said that anyone who ‘dreams of removing it’ will not succeed because it is ‘the anchor of the whole Serbian people’.
Commentators on social media call the sculpture ‘Saruman on a Kinder Egg’ and according to critics, the sculpture made and designed in Russia is not in line with the traditional Serbian architectural style and looks more like mega-sized monuments from the Soviet era. .
An independent association of Serbian art conservationists said the monument was an ‘ideological product of despotism’ unrelated to 21st century Serbia and Belgrade. Art historian Aida Corovic said it was not a monument to Stefan Nemanja, but to Vucic’s ‘arrogance’.
Belgrade’s deputy mayor Goran Vesic rejected the criticism, saying that the once dilapidated part of the city ‘will become one of the most beautiful places in the capital’ and a new center of the city.
The monument was placed on a renovated square in front of the old train station of Belgrade. It is part of a Belgrade Waterfront project funded by a United Arab Emirates company, which includes Dubai-style shopping malls and tall buildings.
Critics have often compared the building of the monument to a much-disputed renovation of Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, in the early 2000s, which contained dozens of monuments and sculptures that earned the nickname “the kitsch capital of the Balkans”.
Both projects have become synonymous with secret and reckless spending. The price paid to the Russian sculptor for the monument has been declared a state secret, but independent estimates range to about 9 million euros ($ 11 million).