BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Kitsch or an extraordinary work of art? Depends on who you ask.
The President of Serbia attended the unveiling of a grand monument to a medieval monk and historical ruler on Wednesday evening, which has come under fire from critics calling it too big and kitschy.
President Aleksandar Vucic’s allies say the 23-meter-high (75-foot-high), 70-ton bronze statue of the legendary founder of the Serbian state, Stefan Nemanja, will be placed on a gilded egg-shaped pedestal in the center of Belgrade. new milestone of the Serbian capital.
Opponents think the monument is a megalomaniacal and pricey sign of Vucic’s populist and autocratic rule that should be removed.
Vucic told a crowd of several thousand of his supporters, who did not keep social distance amid the coronavirus pandemic, that “the beautiful” statue represents an “art masterpiece” that is a symbol of Serbian state and unity.
He said anyone who “dreams of removing it” will fail because it represents “the anchor of the entire Serbian nation.”
Social media commentators have dubbed the sculpture ‘Saruman on a Kinder Egg’ and critics said the sculpture created and designed in Russia contradicts traditional Serbian architectural style and instead resembles mega-sized Soviet-era monuments.
An independent Association of Serbian Art Curators said the monument is an “ideological product of despotism” unrelated to 21st century Serbia and Belgrade. Art historian Aida Corovic said it is not a monument to Stefan Nemanja, but to Vucic’s “arrogance”.
Belgrade Deputy Mayor Goran Vesic rejected the criticism, saying that the once dilapidated part of the city is “becoming 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 Belgrade’s old train station. It is part of the Belgrade Waterfront project funded by a United Arab Emirates company that includes Dubai-style shopping malls and high-rise buildings.
The construction of the monument has often been compared by critics to a hotly contested revamp of Macedonia’s capital, Skopje, earlier in the 2000s, with dozens of monuments and sculptures nicknamed it ‘the kitschy capital of the Balkans’.
Both projects became synonymous with mysterious and reckless expenditure. The price paid to the Russian sculptor for the monument has been declared a state secret, but independent estimates amount to about 9 million euros ($ 11 million).