The historical scheme of political development in the Balkans which does not go
without provoking an important gap between the original and modern borders, physical or
mythical, the real or the dreamed-off, is the source of numerous contemporary tensions of
which border cities are exemplary. Without neglecting the importance of historical contexts
which saw their birth and local conditions which saw their growth, they depend in effect,
more than other entities, on a clear determination of the process which consists in “marking”
or “remarking” the borders between the communities involved in situations of conflict, verily
within them. One could even say that this process is their very being. Skopje, the capital of
the Republic of Macedonia, presents, in its way, a rather complete picture of all these
complexities.
How should this city, heir to Roman Scupi, Ottoman Uskup, capital of the new
republic, born of the fall of former Yugoslavia, even the international recognition of which
did not come without difficulties be qualified? Should it to be called a border city? This
question is not a harmless one. The transformation of the imperial space, of which Skopje was
a part, into a series of territorial Nation-States radically affected the image and functioning of
the city. From a crossroads of diasporas, it became a pole of neonationalism, which made a
border city of it (Prevelakis, 1996: 92-93). But that is not all. The political consequences of
this mutation are also immense