The article analyzes the contentions over symbolic spaces and meaning in Macedonia’s
capital Skopje/Shkup. At the center of the analysis stand the negotiations around
the monument to Skanderbeg, unveiled in the city center in November 2006. The author
contextualizes the political and social setting of the monument, highlighting both the 2001
conflict and its appeasement via the Ohrid agreement and the administrative redrawing of
municipal boundaries of 2004 as the two key moments in re-establishing symbolic landscapes
and meanings. As becomes obvious, the notion of a simple Albanian-Macedonian rivalry
does not suffice to explain in depth the mechanisms at work. Altogether intra-Albanian
competition, the reshaping of Albanian identities and solidarities across the Balkans, and
Macedonian post-2001 politics have generated loyalties and differences that go well beyond
ethnic conditionalities.