Abraham Lincoln is everywhere, or so it seems. The Lincoln Sculpture Project Map created by David Wiegers and Scott Schoeder (an LGDC board member) has reached close to 700 sculptures around the world, with new ones being added as soon as they go up. During my recent travels in the Balkans, I went in search of one of the more elusive – and apparently cryptic – statues, in of all places, Skopje, North Macedonia.
The map above gives you an idea of the area under discussion. That sole red flag designating a Lincoln sculpture is Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia. Like other nations in the region, Macedonia was once part of Yugoslavia following the second World War, then became its own nation during the ensuing split in 1991. A complicated naming dispute with Greece led to the “North” being officially added to the name in 2018. My recent trip took me to Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, and North Macedonia. It was on the final stop that I eagerly raced through the record heat (highs were generally near or even over 100F the entire time) to find the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, a modern building erected during a spurt of growth in 2011-2014.
As part of the design, the government planned to erect dozens of statues on the top and midlevel of this building, as well as the surrounding buildings, the bridges over the river, and the nearby main square. There are statues everywhere. But was there a Lincoln statue?
According to the Sculpture Project Map there is, but they had no photograph, no information on the sculptor, or any other details. My snooping around came up with an article published at the time of the project noting that the statues along the rooftop would include many world leaders, not the least of which were Winston Churchill, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Confirming that became a chore.
I found the Ministry building easily enough. It was one of several newer buildings dominating the opposite side of the river from the main square, itself dominated by a huge equestrian statue of Alexander the Great (or perhaps not, the story is a bit murky). As you can see, there are many statues at the first level windows, but the Lincoln statue was supposed to be at the roofline where there are even more statues.
Unfortunately, you can’t see any of the roof statues from the lane immediately in front of the building. You have to cross to the other side of the Vardar River to see anything, and only by zooming in from that distance can you make out the roof statues. Making matters worse, the statues are placed around all four sides of the roof, and the back side is particularly difficult to gain access at the proper distance.
Zooming in further on my photos once I got back home and could enlarge them on my bigger screen, I could easily make out Winston Churchill. I also saw Ghandi. There was one guy who sort of looked like Ulysses S. Grant, but I don’t think it was. And there were plenty of other apparent heads of state over history, some of whom looked familiar but mostly not.
Nowhere did I see George Washington or Abraham Lincoln.
I made some queries on the ground, asking the two gentlemen at the front desk of my hotel. Neither even knew where the building was even though it was only a 10–15-minute walk away. The official tour guide for my group had never heard of any Lincoln statues, and more disconcerting, neither did the city tour guide who took us down to the main square and across the river in the shadow of the building. He did, however, suggest that the project may not have been completed and that its intended effect – sparking a nationalistic fever – didn’t quite work out the way they envisioned (i.e., many thought it a waste of money).
They did seem to finish the “Bridge of Art,” a footbridge crossing the river near the Ministry building. Those thirty-five statues depict distinguished educators, artists, writers, composers, and actors from Macedonia. Skopje is also the hometown of Mother Teresa, and there is a memorial home with its own chapel there for her (she also is featured prominently in other churches in the city). Skopje is a beautiful place to visit, so if anyone else gets there, spend some time looking for Lincoln and let me know if you find him.
Meanwhile, I’ll be in Southeast Asia in the early autumn, and the Lincoln Sculpture Project Map shows there is a Lincoln sculpture in northern Thailand. To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes (and William Shakespeare), “the game is afoot!’
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David J. Kent is Immediate Past President of the Lincoln Group of DC and the author of many books on Abraham Lincoln, Nikola Tesla, and Thomas Edison.
