On our way to Zrze Monastery, we made a short stop in Prilep’s Revolution Park. There is Burial Mound of the Unbeaten – a magnificent monument to Prilep’s Partisan soldiers who died in WWII. It is the 1961 work of one of the former Yugoslavia’s most brilliant architects, Bogdan Bogdanović, who specialized in mixing up the historical with the antic and celestial. The eight marble monoliths, each between 3m and 5m tall, depict what is thought to be a traditional circle dance, with feminine bodies and double faces representing a continuity between beginnings and ends. Simultaneously modern and ancient, this is a treat. The town’s high number of Partisans and their activism during WWII gave Prilep the status ‘Town of National Heroes’ in Yugoslavia, hence Bogdanović’s prestigious commission.
