Our denar has turned 34 years old. It was April 26, 1992, when the then Prime Minister, Nikola Kljusev, with a broad smile, reddened his face, promoted the denar as a new national currency, a new monetary unit of the fully independent Macedonian state, from the parliamentary rostrum. First nominated in vouchers, shortly afterwards in money. The name “denare” comes from the ancient Roman monetary unit “denarius” and is an expression of the historical continuity of the use of money in the territory of Macedonia from Roman antiquity to the medieval period. It is worth acknowledging and not forgetting academician Petar Ilievski, who made the proposal.
Which is one of the phenomena in the relationship between man and money. That’s why we usually don’t remember the symbols of money, which we see almost every day. It is a worldwide, not only Macedonian phenomenon, which refers primarily to coins, that is, minted money. Today, in the Republic of Macedonia, metal coins with denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 50 denars are in circulation. All coins have a unified stylized horizon with a 16-point sun on the obverse, and the obverse is different.
Animals, birds or fish are engraved on the back. By the installation itself, they were given and recognized the importance of national symbols, state and people. Who are they?
On the coin of the denar (1 denar) is the Sharplanin dog. There is hardly any mythology in the world that does not associate the dog with death, hell, the underworld, and the invisible realms, and that it has two faces and two characters. There are beliefs that God entrusted the dog with the task of keeping the devil from approaching man. Since then, the dog has been a faithful guardian and companion. But the same beliefs say that the devil bribed the dog, originally born naked, by giving him fur as a reward, for the betrayal of the owner who fed him. Perhaps it is precisely on such legends that our proverb “wounds a dog to bark at you” is based, which applies above all to people whom you have helped in life, and after a certain time they “bark” the worst at you.
For the Sharplanin, the Macedonian shepherd dog, experts claim that it is a good-natured, but also sharp dog. A faithful and proud guardian in defense of his master, unbridled by the devil. A dog with self-control and adaptability, strength and courage. It was first recognized as a separate breed in 1939 under the name Illyrian shepherd. And the dog that accompanied Alexander the Great was from Sharplan. Our cynologists claim that the Macedonian soldiers took the dog from Shar Mountain to Pakistan and Afghanistan, while others claim that the opposite happened – the Shar mountaineers brought Alexander’s soldiers to the Shar Mountains on their way back from Asia.
On the two denar coin is the stylization of the Ohrid trout, an ancient endemic fish from the deep waters of Lake Ohrid, “letnica”, as Ohridians call it. From the salmon family, it is considered a fish of wisdom and powerful spirit.
The fish is a symbol of life and fertility due to its ability to reproduce with countless eggs, and hence associated with prosperity. For some fish of the trout species, there is a belief that from their bile and liver, mixed with various herbs, a medicine could be made that cures all the diseases of the world. Unfortunately, the people of Ohrid did not discover this secret, as no one in the world discovered it. Among the northern peoples there are legends that the one who bites the meat becomes clairvoyant, with the ability to prophesy and know everything.
It has been scientifically confirmed that the first symbol of Christianity was a representation of a fish in various variations. Even Jesus himself was named by his followers for two or three centuries with the word fish.
Rice is worth five denars. This cat is rarely found in mythologies, legends and folklore, and it is not even in our folk tales. Somewhere, due to the penetrating look of his gaze, he was considered a symbol or image of a god. And he got his name from the shine of his eyes. In the original it means light, brightness. Although it is considered a cunning animal, it is not a very successful hunter. It is interesting that the actual strings of the harp were made from the intestines of the lynx, and their sound was considered divine, symbolizing happiness. The vibrations of the strings from the lynx intestines could lull some of the listeners to sleep and transport them, at least briefly, to the other unknown side of life.
The lynx (Balkan lynx) has been documented in Macedonia since the Middle Ages, in the past it was found in almost all the mountains of Macedonia, at one time it completely disappeared. There are as many different opinions as there are today, exclusively in Western Macedonia. The most optimistic predictions are that there are no more than 30-50 individuals, although, practically, in recent years, only a few have been marked in Mavrovo National Park.
If it is not in the dense forests, it has remained among people recognizable by temperamental reactions. Like for example “ugh, but it’s (I’m) angry like a lynx”.
Unlike the first three coins, which are bronze-colored, the minted ten denarka is white. The peacock from the episcopal basilica in the archeological site of Stobi, a fragment of the floor mosaic from the 5th century, is engraved on its back. The peacock is an image of pride, a symbol of beauty and the power to transform the ugly into beautiful things. According to some beliefs, the beauty of his feathers comes from the venom of the snakes he eats. In some symbols, the peacock serves to express the wishes for peace and prosperity, a symbol of the incorruptible soul and human psychic duality. It is called the animal with a hundred eyes. The spread of the tail represents the universe, the full moon and the sun at its zenith. The most beautiful in appearance among birds, the ugliest in song, which is more like a scream than a bird’s song.
And the 50 denar is white. On its back is an engraved image of the Archangel Gabriel – a fresco from the church “St. George” in Kurbinovo – XII century, a detail taken from the paper money of 50 denars. Gabriel is the messenger of God who announced to the Virgin Mary that she would conceive and give birth to Jesus Christ, the Savior. The world-famous altar fresco of the Blue Angel (Archangel Gabriel) is located in the one-nave temple built in the forest above the Prespa village of Kurbinovo, built in the 12th century in 1191. According to top art historians, that fresco is the beginning of the European painting renaissance, even two centuries before the pioneers, the Italian Renaissance masters Giotto and Fra Angelico.
Finally, a little history about the coined money in the territory of geographical Macedonia. The beginning of coinage here dates back to the end of the 6th century BC. AD when the Payonian communities began to issue their silver coins, only a century after the appearance of the first metallic money in the world. Scientists have not established it with certainty, but it is not excluded that the proverb – “money opens iron gates” is also from that time.
The history of the Macedonian royal mint begins with Alexander I Philhellen (498-454 BC), on whose coins the Macedonian kings were represented on the face, and the lion or lion’s skin on the background. Philip II started minting silver coins in Pella and Amphipolis, and for the first time introduced a gold denomination, the golden “stater”. During the reign of Alexander the Third of Macedon, when he expanded the territory to India, his gold, silver and bronze coins were in circulation in that huge area, which were minted in thirty mints throughout the empire. Due to the power and glory of Alexander the Great, as well as due to the high purity of the metal from which these coins were minted, they became a generally accepted international means of payment at that time. That’s what the books say.
If Alexander managed to make his money almost the world’s currency, it should be honestly said that for 2,300 years after him, no government, from then until today, was able to make something of value for domestic, let alone international, use of Macedonian money. Regardless of which metal they were minted from, what weight they had, which characters were painted, which animals, birds, fish or flowers were engraved, both on the obverse and on the reverse, they were always missing, both in the state and in the domestic budget.
