4. Madeleine Albright monument

From Heroinat Monument, your tour continues with a visit to the bust of Madeleine Albright. This bust is located on your left hand side when you are facing Heroinat. You continue walking on the pavement to the next crosswalk right in front of the building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and you cross the street towards the Youth Palace. You will find yourself in front of the bust which is partially in the garden area of the American School of Kosova located in the wing of the Youth Palace.

In Kosovo, many monuments are oriented to thanking people who promoted the unity and peace cause, and the Madeleine Albright statue is among them. The creation of the Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright monuments was a way for the Kosovar people to express their gratitude for their endless support in the 1999 war and post-war period. It was on July, 29 in 1999 when Albright first visited Pristina where she received an affectionate welcome by the ethnic Albanian community and had a short meeting with the head of KLA Hashim Thaci, among others. On June 12, 2019, Kosovo marked the 20th anniversary of NATO's deployment of troops. Therefore they invited two of the protagonists that led their efforts for independence, Clinton and Albright accepted their call and visited Kosovo together. Albright’s festive speech highlighted that standing with the Kosovars for freedom and against ethnic cleansing (by Serbian forces) was one of her greatest honors.

Madeleine Korbel was born in 1937 and originated from former Czechoslovakia. As her father was a diplomat, they moved in many countries, and at the age of 11 immigrated to the US. After finishing college she got married to Joseph Albright and gave birth to 3 daughters. In the meantime, she finished her Ph.D. and took a position in the National Security Council. As an academic, she joined Georgetown University and after Clinton’s presidential victory in 1992, she became the US ambassador to the United Nations until 1997 when she became the 1st female US Secretary of State. She serves as a chair of organizations such as the World Justice Project. She is well known for her role during the 1999 Yugoslav war and the efforts she made for Kosovo's liberation. Her work is appreciated and in 2012 was awarded by US President Barack Obama with the presidential Medal of Freedom.

There are always cases such as Madeleine Albright, where the role of a politician is considered controversial with eager supporters and fierce opponents, and it looks like a coin with two sides. For the Albanian Kosovars Albright is a respectful person that helped them reach their independence while for the Serbs she is a persona non grata, to say the least. It was in 2012 when she was accused of hate speech right after her visit to the bookstore Palac Knih Luxor in Prague. There an activist group from a Czech organization named Pratele Srbu na Kosovu filmed her saying ‘’Disgusting Serbs, get out’’ as they showed her photos of Serbian victims of the 1999 war. Shortly after the post of the two videos on YouTube, Albright was reported to the authorities, by filmmaker Emir Kusturica and other protesters.