Monument aux cinq héros nationaux, War memorial in Shkoder, Albania.
The Monument to the Five National Heroes, also called the Monument to the Five Heroes of Vig, is a bronze sculpture by Shaban Hadëri in Shkodra. Five figures stand back to back on a four-metre marble pedestal, forming a defensive ring that recalls the siege at Vig in Mirdita. The bronze figures are five metres tall.
The monument commemorates five men from Vig in Mirdita — Ahmet Haxhia, Naim Gjylbegu, Ndoc Mazi, Hydajet Lezha and Ndoc Deda — killed in August 1944 during the Second World War. Sculptor Shaban Hadëri made it; it stood for years on a square in central Shkodra before being moved in 2008, and since November 2015 it has been at the city's northern entrance.
The five figures stand back to back, a pose tied to the siege at Vig in Mirdita in August 1944, where the five men died. The sculptor was Shaban Hadëri. The event was filmed in Besa e kuqe (1982), directed by Piro Milkani.
The monument stands at the northern entrance of Shkodra, at 42.0892788°N 19.5074038°E, near the Martyrs' Cemetery, not in the city centre. It was moved there in November 2015 after earlier stays on a central square and by the cemetery from 2008.
The five figures stand back to back in a closed ring, a composition the sculptor Shaban Hadëri linked to the encirclement at Vig in Mirdita, where the men were surrounded and killed in August 1944. The bronze group rests on a marble pedestal four metres high, cut from stone quarried about 20 kilometres from Shkodra.
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