She has made North Macedonia “Proud” once already this year, but she is ready to do it again this weekend as the nation’s capital Skopje will host it’s first ever Pride event.
From Stonewall to Skopje.
28th June is an important date for the LGBT+ community. That is more so than ever this year. 50 years ago saw the birth of the Stonewall Riots where Police invaded the Stonewall Inn. But rather than comply the LGBT community fought back which gave rise to the first ever Pride event.
Now pride is celebrated all over the world. Form London to Tel Aviv. From Madrid to Sydney, Australia pride is observed by millions. Yet still some countries don’t have spaces and time to celebrate. North Macedonia was one of those places, until now. What better way to celebrate than with the woman who brought the nation their highest ever placing in Eurovision and with a song called “Proud”!
Macedonian human rights activist Antonio Mihajlov affirmed the message of Pride parades.
The Pride Parade is a march of LGBTI people to ask for support, affirmation, and protection of their rights by state institutions and citizens, including cultural workers who share progressive values and show their solidarity
Antonio Mihajlov
Organising comitee member, Kocho Andonovski had this to add.
Our country is the last one in the region to hold a Pride Parade
So you can clearly see how much it means to LGBT members of Macedonia to have their own even and the very important reasons as to why they need one.
Tamara Todevska at Eurovision.
A twice Eurovision entrant. She competed for the first time in 2008 with the song “Let Me Love You. Alongside Vrcak and Adrian in Belgrade, Serbia she finished in Tenth-Place with 64 points, therefore she failed to qualify for the final.
However her second bite at the cherry was far sweeter. Tamara flew the North Macedonian flag once again to Tel-Aviv, Israel. With her song “Proud” she was the Runner-Up in Semi Final 2. This allowed her to qualify for the Grand Final. This ended North Macedonia’s six year qualification drought. In the Grand Final she won 305 points giving her a Seventh-Place finish. This became North Macedonia’s all time best result. She is however more famous for winning the jury vote in 2019 with 247 points.
