The Development Discourse during Socialist Romania in Visual Representations of the Urban Area

Abstract

This article proposes another way of looking at how urban Romania was built in socialism, little explored: through official images. The main research question considered the official visual discourse of the Romanian state on urban territorial identities reflected in picture postcards, during the socialist period (1948-1989). Thus, the aim of this research is to expose and discuss the political hegemonic discourse as ubiquitous in these visual representations of the Romanian cities. The research objectives focused on identifying elements that supported the idea of a visual discourse that is coherent and resonates with the Romanian Communist Party’s propaganda by analyzing how images in picture postcards of the urban area were constructed. This visual imagery was interpreted through visual analysis in relation to the political discourse of the period. Results showed that the self-legitimation discourse of the Romanian Communist Party set the norm in representations of urban Romania in picture postcards.