Lessons for Modern Living: Planned Rural Communities in Interwar Romania, Turkey and Italy

Abstract

Lessons for Modern Living: Planned Rural Communities in Interwar Romania, Turkey and ItalyThe desire to modernise the rural world was a defining feature of the period between the two World Wars. The combination of modernisation in the guise of «development », and the national state-building ideology, formed a unique vision of modernity specific to the interwar period. This article compares three instances of rural planning in three countries – Romania, Turkey and Italy – in order to understand whether or not common traits of this underlying vision of rural modernity existed beyond the countries’ respective political, social and economic differences. This comparison also serves to shed more light on the wider implications of rural planning in the interwar period.