Abstract Focusing on the case of Bucharest, the article aims to analyze a neglected element of infrastructure: the basement of the Central Market Hall. Its main function, of food preservation, suffers major reconsiderations around 1900, under the double impact of microbiology and cooling preservation techniques. How the City Hall authorities responded to the challenges brought by the emergence of new medical, biological, and hygiene knowledge? What role did they have in introducing disruptive techniques, such as refrigerators, that modify the behavior of the various agents of the food market? The analysis of the Market Hall’s basement dynamic also reveals the tensions between the hygienic principles and the limits imposed by very specific conditions. Caught between divergent pressures, the Municipality was forced to be flexible and to compromise, trying to find solutions that were regarded as definite progress even if they did not fully comply with the hygienic ideals.

Abstract At the end of the nineteenth century, the process of modernization penetrated deeply into Romanian society and also reached the rural world, which caused a series of changes. This article aims at researching the scope of the contribution that Romanian credit institutions had in the development of Romanian schools, churches, and cultural institutions at the time. For this purpose, the article used comparative research to review the balance sheets of Romanian credit institutions, as they were published in the media at that time, as well as documents from several archives throughout Romania.

Abstract The article aims to study the social change in Bulgaria in the short period immediately after the fall of the totalitarian regime in November 1989. The rapid renaming of the streets, squares, and institutions of Sofia is examined, and the changes of the city symbols (coat of arms, city flag, and city day) are commented on. The main research questions are: whether and how social transformation was projected at the tangible and intangible urban space; and to what extent these changes affected local collective memory. The study uses a social history approach and is primarily based on historical analysis of archival documentation.