This study aims to explore the visual discourse about women and their roles in the Romanian village, a discourse created by the picture postcards from the end of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. To reach this aim, we considered the following objectives: to realise a typology of the used research material, to identify the main representations of women, to analyse the relationship between the representations of women and the other represented elements (men, children, rural landscapes, households, tools, etc.), to discuss the main features of the visual discourse about the women from the rural area, for the respective period, based on the previous identification of the elements that became iconic through repeated representation. We used a critical visual methodology and discourse analysis to explore the picture postcards that represented women from the Romanian village, underlining the connection between their meanings and the cultural reality. Our findings are useful for similar research on gender and its visual construction from the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

The aim of this article is to provide a close reading of two illustrative texts for the feminine version of the war diary during WWI in the Romanian territory, namely Yvonne Blondel’s War Journal: 1916-1917 and Queen Marie’s unabridged version of the diary she kept between 1916 and 1918. The contrastive element is represented by Sextil Pușcariu’s Memoirs, which are relevant from a threefold perspective: gender, geography, and the representation of the feminine figure. The article will focus on six feminine roles: the nurse, the patriot, the diplomat, the wife, the mother, and the writer.

Social life and fashion have not been the woman’s only concerns at the end of the 19th and the late 20th century. Their contribution to modern society changes, by taking on new duties and liabilities will have a specific means of expression and for a better understanding of the activities they carried out it requires an overview, even a brief one over a few Oltenian women from the above-mentioned period. Seen only as a wife and mother, the woman makes her way into society being concerned with her own education, she takes part in financing arts and not only, and she engages in harnessing traditional clothing and crafts.

Since the turn of the millennium, mobile applications have played an increasingly mportant role in destination marketing and branding. Official destination apps are specific media channels designed to communicate the unique characteristics of a destination and influence visitors’ perceptions of the place. To date, no prior research has been carried out to analyse the use of destination mobile apps in Romania. The current paper tries to fill in this gap in the literature and provide an analysis of destination mobile apps of Romanian counties using a revised framework based on literature review and earlier studies.

The concept of “holiday village” has recently turned fifty. Holiday villages are found in non-urban areas, rich in nature-based and human-made resources. By implementing the planning principles of this type of accommodation, Romania has also developed its tourism supply over the past years, currently providing twelve holiday villages which are spread throughout the country. The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of these holiday villages both from a tourism analysis perspective and in relationship with territorial identity. In order to achieve this goal, a series of quantitative and qualitative methods were employed, starting with the analysis of statistical databases in parallel with the review of bibliographic materials, and the observation and analysis of the official websites of these accommodation structures, respectively. It turned out that three counties (Brașov, Suceava and Tulcea) hosted 50% of the existing holiday villages in Romania, confirming once again the importance of local tourism potential derived from geographic location and cultural heritage. Based on various tourist needs and preferences, a wide range of activities and services both basic (accommodation and catering) and additional ones (entertainment and leisure, business, etc.), which became available for different groups of guests were also identified. Eventually, a multicriterial analysis, including aspects related to architectural elements, landscape integration and links to local or regional traditional values highlighted five levels of authenticity according to which almost half of the examined units established a stronger connection with the territorial identity of the geographical-historical regions, which hosted these establishments.

Changes in land use patterns induced by different agricultural practices are reflected territorially through transformations at the level of elementary landscape units, with an impact on territorial identity and cohesion. The aim of this study is to highlight the dynamics of the territorial structures in the post-communist period (1990-2018), diachronically reflected in the transformations of the landscape of the Guruslău Depression, using the landscape metrics. The main direction of the scientific research was based on the analysis of land use changes and the identification of the spatial elements of structural-landscape distinction with impact on land degradation process. The evaluation of the landscape dynamics in the current context uses several effective metrics and tools, which increasingly require the identification of interdisciplinary methods of analysis, with a decisive impact on territorial development. Besides, the present approach is also motivated by the increasing environmental impact of climate change. The methodology used in the present paper is based both on the geoprocessing of vector data using GIS tools and correlated spatial analysis, and on the identification of landscape types using a new process of reclassifying land use categories, according to a set of landscape definition variables. The results of the research highlighted both the particularities of landscape transformations that occurred in the reference interval, as well as the favourable conditions for addressing biocultural diversity, by identifying traditional agricultural practices and the resilience of geographical landscapes given the adaptation to changing development strategies. Meanwhile, by detecting the landscape structures affected by change, in correlation with the impact induced on the biodiversity of the territory, the present study has a wide applicability in the most appropriate implementation of local development policies, as well as in identifying the forms of sustainable valorisation of the landscape in the study area.

A product of popular culture, comics are in tune with the societal context that created them. This article aims to present the hegemonic narrative, reading and messages of comics for communist pioneers in Cutezătorii [The Daring Ones] Magazine. To do so, the research material considered is made up of two comics focused on Otherness and Romanians’ relationships with state institutions close to the political factor. Qualitative content analysis was performed on both text and images. Findings uncovered a partial view of communist Romania and of the workings of propaganda, because, beside their entertainment value, these comics can be read as political texts or statements. These comics show how the political elite perceived those who wanted to leave Romania (illegally) and those who, of foreign origin, visited this country. Both comics series glorify the collaboration with the Militia, the State Security, and their surveillance methods (through technology and responsible employees and citizens). Communist pioneers are plain clothes detectives who help these institutions to gather their information, catch criminals, and keep the society under control. Because cultural representations impacted the Romanian society in multiple ways during the totalitarian communist rule, a critical reconsidering of cultural products of the past is necessary in order to better understand the present.

Marginalisation is present all over the world in different forms. “La Terenuri” [At the Playgrounds] initiative in ClujNapoca, Romania, can be considered a good practice example of how urban marginalisation can be diminished through grassroots initiatives. In the heart of a green plateau, where urban planning was not performed, Colectiv A Association, an NGO, started to reshape the area, involving local communities and groups. The research material includes interviews, articles from newspapers, posts on social media and documents created by the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca. Results showed that Colectiv A Association had co-created diverse activities and events to involve the inhabitants of Mănăștur neighbourhood into the regeneration of the public space: workshops, gardening activities, debates, cleaning actions, festivals, Mănăștur’s Days, petitions, etc. The lessons learnt and the experiences of “La Terenuri” argue for more adaptive urban planning, which identifies solutions to residents’ needs, aspirations, and desires.

Monuments in the public forum dedicated to political leaders are an important tool in promoting national identity. Frequently, the political message embedded in public monuments is intended to contribute to propagating and strengthening a sense of national identity by shaping the community’s commemorative experience. In addition to the commemorative function related to social memory, public monuments also have an associated ideological function, as the monuments become essential in visually representing the national politics of memory and identity. The ideological function also represents an expression of power by emphasising a series of prominent political leaders. This article analyses the imagology and symbolism of public monuments in the central area of Bucharest as elements that support the construction of national identity. Commemorative monuments dedicated to symbolic national political personalities from the period of the United Principalities and Royalty were analysed in terms of their role in remembering and forming the national identity. The evolution of these monuments and their significance were also analysed based on postcards, which were marked by a series of changes in how power was expressed and the formation of national identity in the communist and contemporary periods.