“Reading the Image”: Modernization and Identity As Reflected in Postcards from Bukovina at the Turn of the 20th Century
“Reading the Image”: Modernization and Identity As Reflected in Postcards from Bukovina at the Turn of the 20th Century

Summary/Abstract: Starting with the second half of the 19th century, the communication through postcards in Western society became not only an “innovation” but a “fashion.” It was adopted and spread all over the world, facilitating both the transmission of personal messages, and the official ideology that could shape public attitudes and aspirations. Despite their ephemeral character—which explains, more or less, the low interest of some researchers who underestimate their value—postcards can be interrogated from a cultural and historical perspective, providing information on the specificity of places and identities. This study focuses mainly on postcards produced and circulated in Bukovina, in the late nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century. From the multitude of images that can be examined in relation to this subject, the postcards illustrating “modernization” and “identity” were chosen. The visual narrative of postcards provides reliable historical information, helping to contextualize the symbolic representations of progress and tradition in Bukovina and to better understand the way in which, at the turn of the twentieth century, the modernization of the province and its territorial identity were perceived.

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