While historians have approached the process of popular democracies absorption into the Soviet system at the end of the Second World War by stressing political and economic relations within the decision-making structures, the urban spaces produced during this interval, as sites of social interaction, remained under-researched. In Romania, the project conducted in Hunedoara between 1947 and 1954 illustrates the extent to which the Romanian communist state was aware of the urban spaces potential for social manipulation, as well as the strategies this authority undertook to employ politically the formative function of the built environment. The thesis revolves around three main questions: What did modernization mean for Romanian society by the end of World War II? To what degree did the attempts of Stalinization manage to impose on Romanian society the Soviet Unions cultural values and principles? And how can studying urban architecture tell us more about these topics? Drawing on newspaper and archival materials, the thesis concludes that inside the communist system, the ability to define modernity much less bringing it into being, depended on whether political elites and the party could provide institutional unity and coherent decision-making.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:SSU.etd-04252008-160317 |
| Date | 30 April 2008 |
| Creators | Marginean, Mara |
| Contributors | Meyers, Mark, McCannon, John, Jordan, Pamela, Bell, Keith |
| Publisher | University of Saskatchewan |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://library.usask.ca/theses/available/etd-04252008-160317/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Saskatchewan or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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