Vacationing in Dictatorships: International Tourism in Socialist Romania and Franco’s Spain
A SSEES Southeast European studies seminar with Adelina Stefan
Vacationing in Dictatorships: International Tourism in Socialist Romania and Franco’s Spain
14 May 2025, 17:00 – 19:00
Vacationing in Dictatorships explores the less know story of tourist connections between socialist Romania and Franco’s Spain as it examines the political and economic effects of international tourism in these two authoritarian regimes in the postwar era. Despite sharp economic and political differences between the two dictatorial regimes at the start of the Cold War, significant similarities existed as both states took advantage of international tourism to improve their image abroad and pursued processes of economic modernization to acquire hard currencies. By the end of the 1970s though, the two countries achieved rather different results in terms of tourism development, despite the fact that both shared many features in the 1940s and 1950s. Vacationing in Dictatorships reveals how these tourist industries played a pivotal role in shaping the Cold War’s global landscape.
Adelina Stefan will present her findings as she offers a fresh perspective on the tourism in the Cold War.
Dr Diana Georgescu, UCL SSEES, will provide a short response.
Image credit: University of Miami Libraries
Adelina Stefan
[[{"fid":"19310","view_mode":"small","fields":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Adelina Stefan","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"1":{"format":"small","alignment":"left","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"Adelina Stefan","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][title]":"","field_caption_heading[und][0][url]":"","field_caption[und][0][value]":"","field_float_left_right[und]":"none","field_file_image_decorative[und]":"0"}},"attributes":{"height":"700","width":"700","class":"media-element file-small media-wysiwyg-align-left"}}]]is a historian of tourism and consumption during the Cold War with a particular focus on socialist Romania and Franco’s Spain. She gained a PhD in History from the University of Pittsburgh, United States. She was a Humanities Initiative Fellow at Institute for Advanced Study at Central European University in Budapest and held positions at European University Institute in Florence and the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History at University of Luxembourg. Her first book, Vacationing in Dictatorships: International Tourism in Socialist Romania and Franco’s Spain was published with Cornell University Press in December 2024. Currently, she is a UniGR Fellow at Kate Hamburger Kolleg Centre for Cultural Practices of Reparation at the University of Saarland and a researcher at University of Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Further information
Ticketing
Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes