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First published online February 25, 2011
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National identity lite: Nation branding in post-Communist Romania and Bulgaria

Nadia Kaneva and Delia PopescuView all authors and affiliations
Volume 14, Issue 2
https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877910382181

Abstract

This article examines the efforts of post-communist Romania and Bulgaria to reinvent their national images through the use of nation branding. After the collapse of communism in 1989, former communist nations experienced significant political, economic and cultural turmoil, accompanied by a deeply felt need for national self-redefinition. Nation branding programs were intended to articulate a new image for external consumption and, at the same time, to revive national pride at home. Adopting a critical interpretive approach, this article analyses comparatively the symbolism in two branding campaigns in Romania and Bulgaria. The analysis teases out tensions and contradictions in the advertising texts to generate insights about the politics of image creation and symbolic commodification in the post-communist context. The authors find that the campaigns appropriate national identity for the purposes of neoliberal globalization. This appropriation constrains national imaginaries within an ahistorical, depoliticized frame, resulting in a form of national identity lite. In this way, nation branding also serves to foreclose democratic avenues for national redefinition. •

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1.
1 The number of international tourists has almost doubled between 1995 and 2008 to reach 9242 million in 2008, although the growth trend has been upset by the current global economic crisis (UNWTO, 2009).
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2 It is beyond the scope of this article to review the extensive marketing literature on place and nation branding. For reviews of the marketing perspective see Kavaratzis (2005) and Papadopoulos (2004).
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3 This information was obtained via email correspondence with Simion Alb, Director of the Romanian National Tourist Office — North America.
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4 A traditional Romanian necklace made of gold, silver and copper coins, which can be short or long in different regions (Mellish and Green, n.d.).
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5 The history of Romania’s affinity for France cannot be explored here, but it is worth mentioning that for reasons to do with Romanian nation-building aspirations in the 18th and 19th centuries, Romania found in France a cultural standard to imitate. French became the second language of the aristocracy; intellectuals studied in France and actively sought to fashion Romanian culture in a French image. This process was stymied by the 1945 communist takeover, but the idea of Romania as the Latin culture closest to France survives as one of the most enduring national myths.
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6 For a discussion of the contested authenticity of Romania’s ‘ownership’ of the Dracula brand see Iordanova (2007).
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7 The Bulgarian-language version of the slogan (‘оTворенивраTи към оTворени сърца ’), which was publicized in Bulgarian media (Stoilova, 2008) corresponds to the first interpretation and lacks the ambiguity the slogan acquires in its English translation. Yet the double valence of the English phrase, perhaps inadvertently, captures the dual intent of nation branding efforts as intended for internal as well as external consumption.
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8 Legend has it that after each battle medieval prince Stefan cel Mare (probably the greatest personality in Romanian history) would erect a church. Stefan would shoot an arrow from the top of a high mountain and the place where the arrow fell was chosen for a new house of God. The traditional interpretation of this gesture has been that it symbolizes a purging and redemption of war through artistic magnificence and faith. Building a place of worship was meant to re-establish the providential balance between good and evil energies (Neculce, 2001).

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