POSTCARDS, IMAGES AND POLITICS: A CITY'S SYMBOLS THROUGHOUT TIME

Abstract

Photography is, without doubt, one of the most powerful means of conveying a desired identity of a social, spatial or geographical unit, be it a village, a city, a region, the whole country or even a continent. Especially photographs made by the local authors can inform us about the way the locals want their city to be perceived. A photographer chooses both its object and the way it is going to be pictured, in accordance with his aesthetic criteria, the aesthetic criteria of a given period, but also with the way he or she wants to present the photographed city.

Living in a city with an old university, developed industry financial institutions, Zagreb's citizens boasted a Central European identity. This is evident from the city's older photographs and postcards: the majority of them show elegant architecture, while some of them present the nearby villages, their inhabitants, their national costume and their customs as an inherent part of the city's identity. While the pre-WWII Zagreb was more or less free to enjoy this above all cultural image, the post-WWII Zagreb has become a capital of a socialist republic, "socialist" being the operative word. The new photographs of the city, although almost always showing the older architecture and city's cultural heritage, often have new motives: new part of town, called "New Zagreb" with its numerous law-cost buildings, the socialist monuments and other symbols of the era. Finally, after the year 1990, new motives that show the city's progress, were shown to the tourists. Such developments of the motives that were placed on postcards and in the tourist brochures can show us not merely the contemporary history of the city, but also the way its public identity was shaped.