Postcard Transfer across the Iron Curtain: Tourism and Transnational Exchanges in Socialist Romania during the 1960s to 1980s

The article examines the transfer of postcards across the Iron Curtain against the backdrop of international tourism in socialist Romania. In the 1960s, socialist Romania began to develop international tourism, especially with the capitalist West, because it wanted to acquire hard currencies and to improve its external image. Although the success of international tourism was short-lived, it sparked a movement of people, ideas and images across the Iron Curtain. As photos were more difficult to be carried out across the border – the law in socialist Romania required that films be developed in the country – postcards provided a means to personalize vacations in Romania, especially in the 1980s when restrictions became tighter. When sent from the capitalist West to Romania, postcards embodied the very image of the ‘West’, which the majority of socialist Romania’s citizens could not easily visit.