From Agram to Zagreb: The Austro-Hungarian Legacy in Tourism Discourses of Croatian Capital

Abstract

Tourist promotion is not only about creating an attractive image of a destination, but is also highly informative of social values and the dominant ideology within a particular society. During the past decades, along with the process of joining the European Union, a lot has been done to promote Zagreb as a typical Central European city, implying the natural belonging of Zagreb (and Croatia) to the „real“ or Western Europe. This paper analyses visual and textual representations of Zagreb in tourist promotional materials focusing on the multicultural Austro-Hungarian heritage and its role as a symbolic resource used in the process of urban identity building. It provides an insight into the discursive practices of heritage selection and cultural representation, through which local identification with this heritage ranges from (implicitly) neutral to overtly positive. Any dissonant heritage with negative connotations is absent, thus providing an idyllic, harmonious Austro-Hungarian past as part of urban identity.