Constructing the Socialist Homeland and Patriotism with Geography

The Romanian socialism spanned over a long period (1948-1989), transforming and shaping the education system so as to accommodate and promote communist ideology. Drawing on expert advice from several didactics of geography published during socialist Romania, on how to use propaganda information in geography classes, I employed discourse analysis to show that this process of ideologizing education was a conscious endeavour of didactics of geography authors. One of their aims was to enable geography teachers to construct discursively and visually the socialist nation and socialist patriotism during geography classes. Moreover, propaganda, according to the analysed sources, considered Geography of Romania classes as the main means to present socialist achievements to students and further introduce political messages to them.