Abstract:
The question that marks the presentation in this paper regards the extent to which advertisements reflect the dynamics of the urban daily life of Cluj/Kolozsvár/Klausenburg. For obvious reasons, we have chosen to focus on a print from the beginning of the interwar period, from 1923, entitled Tabloul locuitorilor oraşului Cluj (An image of the inhabitants of Cluj), authored by Paul Mihnea, „head of the Cluj people’s bureau”. Based on the inventory of the population and professions, institutions and firms from the catalogue edited by Paul Mihnea, a sequence of the urban development of Cluj at the beginning of the third decade of the twentieth century is brought to light. The sequence represents an outline which individualises Cluj among the provincial towns and marks the main components of the Transylvanian urban culture. This segment of urban culture can be subjected to a series of questions: What were the dynamics of the industrial development? How did the banking system assert itself after the Great War? Which services did the town offer its citizens? Which commercial topography does the geographic distribution of firms and craftsmen in Cluj show? Which were the leisure spaces in the town? To what extent was the town modernized? Our aim is to observe how the advertisements from the catalogue edited in 1923 reflect the aforementioned issues.
