Soyez les bienvenus en Tchécoslovaquie. Tourist happiness in the context of the Cold War: uses, circulation and functions of the visual stereotype. ; Soyez les bienvenus en Tchécoslovaquie. Le bonheur touristique en contexte de guerre froide : usages, circulations et fonctions du stéréotype visuel

This article focuses on the study of two periodicals, Pour vous de Tchécoslovaquie (1961–1992) and Soyez les bienvenus en Tchécoslovaquie (1965–1990), published by the Czechoslovak state for tourists in order to promote the country and its products. With their profusion of photographs, these two magazines are part of a vast corpus of images produced by tourism, its industry and the media objects it involves (books, magazines, leaflets, postcards, amateur photographs). Based on this quantitative observation, the article focuses on the ways in which tourism is expressed, both commercially and politically, and on the construction of a visual standard of happiness, to which the traveller’s experience is linked. In a relationship of synecdoche, the immortalised scene of happiness is a sign of a successful trip, and this relationship between image and experience forms the basis of the editorial discourse established in the two periodicals. The magazine is a space for political communication, a showcase for socialist society that presents itself in the most attractive light, both touristic and ideological. But the paper also highlights editorial motifs and codes from the Western magazine press, particularly consumerist ones, where the register of happiness becomes the sign of a possible shared experience of travel. This paper explores the hypothesis that the iconography of tourist happiness presented here, in the context of the Cold War, contributes to the development of a visual continuum between ’East’ and ’West’. Showing happiness serves as a strategy for seducing the readership and as an indissociable political and commercial argument. ; Cet article se concentre sur l’étude de deux revues, Pour vous de Tchécoslovaquie (1961–1992) et Soyez les bienvenus en Tchécoslovaquie (1965–1990), publiées par l’État tchécoslovaque à destination de touristes étranger.es afin de promouvoir le pays et ses produits. Par la profusion de photographies qui y sont publiées, ces deux revues s’inscrivent dans un vaste ensemble d’images ...