<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> This article offers an ethnographic exploration of the Vlachs in the Branicevo region of Serbia. The Vlachs rarely exist anywhere as a distinct ethnic group due to their permanent assimilation with other ethnic groups. The thing that has always been linked to the folklore of the Vlachs and still attracts a large number of people to come and visit some remote parts of Eastern Serbia is definitely a certain mystery which represents the essential part of the culture of this nation. Instances of Vlach magic can be seen in the Timok area, all over Eastern Serbia and across its borders. Vlach magic is a miracle or is miraculous, when looking at how long it has been present, its unique rituals, beliefs, shamans and spells.Vlach culture intertwined with pagan customs and interesting rituals, makes the municipalities in Eastern Serbia mysterious places in modern 21st century Europe, because the Vlachs are a mostly closed (endogamous) population which do not blend with people of other nationalities.</abstract>

The Mystery of Vlach Magic in the Rural Areas of 21st century Serbia

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The post-socialist changes in Romania’s communities profoundly changed the rural settlements with similar, contrasting and tensioned trends in the local rural development. The purpose of this study is to focus on the post-socialist rural dereliction. The paper unveils the post-socialist rural transformation in Romania, from the state-socialist interventions in rural industrialisation, to the post-socialist rural identity formation, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. During this process, two sampled case studies were thoroughly analysed, namely the Tomeşti and Margina communes – two rural settlements intensely industrialised under the former state-socialist political regime and with multiple consequences during the post-90s period in their local development. According to recent theories on economic changes reflected in local rural spatial development, the idea of rural dereliction remains peripheral and, at the same time, a hot-spot issue in the contemporary research on rural restructuring. In addition, recent theories on social and economic changes provide useful frameworks in studying the production of rural ruins. With post-socialist deindustrialisation, and under new post-90 capitalist rules in local rural development, rural communities faced multiple problems in creating their own post-socialist identity. Accordingly, this study highlights the local problems of rural deindustrialisation in the inner rural pattern of the investigated sites. While some rural communities embrace slow rural spatial regeneration trends, others remain ruined, marginalised and declined. The findings of the study confirm the presence of derelict abandoned places, thus highlighting the need for further proper interventions in local rural development, and for further fertile scientific dialogues to promote suitable strategies in Romanian rural regeneration on the local scale.</abstract>

From State-Socialist Ambitions of Romanian Rural Indutrialisation to Post-Socialist Rural Deindutrialisation: Two Case Studies From Romania

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>To show that post-Soviet rural development in Central Asia has been confronted with sustained inequalities, three particular factors are analysed in this paper have being viewed as fundamental in influencing national and rural development. Firstly, most countries have based their growth models on economic nationalism (not only creating borders and national institutions, but also choosing inward-looking strategies), while leaning one-sidedly on their natural resource wealth (carbohydrates such as oil, natural gas and minerals, but also industrial crops like cotton). Secondly, and related to the first explanatory factor, the region has been struck by hidden and open resource-based conflicts, in particular on land and water. Inter-state tensions have emerged, in particular between downstream (irrigation water dependent) countries, such as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and the upstream (hydropower energy dependent, and carbohydrate-poor) ones, such as Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Thirdly, all the countries analysed here have followed a rather unequal capital city-centric growth model, using the proceeds of exports of mineral wealth (or cotton) for rapid urbanisation with little or no investment in rural development, resulting in a growing urban-rural divide and increasing rural-urban and cross-border migration. While it is recognised that this region is indeed a bridge between West and East (also re-emphasised by the Chinese ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative), it is argued in this paper that there is a need to reduce these inequalities and unbalanced growth, being that they will be an obstacle to the sustainable growth and development of rural areas.</abstract>

25 Years of Rural Development in post-Soviet Central Asia: Sustaining Inequalities

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> Rural micro-enterprises are an important factor in sustainable rural development in post-transitional Eastern Europe. This paper deals with determining the key factors influencing profitability in rural micro-enterprises in Poland. The research design was based on a questionnaire survey of 300 rural micro-enterprises in the food-processing sector in rich and poor Polish provinces. The analysis carried out in this study is centered around the Polish EU accession in May 2004. Similar to other related studies, our results show that EU accession was not perceived as a major change by rural Polish micro-entrepreneurs and that the EU related factors were not significant determinants of their profitability. However, our results also show that the success of the rural food processing micro-enterprise in Eastern Europe is most related to its owner/manager and enterprise characteristics. For the owner/manager the most significant determinants are his/her age and risk-taking as the main motive for establishing an enterprise. The enterprise characteristics that determine the profitability include enterprise location within a region with competitive situation, enterprise size (being a sole trader or family enterprise), IC T advancements in enterprise and the fact whether the enterprise has any certificates for its products. The results have significant implications for the researchers and policy-makers and can become a basis for preparing relevant enterprise support policies in post-transitional Eastern Europe </abstract>

Determinants of Profitability of Polish Rural Micro-Enterprises at the Time of EU Accession

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> This research examined the residents’ profile, attitudes, and perception towards tourism development based on 176 respondents interviewed. Residents’ attitudes toward tourism were measured by adapting 24 items from the Tourism Impact Attitude Scale developed by Lankford and Howard (1994). This study aimed at identifying the relationships between residents’ socio-economic and demographic attributes and their attitudes toward tourism by focusing on villages where tourism is in the development stage.</abstract>

Residents’ Attitudes and Perception towards Tourism Development: A Case Study of Rural Tourism in Dragacevo, Serbia

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The subject of the paper is the process of rural gentrification in Poland. In Poland, this process has a special character. It began later than in the West and intensified in the last decade of the twentieth century. It resulted from two parallel processes endogenous and exogenous to the countryside. The rural middle class grew due to an increase in the level of education of the rural population (resulting from the “educational boom” after 1989) since a higher level of education entitles one to occupy a higher position in the social and professional structure. It was accompanied by the settlement of the urban middle class in rural areas. The paper identifies (based on literature and earlier own research) the features of rural gentrification in Poland. Based on them, the level of gentrification of rural communities was indicated, and in turn, the spatial extent of the rural gentrification process in Poland was defined.
</abstract>

Gentrified countryside and non-gentrified countryside: Spatial dimension of the rural gentrification process

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The study aims to answer the question of how effectively cities of an underdeveloped rural area (Siklós district in Hungary) can involve the surrounding settlements in the tourism economy, thereby promoting the development of rural areas. Besides local governments and tourism organisations, our important goal is to understand the ideas of service providers and their guests related to rural development, as well as the spatial use characteristics of the latter group. The key method is the questionnaire survey, targeted at the mayors of all settlements in the district, as well as the guests of the accommodations belonging to the different product types. The primary sources are based on two further series of interviews, which explore the opinions of service providers and professional organisations. Empirical experience shows that thematic trips can play a prominent role in the development of less frequented small settlements. The essence of this is to connect by a bike route the places offering traditional crafts and local products.
</abstract>

Tourism-based development opportunities for rural areas. Example of an underdeveloped region (Siklós district)

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
While the main body of linguistic landscape (LL) research still focuses on urban areas, more recent works have broadened the scope and conceptualisation of LL to include rural spaces. However, these works almost exclusively examine the Global North or the Global South. Suspended somewhere between the Global North and the Global South, the so-called Global East, to which Southeast Europe belongs, is for the most part excluded not just from notions of globality, but also from LL studies. The aim of this paper is to redirect the focus of LL research to a rural area in the Global East, namely, the village Ečka in the Serbian Banat, a region with a specific and lengthy history of multilingualism. We hold that the typologies used for the study of urban LL cannot yield relevant results if applied to rural LL. Our study is based on data collected in 2020 and 2021 during six field trips to Ečka which resulted in more than 300 photographs containing inscriptions in different languages and scripts. Furthermore, we conducted participant observation by recording interviews and collecting walking narratives from locals in Serbian or Romanian. Our study confirmed that there is a gap between the official multiculturalism and multilingualism policy as declared and implemented by top-down agents and the gradual transition to monolingualism and monoscriptalism at the bottom-up level. Therefore, instead of the classical top-down and bottom-up distinction, we propose seeing the village space from a two-fold perspective: the synchronic LL, which mirrors the current use of languages, language prestige and language policies, and the memorial LL, which is a chronicle of the multilingualism of past generations and welcomes a diachronic perspective of LL.
</abstract>

The rural linguistic landscape of Banat

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
One of the most important elements of tourism development is encouraging the participation of the local community. In order to encourage their participation, it is necessary to be aware of the attitudes of the local residents with respect to the development of tourism. The aim of this research is to determine the attitudes of the local community towards the development of sustainable tourism and ecotourism in the protected area Tikvara, along with the local residents’ level of nature protection and preservation in the Tikvara Nature Park. A survey was conducted among 301 residents and the results indicate that while good community support for sustainable tourism activities in each area captured by the survey (planning, participation, activities, and decision-making) exists, local residents’ attitudes are affected by their sociodemographic characteristics. Nonetheless, a large number of locals were happy to participate in protection programs and believed that the environment should be protected for future generations to enjoy the natural and cultural resources of this area. These findings should be considered when designing sustainable tourism management strategies, while respecting the needs and rights of the local community, as the willingness of locals to develop sustainable tourism is essential for the success of this sector.
</abstract>

The importance of local community attitudes for sustainable tourism in protected areas: The case of Tikvara Nature Park, Serbia

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
As agricultural activity is primarily linked to rural areas, negative demographic trends characterising them present as one of the basic factors of size and age structure changes in the agricultural population. On the other hand, the modernisation of agricultural production, combined with various stimulating mechanisms, impacts its attractiveness, thus influencing the number and age structure of agricultural producers. Change in the overall agricultural activity rate reflects these two processes, making it suitable to be analysed by quantification of effects that produce these changes by applying Das Gupta’s decomposition method. The Timok Krajina region is chosen as a characteristic example due to the recent and relatively significant rise in the overall activity rate in agriculture, in contrast to the national level, where a constant decline in this rate is present. This research focuses on the difference that occurred in the last intercensal period (between 2002 and 2011), aiming to determine the impact of changes in the age structure of the active population that performs an occupation on the change of overall activity rate in agriculture in the Timok Krajina region. The research results depict that the changes in activity rate in agriculture in the examined period almost completely occurred under the influence of demographic factors, while other factors, marked as the rate effects, had a symbolic impact.
</abstract>

The impact of the age structure of active population on agricultural activity rate: The case study of the Timok Krajina region

Commemorative conference for the Golden Jubilee of the Institute of Rural and Agricultural Development of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IRWiR PAN)

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> The LEADER approach was introduced in Poland as part of the LEADER+ Pilot Programme (implemented in the programming period 2004-2006) and, at present, it is being implemented as Axis 4 of the Rural Development Programme. Many researchers are interested in its progress. In their analyses, they use various concepts of social capital. It may be concluded on the basis of the studies published so far that local action groups are dominated by the public sector, whereas the economic sector is rather marginalised. Having taken into account the available publications, a team of sociologists from the University of Łodź conducted in 2011-2013 research devoted to the level and structure of social capital of local action groups. The study focused on organisations from 6 voivodeships which implemented scheme 2 of the LEADER+ Pilot Programme. The article presents the analyses of the most important problems of these organisations related to the condition of the components of social capital possessed by their members (partners). The researchers used the material from individual surveys completed by 573 respondents from 34 local action groups. It was proven that the surveyed organisations mainly cope with the problem of a low activity level of their members (partners), petrification of their boards and councils, marginalisation of representatives of the economic sector, high level of professionalization and low level of generalised trust among the persons who belong to these groups.</abstract>

Problems of functioning of Polish local action groups from the perspective of the social capital concept

<abstract xml:lang="en"><title style='display:none'>The Tourist Potential of Rural Areas in Poland</title>This paper critically examines the role tourism can play in the stabilisation and diversification of rural areas using the example of Poland. Based on the literature and statistical data, the past development and current state of rural tourism in Poland is analysed. Then an analytical framework based on Porter (1990) is developed to assess the future tourist potential of Polish rural areas and identify barriers and chances of tourist development. The analysis revealed that the future tourist potential of rural areas in Poland is limited and often overestimated. Considerable deficits on the supply side and poor financial resources are combined with a limited and recently shrinking demand. The economic significance of tourism in most rural areas outside of the traditional tourist destinations has so far been marginal. Rural tourism in Poland can grow on a small scale and in niche markets requiring: 1) sound market research at national level, 2) regional tourism strategies based on an analysis of the seven depicted success factors, 3) organisations and intersectoral partnerships at regional level, and 4) a high level of interest and initiative of the local population to develop creative ideas for supply ‘bundles’ and to overcome the numerous barriers. Rural tourism is not a panacea for the structural problems of rural areas in Poland. The majority of regions - particularly outside of the traditional tourist destinations and far from big cities - will have to base their diversification on more pillars than tourism.</abstract>

The Tourist Potential of Rural Areas in Poland

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This paper aims to show the main processes of rural restructuring of Hungary after the change of political system and EU integration. It describes the changes of agricultural land-use, new dynamics of urban rural relations and rural development of the last 25 years. In the paper, we argue that the most dynamic changes happened in the era of post-communism, ended by EU-accession and the era of consolidation.A characteristic phenomenon of these changes was the urban demand for providing facilities related to rural landscape and culture. Therefore, permanent and temporary migrations into rural areas have become the most important element of development for rural places in the last decades. The introduction of a new Europeanised rural development system has shaped these processes and reconfigured local power relations, economic and social networks. These turbulent changes occurred at the same time with the collapse of the socialist-type co-operative and state farm system, along with the restitution and reprivatisation of land, resulting in the concentration of land use and agricultural production.The paper aims at analysing these processes by discussing the dynamics of urban-rural relationships and the new rural development system, while the final part focuses on land-use changes and its impacts on rural society.</abstract>

After a Long March: the Results of Two Decades of Rural Restructuring in Hungary

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The development of the Czech countryside differs in many ways from trajectories typical for Eastern and Central European rural areas in the last 25 years. In our article, we discuss the nature of the ‘Czech exceptionalism’, with reference to three examples, namely population development, the dynamics of rural/agricultural labour markets and rural governance. Firstly, we describe the major driving forces behind rural development in Czechia over the past 25 years and how these forces are reflected in the academic discourse. Secondly, we argue that an important feature of rural regions in Czechia is their population growth combined with a rapid labour market transformation and a low social importance of agriculture. All these changes are interpreted as a shift towards multifunctionality of rural areas rather than as a general trend towards post-productivism; indeed, this is because large parts of rural areas remain economically based on industrial production. The ongoing transformations have been reflected only partially in an academic discourse. In conclusion, we argue that there is a need to re-examine the use of EEC as a concept framing the position of sociology in rural research.</abstract>

Eastern European Countryside

The Journal of Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun