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Volume X |

The Evolution and Territorial Distribution of Rural Population in Romania at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Abstract: As a territorial and socio-economic formation, the village represents the concrete expression of territorial permanence and continuity, directly relating to the genetic and dynamic factors of settlement phases and humanisation of the geographical space. Under the present conditions, a number of manifest phenomena are triggered by the decrease in birth-rates, internal and external migration, all of which affect the process of population ageing throughout the country. In the 20 years elapsed since the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, the population of Romania dropped by nearly 1,713,000 inhabitants, 1,195,000 of them in the countryside alone. The demographic decline continued over the 2000-2009 period as well, at higher rates in the rural (-49 ‰) than in the urban (-37‰) areas. Solving the numerous issues connected with the rural population component calls for strategic, time-stable optimal approaches.

Volume X |

The ‘Museum Night’ Event – the Demographic Profile of the Visitors in Serbia

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to consider the differences in the structure of visitors in tourist events, depending on the place of holding. The “Museum Night” tourist event was first held in Germany (Berlin) in 1997, with the aim of popularizing cultural tourism and museum complexes. This touristically considerable event has been very popular and frequented in Serbia since 2005. At first it was held only in Belgrade, when in the year 2007, gradually, other cities also joined the programme. Therefore, a public opinion poll was carried out for the purposes of this paper (analysis according to age, sex structure and economic activity). The sample of the population was divided into three age groups. The research, at the territorial level, included the cities of Belgrade and Novi Sad.

Volume X |

Challenges for Hungarian Geography: Perspectives of ‘Disability Studies’ in Hungary

Abstract: In Hungary people with disabilities are one of the most oppressed and marginalized social groups. During the last two decades they have become more and more ’visible’ for social sciences too, but unfortunately disability is still neglected in human geography. However, it always appears in media, public discourses and political debates and good examples for disability research from ‘Western’ geography are known and available. The main aim of this paper is to demonstrate that disability, as a research topic could be well adopted into Hungarian geography. Keeping the eyes on this goal, the paper is divided into three major parts. First, it gives a summary on the ‘geographical research’ of the mostly examined marginalized social groups in the Hungarian society and on some important research areas and results reached by scholars of various science areas. Second, it reveals some practicable approaches, research topics and methods of ‘disability geography’, a sub-discipline of Anglo-American geography. Finally, it explores how disability geography could be used in Hungary and gives an example based on own research.

Volume X |

Deindustrialization and Structural Changes in Commuting Flows in Serbia

Abstract: The aim of the paper is to point to the mutual linkage between the changes in the extent and directions of the commuting flows and contemporary changes in the economic structure of Serbia. Even though the increase in the number of commuters in total and commuters employed in the industrial sector has been evident on the national level, on the local level the research results indicate a considerable decrease in the number of industrial commuters in the case of large industrial centres (‘transition losers’). Unprepared for rapid transformation, the industrial centres faced economic (mono-functional economic structure, collapse of large systems, undeveloped entrepreneurship, slow privatisation process), structural (high unemployment), social and demographic problems. Consequently, there have been changes in the intensity and structure of the migration flows.

Volume X |

Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija in the Second Half of the 19th Century According to an Ethnic Map of a Part of Old Serbia

Abstract: This article interprets the results of the author’s cartographic work on the Ethnic map of a part of Old Serbia, 1:300,000. This map pertains to a part of the historical Old Serbia, especially Kosovo and Metohija, with the addition of the Kuršumlija nahiya. It was made on the basis of three volumes of travel notes made by Miloš S. Milojević, who travelled through this area towards the end of the 1860’s and in the early 1870’s. The map presents, in an accessible manner, through the make-up and distribution of the population in the settlements within the region, the ethnic situation at the time, relying on the ethnic-national and religious-confessional criteria; that is to say, it presents the demographic-statistical structure of the mutual relations between Serbs and Albanians immediately before the wars between Serbia and Turkey fought in 1876 and 1877/78, when Serbs were the majority and Albanians the minority population on the territory of the Kosovo and Metohija region.