Communicating locality: Culture, canon and place promotion in a post-socialist context

The Fish Soup Cooking Folk Festival was originally organized to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the community of Baja, in southern Hungary, becoming a town. In the past few years the festival has been developed to become one of the largest gastronomic festivals in the country. As such, it not only provides a basis for local identity but also serves as a tourist attraction. In this article, the author aims to uncover the mechanisms of the construction of local identity, attraction and place promotion, and assess their links with local history and culture. The role of the local elite in these canonizing processes is also outlined. The study concludes by demonstrating the process of the brand development of the festival and through it, the development of the locality as a brand.