Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
imperial systems have met. Borderlands are typical spaces where a multiplicity of such
contacts reflect and produce a multiplicity of perceptions and images.
Early modern period in Croatian history is burdened with frequent changes of borders
between three imperial systems with different religious systems and cultural traditions that
have intertwined on the Croatian territory, and consequently reflect different attitudes
toward borderlands. Accordingly, a map could and often did represent an image with
multiple layers of meaning and perceptions. What one can put into relation here is
Habsburg and Venetian cartography. Through a number of examples of the Croatian
borderlands, the main aim is to reveal the symbolic layer of the map that leads us into the
process of imaging the past, i.e. opening the abundance of different perceptions in the
multicultural realities of the Croatian borderlands.
Through an analysis of the symbolic layer through graphic elements, place-names and other
inscriptions, maps of Croatian borderlands have revealed two distinct levels of meaning.
The first one is related to the specific relation of the state authorities to the border region,
their particular interests and understanding of its importance. Maps have been used as a
tool for disseminating the political message of power and control primarily through
methods and techniques of emphasizing (over-exaggerating) or ignoring and omitting. At
this particular level of meaning, we are dealing with directly opposing images of the
borderlands realities, depending on the political sides and their official cartographies.
At the second level of the meaning maps have revealed the most common socio-cultural
images of the borderlands that are, unlike cartographic expressions of different state power
interests, expressed equally in all European cartographic traditions. These images include:
environmental perceptions of the borderlands as depopulated and devastated area;
distinction of social groups, related systems of beliefs, territorialization and de-
territorialization of borderland communities; perception and formation of regional identities;
and comprehension of the temporality of the border and the continuity of Croatian territory.
2. Theoretical and methodological frame
2.1. Image-reality dualism
The approach to imaging the past through a medium of cartography links two key concepts,
such as image and map. Imagery is a subject of enquiry in fields as diverse as cognitive
science, literature (imagology), human geography or cartography. These concepts, on
different sides in the image-reality dualistic model in most modern writings, are being
rethought and are actually converging only in recent postmodern works. Image-reality
dualism opposed subjective and objective spaces, unreal and real geographies, mental
images and cartographic representations. Reality was thus related to objective geographic
fact, represented by a map, while images were considered as “false understanding”, or a
“coherent, logical, rule-governed system of errors” [1, 2]. Phillips [2] is questioning image-
reality dualism arguing that the “general characterization of images as unreality is
contradicted by a tendency to privilege certain types of images as reality”. Maps as
