Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 4.
Vitezović's Map of the whole Kingdom of Croatia, 1699, facsimile in [19]
“Terra deserta olim
nunc a Valachis habitata” and “Terrae desertae”
along the borderlands. Emphasized by the author.
Triple border and “meeting point” of different political systems on the territory of Croatia
conditioned different imaging of the borderland through a medium of cartography. These
images are politically informed and valued and often directly opposed, giving legitimacy,
importance and power to one side and ignoring and silencing the other. Thus, these
examples show that the rhetoric of map include also the concept of otherness.
5. Socio-cultural images
Opposed to images discussed above that reflect different attitudes of different imperial
forces and that can be easily recognized through corresponding official cartographic
traditions, there is another level of meaning that reveal common socio-cultural images to
all European cartographies, regardless of political affiliation. These images reflect social
recognition and territorialization through the distinction of social otherness and, on the
other hand, perceptions of territorial continuity in the circumstances of border
fluctuation, through the distinction of territorial otherness. There is a number of related
concepts that are embedded in maps and leading eventually to the creation of regional
concept and identity. That is appreciation of differences, uniqueness and otherness that,
through the territorialization, result in specific spatial images and regional identity
[11,16].
