Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
the name into
Bosanska Krajina
1
.
While the old name of Turkish Croatia emphasized the
Croatian territoriality of different religious and cultural identity, the name of Bosanska
Krajina is emphasizing the border character of the territory. Turkish Croatia / Bosanska
Krajina retained its borderland character even later through the participation in the
organization of Military Border that additionally sustained the image of otherness in terms
of a particular military mentality, apart from multiculturalism. Still, Bosanska Krajina, as a
regional concept, has preserved territorial coverage with an image of otherness and
uniqueness in the multicultural and multiethnic sense. There has been a change in spatial
image that conditioned the change, but also the preservation of regional identity and
concept.
Morlacchia, on the other hand, has gone throughout its dissolution. The change of the
multiethnic and multicultural triple border circumstances by the 19
th
century as a
consequence of the end of the wars with Ottoman Empire and the fall of Venetian Republic,
has led to the dissolution of context of political significance in warfare conditions, within
which the Morlacchi communities have been evaluated throughout the centuries.
Additionally, administrative measures brought by Habsburg government (the destruction of
goat herding with the aim of forestation, confiscation of weapons, which exposed Morlacchi
districts to devastation by wolves) and disorientation in peaceful conditions led to
impoverishment and transformation of Morlacchi community [27]. Morlacchi descendants
in the hinterland of Dalmatian cities, either Orthodox or Catholic faith, have gradually been
merged with Croats and the Serbs, mostly by religious affiliation. The change in the
multicultural architecture of the space and community as well as disappearance of triple
border have led to the change of the spatial image and in this particular case conditioned the
disappearance of the regional identity and concept.
All these examples of socio-cultural images and spatial and regional concepts are common
to all relevant European cartographies, regardless of different (and often opposed) political
affiliations, interests and attitudes towards the borderlands. They are not imposed from
above, from the centers of political power, but reflect an internal and local knowledge and
perceptions.
6. Conclusion
The paper discusses the role of cartography in imaging the past, particularly taking into
consideration the multiculturalism of borderlands. The starting points are two concepts,
image and map i. e. the understanding of map as a socially constructed image with a
number of semantic layers which reflect power relationships, distinction of social groups
and system of beliefs, worldviews and what may be called a spirit of time. Borderlands are
typical spaces where a multiplicity of contacts reflect and produce a multiplicity of
perceptions and images.
1
Krajina
has a meaning of borderlands.
