Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Map deconstruction was employed as a basic research strategy in Harleian terms, signifying
a search for alternative meaning, metaphor and rhetoric in the textuality of the map. Key
elements of analysis were place-names and smaller cartographic transcriptions and
objections as they are as much related to an invisible social world and to ideology as they
are to the material world that can be seen and measured.
The selection of early modern maps of different European cartographic traditions has
revealed two levels of meaning within the symbolic layer. The first one reflects different and
opposed images of different cartographic traditions. These images are politically informed
and valued giving legitimacy, importance and power to one side and ignoring and silencing
the other, i.e. disseminating the political message of power and control and communicating
the political program.
Contrasted to images 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 reveals 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 circumstances of border fluctuation, through the
distinction of territorial “otherness”.
The consciousness of the otherness and uniqueness as related to territoriality is leading to
the creation of regional identity. These elements are formative elements of regional identity
and the regional concept in examples discussed: in Morlacchia as well as in Turkish Croatia.
These regional concepts, however, have undergone throughout different developments and
have different reflections in present time. Morlacchia, as a regional concept, has dissoluted
with the change of the multiethnic and multicultural triple border circumstances and the
change in spatial image by the 19
th
century. On the contrary, Turkish Croatia, as a regional
concept, has preserved territorial coverage with an image of multiculturalism till present
time, but with the stronger accentuation of its borderlands character under the new name of
Bosanska Krajina. The preservation of regional concept of Turkish Croatia / Bosanska
Krajina is considerably due to the longer persistence of borderlands development even later
through the Military Border and linking military and multicultural components of regional
identity.
All examples clearly show the external and internal power of map that is not necessarily
separated. One particular map can express both - the external power which is imposed from
above, especially when cartography became nationalized, but also the internal power,
exercised by cartographers themselves, reflecting internal and local knowledge and
perceptions.
Author Details
Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš
University of Zagreb, Faculty of Science, Department of Geography, Zagreb, Croatia
