Infrastructure project
Completed
Digital Atlas of Political Spatial Images of Eastern Central Europe in the 20th Century
Duration
2011 - 2015
For the past two decades, the “renaissance of space“ has been an important development for research in the historic and cultural sciences as well as in critical geography and cartography. “Space”, a term that acquired a negative connotation because of its use in national-socialist geopolicy, undergoes a change of meaning in the “visual” and “spatial turn”. Maps are not seen as an actual representation of reality anymore, but instead they are analyzed as a form of space-related imagination, i.e. as a result of a creative process to which, among others, cartographers, civil servants, the military, and journalists contributed. Thus, the choice of map-extracts, the hiding and highlighting of certain aspects, the psychology of colour, the languages of maps, the way in which they are arranged, and the relationship between them and texts and images connected to them are brought into focus.
In this respect, East Central Europe is a good example for the diversity of converging and competing images of space. Historic and ideological ruptures, flight, expulsion and migration, collapse and genesis of states, and boundary-shifts led to the establishment of certain regional, cultural, but also global images of space which were manifested in medial and cartographic representations and, in certain contexts, have remained unchanged until today.
Analyzing these images of space in an interdisciplinary approach, visualizing, deconstructing and rendering them transparent with the available technical and multimedial means still remains a desideratum. In the interdisciplinary joint-project “Digital Atlas of Political Images of Space in East Central Europe in the 20th Century” (DAPRO), the Herder Institute wishes to fill this gap in collaboration with the Georg-Eckert-Institute for International Textbook Research (Braunschweig), the Leibniz-Institute for Regional Geography (Leipzig), and the Knowledge Media Research Center (Tübingen).
As a web-based, interactive platform for learning, teaching and research, the digital atlas will be put at the disposal of students, professors, teachers and the interested layman under the name “Geoimaginaries”. The atlas will give users an insight to the “workshop of the cartographer” and thus illustrate the mechanisms behind the production of maps. It will contain a number of user-friendly entry opportunities into the topic, which will permit users to depart on a journey in and through “spaces”, which they will have the opportunity to discover, deconstruct, and design themselves.
Borders of Socialism on Land and Sea. The Czechoslovak Land Border and Polish Maritime Border in Comparison
Jasmin Nithammer M.A. (2011-2015)
During the Cold War, political leaders in socialist countries pursued a radical border policy. The external borders of the socialist sphere of influence were heavily fortified according to the Soviet model in order to meet the USSR's security needs. The Polish Baltic Sea coast and its associated maritime border, as well as the border between Czechoslovakia and the Federal Republic of Germany and Austria, formed part of the external borders of the socialist system and are among the two borders that I compare in my dissertation project. The similarity of both border areas, due to their resettlement, the socialist system imposed by the Soviet Union, and their geostrategic location in the Eastern Bloc with direct borders to the West, form the basis for comparing the different forms of the system's external borders and their significance.
Tosevic, D.J. (1954): The World Crisis in Maps, New York. IfL-Atlantensammlung, Signatur: At VII 52, Free access - no reuse
The focus of the work lies primarily on the investigation and analysis of the opinion-forming and socially effective production of spatial imaginations of the system's external borders. Based on their border regimes and border policies, the focus will be on the significance of spatiality, power, and geopolitics in the creation of social reality, as well as the construction, perception, and propagation of certain spatial images and concepts.
The examination of the construction of spatial images in the political discourse of the countries mentioned in the period from 1948 to 1989 aims to highlight the connections and interactions between the individual areas (state/power apparatus, border protection, public sphere) in order to draw conclusions about the image of borders shaped by those in power in various sectors of society.
Jasmin Nithammer: Grenzen des Sozialismus zu Land und zu Wasser. Die tschechoslowakische Landgrenze und die polnische Seegrenze im Vergleich (1948-1968), Marburg 2019. Herder-Institut, Abt. Digitale Geschichte und Informationssysteme, Free access - no reuse
Tosevic, D.J. (1954): The World Crisis in Maps, New York. IfL-Atlantensammlung, Signatur: At VII 52, Free access - no reuse
Jasmin Nithammer: Grenzen des Sozialismus zu Land und zu Wasser. Die tschechoslowakische Landgrenze und die polnische Seegrenze im Vergleich (1948-1968), Marburg 2019. Herder-Institut, Abt. Digitale Geschichte und Informationssysteme, Free access - no reuse
Logo Geoimaginaries. Free access - no reuse
