A Paradoxical Map: Edward Raczyński’s 1807–1812 Map of Greater Poland

Abstract

ABSTRACT Between 1807 and 1812 a Polish nobleman named Edward Raczyński funded the making of a multi-sheet topographic map at a scale of 1:125,000. Neither completed nor published, the map was lost in the Second World War and survives only in the form of photostatic copies: one set made by a local scholar, another by an occupying army. While Raczyński’s map has been mined for its historical data, the authors see it as a paradox on two levels. It is argued, first, that Raczyński was more concerned with undertaking a survey for strategic military purposes than with making a nationalist argument for reconstructing a lost Polish state, as was characteristic of other maps drawn at this time. Second, the tremendous amount of work put into the map’s extensive, systematic detail suggests the map was unusual for a simple private initiative.