Images of the Croatian Borderlands: Selected Examples of Early Modern Cartography

Abstract

Although maps have long been central to geographical inquiry, they were rarely treated as text or socially constructed images in general as well as in Croatian historical geography and history of cartography. Looking at the maps as images, i.e. social constructions of reality in Harlean, postmodern terms, the paper discuss the images of the Croatian borderlands in the early modern period. This is the period of frequent changes of borders between three imperial systems with different religious systems and cultural traditions that have met on the Croatian territory, and consequently reflected different attitudes toward the borderland. The analysis is made on the basis of original maps from Croatian cartographic funds, as well as on the number of published facsimiles, mainly from the 17th and 18th century. It is possible to define two levels of the meaning of analyzed maps. The first one is related to the specific relation of the state authorities to the border region, their particular interests and understanding of its importance. The other one reveals common socio-cultural images of the borderlands. Constructed in the distinct and complex border circumstances of the 16th – 18th century, they disappear from the maps with the change of circumstances that created them.