The Baltic Question in Cartographic Imagination

Abstract

This chapter examines the argumentative turn in ethnographic mapping in the second half of the nineteenth century which saw maps being used as tools of social inquiry. It examines the Baltic Question as an example of one of the many social, political, economic, and national ‘questions’ that crystallised in intellectual consciousness and gained prominence in the second half of the nineteenth century. Imperial administrators and intellectuals debated the degree of regional self-governance that should be permitted, the best way to modernise the empire and abolish serfdom, and the privileges and influence of the Baltic German elites. Over the decades, the Baltic Question ballooned to encompass far-ranging social and political issues concerning the cohesiveness of the empire and the loyalty of transimperial borderland populations. This chapter traces the efforts of mapmakers to shape discourses about the Baltic provinces as a space of overlapping, rival Russian imperial, Germanic, Polish, and Pan-Slavic spheres of influence in Europe. It contrasts this with the emergence of social cartography which interrogated issues of urban multiculturalism to assess the impact of industrialisation, urbanisation, and migration on urban life and public health. This chapter argues that through mapmaking, space and scale became key paradigms for thinking the big questions of the age.