1159 | 161 | Historical atlases – a reflection of the past or the present?

The proposed paper focuses on the dynamic development of historical atlases (i.e. atlases mapping past events and processes) in 20th-century Central Europe. The comparison of the production in different countries of this region (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Poland and Slovakia) shows the sensitivity of historical atlases to political and social changes and at the same time their «vulnerability», as these documents often became a tool of state or nationalist propaganda. Deeper insight into the problematic revealed the interconnectedness of national historical cartographies in this region, the mutual influences, continuities and discontinuities in atlas production, and the particular challenges of mapping the past, especially when the narratives of historical events differed. _x000D_
Special attention will be paid to socialist historical atlases produced in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc, which combined state-of-the-art cartographic methods with aggressive rhetoric and deliberate manipulation of the map’s content. Historical atlases were not impartial mediators of the past but highly engaged witnesses of the present. Therefore, they are valuable (and still underestimated) sources for understanding the transformations of social, political and historical discourses in the turbulent 20th century.

Jitka Močičková
Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences

ID Abstract: 161