Geographies of Nationhood: Cartography, Science, and Society in the Russian Imperial Baltic

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Catherine Gibson (Research Fellow, Research Fellow, School of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Tartu)

Geographies of Nationhood

Cartography, Science, and Society in the Russian Imperial Baltic

Catherine Gibson (Research Fellow, Research Fellow, School of Theology & Religious Studies, University of Tartu)

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English

Oxford University Press
19 May 2022

European history; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Social & cultural history; Historical geography; Historical maps & atlases

Series: Oxford Studies in Modern European History

Geographies of Nationhood examines the meteoric rise of ethnographic mapmaking in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a form of visual and material culture that gave expression to territorialised visions of nationhood. In the Russian Empire's Baltic provinces, the development of ethnographic cartography, as part of the broader field of statistical data visualisation, progressively became a tool that lent legitimacy and an experiential dimension to nationalist arguments, as well as a wide range of alternative spatial configurations that rendered the inhabitants of the Baltic as part of local, imperial, and global geographies. Catherine Gibson argues that map production and the spread of cartographic literacy as a mass phenomenon in Baltic society transformed how people made sense of linguistic, ethnic, and religious similarities and differences by imbuing them with an alleged scientific objectivity that was later used to determine the political structuring of the Baltic region and beyond. Geographies of Nationhood treads new ground by expanding the focus beyond elites to include a diverse range of mapmakers, such as local bureaucrats, commercial enterprises, clergymen, family members, teachers, and landowners. It shifts the focus from imperial learned and military institutions to examine the proliferation of mapmaking across diverse sites in the Empire, including the provincial administration, local learned societies, private homes, and schools. Understanding ethnographic maps in the social context of their production, circulation, consumption, and reception is crucial for assessing their impact as powerful shapers of popular geographical conceptions of nationhood, state-building, and border-drawing.

By: Catherine Gibson (Research Fellow Research Fellow School of Theology & Religious Studies University of Tartu)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: 1
Dimensions: Height: 241mm, Width: 161mm, Spine: 21mm
Weight: 710g
ISBN: 9780192844323
ISBN 10: 0192844326
Series: Oxford Studies in Modern European History
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 19 May 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1: Networks of Cartographic Influence, Patronage, and Reception 2: Provincial Map Production and the Rise of Cartographic Entrepreneurship 3: The Baltic Question in Cartographic Imagination 4: Mapping Latvians in Local and Global Perspectives 5: Post-War Ethnic Boundary Mapping from Above and Below Epilogue: Afterlives of Maps

Catherine Gibson is a historian of modern Eastern Europe and the Russian Empire. She is currently a Research Fellow in the School of Theology & Religious Studies at the University of Tartu. She received her PhD from the European University Institute in 2019. She is co-editor of The Palgrave Handbook of Slavic Languages, Borders, and Identities and her research has appeared in the journals Past & Present, Journal of Social History, Journal of History Geography, and Nationalities Papers.

Reviews for Geographies of Nationhood: Cartography, Science, and Society in the Russian Imperial Baltic

highly relevant * Katja Wezel, H-Soz-Kult * In this book, Geographies of Nationhood, Catherine Gibson presents a piece of intellectual history that analyzes how these societies produced and used ethnographic maps of what is today Latvia and Estonia...The book should therefore become an important read for many scholars and students of Baltic and east European studies. * Vasilijus Safronovas, Journal Of Baltic Studies * Catherine Gibson's Geographies of Nationhood takes the reader on a journey through the intricate history of ethnographic mapmaking in the Baltic provinces of the Russian Empire from the 1840s until the formation of the independent Baltic states following World War I...The book opens up a fresh window into the history of the Baltic region, but it has wider lessons to teach. * Katja Bruisch, Isis Book Review *

Winner of Winner, 2023 Baltic Geopolitics Network Publication Prize, University of Cambridge.
Winner of Winner, 2023 Baltic Geopolitics Network Publication Prize.