Digital Atlas of Political Spatial Images on East Central Europe in the 20th Century

The effectiveness of spatial images for political judgment and action is beyond question in history and cultural studies since the spatial turn. In geography, too, cartographic visualizations of political spaces are no longer regarded as objective, interest-free representations, but are historicized as media-mediated constructs. Nevertheless, individual disciplines still take different approaches to the analysis of political spatial concepts. Knowledge portals that go beyond the representation of domains, state territories and border concepts and make spatial images transparent in their historical genesis, interconnectedness and complexity are still rare, even in an international context. The project Digital Atlas of Political Spatial Images of East Central Europe under the leadership of the Herder Institute in Marburg in cooperation with three other institutes of the Leibniz Association (Institute for Knowledge Media in Tübingen, Georg Eckert Institute, Leibniz Institute for International Textbook Research/Braunschweig, Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig) started here in order to contribute to an interdisciplinary further development. The contribution of the Georg Eckert Institute consisted in providing expertise in the field of cultural studies of educational media, which takes into account historical contexts and conceptual and visual semantics as well as time- and group-related readings and viewing habits.

East-Central Europe is particularly suitable for presenting spatial images in an innovative, multi-perspective way and for elaborating different readings in an interdisciplinary and cross-border network structure: This is a European region that was shaped in the 20th century by border shifts, ethnic and confessional mixtures, minority conflicts, competing conceptions of space, and spatially effective ideological fault lines (Iron Curtain) as well as by the dynamic reconfiguration of spatial relations since 1989.

The project consisted of three closely intertwined components: The first component is the "Digital Atlas of Political Spatial Images on East-Central Europe" (DAPRO), which was conceived and implemented as a pilot version during the Pact funds project. Furthermore, dissertation projects located at the four project-supporting institutes analyzed display principles and perception logics of cartographic representations as well as political assessment patterns and display strategies for individual time periods. In this context, the dissertation project based at the Georg Eckert Institute was dedicated to the meaning and construction of symbolic demarcations in educational media, with a special focus on history textbooks and considerations of historical learning. In addition, the project also aimed at knowledge-mediated mediation and the consolidation of professional relations between the participating institutes.