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

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 maps as images, i.e. social constructions of reality in Harleyan, postmodern terms, the paper discusses the images of the Croatian borderlands in the early modern peri¬od. 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 reflecteddifferentattitudestowardtheborderlands.Theanalysisismadeon the basis of original maps from Croatian cartographic funds, as well as on a number of published facsimiles, mainly from the 17th and 18th century. It is possible to definetwolevelsofmeaningsoftheanalyzedmaps.Thefirstoneis related to the specificrelationofthestateauthoritiestoborderregion,theirparticularinterests and understanding of its importance. The other one reveals common socio-cultural images of the borderlands