The World Map 1:2,500,000 (Karta Mira) as Vehicle of Socialist Globalisation. Potentials and Limits of Scientific Standardisation and International Cooperations, 1958-1989

• Applicant: Dr. Christian Lotz
• Subject Area: Human Geography
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 550144086

Since the 20th century, processes of standardization and globalization in cartography have also been reflected in the publication of map series that cover the entire earth. Three challenges are recognisable in the state of research: (a) While the International World Map and related map series have been well researched, the World Map 1:2,500,000 (Karta Mira), which the socialist countries of Europe produced from 1958 onwards, has so far received little attention. (b) Research on cartography in Eastern Europe has so far been dominated by the dispute as to how the socialist countries practised "map falsification" (Dagmar Unverhau). Here, a new approach is necessary that classifies (world) map production in Eastern Europe on the one hand as a result of the threat scenarios of the Cold War, and on the other as a contribution to globalization under 'socialist' auspices. (c) Although standardization processes have been researched (e.g. in statistics), there has so far been no investigation of how political confrontations (here: the East-West conflict) affected the disputes over cartographic procedures with which the worldwide diversity of geographical phenomena was to be transformed into a uniform map representation. Against this background, the proposed project pursues two sets of questions in two sub-studies: (1) What representation of the world did cartographers of the Karta Mira create, and to what extent does this 'socialist' representation differ from Western map series? How did the cartographers develop categories to bring the diversity of physical and human-geographical phenomena into a globally standardized map representation? What impact did technological change (e.g. the use of satellite data) have on the development of the Karta Mira? (2) What scope for action were actors from Eastern Europe able to develop in order to introduce their own ideas of globalization into the international geographical community? Using Hungary as a case study, two fields of activity will be examined: the disputes over the standardization of geographical names and the promotion of the use of the Karta Mira in thematic cartographic projects in physical and human geography. The proposed research project uses cartographic materials and files from archives mainly in Berlin, Gotha, Budapest, Warsaw and Prague as sources and analyses them for the first time systematically applying approaches of critical cartography as well as hermeneutic methods.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants