Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate achievements of Croatian ethnocartography. Therefore, I shall focus on the analysis of different ways in which maps construct reality and perform objectivization of knowledge.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to critically evaluate achievements of Croatian ethnocartography. Therefore, I shall focus on the analysis of different ways in which maps construct reality and perform objectivization of knowledge. Furthermore, I will try to point out the ways in which concepts of culture and space are understood in ethnocartography.

Shortly after the beginning of the project of Ethnological atlas of Europe and its bordering countries, the project of Ethnological atlas of Yugoslavia was established under the direction of Branimir Bratanić. Cultural-historical method and positivistic approach dominated the Croatian ethnology until the seventies of 20. century. In that period, the Croatian ethnology developed by Milovan Gavazzi and Branimir Bratanić was almost exclusively focused on cultural-historical research with an aim of investigating the Slavic origin of a cultural phenomena. Researches for the ethnological atlas took place in about 3000 settlements in the former Yugoslavia, using specially designed questionnaires for various topics. The technique of mapping was used for creating ethnological maps which tried to represent the distribution of a specific cultural phenomenon. Such ethnology is ethnology without context, where the data were collected, classified and distributed in space, and in that entire process of research position of humans and their everyday life was largely neglected. At the present time, the use of cultural-historical method and the ethnocartography are almost nonexistent in modern Croatian ethnology. Using a few selected examples I pose the question: Is there a future for (Croatian) ethnocartography outside the framework of cultural-historical method?