Research focus and goals

I. Continuity in the historical-geographic research conducted at the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences beginning in the 1930s with establishment of the institute’s map collection, particularly from the middle of the 20th century onwards (historical-geographic studies, the creation and publication of Atlas československých dějin in 1965, the founding of the Committee for Historical Geography in 1967, and the founding of the periodical Historická geografie in 1968);

II. Historical-geographic research in the spirit of modern, internationally recognized theoretical postulates, methods, and current topics and international collaboration;

II.1 Discussion on current international and domestic theoretical and methodological approaches;

II.2 Development of historical atlas cartography in continuation of the tradition of the discipline at the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences (Atlas československých dějin, 1965; Akademický atlas českých dějin, 2014, 2016) with special focus on current topics within Czech history (Frontiers, Massacres, and Replacement of Populations in Cartographic Representation: Case Studies, 15th–20th Centuries, 2015; Český historický atlas, kapitoly z dějin 20. století, 2019), the electronic map portal Český historický atlas, 2020 (https://cha.fsv.cvut.cz/en/), and historical atlases of towns (Historický atlas měst České republiky, continually since 1995);

II.3 The periodization of landscape changes in the Czech lands in relation to the European landscape; the historical landscape, historical regions, and regional identities as Czech and European cultural heritages in the example of selected investigations (spatial analysis of changes in the ethnic structure of the Czech lands using cartographic sources in the 19th century and first half of the 20th century; the early modern landscape of nobility estates, etc.);

II.4 The history of cartography: evolution in representations of the Czech lands in cartographic documents; thematic maps of the 19th and 20th centuries; ethnic maps and their role in ethnic conflicts; historical atlases as coauthors of collective memory and instruments of political propaganda; application of the digital humanities in analysing and interpreting thematic maps;

II.5 Creation of reconstruction maps and applications for relevant topics with regard to the use of GIS, their constructs, and the establishing of thematic priorities and criteria;

II.6 The urbanization of the Czech lands within the European milieu: urbanization processes of an interdisciplinary nature according to the main historical periods and period subdivisions, according to thematizing questions and problems, or according to microregions; specific phenomena of urbanization processes from the Middle Ages to the first half of the 20th century (royal cities including dowry towns in the 13th and 14th centuries, liege towns in the early modern landscape); transformations in the urban landscape and both its nearby and distant territories; important functionalities of the landscape with an influence on metropolitan agglomerations; self-presentation of cities and towns in the past;

II.7 Organization and co-organization of historical geography conferences;

II.8 Invited lectures and interviews, popularization lectures and articles, media appearances;

II.9 Curation, dissemination, and use of the map collection of the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences http://www.hiu.cas.cz/cs/mapova-sbirka/dejiny-a-soucasnost.ep/; collaboration on the virtual map collection Chartae Antiquae: http://chartae-antiquae.cz/en/about;

II.10 Publication of the periodical Historická geografie; comp. HORČÁKOVÁ, V., MARKOVÁ, M., Bibliografie časopisu Historická geografie za léta 1968‒2018, in Historická geografie 44/2, 2018, pp. 227‒334.