Sources of historical geography as a source for research of local places of memory on the example of Heidelberg / Žalý in the Giant Mountain
Abstract
The aim of this study is to point out the possibilities of using various historical sources - 1. toponomastic and cartographic, 2. tourist, 3. ethnographic and artistic - in the research of places of memory creation in topographical (concrete) meaning. It is a mountain of Heidelberg / Žalý in the Giant Mountains, which in the course of the 19th century changed from a topographical point to a local place of memory of the Czech ethnicity.
Based on the analysis of the sources, the symbolic motives and narratives that were attributed to this place are analyzed. Based on the analysis of different types of sources related to the Žalý mountain, the transformation of the topographic point in the landscape into the place of memory and its regional identity function is monitored in the time period from the 18th century to the present.
The introductory chapter introduces the basic concepts of leading sociologists and historians who deal with the relationship of memory and space. This is followed by a brief introduction to the field of critical toponymy and its significance for historical geography on the example of topographical and toponymous interpretation of the name of the investigated mountain.
The transformation of the interpretation of the origin of the name and its official use in contemporary topographical works has become a key factor in the transformation of the relationship between Czech and German ethnic groups and individual social groups (local population, tourists, Count Harrach and civil servants) in the 19th century on the background of "seeking" narrative stories as a as a source of national and local identity. From the point of view of toponymy, it is a change in the exclusive use of the German form Heidelberg until the end of the 18th century, despite the parallel existence of the GermanCzech name for the mountain in the 19th century to the stable codification of the Czech name Žalý, associated mainly with the displacement of the German population and the loss of historical memory after II.
World War. From the topography point of view, we can observe the increase in the frequency of sources to this place since the end of the 18th century, indicating an increased interest in this mountain, where the topographic point in the landscape without a national or sacred past due to state-topographers and later primarily tourist organizations gradually becomes local a symbolic place of memory for the Czech national community.
So it was hand in hand with the actualization of specific narrative myths and stories (Slavic burial ground, the departure of J. A.
Comenius) and symbolic motifs (home, homeland, gateway to the Bohemian Paradise, etc.) that were bound to this mountain. The next section introduces the "tourist" (travel books, tourist guides, newspapers and magazines of tourist associations), ethnographic (poetry, prose, regional press) and artistic (paintings, photographs) sources, which confirm the above conclusions about the importance of the mountain in the past but also in the contemporary identity-making processes of the local community.