‘Maps of meaning’: Landscapes on the map and in the mind – discovering Paldiski, estonia

Abstract

The article explores relationships between representations (maps) and the represented (landscape), focusing on the role of maps in creating places and as devices in the generation and manipulation of knowledge. The production and use of maps is seen as part of power relations in society, referred to in Foucault's term as ‘games of strategy’, including dominance and control of the natural environment and the social system, but also resistance to and negotiation of power positions in society. The main objective is to examine the meanings given to one limited area in Estonia, Paldiski – covering the Pakri peninsula – by presenting its contemporary content and considering different angles for interpretation. The real and assumed ties between the physical environment and past and present representations are conveyed in the descriptive form of a map of a walk. The article also includes a brief presentation of the history of mapping in Estonia in the confines of the modern state – the Swedish kingdom, Russian empire, military Germany, the Soviet Union, and Estonia. The role of individuals in creating landscapes in physical and representational form is a central issue in the case of Paldiski, based on which the more general concerns of ‘laying down the law’ and justice in landscape and society may be examined.

Keywords:

• knowledge
• landscape
• maps
• Paldiski
• representation

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Urve Pill, Minna Jõgi, Sigrid Hade, and Toomas Kokovkin for helping me to come to grips with the various maps and sources, collecting, systematizing and digitalizing the material. The digitalizing and technical assistance for Fig. 2 was provided by Urve Pill, of the research centre Arhipelaag. The task was initially taken on with financial support from the Estonian Science Foundation Grant no 5041, and was completed thanks to the Landscape, Law and Justice initiative at the Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. My special gratitude goes to Professor Michael Jones for helpful comments and general encouragement while I struggled to create this map of meaning. I also thank two anonymous referees for their comments.

Notes

1. The Paldiski Museum was opened in 1996 on a wave of local (Estonian) enthusiasm, but closed due to lack of finances a few years later. The exhibits (mostly contributions from past and present inhabitants of Paldiski, including some unique photographs and material from the Soviet period, as well as copies of material in other Estonian archives) were packed into boxes and put into the basement of the town council building. The unheated space in a 100 year old stone building is obviously not the best for storage. The museum is still not among the priorities of the council (but they are not to blame given the many social and environmental issues to tackle) but recently some effort has gone into better storage and cataloguing.

2. Sources included 114 scientific and popular texts on the physical conditions and history of the peninsula published since the 1850s (see Hade et al. 2005, and Peil 2005 for references and discussion), booklets and web pages for tourism promotion, including the home page of Paldiski Town Council (www.paldiski.ee), manuscripts at the Estonian History Archives, Tallinn City Archives, Estonian National Museum, and Estonian History Museum, and a review of 280 newspaper articles in national newspapers published between 1996 and 2002 conducted and analysed systematically by Minna Jõgi (Jõgi & Peil 2005, M. Jõgi, unpublished data) and 24 additional articles from various newspapers and journals.

3. Until 1816 in the Province of Estonia, the ethnic Estonian peasants were serfs and regarded as property of the landlord; the ethnic Swedes were personally free, paying land rent in kind or money but not obliged to corvée duty in the form of unpaid labour at the manor. The situation changed in the 19th century when the coastal Swedish areas came under great pressure of uniformization (see also Põldvee 2001, Gubbström 2003).

4. For references to the landscape narrative in Estonia, see Peil et al. (2004).

5. While I was doing the final editing, a new political strategy game between the town officials and the port developers blossomed up; the impression of the corrupt, greedy, and criminal is reinforced, and, although the officials loudly protest that such is not possible in Estonia, the impression is that they are highly probable in Paldiski (Channel 2 News, 13–14 July 2005; weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress 21 July 2005).