“Nameless landscapes” - what can be seen and understood on a battlefield?

Abstract

A battlefield—as a complex notion—encompasses many kinds of space, from the physical to the symbolic. The features of geographical elements together created the stage for a clash and conditioned in some way (partly or even entirely) the course and result of the battle. However, today’s battlefield landscape is often a literary silent witness to history, telling us nothing of the past. Given the fact that battlefields have become tourist attractions and are a destination not only to the so-called ‘dedicated cultural tourists’, there is a need to give the landscape a voice in the complex tourist narration. In order to enable including a historical landscape story in a general tourist narration about a battlefield, a theoretical framework of a historical battlefield is proposed and discussed to justify the need of using specific tourist facilities to make the past present in today’s landscape. The case of Racławice battlefield in Poland illustrates the ‘nameless landscape’ where only the symbolic space is readable and linked with the past. It also supports a conclusion that there is a need to make the battlefield legible in terms of the sequence of events, the roles of people (groups and individual), and the role of geographical features in the battle. In this simple condition, a visit to a battlefield might be more complex and provide a fuller understanding.

摘要

战场作为一个复杂的概念, 包含了从物理到象征的多种空间。地理要素的特性共同创造了冲突的舞台, 并以某种方式(部分地或全部地)制约了战斗的过程和结果。然而, 今天的战场景观往往只是从文学上对历史进行无记载的再现, 对真实的过去一无所知。鉴于战场已经成为旅游景点而不仅仅是所谓的”专门的文化游客”的目的地, 有必要在复杂的旅游叙事中给战场景观一个声音。为了使历史景观故事能够包含在一般的关于战场的旅游叙述中, 本文提出并探讨了一个历史战场的理论框架, 以说明使用特定的旅游设施在现今景观中展示真实过去的必要性。波兰拉兹瓦维卡战场的案例说明了战场中的”无名景观”,只有该战场的象征空间是可读的,得以与过去连接。它还支持这样一个结论, 即有必要根据战役事件的顺序、参观者(群体和个人)的角色以及战斗中地理特征的作用进行展示, 从而使战场变得清晰, 从而使得对战场的访问更丰富, 并提供更全面的信息。

Keywords:

• Battlefield space
• battlefield landscape
• battlefield tourism
• interpretation
• Racławice battlefield

关键词:

• 战场空间; 战地景观; 战地旅游、解释
• 拉兹瓦维卡战场

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dagmara Chylińska

Dagmara Chylińska, PhD, born in 1980, works at The Department of Regional Geography and Tourism, University of Wroclaw (Poland). Professional interests in tourism geography, cultural tourism, heritage interpretation and sociology of tourism. A passionate about war and military history.