Transcendent Space, Reactionary-Modernism and the “Diabolic” Sublime: Walter Christaller, Edgar Kant, and Geography’s Origins as a Modern Spatial Science

Abstract

To show how the reactionary and modern were linked in the genesis of geography as a modern spatial science, this article traces the ideas and practice of two of the twentieth-century founders of spatial science, Walter Christaller and Edgar Kant, back to the origins of modernity in the Renaissance, when the “duplicitous” and “diabolic” cartographic space of the scenic landscape was constructed. Through this reexamination of the history of geography it is argued that Christaller’s Nazism and Kant’s “anthropo-ecological” theories must be understood against the cartographic background of a nationalization of space that created a problematic situation for the Eastern European German diaspora, with its medieval and Enlightenment era origins, and that continues to create conflicts for other diasporic minorities in other parts of the world where nationalism is still on the march. This study also reexamines the concepts of geographical determinism, possibilism and Lebensraum.

为了展现反动与现代如何在作为现代空间科学的地理学起源中相互连结，本文追溯瓦尔特．克里斯塔勒，埃德加．康德这两位二十世纪空间科学的创始者之一的概念与实践至现代性于文艺復兴的起源，风景地景的“欺瞒”与“残忍”之製图空间便是当时构成的。透过重新检视地理学的历史，本文主张，克里斯塔勒的纳粹主义，以及康德的“人类生态”理论，必须在自然化空间的製图背景中进行理解，该空间起源于中世纪与啓蒙时期，为东欧的德国离散社群创造了具有疑义的处境，并且持续为世界上国族主义仍然进行之处的其他少数族裔离散社群创造了冲突。本研究同时重新检视地理决定论，可能论与生存空间的概念。

Para mostrar cómo lo reaccionario y lo moderno estuvieron enlazados en la génesis de la geografía como ciencia espacial moderna, este artículo rastrea las ideas y la práctica de dos de los fundadores de la ciencia espacial en el siglo XX, Walter Christaller y Edgar Kant, hasta los orígenes de la modernidad en el Renacimiento, cuando se construyó el espacio cartográfico “engañoso” y “diabólico” del paisaje escénico. Mediante este re-examen de la historia de la geografía se arguye que el nazismo de Christaller y las teorías “antropo-ecológicas” de Kant deben entenderse de cara al trasfondo cartográfico de una nacionalización del espacio que creó una situación problemática para la diáspora alemana europeo-oriental, con sus raíces medievales y de la era de la Ilustración, y que sigue creando conflicto para otras minorías diaspóricas en otras partes del mundo donde el nacionalismo sigue campante. Este estudio re-examina también los conceptos de determinismo geográfico, posibilismo y Lebensraum.

Key Words:

• Walter Christaller
• Edgar Kant
• Nazism
• reactionary-modern nationalism
• space

• 瓦尔特
• 克里斯塔勒
• 埃德加
• 康德
• 纳粹主义
• 反动的现代国族主义
• 空间

• Walter Christaller
• Edgar Kant
• nazismo
• nacionalismo reaccionario–moderno
• espacio

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author owes a special debt of thanks to Kommissarie TG (also known as Tomas Germundsson) for his assistance, in the spirit of the Swedish–Danish TV crime series, The Bridge, in researching and editing this case. Thanks are also due to Werner Krauß for his assistance with German translation.

Notes

1. On the sublime and scenic space, see Olwig (2002b, 159–65).

2. For another take on the “duplicity” of landscape, see Daniels (1989).

3. According to Leighly (1933), “At the focus of Sten De Geer’s methodology the map occupied an unquestioned first place, not only as an illustrative adjunct to verbal exposition but also and chiefly as an instrument of research, with the aid of which heterogeneous masses of factual data were displayed areally and by their groupings disclosed mutual relations and inter-dependence” (685).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kenneth R. Olwig

KENNETH R. OLWIG is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning, and Management in the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include geographical and landscape theory, landscape history, humanistic geography, and Nordic philology.