Method

This is a work of digital history, and has been since its inception. The original idea was to see what GIS (geographic information system) methods and tools would reveal about the history of the Russian Empire, particularly as it evolved over the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The goal was not to make maps (at least, not static, printed maps) but rather to experiment with mapping-as-historical-method.

Historians are, by trade, preoccupied with change over time. But we devote a good deal of attention to change across space as well, and as a result there is nothing terribly revolutionary about attempting to integrate a geographical perspective into one's work. Fernand Braudel provided an extraordinarily beautiful example of what such an approach could produce with his magisterial study of the Mediterranean back in 1949. More recently, the "spatial turn" has taken a good many fields of history by storm. A rich literature exploring the meaning of space and place in historical context has begun to take shape, taking large doses of inspiration from the robust body of work produced by two generations of geographers.

One of the outcomes of this ferment has been the general acceptance among historians of the idea that space is constructed and variable. In fact, space has come to be understood as a cultural phenomenon as much as a physical setting against (and through) which history unfolds. We think - and talk - now about imagined spaces, gendered spaces, public spaces, domestic spaces, spaces of innovation, violence, discrimination, and memory.

The Imperiia Project emerges from a more material understanding of space. And its method is rooted in three core ideas:

First, "where" matters. If nothing else, this project expresses my belief that locating an historical event, actor, or idea on the surface of the Earth is as crucial a form of historical analysis as establishing its chronology. This is not an exercise in geographical determinism. Nor is it an attempt to deny the importance of the body of work that theorizes space in any number of innovative and productive ways. It is an exploration of the ways in which economic, administrative, and cultural practices combine with geographical features to produce what we might think of as a spatial structure - a kind of logic that applies at every scale, from macro to micro, and on every rung of the social hierarchy. 

The second core idea is that the geodatabase is an extremely productive tool for studying the past. Organizing historical evidence according to the (thankfully flexible) logic of a geodatabse opens up the door to spatial analysis. And it is spatial analysis that allows us to identify and define relationships and patterns in the historical record that we did not know existed. Applying spatial methods means asking new sets of questions rooted in the ideas of proximity, density, intersection, and accessibility. It is this work - the work of mapping - rather than the map itself, that truly matters. 

The third core idea is that curation and narration are intrinsic elements of historical GIS work, just as they are of other forms of historical analysis.

Unfortunately, curating and documenting, explaining and narrating are difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish with GIS software. This is where the digital meets the humanities. This is the reason why I decided against shoehorning the project into a single platform. And this is the reason why navigating the Imperiia Project requires triangulating between this main site (where I can curate and narrate), an interactive map (which visualizes and shares the spatial data), and a data archive (a stable web-based tool for preserving project data and making it available in its original form).

The architecture of the project is finally taking shape, and the time for developing an original platform might be approaching. But for now, I am content to make the most of existing tools for evaluating, questioning, hypothesizing, and narrating the unknown spatial terrain of the Russian past.