Beyond East and West: A Framework for Researching and Communicating Historical Landscapes

In the current discourse on the integration of the Western Balkans into the EU, the ongoing and envisaged negotiations with the Republics of Montenegro, Serbia and Albania seem to be of remarkable importance in the contemporary media coverage. They comprise a region, which – in a long ago past – played, under the name of Illyricum (Illyrikon), a vital role in the strategic and administrative considerations of the Byzantine Empire.
The digital humanities project “Beyond East and West: Geocommunicating the Sacred Landscapes of “Duklja” and “Raška” through Space and Time (11th-14th Cent.)” and the corresponding online application “Maps of Power: Historical Atlas of Places, Borderzones and Migration Dynamics in Byzantium (Dig-TIB)” attempt to recreate and communicate the sacred landscape during a time of transition and transformation. The project has an interdisciplinary approach and incorporates multiple media, like maps, images, and 3D models. The University of Vienna (Department of Geography and Regional Research) is cooperating with the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Institute for Medieval Research, Tabula Imperii Byzantini Balkans) and the Leipzig University of Applied Sciences (Faculty of Computer Science and Media).
The study area of the project is at the border regions of the present-day nations of Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Albania. Historically, the region was shaped by the power struggle between Byzantium, the First Bulgarian Empire, and the Serbian realm. Ecclesiastically, it was a zone of interaction as well as encounter between Rome and Constantinople, i.e. the Latin and the Byzantine (Orthodox) Church. The aim of the project is to discover and visualise the spatial and temporal aspects of these encounters and transformation processes.