Mapping Early Modern Ukraine

ABOUT THE EVENT

This presentation revisited the maps of Ukraine created by Guillaume le Vasseur de Beauplan, first published in 1648 in the Danzig workshop of Wilhelm Hondius. The Frenchman Beauplan served in the Polish royal army from 1630 to 1647 and was particularly active in the Kyiv and Podolian provinces. In 1645, he received a privilege from King Ladislaus IV to publish a map described as “the map of our dominions from the [borders of the] Kingdom of Hungary unto the outer limits of Muscovite lands.” Although Podolia and Kyiv had previously appeared on general maps of Europe and Poland-Lithuania, Beauplan’s work marked the first self-contained, detailed depiction of all Ruthenian lands within the Polish Crown. He labeled the entire region as “Ukraine” (literally, borderland), even though the name had traditionally been reserved for the southeastern tip of Polish-administered Ruthenia. This easily reproducible cartographic image effectively turned the Ruthenian lands within the Polish Crown into a distinct visual entity.  

 

While Ukraine's representation in early modern cartography has been widely studied, the question of how the visualization of Ruthenian territories balanced the epistemic beliefs about the cultural exceptionalism of Ruthenian elites with their place within the broader Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth deserves further attention. Beauplan’s maps are often described as depictions of “Ukraine under Western eyes,” but the evidence complicates this interpretation. Instead, it emphasizes Ruthenian contributions to the creation of these cartographic images and positions early Ruthenian cartography within a wider trans-European exchange of knowledge and information.

 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Tomasz Grusiecki is Associate Professor of Early Modern European Art and Material Cultures at Boise State University. His research encompasses early modern cultural entanglements, European perceptions of the wider world, eco-critical examinations of artistic materials, and zoopolitics of art-making, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe from 1500 to 1700. He is the author of Transcultural Things and the Spectre of Orientalism in Early Modern Poland-Lithuania (Manchester University Press, 2023).