Historical Thopography of Posavinje and Posotelje regions

Historical topography of the territory of the Republic of Slovenia has been a desideratum of Slovenian historiography for almost a century. Identification (localization) of former place names – settlements, fallows, waters, objects, provinces, etc. – found in various historical records of the past is of pivotal importance for historical research as well as many other scientific disciplines (geography, archaeology, ethnology, linguistics, etc.). After World War II much work has been done in this field; historical topographies of Carniola, Styria and Slovenian Carinthia, as well as Prekmurje were issued in print form, while the Primorska (Littoral) was largely examined in manuscript. The knowledge of historical sources for the territory of Slovenia in domestic and foreign archives has drastically improved over the last decades, and publications of numerous new collections of sources only further expanded the scope of available and useful data. With the two projects that was conducted by the Milko Kos Historical Institute ZRC SAZU (ZIMK) in the years 2012–2016 and 2018–2022, a new series Slovene Historical Topography was established, which will in the long-term cover the entire state territory and expand the time frame until the 19th century. In the first two phases, the areas of historical provinces of Carniola (Kranjska) and Primorska until 1500 were treated. The result is a revised, thoroughly expanded and actualized topography of Carniola, and – published for the first time in any form – topography of Primorska, which importantly updates and in many respects corrects the hitherto knowledge. It is accessible as an e-book and an interactive online presentation in connection with cartographic bases (http://topografija.zrc-sazu.si/). The online edition allows for up-to-date upgrading and corrections with new data, and thus can constantly gain in value. The series is conceived as a highly systematic, thorough, reliable and useful historical topography of Slovenia intended for the scientific public and lay users alike. The proposed research project is already the third phase of a long-term plan and refers to the historical topography of Posavinje and Posotelje regions. This is the first part of the treatment of the territory of Slovenian Styria, which due to the exceptional volume of historical topographic material needs to be undertaken in two steps. The material collected by Pavle Blaznik was published in book form in the years 1986–1989 after the author's death and contains many unresolved locations. The entire book will first be scanned, the entries related to Posavinje and Posotelje will be isolated and processed with an optical character recognition (OCR) software. The input will be automated, using upgraded software tools developed in the previous two projects. The structure of the relational database SHT will be upgraded in order to enable connections with existing (eg. Monasterium.net - https://www.monasterium.net/mom/home) and developing (Central file of medieval documents for Slovenian territory - CKSL) digital collections of primary resources. From the historical side of the project team a considerable amount of new topographical data has been (and will be) acquired from the primary sources: charters, land registers, notary books, town statutes and early cartographic material. The existing database will thus be thoroughly supplemented with this new material. In the last phase, the completed corpus of historical topographic data for Posavinje and Posotelje regions will be placed within the framework of the existing web application Slovenian Historical Topography (SHT). At the same time, an interactive web portal will be developed, which will enable the manager to efficiently edit the SHT database even after the project is completed. The short-term objective of the project is thus the expanding of the Slovenian Historical Topography with the inclusion of up-dated database for the Posavinje and Posotelje regions.