There are words, which, like rare birds, nest only in sparsely populated areas, and are known to very few, yet which even so, upon being encountered, have the ability to alter our world. Counted among these is «chorography,» which Vadim Veterkov, with the skill of an experienced fakir, withdraws from his hat, and in so doing gifts each reader of The World the opportunity to share in his discoveries. For example: when following a map, new discoveries are nearly impossible to make, as we are in the mode of seeking what the map itself shows. Yet when guided by descriptions, the opposite is the case, as we find ourselves piqued to what’s been left out. Such is our nature — to trust charts, but challenge words.
It is well known that chorography (not to be confused with choreography) was a scientific discipline that employed descriptive methods in analyzing the peculiar features of localities. Actually, it is known only to historians, and a few lovers of antiquity, lazily exploring «Wikipedia.» Though these days, it has little to do with laziness, but quite the opposite — rather, the restlessness of the spirit.
Claudius Ptolemy, the author of the Almagest, the greatest pre-Copernican work on celestial mechanics, contrasted chorography and geography, a related discipline, which, in our understanding, was much closer to cartography. The first was understood as being much more of an art; the latter, a craft. And whereas ancient geography produced maps, chorographs produced stories.
It’s a paradox that the founders of the greatest empires in European history possessed, by our standards, such a minimal imperial mentality, inclining in their ideas of state greatness much more towards matters of accounting, of poetry, and, of course, control.
It is now quite difficult to imagine a world in which people did not feel a particular need for maps, but Antiquity was precisely such a world. The Romans, and the Byzantines after them, did not particularly trust maps, and preferred directions. This could be seen in everything from their military science to their city planning. The Byzantine Empire quite casually relinquished its territories, which it would then retake. This state, which existed for a thousand years, did not feel this as a tragedy, because the public never visualised the seizure of territory on a map — which is not to say that the fall of this or that city didn’t trouble the emperor, as a loss of citizens. After all, where there are no citizens, there can be no taxes. It’s a paradox that the founders of the greatest empires in European history possessed, by our standards, such a minimal imperial mentality, inclining in their ideas of state greatness much more towards matters of accounting, of poetry, and, of course, control. As urbanist Richard Sennett points out, in Roman cities there was a ridge along which inhabitants had to move, for example, to and from the Forum (if they were authorised to do so), while resisting being distracted by all the surrounding disorder, so as to keep their balance, trying not to sway. After all, such swaying is a distraction, and a person’s mind is useless for thought if disorder reigns therein. The triumph of this model was reached under the emperor Adrian, when Roman forums were emptied of nearly all diversity of trade (of course, a healthy person moving through a market can’t be described as anything but chaos), giving way to lawyers and officials, and the linear structure of the Roman world itself migrated into the home. But if this approach seems tyrannical, it is nothing next to the tyranny of maps.
Herodotus, the father of both geography and chorography, when striking Persian skulls in the desert, did not know what knowledge he was releasing into the world. Sad, oppressive geographical descriptions of the world give men power. And since maps are simple things, this power can be in the hands of any idiot.
In the case of maps, we instinctively sense a trap. Maps themselves diminish the prestige of space, strictly delineating a beginning and an end. In endeavouring for objectivity, the cartographer leaves only information that all will perceive uniformly. Thus, the most accurate maps are the most boring, retaining only the dullest and most useful information. And this is if we still trust the cartographer and believe that the map is accurately drawn. The most unpleasant thing in a map is completeness. If you have a map, then you know everything about the place you are in.
But geographical understandings of the world win out. After all, they are so useful. Herodotus, the father of both geography and chorography, when striking Persian skulls in the desert, did not know what knowledge he was releasing into the world. Sad, oppressive geographical descriptions of the world give men power. And since maps are simple things, this power can be in the hands of any idiot. German intellectual Bruno Bauer, in the 19th century, if sources are to be believed, wondered why Columbus discovered the Indians, and not the Indians Columbus? He answered his own question: Columbus had a vision of the world that included a place for Indians, but the Indians had no such vision. So, Columbus saw people who could be enslaved, and the Indians saw gods. Who had the more pleasant vision — this is a debatable question, but where are the Indians now? While in the United States, Columbus has his own holiday. The approach of geographers seduces people with power, but it also enslaves them by the routine of illusory omniscience.
Chorography has a significant advantage over geography: it doesn’t have all the answers. In a world ruled by maps, there is no place for discovery. Practicing chorography, the traveller discovers anew routes travelled many times before, both by himself and by others.
So, one of the greatest chorographers in world history, Pomapony Mela, author of the work De Chorograpia, his deep, though really rather small book, did not, strictly speaking, say anything new to his contemporaries. A rhetorician and a poet, though not a geographer or a great traveller, Mela in liber primus slyly begins as follows: «I will start by describing the land, a tiresome task not at all conducive to eloquence, as it consists almost exclusively of names of tribes and localities and a rather convoluted ordering thereof, which to trace seems more boring than enjoyable. » But what an amazing story follows these words! It tells of the Borysfen, known to the modern world as the Dnieper — the greatest of all rivers, aside from the Nile — full of fish and flanked by bountiful pastures. There are hairy Amazons, so wild that even in shackles, they cannot be tamed. There are caves in the Syrian mountains, overgrown with impenetrable forests. There is the marble labyrinth of Pharaoh Psammetichus, with a thousand doors. And much more. The minds of Roman citizens were no less stirred by Mela’s descriptions than are ours by the guidebooks of today, the last echoes of a once great art.
But the underlying principle of chorography is much more universal — it is not limited to the description of the terrain. How often, when doing this or that, do you feel paralysed by constraints, ties to things that are essentially irrelevant: various matters, popular opinion, time, thoughts of missed opportunities. What do all these amount to, if not a «map?» The abundance of our experience, in which we are so used to taking pride, binds us, by inaccurate descriptions of the space we are in, and we wander, wander, wander.
How rarely we chart our course from point to point, disregarding «cartographic» stimuli. We move slowly, exposed on the threshold of the cruelest enemies — Time and its brother, the Fear of Death. We look around with interest, some- times stopping to sit down and think about what we have seen. But there is nothing wrong with turning a job, or relationship, or life itself into a chorographic description of the incredible things we encounter. In any case, you will always feel like a pioneer.
