meta – carto – semiotics (Vol. 10; 2017) Journal for Teoretical Cartography ISSN1868-1387 Visualizing place as a palimpsest: Mental maps inRussian geohumanities Ivan Mitin (National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia) < gumgeo@gmail.com > Twospecial kindsof mental mapsemergingfrom theRussiangeohumanitiesare described inthe article. Russiangeohumanities are regarded as a specifc RussianPost- Soviet traditionof cultural geographyfocusingonperceptions andinterpretations of space. Te semiotic model of ‘place as palimpsest’ typical for Russianmythogeography is used to describe the multi-layered structure of a place, formed by di ferent cultures’ visionsofoneandthesameplace. Twoopposingmeaningsofmental mapsare discussed, namely, (1) mental spatial information, representing the image of the city and orientations schemes, (2) cartographicgeovisualization, whichrefects individual or collective perceptionof space. Mental maps, combining the traits of bothclasses (with the example of K. Lynch’s generalizedurbanmaps basedonthe results of individual cities’ perceptions) are arguedtobe the most prospective. Urban‘mythogeographical’ mental mapsfrom theRussiangeohumanitiesareregardedasanother kindof that compromise, beingtransformedfrom thediagram-like‘image-geographical’ maps by localizing place myths into ‘sign places’ of a city. Keywords: mental maps, palimpsest, place myth, Russian geohumanities, mythogeography, semiotics 1. Geohumanities inRussia ‘Geohumanities’ isaneologism thatwasintroducedbyDenisCosgroveinthe prologueof tworecent volumes(Danielset al., 2011; Dearet al., 2011) asaresult of geography’scloseconnectionsto thehumanities& arts.“Te‘culturalturn’fnds geographersworkingwithmaterialsandmethodsconventionallyassociatedwiththe Humanities, for example the interpretation of texts and images <…>. Tis has strengthened the connection with the arts in practice” (Daniels et al., 2011, p. xxiv). Tese connections bringthe international geohumanities close toaspecifc kindo f cultural geography that has emerged inPost-Soviet Russia as ‘humanitariangeography’ in word-for-word translation (Mitin, 2012). Afer the collapse o f the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), geographers were inspired bythe newpossibilities regarding research, freedomof thought and the romantic feur o f Frenchphilosophy providing a mediumbetweenspace and place onthe one hand, andhuman andcultureon theother. DmitryZamyatin wasthefrstonetostate ‘humanitariangeography’ tobethe“interdisciplinaryresearchfeldfocusingonvarious kinds of representation&interpretationof space withinhumanactivity, includingmental activity” (2010, p. 126). It may be also understood as “a unity of closely connected trends in geography, studying the laws of formation &development of systems of geographical space’ representations (in the minds of individuals, social, ethnic, cultural, racial groups, etc.), that people use inorder toarrange their behavior incertainareas” (Zamyatina &Mitin, 2007, p. 151). I. Mitin: Visualizing place as a palimpsest 1 www.meta-carto-semiotics.org Tis work is licensed under this Creative Commons License