The Imperiia Project

Scholar-Entrepreneur Initiative

What does it take to reconstruct the spatial history of an empire? We are assembling the data, developing the methods, and testing the limits of mapmaking in an effort to find out.

Have you ever wondered whether you would understand the past differently if you could see it on a map?

So have we.

It is a tall order. The past is enormous and history is made every day. Thankfully, the humans that make history leave all sorts of things in their wake. Texts. Graphics. Everything from the mundane to the sublime.

The inhabitants of the Russian Empire left a wide wake indeed.

Like other historians, we are obsessed with all of it: with archives, the context, the meaning. Unlike other historians, we are obsessed with maps. Unique maps. Common maps. Intriguing maps. Infuriating maps. We study them and we make them. Sometimes we pull them apart in order to extract information. Sometimes we put them together in order to analyze historical phenomena. We are turning the archives themselves into geographic information systems because we believe space holds the key to new understandings of the past.

Think of this as a collaborative, slightly rebellious, attempt to explain why where matters.

wide river runs horizontally across the map with tributaries; lines of coniferous and deciduous trees shown pictorially
Map by Semyon Remezov (1696); image courtesy of Harvard Map Library

Digital humanities is having a "moment." But we have only just begun to understand how powerful the connection between historians and machines might turn out to be.

We are building a research platform and developing practices and solutions useful (we hope) to anyone interested in asking and answering spatial questions. Whether you happen to be in a classroom or a library, at a kitchen table or a busy cafe, if you find yourself poring over maps or pondering places or spaces, we are working with you in mind.

Our job is not only to answer our own questions, but to make it possible for you to answer yours. Explore our growing collection of mapstories and interactive resources.

Our work is made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Check out the great work of the Digital Humanities Advancement Grant Program.

Learn More

Related Insights

The latest offering from our Imperiia Project shows the frequency and impact of fires across European Russia during the tumultuous years of 1860 to 1864.

The Davis Center's Imperiia team is working with the Harvard Map Collection to study biodiversity and show why metadata is a scholar's best friend.

"The region’s significance has been underestimated because it cannot be understood from the perspective of a single scholar working in a single academic discipline," writes historian Kelly O'Neill, director of the Davis Center's Imperiia Project.

Related Events

Past Event

Over four sessions we will work with a beautiful, highly detailed plan of Odesa/Odessa published in 1894. We will study the map’s structure and content and go through the process of pulling it apart (and putting it back together again).

Past Event

Over four sessions we will work with a beautiful, highly detailed plan of Odesa/Odessa published in 1894. We will study the map’s structure and content and go through the process of pulling it apart (and putting it back together again).

Past Event

Over four sessions, we will work with a beautiful, highly detailed plan of Odesa/Odessa published in 1894. We will study the map’s structure and content and go through the process of pulling it apart (and putting it back together again).