Proposed European national border realignments by Félix Durclé. Peace map 1866
SKU: P-7-028065
L’Europe en 1866 — Carte des Frontières Naturelles et des Peuples de l’Europe d’après les indications de l’ouvrage intitulé: Des Réformes et des Institutions Européennes vues par dessus l’Europe en 1866 [“Europe in 1866 — Map of the Natural Frontiers and Peoples of Europe, based on the indications from the work entitled On Reforms and European Institutions Viewed from Above Europe in 1866]
The map articulates in cartographic form Durclé’s proposal for a complete realignment of Europe's borders after the upheavals of the 1859–1866 wars, proposing that the continent be redrawn according to “natural frontiers”—mountain chains, river systems—and the ethno-linguistic distribution of “peoples”, rather than dynastic or treaty-based borders. Durclé argued that the instability of Europe stemmed from irrational, imperial, or artificial political boundaries, and that lasting peace required nations built around coherent geographic and cultural units: a unified Germany and Italy, a restored Poland, ethnically aligned states across the Balkans, and France re-established within its “natural” Rhine frontier. As such, this map is both an early expression of modern geopolitical thinking and a striking visual embodiment of mid-19th-century attempts to rationalise Europe’s political order. Unrealistic and overreaching as some aspects of his proposals might have been, it was a worthy attempt to eliminate the wars that had plagued Europe for centuries - and which would claim many millions of lives over the subsequent century.
Size 44 x 55 cm | 17.5 x 21.5 inches
Date Published: 1866
Type: Antique hand coloured political reformist map
Author: Durclé, Félix Levacher
Publication: Des Réformes & des Institutions Européennes vues par dessus l’Europe en 1866
Condition: Fair-to-Good |
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