Production of a Literary Map of Ostrava 1918-2018 – a case study about one city in the Czech Republic

Abstract Ostrava used to be one of the significant industrial and cultural centres of Silesia. It became part of Czechoslovakia in 1918, with the character of the territory being multi-ethnic, multilingual, and with industrial dynamics. This article explores various approaches to literary cartography and establishes a method of creating a printed Literary Map of Ostrava 1918–2018 (including places, events, personalities, institutions, texts). The map is trying to record the emergence, consolidation and transformation of the literary identity of the city of Ostrava over a period of one hundred years. It presents the aspects that determined the character of the map (including among others, the back part of map which includes interpretations, uses the princip of synecdoche and aspects of complexity too). It depicts the emergence reference of individual points on the map in relation to the historical, socio-economic, political and religious aspects of the city and includes work with temporal and spatial layers which were used in the preparation of the thematic map. The map presents, through the application of synoptic literary map theory, the nature of the semantic network through which literary history is reflected. It explains the inspirational significance of a cartographic treatment of literary history that goes beyond locational character. It not a map of fictional places.