Exploring the Lower Danube: Cartographic and Commercial Expeditions of the Habsburg Monarchy in the Late 18th Century

• In Event: Traveling down the Danube: Knowledge, Networks, and Infrastructure in the Late-eighteenth and the Nineteenth Centuries

Abstract

During the European geopolitical transformation of the 18th century, the Lower Danube became increasingly important to the Habsburg state. As part of the mercantilist state building policies, the Danube figured prominently as a route for transporting manufactured goods to the orient. Likewise, Russian expansionist policies emphasized the strategic importance of the Lower Danube to the monarchy. As a result, a heterogeneous group of travelers made up of merchants, state officials, military men and orientalists set out to explore the Danube up to its flow into the Black Sea in the late-18th century. This paper analyzes the types of knowledge these semi-official, semi-private missions produced and the purposes they served. Further, it looks at the various innovations, such as ship building or measurement techniques that these expeditions brought about.

Author

• Luminita Gatejel, U of Regensburg (Germany)