BSZLAK Project Description

Szlak, a Polish word meaning “trail”, was the name given to paths used to traverse the Pontic Steppe in the early modern period. Regular roads were virtually non-existent, and overland travel tended to follow general paths that conducted travelers between destinations as expeditiously as possible by avoiding rugged terrain such as mountains, ravines, and difficult river crossings. The BSZLAK project attempts to trace 17th century szlak routes that were of particular importance to the Black Sea slave trade that saw the abduction or death of some two million individuals from the region from 1500-1700. The primary sources used to trace these paths are fifteen maps by Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan produced in the mid-1600’s. Beauplan’s maps show populated places, rivers, river crossings, river rapids, forests, mountains, and valleys that can be associated with places shown on modern maps, thereby providing landmarks for tracing szlak paths. This project traces the Czarny Szlak, Kuczmanski Szlak, and Moraski Szlak routes, and also traces routes of minor trails shown on Beauplan’s maps.Szlak为波兰语，意为‘小径’，该词用于指代近代早期穿越庞蒂克草原（Pontic Steppe）的通行道路。当时几乎不存在标准化官道，陆上出行往往遵循通用路线，通过规避山地、沟壑与艰险渡口等崎岖地形，尽可能高效地往返于目的地之间。BSZLAK项目旨在复原17世纪的Szlak古道路线——这些路线对1500至1700年间的黑海奴隶贸易至关重要，该贸易致使该地区约200万人遭到绑架或死亡。本项目复原这些路线的核心史料来源，为17世纪中期纪尧姆·勒瓦瑟·德·博潘（Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan）绘制的十五幅地图。博潘的地图标注了居民点、河流、渡口、急流、森林、山地与谷地，这些地理要素可与现代地图中的对应地点相匹配，从而为复原Szlak古道路线提供了地标参照。本项目不仅复原了黑色Szlak（Czarny Szlak）、库奇曼斯基Szlak（Kuczmanski Szlak）与莫拉什基Szlak（Moraski Szlak）三条核心路线，还对博潘地图中标注的次要小径路线进行了复原。