Center for Humanitarian Space Research

The Center for Humanitarian Space Research (Russian: Центр гуманитарных исследований пространства, TsGIP) was a Russian state research institution that existed from 2011 to 2013 as a structural unit of the Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D. S. Likhachev (the Institute of Heritage). It was dedicated to consolidating interdisciplinary humanitarian research on space, bridging ontological, phenomenological, methodological, theoretical, and applied approaches. The center emerged from the Sector of Humanitarian Geography, which had been established in 2004 and was itself the first institutionalization of the new field of humanitarian geography founded in 1999 by geographer and culturologist Dmitry Zamyatin. TsGIP inherited the sector's staff, leadership, and research focus, while declaring new tasks aimed at expanding the discursive field of spatial studies and developing new scientific directions. It published the online scholarly journal "Cultural and Humanitarian Geography" from 2012, which was included in the Russian Science Citation Index. The center ceased to exist on 31 July 2013, when all its employees were dismissed in the course of a reorganization of institutions under the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, initiated by Minister Vladimir Medinsky and carried out at the Institute of Heritage by its new director, Pavel Yudin.

The Center for Humanitarian Space Research (TsGIP) was a Russian state institution that existed from 2011 to 2013 as a structural unit of the Russian Research Institute for Cultural and Natural Heritage named after D. S. Likhachev (the Institute of Heritage). Its immediate predecessor was the Sector of Humanitarian Geography, created in 2004 at the same institute. That sector was the first institutionalization of humanitarian geography, a new scientific direction founded in 1999 by geographer and culturologist Dmitry Zamyatin, who headed the sector. The sector was established in place of the abolished Sector of Geography of Culture and Art, whose staff automatically transferred to the new unit. Leading Russian scholars were invited to the sector, including Boris Rodoman (theoretical geography), Olga Lavrenova and Nadezhda Zamyatina (cultural geography), Rostislav Turovsky (political geography), and Ivan Mitin (humanitarian geography). Later, orientalist Irina Glushkova and culturologist Alexander Lusy joined. The sector's most significant publications were linked to the almanac "Humanitarian Geography," published from 2004 to 2010. In 2008, the sector organized the international conference "Russia: Imagination of Space / Space of Imagination" in Moscow, supported by the Franco-Russian Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, with participation of world scholars in spatial studies. The conference resulted in a special issue of the almanac "Humanitarian Geography" under the same title, published in 2009 by Agraf in the "Cabinet of Visual Anthropology" series. In 2008, the Institute of Heritage published a collective monograph by three sector staff (Dmitry Zamyatin, Nadezhda Zamyatina, Ivan Mitin) titled "Modeling Images of Historical-Cultural Territory: Methodological and Theoretical Approaches." In 2011, the Center for Humanitarian Space Research was created on the basis of the sector. Its continuity with the sector was declared and followed from its retention within the Institute of Heritage and the preservation of its leadership and core staff. While continuing research in humanitarian and cultural geography, cultural landscape studies, and geography of art, TsGIP announced new tasks through expanding the discursive field of spatial studies and developing new scientific directions. From 2012, TsGIP published the online scholarly journal "Cultural and Humanitarian Geography," included in the Russian Science Citation Index, with Ivan Mitin as editor-in-chief. The center ceased to exist on 31 July 2013, when all employees were dismissed due to the reorganization of departmental institutions of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation by Minister Vladimir Medinsky and the reorganization of the Institute of Heritage by its new director, Pavel Yudin.

• 2013

  Center ceased to exist on 31 July; all employees dismissed.

• 2012

  Online journal "Cultural and Humanitarian Geography" launched.

• 2011

  Center for Humanitarian Space Research created on the basis of the sector.

• 2009

  Special issue of almanac "Humanitarian Geography" published by Agraf.

• 2008

  International conference "Russia: Imagination of Space / Space of Imagination" held in Moscow.

• 2008

  Collective monograph "Modeling Images of Historical-Cultural Territory" published.

• 2004

  Sector of Humanitarian Geography created at the Institute of Heritage.

• 2004

  Almanac "Humanitarian Geography" begins publication (until 2010).

• 1999

  Humanitarian geography founded by Dmitry Zamyatin.

A state-funded academic center for interdisciplinary humanitarian space research within the Institute of Heritage.

• 2012

  Journal "Cultural and Humanitarian Geography"

  Online scholarly journal included in the Russian Science Citation Index; editor-in-chief Ivan Mitin.

• 2004

  Almanac "Humanitarian Geography"

  Published 2004–2010; special issue in 2009.

• 2008

  Monograph "Modeling Images of Historical-Cultural Territory: Methodological and Theoretical Approaches"

  Collective monograph by Dmitry Zamyatin, Nadezhda Zamyatina, and Ivan Mitin.

1. 1Wikidata entry for Center for Humanitarian Space Researchwikidata.org
2. 2Wikipedia (Russian) — Центр гуманитарных исследований пространстваru.wikipedia.org