Analysis of the role of statistics in some works by the geographer Petar Matković

Abstract

Petar Matković was the founder of the Department of Geography of the University of Zagreb and its first professor. Apart from actively participating in the institutionalization of geography, statistics, and the newly-founded Yugoslavian Academy of Arts and Sciences (as its longtime member and secretary), he published books and papers on geography, statistics, cartography, topography and history and prepared teaching literature. He was a pioneer in separating »specialized« geographical disciplines (which is evident in his papers on historical geography, cartography and topography) and the first modern Croatian geographer. He was criticized due to the statistical approach in his general geographical-statistical overviews. The goal of this paper is, by analysing traits that point to »statisticalness « in his works, comparing them with the works of his contemporaries and by providing an insight into the development of Croatian geography in the second half of the 19th century, to research whether that criticism is valid. By analysing 15 works we confirmed both of our initial assumptions: a) Matković's geographical-statistical works are indeed overburdened with statistics, b) they do not differ with their content from other analysed geographical works of his contemporaries, but they present their data and analyse their materials in a different way. We also conclude that his works are a reflection of his times.