Н. Ф. Леонтьев; З. И. Мартынова; А. А. Минц · 1959
This article provides a comprehensive review of the Atlas of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, a comprehensive national atlas published to mark the 40th anniversary of the republic. The atlas integrates physical, economic, population, cultural, and historical information. The author analyzes its structure and content in detail, covering natural maps (geology, climate, hydrology, soils, vegetation), economic maps (industry, agriculture, resources), population and cultural maps, and historical maps, evaluating their cartographic methods, depth, and design quality. While recognizing the atlas as a significant achievement in Soviet cartography, the author identifies certain shortcomings, including inconsistencies between some maps, the absence of synthetic maps, excessive detail in climate mapping at the expense of key elements, and a lack of innovation in physical maps. The article concludes by emphasizing the atlas's role as a model for similar regional atlases in other Soviet republics.
В. Ф. Кремпольский · 1959
In 1958, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR and the Main Administration of Geodesy and Cartography of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs published the Atlas of the BSSR. This was the first comprehensive national atlas of a Soviet republic, covering the republic's nature, population, economy, culture, history, and political-administrative structure. Published bilingually in Russian and Belarusian, the atlas contains 140 pages of maps, including sections on geology, soils, industry, agriculture, culture, and history. Compiled in just eighteen months by the Minsk Cartographic Factory in collaboration with Belarusian scientists, the atlas represents a major achievement in Soviet cartography and serves as an authoritative reference for a wide readership.
Л. М. Бюшгенс; Е. Л. Гурари; Ю. Г. Кельнер · 1959
This article critically reviews the Comprehensive Atlas of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, published in 1958, and assesses its contribution to regional thematic cartography. Intended to support the integrated study and development of natural resources, economy, culture, and history, the atlas contains extensive physical-geographical, socioeconomic, administrative, cultural, health, and historical mapping. The review examines its thematic structure, indicator selection, map scales, internal comparability, graphic methods, explanatory texts, and accessibility to general readers. Particular strengths include the rich series of maps on geology, relief, climate, soils, vegetation, mineral resources, industry, energy, and agriculture; the practical orientation of environmental indicators; monthly temperature and precipitation maps; innovative morphometric and contemporary relief-process maps; historical coverage; and generally well-coordinated geographic base maps. Economic mapping presents the republic’s major industries, agricultural specialization, peat resources, electrification, and mechanization, while texts, diagrams, profiles, and graphs supplement spatial information and help reveal temporal change. Nevertheless, the atlas has important deficiencies. It lacks sufficiently detailed hydrographic, phenological, floristic-regionalization, landscape-regionalization, comprehensive agricultural-land, and population maps. Some provincial physical maps duplicate republic-level content, while district economic maps fail to exploit their larger scale to portray local industrial structures, agricultural specialization, resources, power facilities, and interregional economic relations. Industrial centers are sometimes represented too schematically, obscuring the relative importance of major sectors. In addition, inconsistent boundaries, locations, and legends across geomorphological, Quaternary-deposit, soil, and physical maps weaken the atlas’s integrative character. Dynamic relationships among climate, runoff, relief, vegetation, production, and resource use could also have been expressed more effectively through coordinated graphs and fuller documentation of source materials. The review concludes that, despite these shortcomings and practical omissions such as an index and district list, the atlas is a major cartographic achievement. It establishes an important model for Soviet regional comprehensive atlases and demonstrates that integrated territorial analysis requires a deliberate combination of comparable maps, explanatory text, diagrams, and other graphic techniques.
