Though contemporary sociology treats the phenomenon of space extremely seriously, it appears surprising that hardly any room is devoted to the discussion of representations of space, i.e. to maps. The article attempts to fill this gap through an analysis of the application of the idea of a “mental map” to a comparative cultural study. Adopting Kevin Lynch’s largely pragmatic notion of a mental map to a theoretically oriented sociological project, the author explores the relations between the concepts of history, cultural values and memory. The discussion is focused on the ways of construing mental landscape by the exiled members of the Jewish shtetls and similarly dispossessed inhabitants of the Mazury region in Poland. The demonstrated differences present in those reconstructions are, according to the author, an excellent reflection of significant diversity in cultural perception and values, and an indication that an analysis of this kind constitutes an original and productive element in the methodology of modern sociology and historical studies.
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