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184 GÁBOR MÁTÉ diverse purposes, for instance, political messages, or one may find and express ones identity in it, define a landscape as legacy, or involve it in individual or collective acts of memory. British historian Simon Schama holds that the role of human imagination and gregariousness are so important that landscape is more a product of culture than of nature. It is the projection of the imagination onto trees, waters, and rocks (Schama 1996: 61). One of its most important aspects is perhaps its use as a “projection screen” for mediating political messages to a target audience. In the 18" and 19" centuries, the “moral landscape” was the symbol of orderly, ethical, better living and good government. This — as Sandor Békési writes — turned into the “homeland” in the age of Romanticism and at the same time into a surface of reference for Romantic art, geography, ecology, and nature protection’ (Békési 1999). From the 20" century onwards, human beings gradually came into possession of incomparably larger amounts of natural resources for realizing their plans of transformation, which they had previously relegated to the category of wayward imagination. This occurred not only in the Age of Reason and with Western capitalism coveting more and more energy, but also in the Socialist block with its radical industrialization. There, the utilitarian view resulted in immense programs designed at transforming nature, making people believe that nature could be subdued by humanity (see: Hajdú 2006). Our current concepts of the landscape imbued in ideologies are increasingly influenced by the ever “louder” ecological crisis, which has led to the transformation of production, strengthening of nature and environmental protection, and also to the growing presence of Green political parties. In Western Europe, characterized by a diversity of juxtaposed landscapes, landscape has become heritage. This implies many different identities (on this topic, see Csorba 2010). Researchers who value diversity created institutions and fortified with legal protection the requisites of the past. In addition to open-air museums showing the material cultural heritage of the past, from the 1960s, eco museums intent on conserving the morphology and values of the landscape began to appear as well (Borelli — Davis 2012). Connected to this is the common experience that the transformation of the landscapes has accelerated and the sight of change is a permanent source of tension. Changes since our childhood make us ponder visions of mortality, and decay. For those born in the 20" century, this implies the experience of the disappearance of the landscapes of the peasantry, i.e., of small-scale landscapes (see: Békési 1999). Therefore, in addition to becoming heritage, landscapes also represent longed-for states with “imagined” characteristics. This is partially due to their monetary value in the tourism industry. On a related note, landscapes are also fields of rivalry. It is typical of our age to have a simultaneous conglomerate of diverse ideologies, religious dogmas, and political orientations, sometimes all influencing a certain space. An apt example is prehistoric Stonehenge, “where archaeologists, tourists, Druids, New Age travelers, English Heritage and the National Trust all have their own images, symbolism and views regarding the ways in which the area should be preserved and its landscapes managed and consumed.” (Whyte 2002: 8). The encounter of different value systems and attitudes can be observed in connection with the “one-thousand-year-old border in Gyimes” about which one > Questions of landscape and nature protection are also discussed in Anna Varga’s essay.
