“Circumbaltian space”: historical background and theoretical and methodological foundations of delimitation

Abstract

The Circumbaltian Space is presented in the work as the core of the peripheral local civilization of Europe the Baltic Sea civilization, which has become the natural and social basis for the formation of the modern Baltic region. Regional borders are marked in accordance with current scientific and practical approaches to the delimitation of spaces and habitats: natural science, program-strategic and socio-humanitarian. It is shown that the dominant factor in the formation, development and spread of civilizational and, consequently, regioncreating processes in the Baltic Sea has been, since the turn of the VII VIII centuries and retaining its importance today, the urbanization of Primorye. In order to identify, construct, characterize and formalize the genetic code of the latter, a working definition of Circumbaltics is proposed as an objective reality or physical entity, which in physical and geographical terms is a geotory (geospatial form). On the basis of the geotorial concept and the geospatial model of the core of the Baltic Sea civilization the centripetal focus of the region the methodology is substantiated and the method of its delimitation is developed in the context of solving the problems of historical and urban planning research. It is suggested that the genetic code of the Baltic urbanization, the indicators of which are the patterns and specifics of the spatial organization of the Primorsky urbanized settlement system, can serve as the basis for regional identification and/or reidentification of urban development activities carried out within the boundaries of the Northwestern Federal District of the Russian Federation, the European part of Russia as a whole, and thereby contribute to its improvement.