Other maps of Greater [Fill in the Blank]

In general, Maps of "Greater [Fill-in-the-Blank]" can be tools for nationalist or irridentist arguments. Through mapping the relationship of a people and its homeland, they make a claim, they lay bare their aspirations. Rather than depicting what is, they often seek to depict what should be. As such, they also reveal the varying meanings of home for different nationalist movements. The German Heimat, for example, has historically been understood ethnolinguistically as German-speaking communities outside of the political boundaries of Germany. Explanations linked to historic rule over a territory are also common. In 1945, Poland justified the annexation of eastern Germany by claiming that it was part of the Piastyczne (Piast era) lands that were ruled by the Polish dynasty from 800 AD. In both cases, homeland maps were deployed with the aim of transform nationalist understandings of the homeland into facts on the ground Mapping national victimhood can often be another powerful way of making claims to a specific territory. A Polish map produced around the time of the 1945 border conflict depicted Germany as a rabid dog with casualties engraved on a chain around its neck, emphasizing that the lands were reparations for the suffering Germany caused to Poland during World War II. In the Armenian Genocide Museum in Yerevan, Armenia, visitors encounter a map engraved on the wall depicting "Historic Armenia," a territory ten times the size of the current Republic of Armenia. Much of the map includes territories in present-day Turkey that were ethnically cleansed during the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The vast territorial claims made by this map are thus justified by the suffering of the Armenian people on this land, as well as historic claims to the land. In cases when differing definitions of national homelands overlap, the result in the zero-sum game of nation-state sovereignty can be conflict, as illustrated by both the German-Polish example as well as the Armenian-Turkish example.