Many researchers (such as Antrop 2005) have demonstrated that there have been periods when the amplitude of landscape changes has been more gradual or abrupt. Cosgrove (1984) showed that each socio-economic formation creates its own landscape with its symbols and meanings. We have showed elsewhere (Palang et al. 2006) that in Eastern Europe there have been three rather major political turnovers resulting in what we have called "layered landscapes". Now we would like to turn our attention to the cause itself with the help of Juri Lotman's semiotics. 

One of the Lotman's semiotics focus points is the question of balance between statics and dynamics. The key point in Lotman's model is that after a qualitative change (which he calls explosion) the culture must be able to describe its own change. During the explosion this sort of describing is impossible. If a culture is able to describe the explosion, the pre-explosion becomes part of the culture, if not, the link is lost. Explosion's description creates a new meaning system. So how landscape can change without losing its identity?