From Murray Handbooks to Lonely Planets: Shifting Perspectives on Traveling to the Disputed Territories of Nagorno-Karabakh and Crimea in Several Lonely Planet Guidebook Editions (2000–2024)

Résumé En

When Murray first covered the Caucasus (1865), it was then part of the Russian Empire; the legacy of Russia remains strong in the region. Nagorno-Karabakh has seen bloody tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan since the USSR’s collapse: a first war between 1988–1994, a conflict in 2016, a second war in 2020, and a final conquest by Azerbaijan in 2023 with the subsequent exodus of its population. The popular Lonely Planet (LP) guidebooks interestingly fall between these key dates. The first Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan edition was published in 2000, several years after the first war, with updated versions appearing in 2004, 2008 (after the Russia–Georgia war), 2016, 2022, and recently, 2024. The editors explicitly evoke the history of the conflicts and adapt the itineraries based on the danger zones. LP’s coverage of Crimea is less substantial. The authors remain largely neutral about the 2014 Russian annexation in their 2018 Russia edition. Crimea is duly included in the map of Ukraine in that country’s 2018 guidebook, but again, a brief account of the dispute is given. Arguing that it is advised not to travel there, the authors simply present the main touristic destinations and leave it to the “Western tourist” to deal with the “ethical” question of traveling to an illegally annexed territory. The 2018 editions of these two countries are the latest releases; it remains unclear how LP will deal with the political realities of today, in the planned 2025 editions. My talk proposes to systematically study these guidebooks and compare the (un)changing representation of these regions over the years. Whether through the use of maps or the “history” sections explaining the conflicts, LP writers mediate the traveling experience, mostly for a Western or English-speaking audience who might otherwise be unfamiliar with these lesser-visited regions, let alone their disputed territories.