IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/ccasxx/v42y2023i1p61-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Place-name wars in Karabakh: Russian Imperial maps and political legitimacy in the Caucasus

Author

Listed:
  • Arsène Saparov

Abstract

Place names play important ideological role in the modern Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict over Karabakh. Both sides use toponymic evidence to claim a prior occupation of the disputed territory. Azerbaijan relies on the Russian maps to prove that the Armenian population are recent newcomers. Armenians point out to the medieval documents to prove the opposite. This article attempts to reconcile the contradictory evidence used by both sides by looking at the transformation of place-naming practises in the wake of the emergence of a modern bureaucratic state.I argue that before the rise of modern bureaucratic state in Europe the place-naming was not within the realm of the state interest. The Russian conquest brought the uniformity of toponymic landscape into Caucasus where several toponymic landscapes coexisted in time and space. This resulted in elevation of one landscape into an official landscape and silencing of the other.

Suggested Citation

  • Arsène Saparov, 2023. "Place-name wars in Karabakh: Russian Imperial maps and political legitimacy in the Caucasus," Central Asian Survey, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(1), pages 61-88, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:42:y:2023:i:1:p:61-88
    DOI: 10.1080/02634937.2022.2085664
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/02634937.2022.2085664
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02634937.2022.2085664?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:ccasxx:v:42:y:2023:i:1:p:61-88. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/ccas .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.