’A Seditious and Sinister Tribe’: The Crimean Tatars and Their Khanate

With implications for the war in Ukraine, a surprising history of the Crimean Tatars from the fifteenth century to the present day.

The Crimean Tatars were the Turkic-speaking native peoples of Crimea who established a powerful khanate in the 1440s, which remained in power until 1783. In this, the first history in English of this khanate for over one hundred years, eminent scholar Donald Rayfield shows that this misunderstood and much-feared nation was, in fact, a flourishing state with a vibrant literary culture, religious tolerance, a sophisticated constitution, and a prosperous economy. Rayfield’s book describes the establishment of the khanate, its reign, and its eventual fall, concluding with a vivid portrayal of the ruthless suppression of the Tatars--first by Russia and then the Soviet Union--and the final, effectively genocidal, invasion under Vladimir Putin.

This vibrant and ultimately tragic chronicle is essential reading for anyone interested in the background of the current war in Ukraine.

Donald Rayfield is emeritus professor of Russian and Georgian at Queen Mary University of London. His books include Anton Chekhov: A Life and, from Reaktion Books, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia, which was translated into Russian and Georgian.