Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants
in Leningrad and Moscow
By Jeff Sahadeo
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019, 273 pages, $46.95, ISBN: 9781501738210
Russian Practices of Governance in Eurasia:
Frontier Power Dynamics, Sixteenth Century
to Nineteenth Century
By Gulnar Kendirbai
London: Routledge, 2020, 232 pages, $160, ISBN: 9780367196752
Central Asia: A New History from the Imperial Conquests to the Present
By Adeeb Khalid
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2021, 556 pages, $35, ISBN: 9780691161396
The three works reviewed in this article address Eurasia in different periods and different areas of concentration. Each one provides valuable information in understanding the historical and political developments that have affected the Eurasian landmass. Understanding this huge geography, its people, its past and present situation requires a holistic approach with detailed knowledge and awareness of regional peculiarities.
The first book, Voices from the Soviet Edge: Southern Migrants in Leningrad and Moscow, is a survey undertaken by means of interviews conducted among immigrants coming to Moscow and Leningrad during the last decades of the Soviet Empire. The stories of former subjects of the Tsarist imperialist regime of Ce