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.
"""A remarkable and revelatory work of phenomenal historical scholarship, written with great verve and aplomb. A classic of its kind.""--William Boyd ""Rayfield has written a magisterial history of the Crimean Tatars, who in centuries past had a deep and unduly overlooked impact on war and peace in Poland, Austria, and Russia. Rayfield's book takes us right through to the Putin era, giving a vivid picture of a people who once terrified their neighbors and are now again threatened with extinction in their homeland.""--Robert Service, emeritus professor of Russian history, St Antony's College, University of Oxford ""While many observers see the war in Ukraine as being between Russians and Ukrainians, there is a third nation involved in this conflict: the Muslim Crimean Tatars. Rayfield tells their story in an epic account of Europe's last Mongol khanate and its long wars with Russia that ultimately led to tsarist conquest and a Soviet-era genocide. The story of this small ethnic group's struggle to survive continues up to this very day as the Crimean Tatars seek to rebuild their shattered nation in a beloved Crimean homeland that has once again been invaded by their historic Russian foes.""--Brian Glyn Williams, author of ""The Crimean Tatars: From Soviet Genocide to Putin's Conquest"" and ""Inferno in Chechnya"" ""Underpinned by a dizzying array of factual knowledge, 'A Seditious and Sinister Tribe' offers an in-depth exploration of a major Turkic people that has been historically misrepresented and misunderstood.""-- ""Book Blast"""