The autonomous Soviet republic of the Crimea was established in October 1921 as part of the Russian Federative Republic. A few months later came the announcement that the new republic was to be ‘tatarised’, in accordance with a policy which was already being implemented in other territories but which was not systematised, in the form of ‘indigenisation’, until 1923. This article examines how the Bolsheviks imposed their authority in the Crimea. It analyses the dealings and negotiations among the principal actors in both Moscow and the Crimea, and traces the establishment of rules and agreements. It also examines the uncertainties and anxieties that troubled the Crimean Communist Party when the enthusiasm of some Crimean communists for indigenisation rapidly led to suspicions of nationalism. This article, written from the periphery, throws light on the construction of a multinational Soviet state by focusing on the actors and their actions.

‘Geography costs – why does the map of Europe never stay put?’ The American poet Carl Sandburg posed that question in 1940 as the European continent was engulfed by another great conflict, the second in a generation. The course and conduct of the two world wars continue to dominate publishers’ lists but several recent volumes offer stimulating interpretations of Europe's international history during the intervening twenty years. They shed a sobering light on the cost of geography and on the challenges of statecraft, because what moved the map were not only the tectonic forces of socio-economic change but also the decision-making of political leaders.

Fascism continues to fascinate scholars within the social sciences, perhaps as much as communism, that other great non-democratic ‘-ism’ of the twentieth century. The topic also seems to be of continuing interest to the student and commercial book markets. In some cases bland repetition is the norm, but the pressure from commercial publishers often results in some excellent syntheses, even if based on secondary material, and that is not to mention the biography genre, which is always attentive to charismatic leaders and dictators — the more cruel the better. Moreover, the already voluminous academic literature on contemporary dictatorships often returns to the fascist and dictatorial regimes of the inter-war period. It is therefore only natural that Fascism should be incorporated in a series of handbooks published by Oxford University Press.