"Carmack provides insightful and well-researched perspectives into Kazakhstan during World War II that not only challenges established wartime narratives, but also sheds light on the process by which the Kazakhs became Soviets, and reveals the intense ethnic chauvinism that underlay Soviet nationality policy."—H-Net Reviews
"[Carmack’s] concise study is a welcome addition to the literature on World War II in general and more specifically on Kazakhstan’s role in that war."—Michigan War Studies Review
“A comprehensive survey of Kazakhstan’s participation in World War II that incorporates substantial archival sources [and] contributes in the field of Soviet history and is recommended for postgraduate students and specialists of Central Asian history.” —Europe-Asia Studies
“This is an interesting, good read for those specializing in Soviet history or the Nazi-Soviet War.”—New York Military Affairs Symposium
”Kazakhstan in World War II is a thoroughly researched and broadly conceptualized study that contributes significantly to our understanding of Kazakhstan and the USSR during World War II. By an examination of archival materials in Kazakhstan and Moscow, of memoirs, and of the periodical press, Carmack reveals the prejudice and suffering endured by Kazakhs and by other non-Russian nationalities among deportees, evacuees, and conscripts of the Labor Army. The author highlights exceptionally well a fluid and oft-contested relationship among local, republican, and national leaders exacerbated by shortages of human and material resources. Carmack makes a compelling case for a complex and uneven integration during the war and in the period immediately thereafter of Kazakhstan’s bureaucracy, economy, and people into the larger Soviet Union.”—Larry E. Holmes, author of Stalin’s World War II Evacuations: Triumph and Troubles in Kirov
“World War II was the moment when the diverse peoples of the Soviet Union were tested under fire and forged into a mobilized force that defeated fascism. With Roberto J. Carmack’s vivid study of Kazakhstan in wartime, we have a deep analysis of how this vast and multiethnic country was politically integrated into a relatively cohesive community. Although Russians enjoyed more privileges than Kazakhs, languishing at the bottom of the Soviet hierarchy of nationalities were the exiled peoples—Volga Germans and North Caucasians—who were considered treacherous and rebellious. Condescension and discrimination between Kazakhs and Slavs hindered an easy passage into “Friendship of the Peoples,” and yet over time many Kazakhs identified with the Soviet project and celebrated the victory over the invaders as a triumph they shared with other Soviet peoples. Persuasively argued, this book breaks new ground in our understanding of the complexities and contradictions of Soviet imperial history.”—Ronald Grigor Suny, William H. Sewell Jr. Distinguished University Professor of History and Political Science, University of Michigan
“This book illuminates the Soviet war effort in Central Asia, a critical but rarely examined aspect of the war. Carmack makes extensive use of Soviet-era archives to reveal Kazakhstan’s experience of World War II, its contributions to the Soviet war effort, and the ways in which the war transformed and ‘Sovietized’ the region and its people. Focusing on wartime mobilization, nationality policy, and the state’s treatment of repressed and deported populations, Carmack’s study should be essential reading for anyone interested in the Soviet home front both at the regional and national levels.”—Kenneth Slepyan, author of Stalin’s Guerrillas: Soviet Partisans in World War II