'Russia: Inventing the nation by Vera Tolz makes a major contribution towards elucidating how Russians' own understanding of themselves has evolved over the past three centuries. Most previous Western histories have treated the Soviet Union as an irrelevant or regressive period in the evolution of Russian nationhood. Tolz ""brings back the Soviet Union"", not idealizing it but showing that it played its own paradoxical and ambivalent role.'

Times Literary Supplement

'Russia, by Vera Tolz, is thoroughly researched and clearly written. Reading the book is illuminating...'

History: Reviews of New Books.

'Although a volume so kaleidoscopic in content, so allusive in argument, and so multilayered in construction necessarily yields more to those familiar with the subject than it can to the novice, Tolz writes vigorously throughout, and readers at all levels of sophistication will have something to learn from her consistently interesting book.'

Slavonica

'[A] substantive and solid overview of the basic concepts and formative issues related to Russian nationalism...[A] valuable addition to the existing studies on these issues.'

Slavic and East European Journal