Given the contemporary salience and political significance of the topic in both Georgia and Russia, this [book] seems a worthwhile direction for further research.

Recensio

Japaridze has written the next chapter in Stalinist history. It has been almost seventy years since Stalin's death, and yet he continues to cast a long shadow on post-Soviet Russia and Georgia. The continued nostalgia, fear, and fascination surrounding Stalin's legacy have become watermarks of modern political and cultural identity, showing how the past continues to palpably shape the present.

Margaret E. Peacock, The University of Alabama

Fascinating, revisionist, and original, this is a shrewd analysis of the different identities of Stalin, examining how, in Georgia, Russia, and the West, he remains a titanic but brooding presence in our political world seventy years after his death.

Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Superbly written and highly engaging. In the middle of acrimonious debates in the West about the dangers of the rehabilitation of Stalin and Soviet nostalgia, Japaridze offers a fresh and courageous look at the 'Third Stalin,' expertly revealing how the millennial generation grapples with the intense ethical dilemmas, contradictory emotions, and multiple historical lessons that have conditioned the formation of their own post-Soviet identities, sense of national belongings and global experiences.

Alexander Cooley, Columbia University

Elegantly written and intensely personal. Japaridze navigates the nuances and complexities of Georgian and Russian nostalgia, memory, and identity. Far from a typical assessment of Stalin, this book instead offers us a glimpse into current Russian and Georgian societies via their simultaneous adulation and demonization of the former dictator.

Julie A. George, City University of New York

As a Georgian herself, Tinatin Japaridze presents an experimental, fascinating, and impressionistic view of Stalin's legacy in Soviet and Post-Soviet Georgia. In contrast to the traditional academic studies of Stalin's biography and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, Japaridze offers her own interpretation of Stalin's legacy, based on her own impressions after her visits to Stalin's birthplace in Georgia. Concentrating on three topics-nostalgia, trauma and nationalism, Japaridze distinctly explains Stalin's legacy in post-Soviet Georgia, which can help us understand the recent developments in post-Soviet space, especially the rise of Stalin's nostalgia in Putin's Russia today.

Sergei Zhuk, Ball State University