Turkey and the Soviet Union During World War II
Product details
- ISBN 9781788311342
- Weight: 540g
- Dimensions: 164 x 236mm
- Publication Date: 28 Nov 2019
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Based on newly accessible Turkish archival documents, Onur Isci's study details the deterioration of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union during World War II. Turkish-Russian relations have a long history of conflict. Under Ataturk relations improved – he was a master ‘balancer’ of the great powers. During the Second World War, however, relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union plunged to several degrees below zero, as Ottoman-era Russophobia began to take hold in Turkish elite circles. For the Russians, hostility was based on long-term apathy stemming from the enormous German investment in the Ottoman Empire; for the Turks, on the fear of Russian territorial ambitions.
This book offers a new interpretation of how Russian foreign policy drove Turkey into a peculiar neutrality in the Second World War, and eventually into NATO. Onur Isci argues that this was a great reversal of Ataturk-era policies, and that it was the burden of history, not realpolitik, that caused the move to the west during the Second World War.
