Nested Nationalism. Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus: Krista A. Goff, Ithaca, NY & London: Cornell University Press, 2020, xiv + 319pp., £41.00 h/b.

On the other hand, the percentage of the titular nation increased dramatically: while in 1939, Azerbaijani-Turkish speaking Muslims formed only 58% of the total population, in 1959, '67.5 percent of people in the Azerbaijan SSR were categorized as Azerbaijani' (pp. 133, 130). Therefore, when Soviet Azerbaijan officials spoke about "Leninist national rights", they actually meant the rights of the titular nationality (p. 129), not those of the other, smaller ethnic groups. This "double assimilation" led to discrimination against smaller ethnic groups, who were forcibly assimilated within the titular nation as a first step towards the final goal, the fusion of all nationalities into the ultimate group, that of Soviet citizens, a progressive, socialist identity. [Extracted from the article]