REVIEW OF JEAN LOPEZ & LASHA OTKHMEZURI, JOUKOV: L`HOMME QUI A VAINCU HITLER

Abstract

Most of the history of the Baltic States in the 20th century is completely dominated by their relation to the Eastern giant, the Soviet Union. What the Soviet Union represented was not only an authoritarian, and at times, totalitarian rulership but also a constant fear of the unpredictable. Two French military historians, connected with the journal Guerre et Histoire, have recently managed to go through newly opened archives in Russia to unveil the unpredictable career of the most distinguished commander of the Red Army, Gregory Zhukov. Their book entirely confirms the impression among Baltic people that the Soviet Union was fundamentally instable in the sense that anything could happen: state arbitrariness.