The Crimean Assr – New Frontiers and Prospects in the Study of an Actual Problem

The latest publication on the history of the Crimean autonomy in 1921-1945 is analyzed – a collective monograph by Crimean scientists «The Outpost of the Union in the South …: essays on the history of the Crimean ASSR, 1921–1945» (2024). The importance of the book for the objective perception of a rather complex and contradictory historical period, where outstanding labor achievements, mass repressions, interesting experience of nation-building were side by side attempts to create Jewish autonomy, the hardest war years, the vicissitudes of the resettlement policy. At the same time, it is demonstrated that the publication practically lacks information about the most important component of the Crimean history of that period – cultural development. Culture in the Crimean ASSR is presented in the book schematically, selectively and biased. The plots related to the preparation of the «Crimean Soviet Encyclopedia» in the 30s of the twentieth century and the activities of the Oriental faculty of the local university, as the most striking for characterizing cultural construction in the autonomy, are reproduced.