鈥淭his is a story of great grief, Of the great grief of the entire nation, Of those who died in a foreign land, dreaming of their homeland. Their cruel enemy exiled them to Siberia. Cry for them, our homeland, Pray to God for them, our Motherland!鈥�
"God Save the USSR stands out as a major achievement, contributing to both Soviet political history during the Second World War, and to the social history of Soviet Muslim communities in wartime. The author's use of poetry and other religious literature composed by Soviet Muslims at the front for their families constitutes a groundbreaking advance in the scholarship of Soviet Islam and of the USSR in the Second World War, opening new and heretofore underappreciated avenues and revealing how Soviet Muslims expressed their experiences outside of officially-sanctioned propaganda channels." -- Allen Frank, author of Gulag Miracles: Sufism and Stalinist Repression in Kazakhstan
"This is an excellent addition to a small but growing number of studies making the case for new ways of thinking about Muslim religious life in the USSR. Drawing upon a source base that spans much of the Soviet Muslim world, Eden's engaging and well-argued book brings to light the ways in which Soviet Muslims negotiated an undeniably religious space for themselves in the context of Soviet ideology and policy hostile to Islam and to religion in general." -- Devin DeWeese, Indiana University, Bloomington
"This is a brilliant and original book. Jeff Eden uses a rich trove of previously unknown sources to explore the experiences of Soviet Muslims during World War II. He tells the story of the wartime 'revolution in religious life' mainly from the perspective of Muslims in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia, who range from young Red Army soldiers praying in foxholes to elites raising money for the war effort. God Save the USSR deserves to be read by anyone interested in Soviet history, Soviet Muslims, and the Second World War." -- Adrienne Edgar, University of California, Santa Barbara