Donald Rayfield's 'A Seditious and Sinister Tribe' Shortlisted for 2025 Pushkin House Book Prize

Donald Rayfield's 'A Seditious and Sinister Tribe' Shortlisted for 2025 Pushkin House Book Prize

In the wake of the Ottoman Empire’s crushing defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–74, one senior Turkish diplomat placed the blame squarely on the Empire’s Crimean Tatar allies. In his memoirs, he described them as having “become weak and lazy, addicted to tea, coffee and opium.” For him, the failure was not merely military—it was civilizational. “The Crimean Tatars have since ancient times been a burden…,” he declared. “They are a seditious …