Anastas Mikoyan: An Armenian Reformer in Khrushchev's Kremlin by Pietro A.Shakarian. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2025. 376 pp. $110.00. ISBN 978‐0‐253‐07354‐9

There is little question that Anastas Mikoyan represents a compelling candidate for scholarly study. He was, after all, an Old Bolshevik who was in the thick of the action from before the revolution to the arrival in power of Leonid Brezhnev almost five decades later. As Shakarian makes clear from the outset, however, Mikoyan was much more than just “the great survivor” of the Soviet political elite. Indeed, when William Hayter (British ambassador in Moscow during the mid-1950s) shared his personal impressions of members of the post-Stalin leadership, he wondered whether Mikoyan might the best politician of the lot. What Shakarian has written is neither a straight biography of Mikoyan as an individual nor a wide-ranging account of his time as an integral part of Khrushchev’s leadership team (the latter of which would be especially fascinating, with Mikoyan trying, and occasionally succeeding, to exert a restraining influence on the impulsive Khrushchev at key moments). Instead, the book takes as its principal focus various interactions between Mikoyan and his native Armenia during the period following Stalin’s death. In exploring a March 1954 speech by Mikoyan in Yerevan—during which he called for greater tolerance for national self-expression in the union republics and also for the rehabilitation of the beloved Armenian poet Yeghishe Charents, who had been repressed during the Terror and blacklisted as a nationalist thereafter—the opening chapter makes a compelling case for his place in the picture of evolving nationalities policy in particular, and also of post-Stalin liberalization more broadly. Indeed, the work’s central theme of Mikoyan as a key driver behind moves toward greater tolerance for diversity (albeit still within bounds) after years of Stalinist suppression of national cultures feels entirely convincing and well substantiated. Beyond that, we see Mikoyan as a major influence in the decision to allow Chechens and Ingush to return home after Stalin-era mass deportation, and also in formulating an official discourse about nationalities policy (for the Third Party Programme, and also the ultimately-abandoned project to write a new constitution) that pushed back against attempts at greater centralization and assimilation. Perhaps most impressive is how Shakarian shows the ways in which Mikoyan time and again came out to bat for his home republic: informally advising leaders in Yerevan how best to present their requests and concerns to Khrushchev, helping them navigate the corridors of power at the all-union level, and lobbying in Moscow for investment and the development of infrastructure (from brick factories and aluminum plants to canals aimed at saving the shrinking Lake Sevan). There is much here, then, that genuinely advances our understanding of how politics worked at the highest levels. The author consistently takes a fairly positive view of his subject, and there is not a lot here in the way of criticism or exposé of misdeeds. This feels broadly understandable—a multitude of accounts tell us that Mikoyan was personable and charming, and in the context of the times in which he operated, one could hardly list him among the most egregious offenders of the Soviet elite. There are, however, points at which the reader might want to see slightly more critical engagement. We are told, for example, that a vital catalyst to Mikoyan’s support for reform during the period in question came from a sense of guilt at involvement in Stalin-era repressions. One would be wary of readily accepting this same explanation for why Khrushchev engaged with reform after Stalin’s death: only Khrushchev himself and those closest to him have really made such a claim. Perhaps not unrelatedly, there is some tendency for sources like Mikoyan’s own memoirs and the recollections of his son Sergo to be cited uncritically in making such important points. Again, one would perhaps not take the same approach regarding memoir material by or about Nikita Khrushchev. The above notwithstanding, this is a work that is rooted in deeply impressive research. In discussion of Mikoyan’s contributions to the Third Party Programme and the abortive constitution project, for example, we see forensic detail on how Mikoyan’s blue pencil crossed out all manner of proposals that he disagreed with on nationalities matters in particular, with his views most often carrying the day and ensuring that notions like the fusion of Soviet people (sliyanie), which alarmed many non-Russians especially, did not become codified in key ideological documents. While the present work still leaves plenty of scope for a fuller biography of Anastas Mikoyan—one that takes in his formative years as a revolutionary, his fascinating family, his relationships with Stalin, Khrushchev, Castro, and others—this does feel like a genuinely substantial contribution that sheds important light on a key figure of the Soviet leadership and a broadly under-studied republic in Armenia, on the mechanisms of power and patronage in the post-Stalin USSR, on policymaking after Stalin, and more.