Professor Donald Rayfield picks up Crimea’s story in spring 1942, when Germany turns south for the Black Sea and oil. Some Tartars can't imagine anyone worse than Stalin. Some can't imagine anyone worse than Hitler. Tragically, they are both right though in different ways.

Donald explains the realities of the German occupation, from the early “orderly” phase to the arrival of SS units whose mission is extermination of the Jews. Astonishingly some Jews are spared as the ever 'scientific' Nazis rule they are not Jews at all.

Then comes one of the great crimes of world history. Stalin decides to deport the entire Crimean Tatar nation to Central Asia. Donald tells the story of the cattle trains, the scale of death and the uncertain welcome for survivors in Uzbekistan. Crimea itself is stripped of Tatar presence through renamed towns and seized homes.

We bring things up to date with the 1990s return and the brief cultural revival under Ukraine . But the post-2014 Russian annexation brings renewed repression. As Donald says 'History can always get worse'.

It is a fascinating episode.

Donald Rayfield returns for the second of three episodes on Crimea — this time taking the long view, from the Mongol Golden Horde to Catherine the Great's annexation and the early Soviet period.

At its height the Crimean Khanate was a sophisticated and surprisingly humane state. It was also, as Rayfield puts it, the self-appointed freeholder of the former Mongol empire — and it collected its rents in the form of money, livestock, and human captives. Eventually, the leaseholders rebelled.

A story of revival after disaster, and disaster after revival, ending in the grim absorption of the peninsula into the Russian imperial project.

Along the way we admire the fighting skills of the Tatars and learn about a mysterious shop in Venice which would sell you poisoned almonds!

The subject today comes out of the Crimean war (1853-1856).

I talked to Professor Donald Rayfield, Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian history at Queen Mary University of London, about the war itself and in particular what happened to those taken prisoner. Surprisingly life could be pretty good!