Sabine Dullin works at the Institute of political studies, which is part of Sciences Po in Paris. The French edition of her book appeared in 2014, based on her well-researched doctoral dissertation, defended in 2010. But French does not belong among the standard skills of those who do Soviet history. So, this careful translation into Russian is very welcome.

The book consists of an Introduction, five chapters, and conclusion. The Introduction briefly discusses historiography and formulates the key element of the author's methodological approach. It is based on an asymmetrical comparison, which allows Dullin to show which elements of Soviet policy were similar to the policy of the neighboring states, and what was really unique in the Soviet approach to how the border was conceptualized, administered, and consolidated since the establishment of Soviet state until the early stages of the Second World War. This way Dullin, while avoiding trivialization of Soviet experience, manages to show how many elements of Soviet border policy were typical for the interwar practices of the USSR's neighbors also. Dullin shows multiple functions of the border in Soviet policy: as a defensive line, as a front of ideological confrontation and expansion, as a showcase of socialist achievements. She shows how the border zone was consolidated and transformed into a world with a special legal regime and norms of behavior.

Dullin's focus is on the European borders of the USSR, and she worked in central Russian archives, in the archive of Vyborg, and in the archives of Belarus. Asian areas also get some attention, however. She studies the policy of the central authorities’ ads concerning local administration and the ways in which ordinary people had to accommodate themselves to the conditions of the border zone.

Dullin also studies the public image of the Soviet border guard in Soviet art, including film. The first chapter is mostly focused exactly on the exceptionally prominent role of a heroic border guard in Soviet imagery. It also discusses the role of Soviet border guards in transformation of local life in the border area.

The following four chapters are organized chronologically. Chapter 2 covers the period of 1920–1923, when Bolsheviks in their anti-imperial drive and in hope for new revolutions made significant concessions to the newly-emerging states in the former imperial borderlands. Following the Soviet approach to nationality politics and principles of national self-determination, Moscow also made significant concessions at the expense of Russian Federative Republic when drawing the borders between newly-created Soviet republics. At that time, the very concept of a border as rather broad space (border zone) was taking shape.

Chapter 3 shows how the border was used in the framework of the Piedmont principle as a showcase window for projecting Soviet influence abroad in 1920s, and how it was transformed into a border of a besieged fortress in early 1930s, when hopes for world revolution gave way to fear of foreign influences.

The fourth chapter describes how in the second half of the 1930s the border zone was transformed into a “no man's land” by deportations, resettlements, and the denunciation of treaties about trans-border relations concluded in 1920s. Deportations on ethnic bases in 1937–38 were supplemented by mass arrests and executions based on ethnic and social criteria, while the border zone became extended from 7.5 to 25 kilometers.

The final chapter describes the moving of Soviet borders westward in 1939–1940, as the result of annexations of parts of the territories of Finland, Poland, and Romania. These events combined as the Soviet drive for revanche, their new concept of control of the outer spaces as security measures and the implementation of ethnic principles.

The book offers rich illustrative material and often rare archival photographs. Sabine Dullin has written a conceptually rich, highly-informative, and well-narrated book, which should become an important addition to the syllabi of many courses on Soviet and east European interwar history.