a mutual rapprochement of Soviet nations but, on the
contrary, a process of mutual alienation and separa-
tion.

Soviet statistics and popular literature, based upon
the same wishful thinking, tended to exaggerate the
level of literacy among the peoples of the far north
and of Central Asia. Official propaganda grossly over-
stated the proficiency and use of Russian as a second
language. And, it fabricated the demise of religious
practices and the spread of atheism. I must confess
that the authentic preservation, despite terrible perse-
cution, of shamanistic and animistic "pagan" traditions,
not only among people of Siberia but also in the middle
Volga basin, was never fully understood even by those
anthropologists who, facing incredible difficulties,
tried to study such phenomena professionally. Simi-
larly, they failed to comprehend the practical function-
ing of the norms of adat (customary law) and sharia
(Islamic law) among peoples of Central Asia and the
Caucasus.

Thus, it is not surprising that for most people out-
side the USSR, the Soviet Union was basically "Rus-
sia." The cultural and social differences between the
constituent nations of that union seemed to be obso-
lete, irrelevant, and largely nonexistent. Clearly, that
misperception yielded serious shortcomings in West-
ern understanding and public opinion.

Today, more than ever, people in America and
Europe need to overcome such misperceptions. In-
creasingly they need to deal not with some loosely
defined "Soviet Russia," or Moscow, but directly with
Ukrainians, Georgians, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz--also
perhaps very soon with Tatars, Iakuts, Tuvinians, and
Chechens. In such a context, this important, insightful
work of the Bataldens, filled with accurate, useful, and
up-to-date information, will prove particularly valu-
able.

These remarks were written in July 1993 as a fore-
word to the first edition. Arutiunov is Chair of the De-
partment of Caucasian Studies, Institute of Ethnology
and Anthropology ( Moscow), and a Corresponding
Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

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