A world-renowned anthropologist, Anatoly M. Khazanov offers a witty, insightful, and cautionary analysis of ethnic nationalism and its pivotal role in the collapse of the Soviet empire. “Khazanov’s encyclopedic knowledge of the history and culture of post-Soviet societies, combined with field research there since the 1960s, informs the case studies with a singular authoritative voice. This volume is destined to be an absolutely necessary reference for the understanding of ethnic relations and the politics of minorities in the ex-USSR into the next century.”—Leonard Plotnicov, editor of EthnologyFirst Paperback Edition