Rural Families in Soviet Georgia : A Case Study in Ratcha Province

Tamara Dragadze is the only western-trained anthropologist to have done three years' field work in any rural area of the Soviet Union. The result of her ethnographic study of a village in Ratcha Province in the foothills of the Great Caucasian Range is this unique account of family life in rural Soviet Georgia. Dragadze provides a detailed ethnography of domestic life, showing how rural families adapt their traditional ways in response to Soviet policy and including an account of women's roles and of socialization. Her book is an important contribution to the study of the relationship between social institutions and the State, and it demonstrates the relevance of social anthropology and detailed ethnographic case studies to political science and Soviet studies in particular.