Afghanistan today

New Russian titles on Afghanistan

Sikoev, Rouslan R. The Press of Afghan Emigration. The Institute of Oriental Studies (Moscow, 1999), 147 pp. In Russian, with English summary.

R.Sikoev, former Director of the House of Science and Culture under Soviet Embassy in Kabul, currently working at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, covers in his book the available Afghan exile press. Being pretty fluent in Afghan languages, he analyses many editions, published by Afghan exile groups in Russia and worldwide, and ranged from left-radical to Muslim fundamentalist. The concluding chapter of R.Sikoev's book is on political situation within Afghan diaspora itself and its role in future Afghanistan. Being pioneering contribution in the field in sense of its [book-size] format, this book, however, is not comprehensive investigation of the subject under consideration, because its source base is fare from being pretty representative, there are many factual errors and confusions. The main shortcoming of above edition is that it is too focussed on one kind of sources, namely, Afghan exile press, rather occasionally collected titles/samples, and don't address some relate works by experts in the subject.

Korgun, Victor G. Afghanistan: Politics and Politicians. The Institute of Oriental Studies (Moscow, 1999), pp. 140, in Russian, with English summary.

At the moment Victor Korgun is, probably, the best Russian expert on recent developments in Afghanistan. Although the author may be estimated as balanced and objective expert on Afghanistan (indeed, rare thing within Soviet and even world Afghan studies), his recent book is actually the reappraisal of his own previous research on Afghanistan, and besides this, Professorship thesis work. Its main topic is the evolution of Afghan political system, heavily personalized and extremely contradictory/complicated process. V.Korgun is experienced and masterly pen in the field (he is also a member of editorial staff of Asia and Africa today magazine - Russian leading edition on recent developments in the East), and his book greatly proves this. The only disadvantage of Korgun's Afghanistan is its narrow reference/source base, caused by long-time isolation of Soviet/Russian Afghan studies, and, may be, peer tiredness/satisfaction by the state of research.