Useful and Necessary Book about Outstanding Personalities from Afghan History and Culture

MGIMO University published the second edition of the book Afghan Novels and Stories by Ye. D. Ostrovenko. Yevgeniy Dmitrievich served as Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan in 1992 and was the first ambassador to present credentials signed by the President of Russia to the head of the Afghan state. His book makes a great contribution to strengthening bilateral ties between Russia and Afghanistan, expanding the horizons of knowledge about this country, its history and culture. Candidate of Historical Sciences, Ye. D. Ostrovenko worked for many years both in Afghanistan itself and in the central apparatus of the USSR and Russian Foreign Ministries in the Afghan direction and knows Afghanistan firsthand. He saw more than fifty years of the history of relations between the USSR and Russia with Afghanistan pass before his eyes, and often participated in them personally. The book is in a rare genre combining history, including archives and other historical materials, and fiction. It revolves around personalities, yet manages to show a bigger picture of the history and politics of the country and its peoples. The book tells about a number of outstanding personalities, but special attention is drawn to the poet and warrior Khushhal Khan Khattak (XVII), the first ruler of the independent Afghan state Ahmed Shah Durrani (XVIII), statesman and diplomat Muhammad Wali Khan (late 19th – early 20th centuries). Some of the novels present unique findings of the author. So, in the process of creating the story Canal E. D. Ostrovenko relied on the experience of his practical work as a translator and his novel can be considered original historical evidence. Through the collection of short stories readers get acquainted with the peculiarities of Afghan life, learn about the difficult, and sometimes dangerous, everyday life of Russian diplomats. The new edition includes two newly published novels Pashtun scholar, devoted to M. G. Aslanov, the author of the Pashtu-Russian dictionary, and Warrior fighting with two swords. Book by E. D. Ostrovenko is written in excellent Russian and is easy to read. The author makes extensive use of classical Afghan and Iranian poetry, which arouses additional interest among specialists, including students of the Afghan languages — Pashto and Dari. The book was met with a favorable reception by the Afghans themselves, receiving a wide response and high praise from the Afghan diaspora in Moscow. It will be a useful read not only to students studying Afghanistan, but also to anyone interested in the culture of this wonderful country with its complex and multifaceted history.