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Dawood Azami (University of Westminster, London)
The Historiography of Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
The modern historiography of Afghanistan began in the early 1930s, when
the Literary Society (
Anjoman-e adabi
) in Kabul and the Pashto Society (
Paštō
anjoman
) in Kandahаr were founded on the French model. A number of works
concerning mainly the medieval and ancient history of Afghanistan were produced
in the following years.
Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is one of the most important phase of Afghan
and regional history with far reaching consequences both for Afghanistan and
the wider world.
The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in
December 1979, to
support the communist regime poised on the brink of collapse from widespread
popular rebellion. After a decade long war, that destroyed most of Afghanistan’s
infrastructure and resulted in the death of more than a million Afghans, the Soviet
troops withdrew from the country. This was the first defeat of the Soviet Union in a
land whose inhabitants say they have always beaten foreign armies, fromAlexander
the Great to modern times.
This paper analyses a number of works, mainly written by Afghans, in which
the Soviet invasion and its aftermath form a major focus. While not fitting into the
framework of official historiography, a number of memoirs provide interesting
information on the situation inAfghanistan in the last thirty years of the 20
th
century.
The paper focuses on works written both by some of the main players as well as
scholars on the post-1979 situation, and identifies a number of appropriate thematic
questions which could improve our understanding of the history of Afghanistan
before, during and after the Soviet invasion. The paper raises a few new questions
worth investigating and concludes with suggestions for lines of inquiry which have
not been addressed in the existing literature.
Секция II.
Источниковедение и историография
Афганистана и Ирана
Historiography of Iran and Afghanistan
