The Soviet Elphinstone

Abstract

This chapter offers a brief history of how the thought of Mountstuart Elphinstone was received among Soviet scholars of Afghanistan. The connection may not be obvious at first, but Russian language scholarship on Afghanistan outpaced that in any other language from the early twentieth century onward owing to the special nature of Soviet-Afghan relations following the October Revolution and Afghan independence. Likewise, close Soviet-Afghan relations during the Cold War – culminating in the decade-long occupation of the country by the Soviet Army – framed the context for later Soviet scholarship on the country. This chapter demonstrates that "Elphinstonian epistemes" very much had an afterlife in Soviet scholarship on the country, because many authors were misled about the identity of the Afghan state in Kabul with Pashtun populations on both sides of the Durand Line. Worse, these readings of Afghanistan had intermingled with crude readings about the "revolutionary" nature of Afghan Communists and their opponents. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, attentive scholars urged more nuanced concepts to make sense of Afghanistan, but as this chapter demonstrates, Elphinstonian tropes very much framed the Soviet romance with – and disaster in – twentieth century Afghanistan.