The country called the Soviet Union doesn’t exist any longer. But the people who were born there do. Journalist Torgny Hinnemo tells of meetings and episodes from forty years of travelling in Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus/White Russia, Moldova, Centra ...
The country called the Soviet Union doesn’t exist any longer. But the people who were born there do. Journalist Torgny Hinnemo tells of meetings and episodes from forty years of travelling in Russia, the Ukraine, Belarus/White Russia, Moldova, Central Asia and South Caucasus. As the Moscow correspondent for Stockholm’s Svenska Dagbladet, he followed the gradual collapse of the Soviet state on the spot, and then how the new states built their institutions and brought their own national cultures to the fore.
During just over ten years up to 2009, the author was the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s analyst for the former Soviet republics and the stories are mixed with historical flashbacks and personal reflections around developments since the fall of the Soviet Union. The deeper background to major events such as the Chechen wars and the massacre in Andijan. The book includes portraits of the Russian leaders Gorbachev, Jeltsin and Putin, but also glimpses of some Caucasian and Central Asian leaders. These are contrasted with the author’s own experiences and conversations with other people from all levels of society.
Besides politics, we also get to meet people in Central Asia who tell of their view of Islam. The ‘father of Uzbek literature’ Gafur Guliam is introduced with a couple of new translations. This is a book that is aimed just as much at the general interested public as at readers with a deeper knowledge of the region.
Torgny Hinnemo is a journalist and lecturer. Has a background as a specialist on the Soviet Union. Worked for Svenska Dagbladet, a major Swedish daily, for 20 years, and was their correspondent in Moscow in the early 1990s. For ten years, up until 2009, he was the Swedish Foreign Ministry’s analyst for the former Soviet Union’s now sovereign states.