St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies

FOREWORD The full scope ofAfghan Studies has not been categorically defined until now for the reason of obvious uncertainty with both geographical and disciplinary boundaries of the subject-matters related to this field of research. Notwithstanding its explicit ethnical and nation marker “Afghan Studies” are commonly and rightly understood as not focusing entirely on a particular state or a specific nation, but encompassing a wide range of issues which in the following conceptual note are described as “the Afghan trans-boundary cultural and linguistic oecumene ”. The lack of clear-cut spatial and temporal limits, vast territorial, cultural and all kinds of societal liminal areas, intrinsic frontier and multidimensional nature of the research field make Afghan Studies open to scholars with different academic backgrounds and interests. The first St Petersburg International Conference of Afghan Studies manifests its multi- and interdisciplinary character through the thematic variety of papers contributed by specialists in various fields of humanities and social sciences; thus it also aims at defining the very scope of Afghan Studies in a broader sense. The Conference commemorates a number of outstanding St Petersburg scholars who contributed much to the progress of Afghan Studies. Foremost it pays homage toAcademician Professor Bernhard Dorn (1805–1881), who for almost four decades (since 1842) was Director of the Asiatic Museum in St Petersburg. B. Dorn left several important works that laid academic foundations of Afghan Studies and pioneered the teaching of the Pashto language at St Petersburg Imperial University. The brief outline of this teaching course, preserved in Dorn’s archives, displays a combination of topics concerning the language, the literature and the history of