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Twenty years ago, 15 new states emerged from the wreck of the Soviet Union, uneven shards from a broken monolith. One story turned into 15. Most Soviet watchers have been struggling to keep up ever since. How to tell these multiple stories? In retrospect, it is evident that Western commentators failed to predict or explain what has happened to these countries: their lurches from one crisis to another, weird hybrid political systems, unstable stability. So here is a not entirely frivolous suggestion: How about skipping the political science textbooks when it comes to trying to understand the former Soviet Union and instead opening up the pages of Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky? This is not just a thought experiment; the works these authors wrote in the 19th and early 20th centuries turn out to be surprisingly applicable to today's politics in a broad swath of the former Soviet space, whether it's the unexpected fragility of Putin's authoritarian rule in Russia or the perpetually failed efforts to modernize next-door Ukraine. Adapted from the source document.

HAS CHECHNYA REALLY BECOME A 'FRONT IN THE WAR IN TERROR' AS PUTIN REPEATEDLY CLAIMS, OR HAVE 10 YEARS OF RUSSIAN BRUTALITY AND INTRANSIGENCE DRIVEN THIS TINY REPUBLIC INTO THE ARMS OF ITS OWN RADICAL ISLAMISTS?