This exhibition of my photographs taken in Afghanistan ends a lifelong obsession with war and its consequences. 

I was born in the year when WWII began.  I was ejected from my country by a brutal Soviet occupation, just like many Afghans were thirty years later.  Lithuanian guerillas resisted for seven years before being wiped out, but they showed the world that the Soviet war machine could be dented.  The mujahideen cracked it and put an end to some of the fantasies that drove the dense minds behind the thick walls of fortress Kremlin.

Photographs can show many things, but not everything.  My photographs show details.  I try to offer something complete in every image, that is all I can do.

The larger context of my photographs is that the parliamentary elections that were held on September 18th of this year ended a 25 year period of war, anarchy, and madness.  The Afghans now have a republic, provided they can keep it, as has been said of Americans two centuries ago.  It is a work in progress, a work of peace, at last, not war.

Needless to say, I have a great admiration for the people of Afghanistan.  Despite the vast differences, I always felt at home there.

Jonas Dovydenas

© Jonas Dovydėnas