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View all search resultsLeadership school of Prabowo Subianto
Prabowo Subianto’s two-volume memoir, offering insight into Indonesia’s history, values and future under his presidency, is now introduced to Russian readers.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) shakes hands with then Indonesian president-elect Prabowo Subianto during a meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia on July 31, 2024. (AFP/Pool/Maxim Shemetov)
O
n June 19th the Russian-Indonesian summit starts in St. Petersburg. To coincide with this landmark event, the Institute of Oriental studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the scientific and analytical portal “The Eastern Tribune” have timed the publication of a two-volume memoir written by President Prabowo Subianto, a military general, political figure and a person with striking ingenuity. He is the leader of the most populous Muslim country in the world, a nation with a complicated, but glorious history, an influential member of the global majority, enjoying well-deserved esteem both internationally and regionally.
The book presented to Russian readers and entitled “The Art of Military Leadership” was written by Prabowo Subianto when he was defense minister.
What is so intriguing about this book containing two volumes? Firstly, it is hard to determine its genre, as it is composed in a most original and compelling manner.
The first volume comprises narratives about various leaders, primarily belonging to the military, who the author encountered during his lifetime and who served as an example of military service and also civil accomplishments.
It is worth mentioning that these people were not only the author’s seniors or his peers of the same age, but also those inferior to him in rank or position. However, the book does not offer his memoirs in the strict sense of the word, as the author’s descriptions do not concentrate on a chain of events, but rather on various human characters and standards of behavior.
The simple language used by the author should not be a misleading tool in the eyes of a discriminating reader, as this simplicity conceals a lot of inextricable psychological motivations for people’s actions, most often under very unusual circumstances.
Much of what is narrated by Prabowo deals with pages of old and recent Indonesian history, including that which is little known or totally unknown to the general public.
