This package draws together Russia: The Wild East Parts 1 & 2 and all episodes from the series.

Part 1
The first 25 episodes
Here Martin Sixsmith brings his first-hand experience of reporting from Russia to this fascinating narrative, witnessing the critical moment when the Soviet Union finally lost its grip on power. Power struggles have a constant presence in his story, from the Mongol hordes that invaded in the 13th century, through the iron autocratic fists of successive Tsars. Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great – all left their mark on a nation that pursued expansion to the East, West and South. Many Tsars flirted with reform, but the gap between the rulers and the ruled widened until, in 1917, the doomed last Tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated.
The first part of Sixsmith’s history ends with Lenin and the Bolsheviks forcing through the final Revolution and paving the way for the Communist state.
Eyewitness accounts and readings from Russian authors and historians, from Pushkin to Solzhenitsyn, enhance this fascinating account, as well as music taken from a wide range of Russian composers including Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Borodin and Shostakovich.

Part 2
The second part in this fascinating Radio 4 production covers the post-revolutionary period up to the present day and includes: Civil war; The Peasant’s Revolution; the End of the World Revolution in the 1922; industrialisation; purges and the rewriting of history; World War Two; the Nuclear Age beginning in 1949; the death of Stalin in 1953 followed by ideological expansion in the 50s and 60s under Krushchev; Gorbachev’s reforms in the 80s and 90s leading to destabilisation; the Chernobyl disaster; Yeltsin and the end of the Soviet Union, Putin and the re-assertion of democracy.
Finally, Sixsmith pulls all the themes of both series together and looks at Russian identity under five headings: Autocracy vs Democracy; East vs West; Collectivism vs Individualism; Multi-ethnic empire vs Slavic nation state.

This package draws together Russia: The Wild East Parts 1 & 2 and all episodes from the series.

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