The complete BBC Radio 4 series

Russia: The Wild East

The complete 50 episodes of Russia; The Wild East, an epic BBC Radio series tracing Russia’s turbulent history from its origins to the present day.

Power struggles have a constant presence in Martin Sixsmith’s story of Russia. Collected here in 50 episodes, he chronicles the Mongol hordes invading in the 13th century, through the iron autocratic fists of successive Tsars, to the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia’s re-emergence as a superpower. 
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. After the whirlwind of the revolution, the Bolsheviks struggled to consolidate their victory. To rescue the economy and save the regime, Lenin made concessions to the people. But after his death, Stalin introduced forced collectivisation and industrialisation, condemning the Soviet people to conditions worse than those experienced under the Tsars. Nikita Khrushchev reversed the worst excesses of Stalinism, and in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on radical reforms of the communist system – unleashing unforeseen consequences that swept him from power and destroyed the USSR. 
Martin Sixsmith brings his firsthand experience of reporting from Russia in the 1980s and ‘90s to his narrative, witnessing the critical moment when the Soviet Union lost its grip on power. He asks if the recurring patterns of Russian history can help us understand what has happened since 1991, when the promise of Western-style democracy aroused so many hopes for change. Eyewitness accounts, archive recordings and personal testimony enrich his narrative, as well as readings from Russian authors and historians such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vasily Grossman, plus music by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and others.

A 1,000-Year Chronicle of the Wild East

Russia

Martin Sixsmith's bestselling history of Russia, now available in paperback

Sixsmith has the knack of delivering complex material with a clear voice

Russia, a 1,000 Year Chronicle of the Wild East contains many of the required ingredients to become the leading popular history of Russia. Colloquial, personal and anecdotal in style ... well researched and factually sound.

"Russia" delivers a thoroughly satisfying history...a lively opinionated narrative.

Martin Sixsmith studied at Oxford, Harvard and the Sorbonne. From 1980 to 1997 he was the BBC correspondent in Moscow, Washington, Brussels and Warsaw. From 1997 to 2002 he worked for the Government as Director of Communications and Press Secretary to Harriet Harman, Alistair Darling and Stephen Byers. He is now a writer, presenter and journalist. He has written two novels, Spin and I Heard Lenin Laugh, and is the author of three non-fiction titles - Moscow Coup: The Death of the Soviet System, The Litvinenko File: The True Story of a Death Foretold and The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty Year Search. He lives in London.

Russia is a country of contradictions: a nation of cultural refinement and artistic originality and yet also a country that rules by 'the iron fist'. In this riveting history, Martin Sixsmith shows how Russia's complex identity has been formed over a thousand years, and how it can help us understand its often baffling behaviour at home and abroad. 
 
Combining in-depth research and interviews with his personal experiences as a former BBC Moscow correspondent, Sixsmith skilfully traces the conundrums of modern Russia to their roots in its troubled past, and explains the nation's seemingly split personality as the result of influences that have divided it for centuries. 
 
A Sunday Times bestseller, Russia is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the complex political landscape of this country, and its unique place in the modern world.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Martin Sixsmith

One man’s fight to save his country’s soul

'I'm a fairly calm fellow; I don't usually get het up about things. But I was, let's say, concerned when I tuned into the Moscow Echo radio station and heard that the Kremlin had put a price on my head. The announcement didn't quite say 'dead or alive'. But it came close...' Mikhail Khodorkovsky, March 2021 
 
 Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime - and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. 
 
 Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey, from Soviet youth to international oil executive, powerful insider to political dissident, and now a high-profile voice seeking to reconcile East and West. 
 
 With unparalleled insight, written with Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith, The Russia Conundrum exposes the desires and damning truths of Putin's Russia, and provides an answer to the West on how it must challenge the Kremlin - in order to pave the way for a better future.

Martin Sixsmith

Books by Martin Sixsmith

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter