Revolutionary Russia: Orlando Figes (1917)

In the final sentence of A People’s Tragedy, his multi-award winning study of the Russian Revolution, Orlando Figes wrote ominously that, ‘the ghosts of 1917 have not been laid to rest.’

This year, as Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has played out, we have been able to glimpse some of these ghosts: fear, paranoia, grievance. All these emotions have arisen out of a long, complicated and contested history that Figes has attempted to explain for a Western readership in his illuminating new book: The Story of Russia.

In this episode we talk about Vladimir Putin’s use and misuse of history today and we look back to a particularly significant year in Russia’s past. 1917 brought revolution to Russia. ‘It is hard to think of an event, or series of events, that has affected the history of the past one hundred years more profoundly’, Figes writes.

The Russian Revolution is an event that began in Petrograd (St Petersburg) in Feburary 1917 and thereafter was driven forward by Vladimir Lenin's singular character. We scruitinise this event, as ever, in three telling scenes.

Orlando Figes’s The Story of Russia is out now from Bloomsbury.

Show notes

Scene One: March 1917. Tauride Palace in Petrograd (St Petersburg).

Scene Two: 3-4 July 1917. Kshesinskaya Mansion in Petrograd.

Scene Three: 25 October 1917. Smolnyi Institute in Petrograd.

Memento: Grand Duke Michael's abdication manifesto

People/Social

Presenter: Peter Moore

Guest: Orlando Figes

Production: Maria Nolan

Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours

Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan

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