Iconic Russian voices from the last five decades are on air again in the BBC Russian Voices from the Archive video series.
The first series consists of 12 parts and begins on Friday 16 September on bbcrussian.com.љ It features the voices of Joseph Brodsky, Maya Plisetskaya, Andrei Sakharov, Anna Politkovskaya, Andrei Tarkovsky and other Russian and Soviet personalities, based on their interviews with BBC Russian.
Each episode is introduced by the veteran broadcaster Seva Novgorodsev who conducted many of the original interviews. Other interviewers are journalists such as Masha Slonim, Natalia Rubinstein, Boris Nadan, Tatiana Berg, Diran Meghreblian and Igor Pomerantsev.
Seva Novgorodsev said: “Over decades of broadcasting, BBC Russian has accumulated a great deal of hugely valuable, often unique recordings. I am very proud to be fronting this fascinating new series which brings back the voices of people who, each in their own way, made history. Voices from the Archive is a testimony of times and lives, it’s the BBC at its best.”
The first episode of Voices from the Archive features film director Andrei Tarkovsky and ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, based on BBC interviews from 1981 and 2006.
The following episodes feature:
- nuclear physicist and dissident, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Andrei Sakharov (1978) and singer and philologist Anna Gerasimova-Umka (2001)
- journalists Alexei and Rada Adjubei (Nikita Khruschev’s son-in-law and daughter) (1991)
- musician Boris Grebenschikov (1996) and Countess Anna Shuvalova (1990)
- Natalya Koroleva, daughter of top Soviet rocket engineer and designer Sergei Korolev (2003) and musician Sergey Kuryokhin (1992)
- composer Oleg Karavaychuk (1990) and journalist Anna Politkovskaya (2003)
- physicist and dissident Yury Orlov (1986) and poet and translator Renata Mukha (1990/91)
- politician Galina Starovoitova (1992) and bass guitarist Sasha Titov (1996)
- writer Andrei Sinyavsky (1988) and literary critic Sophia Bogatyryova (2000)
- Nobel Laureate for Literature, poet Joseph Brodsky (1987)
- dissident poet Irina Ratushinskaya (1987) and Red Army general Vasily Petrenko (2001)
- broadcaster and writer Anatol Goldberg who headed BBC Russian during the Cold War (1961).
New episodes of Voices from the Archive series will be published every Friday on bbcrussian.com, after which they will be available on demand. Following the initial 12 episodes, there will be new editions of Voices from the Archive coming soon.
(Source: BBC press release)