How a ballerina survived the Gulag

The arresting gaze, the stark monobrow, the intricate ribbons woven through the dark hair – Frida Kahlo's unmistakable image is recognised around the world today. Yet the woman behind the vivid self-portraits was far more complex than the icon she became. In conversation with Dan ...  Show more

What did Tudor England really gain from its early encounters with the Americas? In this episode, Elinor Evans speaks to historian Dr Lauren Working about her new book A Golden World, exploring the overlooked exchange of ideas, materials and knowledge between Indigenous peoples an ...  Show more

In the midst of the Cold War, Joseph Stalin's only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, decides to flee Mother Russia to start a new life in America. But with the KGB on her tail, how on earth is she going to get out? Playwright Dan Kitrosser unravels her story. See omnystudio.com/list ...  Show more

In the midst of the Cold War, Joseph Stalin's only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, decides to flee Mother Russia to start a new life in America. But with the KGB on her tail, how on earth is she going to get out? Playwright Dan Kitrosser unravels her story. See omnystudio.com/list ...  Show more

In 1970, Natalia Makarova became the first female ballet star to defect to the West from Russia.The dancer claimed asylum during a UK tour, nine years after another Russian dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, had defected.Natalia later joined the American Ballet Theatre in New York. She woul ...  Show more

The great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova lived through some of the darkest chapters of Soviet history, but never stopped writing even though the communist regime repeatedly tried to silence her. One of Anna's most famous poems, Requiem, is about her son's arrest and the Stalinist te ...  Show more