BBC Radio 4 LW

Russia: The Wild East

Documentaries

Factual: History

A history of Russia, written and presented by Martin Sixsmith

Russia: The Wild East: Series 1

Russia: The Wild East: Series 1: Episode 20: The Last Tsar

Series 1

Episode 20

Episode 20: The Last Tsar

The Last Tsar

BBC Radio 4 - Russia: The Wild East, Series 1, The Last Tsar

Trouble at home and disaster abroad weaken the Tsar fatally as Martin Sixsmith reveals.

The last Tzar is crowned in 1896, but weakened by crises at home and abroad, suddenly the mighty tsarist system doesn't look so mighty. Martin Sixsmith hints at revolution.

It is the turn of the century and the days of Imperial Russia are numbered. Nicholas II was crowned in May 1896. Nearly 1400 men, women and children were crushed to death in the crowds at his coronation, which was quickly seen as a bad omen. Within a year, disturbances had broken out in Russian universities and the Socialist Revolutionaries were disrupting government by murdering senior government ministers close to the Tsar. Double agents used their privileged position to mount further assassinations. 
By the end of 1904, Russia was close to turmoil and a strike at the Putilov Engineering works in St Petersburg spread quickly to other factories. Within a month a hundred thousand workers had downed tools.

Dmitry Shostakovich's eleventh symphony - The Year 1905 - portrays the bloody culmination of the strikes on Sunday the 9th of January, when soldiers opened fire on protesters bringing a petition to the Tsar, leaving more than a hundred dead in the snow. 

And trouble at home was soon to coincide with disaster abroad. Aggressive expansionism in the far-east had brought Russia into conflict with Japan, and the catastrophe of Tsushima in which Russia lost eight battleships and four cruisers, with 4000 men dead and 7000 taken prisoner. That and the uprising in Odessa, immortalised in Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin, dealt Tsarism an immortal blow from which it would never recover. Suddenly the mighty tsarist system didn't look so mighty after all. 

The resulting concessions introduced by the Tsar were seen as an admission of the regime's fragility. As Martin Sixsmith hints, 'It wouldn't take much for the whole edifice to come crashing to the ground.' 

Historical Consultant: Professor Geoffrey Hosking


Producers: Adam Fowler & Anna Scott-Brown
A Ladbroke Production for BBC Radio 4.

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Russia: The Wild East

Series 1

Episode 20: The Last Tsar

Genres

Formats

Brand

Series

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4