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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Cities on the Brink

The Essay: Cities on the Brink: Episode 4: St Petersburg

Factual: History

St Petersburg

Episode 4

Episode 4: St Petersburg

Cities on the Brink

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Cities on the Brink, St PetersburgClose menu

Steve Rosenberg revisits 1914 St Petersburg and an event that would define modern Russia.

BBC correspondent Steve Rosenberg tells the story of the chess tournament that defined the St Petersburg of 1914, as well as modern-day Russia.

Stepping back in time, BBC News correspondents present their personal perspectives on the capital cities of major European powers that fought the Great War.

The series continues with the remarkable city which would - uniquely - soon be renamed amidst bloody regicide and revolution: St Petersburg.

The BBC's Moscow correspondent, Steve Rosenberg, finds a revealing connection, however, between the St. Petersburg of a hundred years ago and its counterpart of today.

He tells the remarkable story of the Grand International Masters' Chess Tournament of 1914, with its starring cast of Russian, German, French, British and American competitors and its dramas of who won and who lost.

But the tournament also demonstrated the Russian passion for chess that continues to this day and helps define its national identity as well as the fierce competition with other countries.

Producer Simon Coates.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Perspectives on the capital cities of European powers involved in World War One

BBC news correspondents present personal perspectives on the capital cities of the major European powers that, later in 1914, would face each other in the First World War

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Episode 4: St Petersburg

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