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

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Drama on 3

Drama

Series of drama performances, ranging from experimental works to the Classics

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Robin Brooks

Fiona Shaw

Alex Waldmann

Michael Bertenshaw

Sion Pritchard

Mark Edel-Hunt

Will Howard

Clive Hayward

Robert Pugh

Sam Dale

Simon Armstrong

Matthew Watson

David Cann

Melangell Dolma

Chris Gordon

Sion Ifan

Alex Hope

Alison Hindell

Drama on 3: August 1914

August 1914

31/08/2014

BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, August 1914

Dramatisation of Solzhenitsyn's novel about the Russian army's defeat by Germany in 1914.

Robin Brooks's dramatisation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's novel about the Russian army's defeat at the hands of Germany in 1914 as they advanced into East Prussia.

A new adaptation for radio of Nobel Prize-winner Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's epic story of the first battle of the Eastern Front in 1914 - which was a disaster for Russia. Solzhenitsyn's book was published in the West one year after he won the prize - with sections about Lenin omitted. It was only after his expulsion from the USSR that the complete book was available. This new production is narrated by Fiona Shaw.

In August 1914, Colonel Vorotyntsev advances into East Prussia in search of the elusive front line. As he encounters the truth about the German war-machine his military ideals rapidly tarnish and he must decide whether to volunteer his men for certain death or retreat. At the outbreak of the First World War, the Russian advance met with catastrophic results. Bungled orders, poor and insufficient supplies, out-dated equipment and tactics, and deliberate misinformation resulted in chaos and the near-annihiliation of the army at the hands of the Germans. Three years later the tsarist regime fell as Lenin led the October Revolution.

Dramatised by Robin Brooks from the translation by H.T.Willett

Sound Nigel Lewis & Catherine Robinson

BBC Cymru Wales production.

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.

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