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Start the Week

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

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Andrew Marr

Masha Gessen

Dominic Rubin

Liwaa Yazji

Roy Allison

Start the Week: Russia, religion and the Middle East

Russia, religion and the Middle East

04/12/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Start the Week, Russia, religion and the Middle East

Masha Gessen, Dominic Rubin, Liwaa Yazji and Roy Allison with Andrew Marr.

Cultural discussion programme. Andrew Marr talks about Putin's aims at home and abroad with Masha Gessen, Dominic Rubin, Liwaa Yazji and Roy Allison.

Totalitarianism has reclaimed Russia. So journalist Masha Gessen tells Andrew Marr. Her book 'The Future is History' follows four figures born as the Soviet Union crumbled and whose new-found freedom is being slowly eradicated. The Soviet Union banned religion but ranked citizens by "nationality" - with Jews near the bottom and ethnic Russians at the top. Dominic Rubin explores the country's relationship with religion in 'Russia's Muslim Heartlands', while Oxford professor Roy Allison unpicks Russian involvement in the Arab world. Putin is influential as far away as Libya and Egypt, and is a key ally to the Assad regime in Syria. And just as Putin has mastered the art of propaganda at home, Moscow-born Liwaa Yazji looks at the role of propaganda in the Syrian civil war through her new play 'Goats'.

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

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