On 26 April 1986 the worst nuclear reactor accident in history occured in Chernobyl and contaminated as much as three quarters of Europe. While the official Soviet narrative downplayed the accident's

*BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week* The long-awaited translation of the classic oral history of Soviet women’s experiences in the Second World War - from the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature “Why

"Why, having stood up for and held their own place in a once absolutely male world, have women not stood up for their history? A whole world is hidden from us. Their war remains unknown... I want to

'A major work by one of our greatest living historians. . . an immense achievement' - Jane Graham, Big Issue 'Astonishing. . . Like the great Russian novels, these testimonials ring with emotional

From 1979 to 1989 Soviet troops engaged in a devastating war in Afghanistan that claimed thousands of casualties on both sides. While the Soviet Union talked about a 'peace-keeping' mission, the dead

Extraordinary stories about what it was like to be a Soviet child during the upheaval and horror of the Second World War, from Nobel Laureate Svetlana Alexievich What did it mean to grow up in the