Orlando Figes

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Historian Professor Orlando Figes brings to life the characters that have shaped Russia’s history and says their stories are important in making sense of the country today.

Figes looks at stories including the crowning of 16-year-old Ivan the Terrible in a candlelit cathedral, Catherine the Great riding out in a green uniform to arrest her husband at his palace, and the last days of the Romanovs. He says that the way Russians have told their story and reinvented it as they went along is a key aspect of their history, culture and beliefs. We need to unravel the ideas and meanings of that history to understand what Putin means for Russia and what the future holds.

Figes is professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has written widely on Russian history including A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924, winner of the Wolfson Prize, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia, Crimea: The Last Crusade, and Just Send Me Word: A True Story of Love and Survival in the Gulag.