What is the BBC Russian Service and what is it for?

A look at what the BBC does in Russian, today, what it did in the past and what it plans for the future (by Jessy Kaner, BBC Russian Service Multimedia Producer)

What is the BBC Russian Service, what does it do today? Why does it even exist and what are its plans for the future? I will try to answer these questions using sounds and images in a talk which looks back to 1941 and stretches forward to 2020. I will explain how bbcrussian.com works today and tell the story of how the Russian Service began in 1946, how it changed over the years, adapting to the needs of its listeners during the Cold War, always with the aim of growing audiences across the Soviet Union to keep a connection with them even in the face of government opposition and jamming (or KGB jazz, as we liked to call it). I will talk about some of the remarkable people who worked there and ask what part the Russian Service played in the course of events during the coup against Gorbachev in 1991. You will hear the voices of some famous interviewees, dissident writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, his friend the great musician Mstislav Rostropovich, Svetlana Alliluyeva (Stalin’s daughter), Margaret Thatcher and rock musicians Sergei Kuryokhin and Boris Grenbenshchikov, and the poet Joseph Brodsky. I will explain how the BBC Russian Service adapted as Russia changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when some people asked whether it should continue at all. 
After almost two decades of shrinking the Russian Service is now expanding and I will conclude by saying a little about the exciting and dynamic changes planned today to face new challenges in the Russian media environment and to keep ahead in an age of new technology.
Når: 27.09.17 kl 12.15–14.00
Hvor: SVHUM A-1018
Sted: Tromsø
Målgruppe: alle
Ansvarlig: Andrei Rogatchevski
Legg i kalender