Sir Antony Beevor

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363 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 6 Jun

Sir Antony Beevor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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TRIGGERnometry · The Russian Mindset and Where it Comes From - Historian Sir Antony Beevor · 6 Jun 2026 podcast

from being the prisoner of its own past.

And it was a prisoner of its own past.

And as you say, it was an occupied, oppressive past for many centuries indeed.

But it was also something which is still to this day, they cannot quite escape.

So although

The Orthodox Church, the whole idea of holy Slavophil Russia was a vital element in escaping from that Tatar non-Christian past.

It's become so deeply embedded that we see today that Vladimir Bedinsky, Dugan, some of the ideological influences on President Putin

have this reaction of believing that Europe should come under basically an Orthodox, Russian Orthodox influence all the way from Vladivostok to Dublin, they even said, which is sort of an astonishing idea.

But it is somewhere sort of deep again in the Russian psyche, the old Russian psyche, if you like.

that only this Russian spirituality deserves to spread and expand.

But this, again, is very much a reaction to the idea of having been crushed by the Tatar yoke.

Well, I was very struck by when the Duke of Marlborough went to, I think this was in 1902, went to Moscow and Petersburg and at a reception with the Tsar, with Nicholas II, his wife asked Nicholas II, you know, why is democracy not possible in Russia?

And he said Russia has to be 200 years behind Western Europe.

And this was very much of an idea that to protect Russian tradition, to protect Russian culture, this time lag was essential.

But it was also part of the idea that, you know, as soon as you loosen the chains, then chaos will break out.

And in a sense, when you have such a landmass, such a vast landmass,

And how do you maintain control?

So you could say that the expansion in some ways is also there's an element slightly of the anxious billionaire mentality that, you know, that unless I get more money, I'm going to lose the whole lot.

And this is very much, again, the attitude of seeking more external, abroad, near abroad territory.

all the way to the Far East.

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