Stories From The Eastern West
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
CHAIN
01 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the very last episode of Stories of The Eastern West as you knew it, we’re taking you to Estonia, 1989. A group of people there made 2 million o...
EXILE
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Get to know Piotr Szkopiak, a London-based film and TV director who’s spent a good portion of his life pondering the nature of his identity. ...
REVOLUTION
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nicolaus Copernicus, born in 1473, was the orphaned son of a copper merchant in Toruń. Thanks to his bishop uncle, he obtained a first class educatio...
DAISIES
07 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vera Chytilová was the most important woman director of the Czechoslovak New Wave – although she remains relatively unknown outside of Central Euro...
VISIONARY
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stanisław Lem was a science-fiction writer whose works, abilities and quirky sense of humor convinced Phillip K. Dick that he was too brilliant to...
Announcing Season IV
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This year we have more great stories for you! There's going to be a bit of sci-fi, a pinch of socialist realism, a good portion of astronomy, and some...
STATELESS
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1967, Marian Marzyński was a popular TV show host and filmmaker in Poland. But then a seemingly faraway military clash sparked an unexpected co...
PUPPETS
01 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1938, Hitler's forces marched into Czechoslovakia, a country that had only gained its independence two decades earlier. A puppeteer named Josef ...
WITNESS
27 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 2019, we got the chance to interview Anastasija Gulej. She was 95 at the time, living a happy life in one of Kyiv's suburbs. If you didn’...
WITCHES
31 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
‘Romania today is possibly the only European country where you can bump into a witch at the supermarket.’ The history of witches in Europ...
LUNAR
30 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 1976, the late Polish film director Andrzej Żuławski, responsible for infamous cult classics such as The Devil (1972) and Possessio...
ORPHANS
31 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
After the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east in 1939, many thousands of Polish families were deported to Siberian forced labour camps. The...
NAM
30 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As much as The People’s Republic of Poland may seem a distant country hidden behind the Iron Curtain, it was an open and welcoming one... towards ot...
SHIPYARD
31 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1980, after the firing of popular shipyard worker, Anna Walentynowicz, a strike broke out at the Vladimir Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk. Sudd...
PURE
16 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Chernobyl had cast a shadow over our childhoods. It was reportedly the cause of all the chronic diseases we’d struggled with. In the summer of 2018,...
Announcing Season III
08 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This year, we've travelled to the far reaches of the globe for you: we went deep down into the Chernobyl Exclusion zone, visited New Zealand, and went...
EWA & LENA
01 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a teen's letter to a stranger in the Soviet Union led to a long-distance friendship that has lasted decades. Like many teens growing up in the ...
KAIE
25 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a giant communal song festival helped Estonians regain independence from the USSR. Part of our mini-series The Final Curtain. In the E...
PETRILA
18 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a Romanian mining town that lost its mine fought to turn its remains into a cultural hub. In our second and final episode on Ion Barb...
ION
11 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a Romanian miner made political caricatures at a time when making fun of the country's leadership could mean a visit from the secret police. ...
IRYNA
04 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a single mother in Kyiv experienced the end of the USSR and survived the harsh economic realities of life in post-communist Ukraine in the ear...
EDGAR & MICHAEL
27 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How East Berlin's leading political cabaret tried to get their message through despite strict state censorship... and what happened when the syste...
TYMON
20 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Meet the headstrong musician who's been viciously rebelling against both of the systems he lived under... and created some truly worthwhile art ...
JACEK
13 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a banned singer-songwriter became an unwilling musical hero through his home-copied cassettes. Jacek Kleyff was an increasingly popul...
SIEGBERT
06 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How an East German cameraman filmed the first major demonstrations in the GDR from the top of a church steeple in Leipzig. A month later, East Ger...
WOJCIECH
29 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How Polish opposition activists began transmitting their own pirate radio and 'hacked' communist-run state TV. Part of our mini-series The Final C...
CHRIS
23 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a photographer from London gave the rest of the world a glimpse of everyday life behind the Iron Curtain. Part of our mini-series The Final Cu...
ZBIGNIEW
23 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How a well-known opposition leader evaded capture by the communist authorities for almost five years. Part of our mini-series The Final Curtain. In...
Announcing: The Final Curtain
09 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
THE FINAL CURTAIN: a new series of personal tales from the Eastern Bloc’s demise. Launching August 23rd in the Stories From The Eastern West feed!...
CRACKED
28 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Finland + technology = Nokia, doesn’t it? Yes, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Finland is responsible for many technological breakthroughs...
HUNT
14 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
During WWII, the Third Reich had a systematic policy of plundering artwork from countries they invaded. In occupied Poland, this took place on a m...
TRANSMUTATION
31 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Alchemy – the supposed ancient art of turning everyday objects into gold – is widely believed to be obsolete. Interestingly, however, every bit of...
NAKED
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The German Democratic Republic was known for being one of the more politically repressive countries in the former Eastern bloc, with its Stasi secret ...
Rabbithole Two
14 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In this bonus episode, you’ll get to hear a song that usually doesn’t leave the thick walls of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Rich...
MESMERISED
03 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The story of a man who mesmerised half a continent... Get it on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Overcast | RSS | Direct do...
CONTINUATION
20 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
After having to leave Poland, Grotowski continued his ground-breaking work in the United States, before finding a permanent home in Pontedera, Ital...
SEARCH
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999) undoubtedly had a profound influence on the transformation of contemporary theatre over the last 40 years. Starting out ...
SHOETOPIA
22 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The Czech shoe-maker Tomáš Bat'a was a visionary. A deep believer in capitalism, he dreamt up a unique functionalist city and started building...
SUPERSTAR
09 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In 1863, the 3-year-old Ignacy Jan Paderewski probably wasn’t aware that his fellow Polish countrymen were in the midst of a doomed uprising aga...
Rabbithole One
26 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know that sports stars from behind the Iron Curtain pretty much competed for no money? In this little bonus episode, Władysław Kozakiewicz,...
ARM
26 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Hear the pole-vaulter who offended the entire Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow explain himself. Władysław Kozakiewicz, a pole-...
Announcing Season II
10 Oct 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The new season of Stories From The Eastern West is nearly here! This year, we've really stepped up our game. You'll notice we have a new theme tune, ...
CLIMB
31 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Discover the relentless climber who changed the world's deadliest sport... In the early 1960s, a woman decided that the way men were dominating the w...
[BONUS] UNCLE
23 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Learn how observing an old Christmas tradition resulted in a mystery that was never resolved. All of us at SFTEW want to thank you so much from the bo...
EXPERIMENTAL
07 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Discover the Iron Curtain's unlikeliest music haven and the people who made it happen. In 1957, the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) first open...
REBEL
22 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Get to know the doctor who defied prejudices, the media and the entire system to save people’s lives. In 1967, South African surgeon Christiaan Barn...
SPY
08 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States used espionage extensively to gather information about the opposing side. To do t...
BABY
25 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Delve into the fascinating background of classic horror film Rosemary’s Baby and learn how it was made. In 1968, Rosemary’s Baby debuted in theate...
NUCLEAR
18 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Discover how Joseph Rotblat went from creating nuclear bombs to winning the Nobel Peace prize. The American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is gene...
PALACE II
11 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Learn how a strange unwanted building became a lasting symbol of a capital city. In the first of our two-part series on Warsaw’s Palace of Culture...
PALACE
04 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Find out about the creation of Stalin's controversial Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. Following World War II, much of Poland lay in ruins and...
ZOO
27 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hear how the Żabiński family saved the lives of countless Jews during the Nazi German occupation. In September 1939, Nazi Germany began their in...
ESPERO
20 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Learn how Ludwig Zamenhof single-handedly created an entire language, Esperanto, in the 19th century. Esperanto is the most widely-spoken artificial ...
BOWIE
13 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Explore the meaning and story behind one of David Bowie's most iconic songs. In 1973, while travelling by train across the Soviet Union and Eastern ...
BULLETPROOF
07 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Learn how a Polish monk created the first bulletproof vest and, in doing so, changed the world. In 1897, at a public demonstration in Chicago, a man a...
BEAR
31 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Hear all about a brave bear named Wojtek who came to join the army in a time of war. After being released from Soviet prison camps, exiled Polish sold...
STONES
31 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Find out what happened when the Rolling Stones went behind the Iron Curtain. One of the common characteristics shared by communist regimes throughout ...
COMPETITION
31 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Learn how the result of a piano competition had the power to shock an entire nation. The International Chopin Piano Competition takes place every five...