Borat Before Borat (1970) w/ Jill Lepore

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 15 June 2021

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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It’s June 15th. This day in 1970, Russian television reporter Valentin Zorin aired an episode of his series “Masters Without Masks.” For decades, Zorin was the primary source by which Russians understood what life in America was like.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by historian Jill Lepore to discuss Zorin’s influence and his mix of truth-telling and propaganda — and whether there are any voices like his today.

Zorin’s story is the subject of an episode in the latest season of Jill Lepore’s excellent podcast “The Last Archive.” Check it out here: http://podcasts.pushkin.fm/thisday

Find a transcript of this episode at: https://tinyurl.com/esoterichistory

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Julie Shapiro, Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:10.0	This day, June 15, 1970, an episode of the documentary series Masters Without Masks aired on Russian television.
0:19.0	The documentary series was the work of a Soviet journalist Valentin Zoran who for decades basically the entire second
0:26.1	half of the 20th century traveled the United States and reported on life in America for
0:31.2	viewers back in Russia.
0:33.0	And I think it's safe to say he was one of the main forces, if not the main force, shaping the way that Russians thought about the United States.
0:40.0	One of the reasons I feel safe to say that is because that is in many ways the
0:44.2	argument of a new episode of Jill Lepore's excellent podcast the last archive
0:48.3	there's a new episode all about Zoran his reporting in America his mix of
0:52.3	documentary and propaganda and lots more.
0:54.6	And Jill Lepore is our special guest for this episode.
0:57.8	So Jill, thank you for doing this.
0:59.4	We've been trying to have you on the show for a while.
1:01.3	Hey, thanks so much for having me.
1:03.6	And of course that podcast, The Last Archive, you may know Jill's work in the New Yorker,
1:07.2	her many excellent books.
1:08.1	The new book is If Then, one of our favorite historians.
1:11.7	And also joined today as always by two of my other
1:14.2	favorite historians Nicole Hammer of Columbia and Kelly Carter Jackson of
1:17.2	Wesley. Hello there. Hello Jody. Hey there. All right so let's talk about Zoran and Jill, you know, this episode, like a lot of the episodes of your
1:27.2	series goes in all sorts of really interesting sweeping directions, but let's put a pin in this moment, 1970, who is Zoran at this time and kind of paint a picture of his
	...

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