Hello and welcome to the History Extra Podcast from BBC History Magazine, Britain's

best selling history magazine.

I'm Ellie Corporn.

For today's podcast, we're bringing you an editor's pick, in which a member of our

team chooses one of their own personal highlights from our back catalogue. This episode was chosen

for you by our deputy editor, Matt Elton. Matt wanted to revisit a conversation he had

back in 2016, with the author and historian Catherine Meridale, based on her book,

Lennon on the Train. As Meridale herself puts it, it's about the most important railway

journey in the 20th century. Vladimir Lennon's 1917 trip back to Russia from exile in Switzerland.

It was an extraordinary journey in its own might, but also a pivotal historical moment, the

effects of which were felt for years to come.

When we start your book, where is Lennon and why was he there? At the beginning of the

story, Lennon is in Zurich. And he's in Zurich because he really can't almost be anywhere

else in Europe. He's in exile from the Russian Empire because he's a revolutionary and he

has two choices. He either leaves Russia or he's in prison because he's been convicted

by the Tsarist courts. And he chooses to live in Switzerland because that's a neutral

country. At the outbreak of the war, Lennon and his wife and the number of his friends

were living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the border of what's now Poland in a little

town. And as soon as the war broke out, the gendarm came round because Lennon is a Russian,

so he's an enemy. And they came round and they searched the house and they found a browning

pistol behind some books in his house. And that was it. He was arrested. He was thrown

into jail and he was only pulled out into jail by a great many people pulling strings.

...