The KGB in Ukraine

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The KGB was the main security agency for the Soviet Union. Tasked with surveillance and rooting out dissidents, religious practitioners and anti-government organisations, the KGB were feared for their intimidation tactics and brutality. They operated across the soviet countries with a particularly sinister presence in Ukraine.

In his desperate attempt to restore the Soviet Union, Putin has silenced critics, historians and organisations that reveal the atrocities committed under the Soviet regime. While the Russian KGB files are completely classified once again, the Ukrainian archives are open for all. Dr Tatiana Vagramenko is currently shedding light on the contents of those archives. She tells Dan that 'what we are witnessing in this current war is the forceful drive to control the pen of Soviet history. This history preserved in Soviet-era archives, is one of the underlying causes of the current war in Europe and peace cannot be achieved without understanding and coming to terms with this past.'

She has spent hours pouring over confiscated letters, diaries, interrogation notes and photos to reveal the lives of ordinary Ukrainians suffering under the persecution of the KGB. She tells Dan about their stories, their suffering and their defiance. Her project is called History Declassified: The KGB and the religious underground in Soviet Ukraine.

If you'd like to learn more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad-free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today! To download the History Hit app please go to the Android or Apple store.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi buddy, welcome down to SoC history here. I'm currently heading north through the southern ocean.
0:05.7	Having successfully completed the main aim of Injurrence 32, which is find the Injurrence
0:11.3	Shipwreck, please head back and listen to that podcast. It's going great guns. Lots of people
0:15.5	listening to that one. The inside story of how we found endurance. But we're recording
0:19.6	new podcasts all the time. It's the satellite link holds up. This one is very special indeed.
0:24.0	This one is with Dr Tatiana Vagramenko. She is an anthropologist. She's a historian. She's
0:30.7	based at University College Cork, where she's undertaken a research project called History
0:35.8	Declassified, the KGB and the Religious Underground in the Soviet Union. She has been pouring
0:42.7	through the Ukrainian Soviet secret police records. They give an extraordinary window into
0:49.3	the Ukrainian history, but actually into Soviet history as a whole. It's the only place you can
0:54.0	do that because many of the other Soviet archives are completely shut to researchers. This, as you'll
1:00.4	hear, is a source of fury for Vladimir Putin, as he seeks to reshape the history of the Soviet Union
1:08.2	in a very different way to the people of Russia and its successor states. I've had lots of
1:14.4	historians on the podcast. Many of them doing important work that helps to shape the world
1:19.0	that we live in. And Tatiana surely ranks among the most important voices we've had on this
1:23.9	podcast, particularly now. Russian armies are seeking to occupy Ukraine, and one of the first things
1:29.2	they'll do is go for the archives. Remember controls the past, controls the future folks, never
1:34.5	forget that. It's great to talk to Tatiana. I'll start off by asking her about how her family
1:40.0	are fairing many of them are in Crimea and other parts of Ukraine. So all the very best to them,
1:45.6	and thank you very much Tatiana for making this time to come on this podcast. Enjoy.
1:53.9	Dr Tatiana, thank you very much for coming on the podcast.
1:56.9	Thanks for inviting me then. How are you there?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from History Hit, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of History Hit and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.