Subject to Change

Professor Donald Rayfield picks up Crimea’s story in spring 1942, when Germany turns south for the Black Sea and oil. Some Tartars can't imagine anyone worse than Stalin. Some can't imagine anyone worse than Hitler. Tragically, they are both right though in different ways.

Donald explains the realities of the German occupation, from the early “orderly” phase to the arrival of SS units whose mission is extermination of the Jews. Astonishingly some Jews are spared as the ever 'scientific' Nazis rule they are not Jews at all. 

Then comes one of the great crimes of world history. Stalin decides to deport the entire Crimean Tatar nation to Central Asia. Donald tells the story of the cattle trains, the scale of death and the uncertain welcome for survivors in Uzbekistan. Crimea itself is stripped of Tatar presence through renamed towns and seized homes. 

We bring things up to date with the 1990s return and the brief cultural revival under Ukraine . But the post-2014 Russian annexation brings renewed repression. As Donald says 'History can always get worse'. 
It is a fascinating episode.

Donald Rayfield returns for the second of three episodes on Crimea — this time taking the long view, from the Mongol Golden Horde to Catherine the Great's annexation and the early Soviet period.
At its height the Crimean Khanate was a sophisticated and surprisingly humane state. It was also, as Rayfield puts it, the self-appointed freeholder of the former Mongol empire — and it collected its rents in the form of money, livestock, and human captives. Eventually, the leaseholders rebelled.
A story of revival after disaster, and disaster after revival, ending in the grim absorption of the peninsula into the Russian imperial project.

Along the way we admire the fighting skills of the Tatars and learn about a mysterious shop in Venice which would sell you poisoned almonds!

The subject today comes out of the Crimean war (1853-1856).

I talked to Professor Donald Rayfield, Emeritus Professor of Russian and Georgian history at Queen Mary University of London, about the war itself and in particular what happened to those taken prisoner.  Surprisingly life could be pretty good!

Part 1 of the podcast told the sad story of how some shocking misjudgements on the part of Justinian saw him dragged to the Hippodrome where a man with a pair of pliers cut off his nose, cut out his tongue.
But in a misjudgement every bit as big as Justinian’s instead of putting him in a sack and throwing him in the Bosphorus his successor exiles him to the Crimea. I mean everyone knows you can't be emperor unless you are bodily intact so there is no chance he is coming back is there? Is there?
Well there is if Justinian has anything to do with it. Russell Crowe style he will have his revenge in this world or the next! Even if it does mean he has to marry a Turkic princess to get it.
And if all that isn't enough the brilliant David Parnell explains Justinian's religious policies. All very sensible. Well apart from his plot to kidnap the pope perhaps.
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Justinian II becomes emperor at sixteen. Even allowing for the hostility of our sources the reign is not all plain sailing.
I'm joined by Professor David Parnell to work through the first half of one of Byzantium's most extraordinary reigns. Part one takes us from his accession to the moment the city loses patience and terminates the reign violently. David and I are left scratching our heads as to why this story has never had its own Netflix series.
We started with the empire Justinian inherits, which is much smaller than the one his famous namesake Justinian I assembled. Two generations of Arab expansion and some energetic Slavic settlement have done their work. Constantinople and Anatolia are doing fine. Greece and the Balkans are a mess. The Arab caliphate is slightly distracted by civil wars but still very much a threat on the eastern frontier, having already put Constantinople itself under siege in the 670s. We talk about that siege, the role Greek fire played in saving the city, and why all this matters for understanding both what Justinian thinks he can achieve and his overconfidence.
Then we get into the reign itself. Justinian is pious, bold and occasionally effective but capable of the most disastrous misjudgements. So it starts well and then starts to unravel!