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Little-known histories from Central & Eastern Europe that changed our world... Heard of how The Rolling Stones played for the Communist Party? The bear who fought in WWII? Or the man who sin...
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 mi...
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....
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...
Vera Chytilová was the most important woman director of the Czechoslovak New Wave – although she remains relatively unknown outside of Centr...
Stanisław Lem was a science-fiction writer whose works, abilities and quirky sense of humor convinced Phillip K. Dick that he was too brilli...
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...
In 1967, Marian Marzyński was a popular TV show host and filmmaker in Poland. But then a seemingly faraway military clash sparked an unexpec...
In 1938, Hitler's forces marched into Czechoslovakia, a country that had only gained its independence two decades earlier. A puppeteer named...
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...
‘Romania today is possibly the only European country where you can bump into a witch at the supermarket.’ The history of witches in Europe i...
In the summer of 1976, the late Polish film director Andrzej Żuławski, responsible for infamous cult classics such as The Devil (1972) and P...
After the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east in 1939, many thousands of Polish families were deported to Siberian forced labour camps...
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... to...
In August 1980, after the firing of popular shipyard worker, Anna Walentynowicz, a strike broke out at the Vladimir Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk...
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...
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...
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...
How a giant communal song festival helped Estonians regain independence from the USSR. Part of our mini-series The Final Curtain. In the Est...
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 Barbu a...
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 pol...
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 t...
How East Berlin's leading political cabaret tried to get their message through despite strict state censorship... and what happened when the...
Meet the headstrong musician who's been viciously rebelling against both of the systems he lived under... and created some truly worthwhile...
How a banned singer-songwriter became an unwilling musical hero through his home-copied cassettes. Jacek Kleyff was an increasingly popular...
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, Ea...
How Polish opposition activists began transmitting their own pirate radio and 'hacked' communist-run state TV. Part of our mini-series The F...
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 Fi...
How a well-known opposition leader evaded capture by the communist authorities for almost five years. Part of our mini-series The Final Curt...
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...
Finland + technology = Nokia, doesn’t it? Yes, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Finland is responsible for many technological breakth...
During WWII, the Third Reich had a systematic policy of plundering artwork from countries they invaded. In occupied Poland, this took place...
Alchemy – the supposed ancient art of turning everyday objects into gold – is widely believed to be obsolete. Interestingly, however, every...
The German Democratic Republic was known for being one of the more politically repressive countries in the former Eastern bloc, with its Sta...
In this bonus episode, y ou’ll get to hear a song that usually doesn’t leave the thick walls of the Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas...
The story of a man who mesmerised half a continent... Get it on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | Google Podcasts | Overcast | RSS | Di...
After having to leave Poland, Grotowski continued his ground-breaking work in the United States, before finding a permanent home in Ponteder...
Jerzy Grotowski (1933-1999) undoubtedly had a profound influence on the transformation of contemporary theatre over the last 40 years. Star...
The Czech shoe-maker Tomáš Bat'a was a visionary. A deep believer in capitalism, he dreamt up a unique functionalist city and started buil...
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...
Hear the pole-vaulter who offended the entire Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow explain himself. Władysław Kozakiewicz, a pole-vau...
Did you know that sports stars from behind the Iron Curtain pretty much competed for no money? In this little bonus episode, Władysław Kozak...
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 the...
Discover the relentless climber who changed the world's deadliest sport... In the early 1960s, a woman decided that the way men were dominat...
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 f...
Discover the Iron Curtain's unlikeliest music haven and the people who made it happen. In 1957, the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES)...
Get to know the doctor who defied prejudices, the media and the entire system to save people’s lives. In 1967, South African surgeon Christi...
Throughout the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States used espionage extensively to gather information about the opposing sid...
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...
Discover how Joseph Rotblat went from creating nuclear bombs to winning the Nobel Peace prize. The American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasak...
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 C...