The nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986 was not just a catastrophic event in terms of its effect upon the environment and the health of those who lived nearby. Some claim that the media coverage of the disaster, and particularly that by Radio Liberty, contributed to the introduction of radical reforms within the Soviet Union that changed it forever – and perhaps even hastened its eventual downfall. In this episode, we will assess those claims and show how important Radio Liberty’s place within the Soviet media consumer’s life had become by the Gorbachev era.

The Fall of the Soviet Union

The "Speaking to the Soviets" series focuses on Radio Liberty, an extraordinary United States-funded radio station that punched through the Iron Curtain to broadcast to listeners across the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Each episode in this six-part podcast mini-series focuses on a key event in the history of the Soviet Union, as described and discussed by Radio Liberty: from the death of Stalin through to the development of the space race, the emergence of détente and the signing of the Helsinki Accords, and the Chernobyl disaster and eventual collapse of the USSR. Using original broadcast material from the Blinken Open Society Archives’ Radio Liberty Collection, host Stephen Westlake analyses the content and form of these broadcasts to introduce listeners to the surprising and subtle ways in which this major American radio propaganda project was undertaken.This podcast series is part of the "Sound-Resound" research component of the "Sound Relations" project. The project is funded by the Central European University through its Intellectual Themes Initiative. The series was created with the support of the Blinken Open Society Archives.