Empire

This stunning new 28-episode series of docudramas chronicles the turbulent and dramatic history of the Russian state from the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725) to 1917, the year which saw the start of the Russian Revolution and the end of the Romanov dynasty with the murder of Tsar Nicholas II and his entire family.

Russia experienced many dramatic events during this long and fascinating period of its history. There were times of anxiety, social unrest, rebellion, hostility, war and peace. There was also much that went on ‘behind closed doors’, often un-documented at the time. 

What, for example, about the private and public lives of the tsars and their families, their political decisions and the personal events that shaped their characters and their views of the outside world?

Where did the royal families and the nobility take their vacations? What kind of food did they eat? What were fashions like, and how did Russian art, literature, music and theatre develop over these periods?

And what of the lower classes – the serfs, peasants and the proletariat? How did these people survive as their lives gradually changed from ruthless exploitation and abject poverty to the abolition of serfdom and a better standard of living – and at what cost? What impact did the huge industrial development of the late nineteenth century have upon Russian society as a whole?

The series also traces the development of the transport system, the legal profession, the education system, social welfare and the health service. It also documents the beginnings of the social discontent which led to revolution and the ‘ten days that shook the world’.