Boris Yeltsin 1931-2007

Borisn Yelstin was the Russian leader from the collapse of the Soviet Union through to the leadership of Vladimir Putin. A key pivotal figure of the twentieth century, he had as an important an impact on Russia and global politics as any of the Soviet leaders of the 1970s and 80s and yet he is often confined to the margins. 

In these films we learn about the real Yeltsin. He was typical of the working Russian of the Soviet period; born in the 1930s he lived through the Second World War and rose up the ranks of the Communist Party as a doer and a reformer. By the 1980s he was Chair of the Russian Parliament, part of the Soviet Union and now just as interested in power as any other Russian leader.  

We learn of his appeal to the people who saw him as one of them, and his desire to give them what he had glimpsed in the West under capitalism. His clashes with the thinker and intellect Mikhail Gorbachev, the head of the Soviet Union, did not stop him from toppling the regime and giving himself power over the largest new country of Europe.  

Dr Edwin Bacon (University of Lincoln) takes us through the troubling 1990s in Russia and across the region, with a constitutional crisis, impeachment, new economies, private ownership and new international relations. How Yeltsin negotiated those challenges and changes has left an indelible mark on the Russia of today and has had important repercussions for the countries around it.  

Yeltsin shored up his security through the creation of a Presidential Constitution, which was democratic but gave far more power to the President than to any other figure. That legacy, along with his appointment of Vladimir Putin in 1999 to the role of Prime Minister of Russia, has shaped the country for the subsequent decades, and it has also created a global legacy.

In these films we learn about the rise, machinations, and impact of the man who too many skip over. It seems he has more than earned his place in history.

1. Yeltsin - Early Life

2. Yeltsin and Russia in the late 1980s

3. Yeltsin and the fall of the Soviet Union

4. Yeltsin's agenda

5. Yeltsin and the Oligarchs

6. Yeltsin and the West

7. Yeltsin's second term and legacy