Abarchuk

Lyuda's ex-husband, Abarchuk, is still a staunch believer in the Party even though he was sent to a Russian labour camp some years ago.

In November 1942, he assumes his son, Tolya, is fighting for the motherland and composes a letter to him about his beliefs; beliefs that may have been shaken by a recent encounter with his former mentor, Magar.

Kenneth Branagh, Janet Suzman, David Tennant, Greta Scacchi, Malcolm Storry and Harriet Walter star Vasily Grossman's epic saga.

Abarchuk ..... Malcolm Storry
Rubin ..... Peter Polycarpou
Barkhatov ..... Alun Raglan
Magar ..... Sean Baker
Mishanin ..... Jonathan Forbes

With Simon Bubb, James Lailey, Stuart Mcloughlin and Daniel Rabin

Dramatised by Mike Walker.

Original music by John Hardy with Rob Whitehead.

Translated by Robert Chandler.

Director: Alison Hindell

Set against the ferocious Battle of Stalingrad, Life and Fate is a sweeping historical tale that charts the fate of both a nation and a family in the turmoil of war and is increasingly hailed as the most important Russian novel of the 20th century. Its comparison of Stalinism with Nazism was considered by Soviet authorities to be so dangerous that the manuscript itself was arrested and Grossman was told that it would not be published for at least 200 years. He died in 1964, never knowing that his book would be smuggled to the West and eventually published in 1980.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2011.