Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

8. Dramatic End

Gerty unburdens herself on Pelyagin and dramatic events bring the communal experiment to an end. Read by Barbara Flynn.

Gerty unburdens herself on Pelyagin.

And dramatic events spark the communal experiment to an end.

Early in 1914, 22-year-old Gerty Freely travels to Russia to work as a governess, little-knowing the huge upheavals in the world and in her own life that lie ahead.

In London, 1974, Gerty begins a memoir for her daughter Sophy, looking back at that extraordinary time of war, revolution and civil war.

Most of her memories are centred on a young inventor, Nikita Slavkin, who mysteriously disappeared in 1919 and was subsequently celebrated in Soviet culture as The Vanishing Futurist.

“No word has been heard from him since […] Yet the idea persists that one day he will reappear.”

Charlotte Hobson's novel abridged by Jeremy Osborne.

Read by Barbara Flynn.

Producer: Jeremy Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in September 2020.

14 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Wed 30 Sep 202012:04
  • Wed 30 Sep 202022:45
  • Wed 25 Jun 202508:30
  • Wed 25 Jun 202513:30
  • Wed 25 Jun 202519:30
  • Thu 26 Jun 202503:30