Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky (Russian: Э́двард Станисла́вович Радзи́нский; born 23 September 1936) is a Russian historian, playwright, television personality, and screenwriter. He authored more than forty history books that are popular in Russia.

Biography

Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky was born in Moscow, Russia, on 23 September 1936 to playwright Stanislav Radzinsky and his wife Sofia. He studied in the Moscow Archive Institute and is a trained historian.

In 1955 Radzinsky married actress Alla Geraskina, a daughter of popular Soviet playwright and writer Lia Geraskina. Their son Oleg was born in 1958. Radzinsky divorced Alla in 1964.

He then married Tatiana Doronina, one of the leading Soviet actresses of the 60s-70s. They divorced later. He is married to actress Elena Denisova.

Career

Radzinsky became a writer of popular non-fiction books on historical subjects, publishing more than forty. He has specialized in books about figures and times of Russian history. Since the 1990s, he has written the series Mysteries of History. Books translated into English include his biographies of Tsars Nicholas II and Alexander II, Rasputin, and Joseph Stalin.

His book Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives (1997) was based on research in Russian and Soviet archives made newly available after 1991. He explored numerous controversies about Joseph Stalin, including the existence of a fuller text of Lenin's Testament, the alleged involvement of Stalin as an agent of the Tsarist secret police, and the role of Stalin in the death of his wife and the murder of Sergey Kirov.¹ In the book Radzinsky drew on documents from the archives to support the finding that Soviet command had plans for .