Well, it`s a double mystery, in some ways. There is the spy story, because she was recruited by Soviet intelligence and she was very -- she was close...

Well, purely by chance. It was while we were researching the Berlin book. My wonderful research assistant, Luba Vinogradova, her mother, in fact, suddenly...

When did you write your Berlin book?

Now, Olga Chekhova was what relationship to Anton Chekhov?

And if you haven`t read Anton Chekhov, who was he?

And what kind of a writer was he?

How long did he live? And what were the years?

Now, and this book is about, among other things, as you say, Olga Chekhova. How long did she live? And what were the years for her life?

And then she actually became a double niece of Anton Chekhov because she fell desperately in love, as a 16-year-old, with Misha Chekhov. This is at...

Stanislavsky lived what years, roughly? I mean, what were -- when was he well known in Russia?

But Stanislavsky was also -- he was a brilliant man, a brilliant director, and also a brilliant actor himself. So he was sort of one of the theater...

Of course.

In 1917. The civil war carried on until 1920.

It was -- there were two revolutions, basically. There was the February revolution, which, if you like, was a liberal revolution overthrowing the czarist...

Well, the czarist empire, which then became the Soviet Union from 1917, or 1918, rather, was huge. I mean, it included, of course, in those days, most...

Oh, I mean, we`re talking -- I mean, certainly, well over -- even in those days, well over 100 million. So I mean, it was -- it was not only a huge...

Well, Chekhov -- his widow was living in Moscow, and the rest of the family were, in fact, at that stage, based in Moscow. Olga Chekhova`s parents,...

Well, the civil war really started in 1918, largely as a result of the Bolshevik coup d`etat in November, 1917. And basically that so polarized even...

Well, a Bolshevik was technically A member of basically what were regarded -- "bolshoi" being -- "bolshoi" being "big." They were the majority party...

Lenin, basically. I mean, you know, he by then had completely taken over the Central Committee. And he had willing and very effective collaborators...

Well, the rise of Hitler really began during the course of late 1920s and particularly very early 1930s when Hitler, with the Nazi Party, originally...

She by then was living in Berlin. She had arrived in Berlin in 1920. By then, her movie career had taken off. She was making something like eight movies...

And again, her mother was who?

It is clear, however, the word -- the name Olga comes up so many times that your head spins by the time it`s over. How did you keep track of all the...

Again, asking the question, how one family can survive -- we went through the Russian revolution, the civil war, the rise of Hitler. And then the fourth...

We`ve talked a lot on this program with Simon Sebag Montefiore, who endorses your book, Anne Applebaum, who says nice things about your book, and also...

Starting with the Terror. I mean, that`s what`s hard to -- what`s the total number of people that were murdered and slaughtered and killed and...

And then you add on -- then you add on the deliberate famines imposed on the Ukraine particularly by Stalin, and so forth, and you can be going up towards...

Yes. I`m afraid. Actually, one saw it even at Beslan and -- the other day. I mean, there is a -- sort of a brutal incompetence, which has always been...

Exactly. Yes. That gives you a proportion. But it also is important of understanding why Churchill and, to a certain degree, Roosevelt sort of had this...

Yes. Oh, there is. Oh, yes. I mean, it sort of -- it lingers slightly. I mean, obviously, there`s less resentment, you know, because we`d been allies...

Well, really, not more than a couple of years, really. Really, the worst was `37-`38.

Stalin, to a certain degree. I mean, in a way, the whole thing had got so out of control. I mean, millions of innocent people were being arrested and...

Exactly. The NKVD -- I mean, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) again, one of these Russians complications -- the Cheka, later the OGPU, then became the NKVD, later becomes...

In 1941, in June, 1941.

Apart from supplying help -- great help to Britain in terms of Lend-Lease and so forth, nothing at all. It was entirely from December, 1941. And this...

Well, it was given that name under Stalin. Its original name was Tsaritsyn, which means "the city on the Yellow River" in Tatar. And Stalin had -- when...

No, it was renamed under Khrushchev, who, of course, loathed Stalin. It was renamed Volgograd, being on the river Volga.

It`s a big city, but of course, it`s in many ways not much bigger because it`s now very run down. All of the industrial part of it is rusting to pieces....

Well, at Stalingrad, the great really battle started. In fact, the Germans reached the Volga on the 23rd of August in 1942, and the battle then carried...

Olga, at that stage, was still back in Berlin. Her brother meanwhile, though, was playing a more complicated role because he had been recruited -- he...

I showed the cover of the magazine, and then inside is the full picture, where the cover was taken. It shows a group of people sitting where?

Is he in the picture?

Who was Ribbentrop?

And what`s this occasion?

Well, the impression you get here is that Olga was close to Hitler.

What year was this taken?

Well, you have here the cover of a magazine, where you see Olga right in the middle with some German troops. What`s this?

You paint a picture in the book of the relationship between Goebbels and Olga. What was it?

Why was she rude to him?

You keep referring in the back to the fact that you don`t believe a lot of the stuff that Olga wrote in her two volumes of memoir.

Here`s a picture of her in one of her weddings. How many times did she get married? And who is this?

But this man was unbelievably boring, her husband. She couldn`t face it any longer, and that was the end of it. And then she, quite interestingly, started...

Albert Sumpsa (ph), he was the last of the lovers.

Still alive, yes.

Yes, yes, today.

He lives in Munich.

Oh, he`s in his 80s. I mean, he was 20 years younger than her. So I mean, she -- she was born in `98 -- yes, 1898.

Yes.

Well, this was -- this was "Timewatch," one for Lawrence Reese (ph). We did -- I did one (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Berlin book and they had the idea to do it...

Yes, yes. It`s been -- I don`t know whether it`s been aired here in the States. It`s been aired in Britain. It might be coming out (UNINTELLIGIBLE)....

In May.

No, just literally -- just came out here. I mean, it`s just coming out this week in Germany and all the places.

Oh, yes.

Yes, we do. I mean, because -- if anything else, once in a while, we meet -- one meets them all at seminars and various other sort of, you know, various...

No. I have worked -- I mean, I can get around a little bit and all the rest of it, but I knew perfectly well right from the start that there is so much...

Do any of the other authors use somebody like Luba?

So in the book on Olga, what happened to your attitude about this subject as you began to learn more and more about it? What -- you started off by just...

Is that open to the public, by the way?

What do you find there besides these papers?

And -- but then, there are important other archives, like the Moscow Art Theater has its own collections of letters between the families. And some of...

Well, I mean a White Guard was the phrase, in fact, which has now become fairly common, but which the communists always tended to use afterwards. It...

Yes.

Well, Sandhurst was two years. I mean, in those days, those days Sandhurst was a full two-year Sunday university course.

It`s not far from London. It`s, I`d say 30 miles, 30 miles west of London.

West Point. I mean, you know, it`s a -- I mean, we used to do exercises with West Point cadets and things like that.

Yes, yes. I was a -- I was a regular officer, who then decided to get out and write.

Five years altogether.

Yes.

Well, that in fact just came about -- I was always -- I had always been intrigued by the whole of that 1917 period, where there was an international...

In London, but do a lot of the writing down in the country, near Canterbury, in Kent.

Absolutely, yes.

Well ...

No. "Stalingrad" and "Berlin" between them sold over two million copies. So ...

Twenty-four.

Well, I`ve got a wonderful agent who in fact has -- also has offices around the world, and so when a book, I suppose, like "Stalingrad" takes off in...

"Stalingrad" -- it came out in 1998.

Well -- I mean, one or two of them haven`t even quite yet appeared. I mean, for example, I don`t think that the Korean edition of "Stalingrad" has yet...

Oh, in Britain. In absolute terms. I suppose in population terms, probably in Sweden, with only eight million -- sold over 150,000 copies in a population...

It is going to take a long time. And what one fears very much looking at recent events is the attitude of the rulers have certainly changed very, very...

What have you noticed in your -- when was the last time you were there?

What have you noticed has changed in the last 10 years over there?

But I think the real problem with Russia at the moment is that it still cannot quite face up to the past. And it is -- that`s going to take two or three...

Oh, I think so. I think that Putin -- not, not as if you like a -- an imperial power in the way they were in the past. But I think they certainly want...

There are one or two, yes. I mean, Petersburg obviously is doing -- doing pretty well. And, you know, I think that its IT capacity is -- is very great,...

Oh, well, I mean -- I think in a way, one of the great characters, of course, is Chekhov`s -- is Chekhov`s widow. Olya, aunt Olya. And she is a controversial...

That was taken -- that was taken when he was in Tehran, at the time when he was supposed to be trying to defect to the Germans. It may have been after...

Well, her mother and father were the -- were Knippers. And she then was the niece of Olga Knipper-Chekhova, Chekhov`s wife and widow. And then she married...

So Anton Chekhov was her uncle. He was not her uncle by blood, but he was her uncle twice over, based through his marriage to her real blood aunt and...

Well, again, he survived. I mean, here was somebody who had been a White Guard, was an NKVD agent. I mean, you have the -- he was obviously a very brave...

That`s Aunt Olya on the right.

I think that would have been probably in the late `50s or maybe `40s actually. It was -- or late `40s, yes. It`s probably late `40s.

They`ve all survived. I mean this is -- this is the astonishing thing. They have all survived.

But except for Anton -- no. But he -- he died of natural causes. I mean, what I`m saying is when I say -- they died, sure. But they died of natural...

She was -- I think she was just an agent for the Soviet Union. I don`t think she was -- she was certainly -- wasn`t an agent for the Gestapo or anything...

Yes.

Well, I mean...

That`s right. I mean, what the extraordinary thing is, there she is, being awarded honors by the West German government, who have no idea that in fact...

Well, yes, that`s -- that was an intriguing story. And again, one doesn`t know -- that`s another mystery, in a way. She returns from Berlin -- to --...

Well, there were rumors at the time and all the rest of it. But I didn`t think that anybody took those very seriously. She may have come up with some...

Sorry, Beria is Stalin`s chief of secret police.

A brutal human being, who personally tortured to death a number of people and thoroughly enjoyed it. Beria -- in 1953, Stalin dies, Beria wants to take...

Meanwhile, he`s sending -- Beria is sending Prince Radziwill (ph) to the States as his emissary to find out whether the States will be prepared to play...

What happened to that romance?

In the `50s?

Who is alive today?

Did you talk to her?

How old is she today?

By the way, because we are out of time almost, your favorite Chekhov writing?

Olga died in what year?

Of what?

How old?

What are you working on next?

Antony Beevor is our guest. This is the cover of the book. It is called "The Mystery of Olga Chekhova." Thank you very much for joining us.