As the name suggests, this podcast is not for the faint-hearted (or indeed, on occasion the weak-stomached). However, if you like a good story told by a master storyteller who's not afraid to include the grislier elements, you should certainly check this out.
Episodes are typically super-long (we're talking 4 hours+); it's perfect if you have a brutal commute and you want something equally hard-hitting to keep you company.
Carlin describes himself as a fan of history rather than a historian but what he lacks in specialist expertise he makes up for with a wide range of superbly-selected quotations from primary and secondary sources. There tends to be long gaps between the release of new episodes due to the huge volumes of reading material that Carlin consults in preparation for each show, and the fact that by his own admission he often finds it very tough to decide where to begin a story.
Then there’s his vocal style and delivery. It very nearly sounds as if Heath Ledger’s Joker woke up one morning in a spectacularly good mood and decided to renounce evil for good (in both senses) but still retained some slightly warped perspectives.
In some ways, the logical place for a Russophile to start is Ghosts of the Ostfront, Carlin's account of the most horrendous theatre in arguably the most hideous conflict in human history. As with the majority of older Hardcore History episodes, this series has a small cost attached, so you may prefer to start with one of the later series, which are available free of charge.
The Kievan Rus' make a brief appearance in episode 3 of Wrath of the Khans, a series on the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan and his descendants. Here we encounter, perhaps for the first time, the Russians' notorious organisational difficulties, with predictably tragic results. There is small charge for this episode as well but at the time of writing it was available to stream for free from the Hardcore History site.
As you would expect, the Russians feature heavily in the WWI series, Blueprint for Armageddon as well.
Update (25/01/17) Dan Carlin has just released a new episode entitled Destroyer of Worlds, which deals with the development of nuclear weapons and the effect they had on world events in decades following the end of WWII. The episode concentrates on way things handled in the West, but does spend quite a bit of time on Stalin and Khrushchev and how their leadership of the USSR affected the whole dynamic. Nuclear physicist and later dissident Andrei Sakharov gets quite a few mentions too, as you might expect given the subject matter.
