Episodes
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Russian Secret Police Pt. 1 The Oprichniki
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
Saturday Apr 16, 2022
They wore black robes and rode black horses like a monastic order of death itself. From 1565 to 1572, the Oprichniki inflicted medieval terror and torture upon the Russian people in the name of Ivan the Terrible. ***Content Warning*** contains descriptions of torture techniques.
This is the first part of a series on Russian secret police and the first episode ever of this new podcast, Secret Police.
Sources:
Armies of Ivan the Terrible: Russian Troops 1505–1700 (Men-at-Arms) Paperback – Illustrated, January 31, 2006 by David Nicolle, Viacheslav Shpakovsky, Angus McBride (Illustrator)
Dictators and their secret police : coercive institutions and state violence Studies of the East Asian Institute. Sheena Chestnut Greitens
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
Dictators and their Secret Police - Coercive Institutions and State Violence. Sheena Chestnut Greitens.
A Short History of Russia. A compilation from the study of a number of other works, in particular H.A.L. Fisher's "History of Europe", Paul Crowson's "A History of the Russian People", and William L. Langer's "Encyclopaedia of World History”.
Andreyev, Nikolay. "Ivan the Terrible". Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Aug. 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ivan-the-Terrible. Accessed 31 December 2021.
The Oprichnina as a Carnival of Violence: Ivan the Terrible and Muscovite Popular Culture Maureen Perrie Emeritus Professor of Russian History, Centre for Russian, European and Eurasian Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Skrynnikov and Graham, Ivan the Terrible. Solovʹev and Rhinelander. History of Russia. 1981.
Nizhny Novgorod. Sergei Maltcev. To My American Friends. 2015.
The Oprichnina of Ivan the Terrible: Part 1, Creation. A Region of Fear Patrolled by Black Robed Soldiers. Robert Wilde. May 30, 2019. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-oprichnina-of-ivan-the-terrible-3860937
Music:
Main Theme: Scorching Action - Jon Prestone
Mysterious fantasy with gloomy choir and harp for dark fairytale setting - Suite Tracks Music
Introitus - Audio Waves - Eliche Remblon
Odious Signs - Humans Win (formerly Lance Conrad)
Final Speech - Humans Win (formerly Lance Conrad)
TV Audio:
History Bites Season 4 Episode 8
Friday Apr 01, 2022
Trailer: Secret Police
Friday Apr 01, 2022
Friday Apr 01, 2022
***TRAILER!*** Welcome to a new podcast called Secret Police. This show is dedicated to the lap dogs of dictators. Special operatives that employ surveillance and terror upon their own people. We will explore their histories, their brutal methods, and their eventual downfalls. Listen to Secret Police ad free wherever you get podcasts.
*** Episodes drop soon! ***
Welcome to
Secret Police Podcast
A crucial and often overlooked aspect of authoritarian regimes are the ranks of the political or secret police. More akin to a paramilitary force than your average cops, secret police enforce the ideology of the State and the personal agenda of a dictator.
On this podcast, Jack takes a deep and detailed dive into the history, methods, and the people of the world's most infamous secret police forces such as the KGB or the Gestapo.
Follow @secretpolicepodcast on Instagram! Please subscribe, give a rating, and a review. Thank you!
About the Host
The idea for Secret Police podcast came to me while reading The Dictator's Handbook by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. There are plenty of references to secret police forces in this book. Being a curious person, I search for podcasts on the Okhrana for example and found a surprising lack of information. I discovered that while you can find content about specific secret police, no show had attempted to catalog all of them . . . until now.
I bring a long time interest in history, a bachelors of science in economics, a masters degree in epidemiology, and a couple years of podcast experience from running my OG show, Head Cold. I hope you enjoy the podcast!