Power and Faith in Russia - Cheltenham Literature Festival
Fri 10 Oct 2025 , 12:30 - 13:30
- Venue
- Pillar Room, Cheltenham Town Hall, Imperial Square, Cheltenham, GL50 1QA
- Price
- £11
- Facilities
- Live subtitling, Subtitles, Wheelchair accessible venue
This event is part of Cheltenham Literature Festival.
The British Academy Book Prize shortlist features powerful non-fiction that deepens our understandings of people and cultures across the world.
Ahead of the winner announcement on 22nd October, prize judge and former BBC Foreign Correspondent Bridget Kendall Hon FBA joins British Academy Book Prize shortlisted author Lucy Ash to discuss the complex ties between religion and politics that have formed Russia– and how faith is used today to shape national identity and justify conflict.
Lucy Ash's book 'The Baton and the Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin' is shortlisted for the 2025 British Academy Book Prize.
Speaker: Lucy Ash
Lucy Ash is an award-winning presenter of radio and TV documentaries. An expert on Russia and post-Soviet countries she was first sent to Moscow by the BBC in 1990 and has been covering the region’s social, political, and cultural issues ever since. 'The Baton and the Cross' is her first book.
Chair: Bridget Kendall
After a long career as a BBC foreign correspondent, Bridget Kendall was appointed the first female Master of Peterhouse, the University of Cambridge’s oldest College, in 2016, serving until 2023. She also served as a Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 2020-2023.
Her awards and honours include the James Cameron Award for distinguished journalism and an MBE for services to journalism. She holds Honorary Doctorates from St Andrew’s, Exeter, York, and the Central University of Birmingham. She is an Honorary Fellow of Peterhouse as well as two Oxford Colleges – Lady Margaret Hall and St Antony’s. She is an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy.