ABSTRACT
“Would there be earth without the sun?” (Urban, 1997, p. 148). This was former Polish President and Nobel laureate Lech Walesa’s evaluation of the role of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) during the Cold War. While the radios do not any longer broadcast in Central and Eastern Europe, Radio Liberty’s mission in Russia and in some of the former Soviet republics is not yet accomplished. This chapter traces the historical development of RFE/RL with a focus on RL (I will refer to it as RL or with its Russian name – Radio Svoboda) (see Table 7.1). It is organised under three subheadings: (1) Founding, Mission, and Funding, (2) Radio Svoboda during the Cold War, and (3) Radio Svoboda after the Cold War. The chapter starts with an outline of the reasons why RFE and RL were founded (they were two separate entities until 1976). Then, in the second part, I examine Radio Svoboda’s development and the important role it played during the Cold War. The broadcaster boasts itself on playing “a significant role in the collapse of communism and the rise of democracies in post-communist Europe” (RFE/RL, n.d.). Finally, in the third section, I switch the focus to post–Cold War developments again, with a particular focus on Russia. In spite of the fact that Radio Svoboda now has an official office in the centre of Moscow, half of the journalists covering Russia, including the director of the Russian Service, are not actually based in Moscow but in Prague – the radio’s headquarters. This chapter does not offer a comprehensive history of RFE/RL, but it focusses on key events and developments mainly in the history of Radio Svoboda as a means of setting the context in which journalists currently work and in an attempt to better account for the role the radio station plays in present-day Russia.
