A Toxic Embrace: Russia’s Church and State through the Centuries

Lucy Ash is an acclaimed presenter of radio and TV documentaries on foreign affairs. She lived in Moscow from 1990-1994 where she ran the bureau of BBC radio during the attempted coup by hardliners and the subsequent collapse of the USSR. During the turbulent years of post-Soviet Russia, she reported for the BBC and Scotland On Sunday. Since then she has won the Sony Gold, Amnesty International, the One World Radio Documentary Award, New York Festivals Radio Award and Radio Story of the Year award from the Foreign Press Association. She has a lifelong interest in Russian history and is fascinated by the way stories from the past inform the present. The Baton and The Cross is her first book. Ash studied at the Sorbonne Nouvelle, New College, Oxford and City University School of Journalism. She is married to the journalist and author John Kampfner and they have two daughters.