Ep92. KGB - Literati: The Spy Stories That Built Putin’s Imagination

This is one of Spionpodden’s more unusual journeys into the intelligence world. Not through secret meetings or hidden microphones. But through spy fiction. Can a novel become an intelligence tool?

Can a secret police service write itself into the imagination of a nation? KGB - Literati opens a forgotten Cold War battlefield: Soviet spy fiction written by active or former KGB officers. Stories where the Chekist was noble.

The West was corrupt. The dissident was suspect. And the homeland was always under siege. One young reader of these romantic KGB stories was Vladimir Putin. The Soviet Union collapsed.