How to Invent a Country

Misha Glenny returns to the Balkans to report on the birth and death of Yugoslavia. With contributions from Lea Ypi, Radina Vucetic, Ivan Veyvoda, Tim Heneage, Jelena Dureinovic, plus former soldier turned writer Faruk Sehic in Sarajevo. Includes archive of Fitzroy Maclean and Steed Wickham, plus an interview with the scientific director of the Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki, Xenia Eleftheriou. Thi...

Misha Glenny returns to the Balkans to report on the birth and death of Yugoslavia. With contributions from Lea Ypi, Radina Vucetic, Ivan Veyvoda, Tim Heneage, Jelena Dureinovic, plus former soldier turned writer Faruk Sehic in Sarajevo. Includes archive of Fitzroy Maclean and Steed Wickham, plus an interview with the scientific director of the Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki, Xenia Eleftheriou. Thi...

Churchill may have said that the Balkans produce more history than it can consume, but in this episode Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head out to discover if it's true. This is a road trip through Bosnia, Belgrade and northern Greece. The aim? To explore the collapse of the Ottoman empire and see how it fed into the start of World War One. There's also a also pause for sausage in Serbia, while they...

Churchill may have said that the Balkans produce more history than it can consume, but in this episode Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head out to discover if it's true. This is a road trip through Bosnia, Belgrade and northern Greece. The aim? To explore the collapse of the Ottoman empire and see how it fed into the start of World War One. There's also a also pause for sausage in Serbia, while they...

June 28 1914 - a young Bosnian on a street corner in Sarajevo fired a shot that triggered World War One. Why is this region so unstable, and what lessons can we learn from that event. Misha Glenny was a famous reporter during the wars of the 1990s, well-placed to find answers in a region he's travelled for years. Is the violence the fault of the people who live here, or are there bigger, outside f...

June 28 1914 - a young Bosnian on a street corner in Sarajevo fired a shot that triggered World War One. Why is this region so unstable, and what lessons can we learn from that event. Misha Glenny was a famous reporter during the wars of the 1990s, well-placed to find answers in a region he's travelled for years. Is the violence the fault of the people who live here, or are there bigger, outside f...

It's easy to forget how entwined Hungary has been in some of the worst events of the last 100 years – losers in the first world war, the country initially sided with the Nazis in the second, tried to change its mind, was invaded by the Germans then taken over by the Soviets, then tried to kick out the Soviets … and failed. What, asks Misha Glenny, are the consequences of this history now, and how...

It's easy to forget how entwined Hungary has been in some of the worst events of the last 100 years – losers in the first world war, the country initially sided with the Nazis in the second, tried to change its mind, was invaded by the Germans then taken over by the Soviets, then tried to kick out the Soviets … and failed. What, asks Misha Glenny, are the consequences of this history now, and how...

"Brussels is abusing its power," said Victor Orban, "just as Vienna once did." The date, March 15 2025 - this year - but the reference was to March 1848 when Hungary rose up against its Austrian overlords, a great moment for many Hungarians today. Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde were in Budapest when Viktor Orban made his speech, looking for the source of that revolution, who turned out to b...

"Brussels is abusing its power," said Victor Orban, "just as Vienna once did." The date, March 15 2025 - this year - but the reference was to March 1848 when Hungary rose up against its Austrian overlords, a great moment for many Hungarians today. Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde were in Budapest when Viktor Orban made his speech, looking for the source of that revolution, who turned out to b...

Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde travel from Vienna to Budapest and beyond to find out how Hungarian hardman Viktor Orban stays in power. With an election coming up next year, now seemed a good time to find out how he uses history in his campaigns, beginning with a battle his country lost to the Ottomans back in 1526. "There are going to be three dates that matter in our series - 1526 and the...

Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde travel from Vienna to Budapest and beyond to find out how Hungarian hardman Viktor Orban stays in power. With an election coming up next year, now seemed a good time to find out how he uses history in his campaigns, beginning with a battle his country lost to the Ottomans back in 1526. "There are going to be three dates that matter in our series - 1526 and the...

At the beginning of this year the president of the Chinese People's Republic, Xi Jinping, claimed that people living on both sides of the Taiwan Straits should reunite "and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". But is Taiwan really a part of China, and could this question lead to war? Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde have been to the capital Taipei and also Tainan Cit...

At the beginning of this year the president of the Chinese People's Republic, Xi Jinping, claimed that people living on both sides of the Taiwan Straits should reunite "and share in the glory of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation". But is Taiwan really a part of China, and could this question lead to war? Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde have been to the capital Taipei and also Tainan Cit...

Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel east to tell the story of China - what it is and where it came from. "Twentieth century China is the most extraordinary place, and Mao is at the heart of nearly all of it." With the help of Tania Branigan, Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution; plus Chris Buckley, Chief China correspondent of the New York Times, Frances Wood,...

Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel east to tell the story of China - what it is and where it came from. "Twentieth century China is the most extraordinary place, and Mao is at the heart of nearly all of it." With the help of Tania Branigan, Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China's Cultural Revolution; plus Chris Buckley, Chief China correspondent of the New York Times, Frances Wood,...

"You could do a whole programme on why you shouldn't build a capital in Beijing. It's a Mongolian camel camp." Paul French Beijing means capital of the north, and was first used by the Ming to distinguish it from Nanjng, capital of the south. Home to the Forbidden City where the emperors lived, the centre had a tortuous relationship with many other parts of China. By the end of the Qing dynasty th...

"You could do a whole programme on why you shouldn't build a capital in Beijing. It's a Mongolian camel camp." Paul French Beijing means capital of the north, and was first used by the Ming to distinguish it from Nanjng, capital of the south. Home to the Forbidden City where the emperors lived, the centre had a tortuous relationship with many other parts of China. By the end of the Qing dynasty th...

Britain was late in its contacts with China and the Qing dynasty - the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Spanish had all headed east long before Lord McCartney's embassy tried to establish a formal relationship in 1792/3. Although it failed, this mission is famous for one thing - whether the British envoy did or did not kowtow to the Chinese Emperor. So began a fractious, ultimately shameful century f...

Britain was late in its contacts with China and the Qing dynasty - the Portuguese, the Dutch and the Spanish had all headed east long before Lord McCartney's embassy tried to establish a formal relationship in 1792/3. Although it failed, this mission is famous for one thing - whether the British envoy did or did not kowtow to the Chinese Emperor. So began a fractious, ultimately shameful century f...

Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel east to tell the story of China - what it is and where it came from. "The empire long united must divide, long divided must unite. Thus it has ever been." The opening lines of a fourteenth century novel about the rise and fall of China's multiple dynasties, history explained in a couple of brilliant lines. But what is China and where did it come from? This is ep...

Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel east to tell the story of China - what it is and where it came from. "The empire long united must divide, long divided must unite. Thus it has ever been." The opening lines of a fourteenth century novel about the rise and fall of China's multiple dynasties, history explained in a couple of brilliant lines. But what is China and where did it come from? This is ep...

A bonus episode with Hannah Lucinda Smith, Christopher de Bellaigue and Misha Glenny.

Misha Glenny and Miles Warde take a ride over the Bosphorus to see the old Hyderpasha railway station - the Asian bulkhead of the Berlin to Baghdad railway which opened in 1909. The Ottoman alliance with Germany had implications for the Middle East that are still being felt to this day. "This was a place of intrigue, spies and glamour. For four and half centuries Istanbul had been the centre of th...

Misha Glenny and Miles Warde take a ride over the Bosphorus to see the old Hyderpasha railway station - the Asian bulkhead of the Berlin to Baghdad railway which opened in 1909. The Ottoman alliance with Germany had implications for the Middle East that are still being felt to this day. "This was a place of intrigue, spies and glamour. For four and half centuries Istanbul had been the centre of th...