The Invention Of...

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.

This is series eighteen of The Invention of ... on Radio 4, following on from previous visits to Taiwan, Turkey, Brazil and beyond.

The producer is Miles Warde.

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 find themselves in a massive street protest in Thessaloniki. This is history from the ground, and features contributions from Dubravka Stojanovic, Ivan Krastev, Maria Todorova, James Heneage and Hannah Lucinda Smith, author of Hinterlands. And at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle they meet Dr Konstantinos Papanikolaou and Vangelis Kansizoglou.

This is series eighteen of The Invention of ... on Radio 4, following on from previous visits to Taiwan, Turkey, Brazil and beyond.

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 forces at work?

This is the latest from the team behind The Invention of ... series which has recently been to China, Russia, Turkey and Hungary. Much of it is recorded on location, and contributors include Vesna Goldsworthy, Maria Todorova and Tim Butcher, author of The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Bought the World to War.

Misha Glenny is the outgoing rector of the IWM in Vienna and presenter of In Our Time. His reporting from Yugoslavia won a Sony Gold in 1993.

The producer for BBC Studios is Miles Warde. This is series eighteen and other contributors include Hannah Lucinda-Smith, Ivan Krastev, James Heneage, Lea Ypi, Faruk Sehic and Dubravka Stojanovic. Locations include Sarajevo, Belgrade and Thessaloniki in northern Greece and the team occasionally pause for lunch.

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 does the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban view the Russians today. Recorded on location at the scenes of some of the fiercest fighting in 1956.

"The Hungarian revolution and the Prague spring 12 years later - these were events that had a huge impact on me, and I have to say gave me a romantic infection for Hungarians and their struggles which has never entirely left me."

With contributions from Adam LeBor, author of The Last Days of Budapest: Spies, Nazis, Rescuers and Resistance; plus Paul Lendvai, Tibor Fischer, Simon Winder nd Victor Sebestyen formerly of the FT and writer of Budapest: Between East and West.

The producer for BBC Studios Audio in Bristol is Miles Warde

"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 be a poet, Sandor Petofi. So is Viktor Orban right to draw parallels between then and now, or is he using history as a political tool?

Further reading:

The Hungarians: A Thousands Years of Victory in Defeat by Paul Lendvai

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 battle of Mohacs; 1848, when the Hungarians rebelled against their Austrian overlords; and 1956, when anti Soviet protestors stood up to the Russian Bear … and were crushed. Three dates, three defeats, powerful moments in any nation’s history for politicians to exploit."

This is the thirteenth in the international How to Invent a Country series that asks where countries come from, and what are the stories people tell themselves about their past. Misha Glenny is the award-winning author of McMafia and currently head of the IWM in Vienna. With contributions from Paul Lendvai. Reka Kinga Papp, Simon Winder, Kamilla Marosi, Tibor Fischer and Nick Thorpe, plus Norbert Papp on location near Mohacs.

"The actual events of the battle don't matter - history is just raw material for politicians," Papp says.

The producer for BBC Studios Audio is Miles Warde.

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 City in the south to find out about their relationship with the Chinese mainland.

"I've obviously been following the situation in Ukraine, and it strikes me that before our eyes we're seeing the rapid development of a new Ukrainian consciousness and national identity. What's struck me about coming here to Taiwan is the same process is underway." Misha Glenny

Contributors include Amanda Hsiao senior analyst of the Crisis Group and Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for the New York Times now relocated to Taipei. Plus you'll hear from long time resident of Taiwan Chris Taylor, author of the Lonely Planet Guide to Tibet. "All Xi Jinping understands is complete control .... he's given up on what the Taiwanese call the silver bullet, promises of great trade opportunities and get rich, join us. Nobody's buying that. So the only way he's going to get it is by force of some kind."

Taiwan is episode 57 of How to Invent a Country on BBC Sounds, the series that has previously travelled to Germany, Brazil, Turkey and Russia. Misha Glenny is a former Central Europe correspondent for the BBC and the author of McMafia. The producer for BBC Studios Audio in Bristol is Miles Warde.

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, Paul French, Ian Johnson, the author of Sparks, and Jonathan Fenby, former editor of the South China Morning Post.

The producer for BBC studios is Miles Warde.

"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 this relationship had totally broken down, but what was going to replace the old system? Step forward Dr Sun Yat-sen, professional republican revolutionary.

Contributors include Jonathan Fenby, former editor of the South China Post and author of the Penguin History of Modern China: The Fall and Rise of a Great Power; Professor Julia Lovell, whose books include The Great Wall and Maoism: A Global History; and also Frances Wood, author of No Dogs and Not Many Chinese, and Paul French, Midnight in Peking.

This is episode three of The Invention of China and episode 57 of How to Invent a Country on BBC Sounds.

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 for Anglo-Chinese relations. Travelling to Hong Kong, taken by the British following the First Opium War, Misha Glenny and Miles Warde find a city still marked by its colonial heritage, but also increasingly under the thumb of its new masters in Beijing.

Contributors include Hong Kong activist, Nathan Law; Henrietta Harrison, author of The Perils of Interpreting and Professor of Chinese history; and Frances Wood, author of No Dogs and Not Many Chinese History: Treaty Port Life in China

This is episode 56 of How to Invent a Country on BBC Sounds and is a BBC Studios production