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More history than you can consume!

Why did the slow disintegration of the Ottoman empire lead to war in the Balkans? Misha Glenny finds out.

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.
Misha Glenny is the author of McMafia and The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers. The producer for BBC Studios is Miles Warde

Release date:

42 minutes

On radio

Next Monday11:00

Broadcast

  • Next Monday11:00