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 s...
Jul 03, 2025•42 min
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head to a rally in Budapest where Viktor Orban compares the EU to the Habsburgs, forgetting it was tsarist Russia that crushed the revolution of 1848
Jul 02, 2025•42 min
"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 u...
Jul 02, 2025•42 min
McMafia author Misha Glenny and Miles Warde travel from Vienna to Budapest to find out how Hungarian hardman Viktor Orban uses history beginning with the battle of Mohacs of 1526
Jun 23, 2025•46 min
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, wh...
Jun 23, 2025•46 min
At the beginning of 2024 the president of the Chinese People's Republic, Xi Jinping, claimed 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 part of China, and could this question lead to war? Misha Glenny and producer Miles Warde have been to the capital Taipei and Tainan City in the south to find out about this relationship with the Chinese mainland. "I've obviously been following the situ...
Sep 12, 2024•30 min
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 ...
Sep 12, 2024•30 min
The Long March, the Civil War, the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution
May 24, 2024•42 min
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 Chin...
May 24, 2024•42 min
The end of the Qing and the troubled birth of the republic under Dr Sun Yat-sen
May 13, 2024•42 min
"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 ...
May 13, 2024•42 min
Find out how the world's greatest civilisation found itself dragged into two opium wars
May 04, 2024•42 min
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 ...
May 04, 2024•42 min
Misha Glenny and Miles Warde head east to find out what is China and where it came from?
May 03, 2024•44 min
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 episode 55 of How to Invent a Country on BBC Sounds, recorded on location and opening in Taiwan. "The ...
May 03, 2024•44 min
A bonus episode with Hannah Lucinda Smith, Christopher de Bellaigue and Misha Glenny.
Nov 20, 2023•28 min
Ep 3 - How the republic of Turkey emerged from the ruins of World War One
Oct 27, 2023•39 min
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 the empire, right up until the end of the first world war. At which point the empire was divided up, b...
Oct 27, 2023•39 min
EP 2 - The Invention of Turkey and slow decline of the empire from the siege of Vienna
Oct 27, 2023•31 min
On September 12 1683, an army led by Kara Mustafa Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman empire, lined up on a hill just outside Vienna. The Ottomans had been besieging the city for almost two months. This wasn’t the first time they’d threatened Vienna. Europe’s fate appeared to hang in the balance once again. Misha Glenny - who now lives in Vienna - traces the rise and fall of the Ottoman empire with location recordings from the two palaces of Topkapi and Dolmabahce on the Bosphorus in Istanbul. Co...
Oct 27, 2023•31 min
Ep1 - Istanbul and Mehmet the Conqueror. Misha Glenny on the birth of the Ottoman empire
Oct 27, 2023•33 min
When Mehmet the Conqueror arrived in Constantinople, now Istanbul, he turned the main cathedral into a mosque and threatened to move much further west. Christian Europe was terrified. Misha Glenny travels to Istanbul to reveal how Mehmet's empire expanded over the next 100 years - to Iran, to Egypt, right up to the gates of Vienna too. This was the age of mighty sultans, Selim the Grim and Suleiman the Magnificent, who was happy to take the challenge to the catholic Habsburgs. But as modern Turk...
Oct 27, 2023•33 min
Ep 4 - The Invention of Russia, presented by Misha Glenny and produced by Miles Warde
Jan 09, 2023•32 min
Ep 3 - The Invention of Russia and Catherine the Great, presented by Misha Glenny
Jan 09, 2023•43 min
Ep 2 - The Invention of Russia and the expansion east to Siberia, west into Ukraine
Jan 09, 2023•44 min
Ep 1 The Invention of Russia ... told from a time when it was still very small
Jan 09, 2023•32 min
Misha Glenny's final programme on Russia looks at the country's attitude to war, and in particular the great patriotic wars against Adolf Hitler and Napoleon Bonaparte. With contributions from Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad; Robert Service, author of the Last Tsar, Kateryna Khinkulova of BBC WS; former ambassador to Moscow Rhodric Braithwaite; and Dominic Lieven, author of Napoleon against Russia. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
Jan 09, 2023•32 min
The extraordinary tale of how a small fortressed city became the centre of the largest contiguous landmass in the world, presented by Misha Glenny. It was Peter the Great who created a new capital on the Baltic, and Catherine the Great who extended Russian influence south and west. Sweden, Poland, and the Ottomans all feel the expansion of Russia's empire in a century of geopolitical drama. This is the build up to today's war in Ukraine. With contributions from Virginia Rounding, biographer of C...
Jan 09, 2023•43 min
Russia's empire was not like that of Britain or France. It was built by expanding across the land, so much more like the United States of America. Presenter Misha Glenny speaks to James Hill of the New York Times about travelling to the edges, and also to Janet Hartley, author of Siberia: A History of the People. Plus further contributions from Ukrainian academic Olesya Khromeychuk; Anna Reid, author of Borderland; and the Tblisi-based journalist, Natalia Antelava, editor-in-chief at Coda Story....
Jan 09, 2023•44 min
Countries look so cohesive on the map - sturdy borders, familiar shapes. Don't be misled; they didn't always look like this. This is the story of Russia, biggest contiguous country on the planet, told from the time when it was very small. "In my producer's history textbook it says here, page 18, that Russia as a political entity did not exist." With contributions across the series from Janet Hartley, author of a history of the Volga; Rhodric Braithwaite, former ambassador to Moscow; historian an...
Jan 09, 2023•32 min
