Episodes
| Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Repeated | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | The Ottomans, East Or West | 20231027 | 20240104 (R4) | 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 Turkey prepares to celebrate a hundred years without the Ottomans, how is this period remembered under the government of President Erdogan? This is the fiftieth episode of Misha Glenny and Miles Warde's How to Invent a Country series, which sets out to explain where nations come from, who decides their borders, and what stories the people tell themselves. These programmes are recorded on location in Istanbul, Belgrade and Vienna. All these sultans, they were mythical creatures for us. I really thought they were part of a fictional world because the real history for us was about Ataturk, and in primary school Ottoman history was a foreign country for us.' Kaya Genc, novelist and author of The Lion and Nightingale. Other contributors to the series include Judith Herrin, author of Byzantium; Professor Marc David Baer, author of The Ottomans; senior lecturer at Kadir Has University Soli Ozel; Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Lion House; and Hannah Lucinda Smith whose most recent book is Erdogan Rising: The Battle for the Soul of Turkey Presenter Misha Glenny is the author of McMafia and a former Central Europe correspondent for the BBC. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde Further reading: Suzy Hansen, Notes on a Foreign Country Norman Stone, Turkey (a short history) Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul Martyn Rady, The Middle Kingdoms Christopher de Bellaigue, The Lion House Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans Soli Ozel, The History of Turkey's Future (in progress) Kaya Genc, The Lion and the Nightingale Hannah Lucinda Smith, Erdogan Rising Mark Mazower, Salonica, city of ghosts Misha Glenny in Istanbul on the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic Turkey was founded on October 29th 1923 but for five centuries it had been part of the mighty Ottoman Empire. This is the story of how that empire began. |
| 02 | The Military | 20231103 | 20240111 (R4) | 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. Contributors to the series include Hannah Lucinda Smith, author Erdogan Rising; Professor Marc David Baer, author of The Ottomans; the Istanbul based writer Kaya Genc; Martyn Rady, author of books on the Habsburgs and The Middle Kingdoms; and Christopher de Bellaigue, former Tehran correspondent and author of The Lion House. Misha Glenny is rector of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and author of McMafia. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde Further reading: Suzy Hansen, Notes on a Foreign Country Norman Stone, Turkey (a short history) Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul Martyn Rady, The Middle Kingdoms Christopher de Bellaigue, The Lion House Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans Soli Ozel, The History of Turkey's Future (in progress) Kaya Genc, The Lion and the Nightingale Hannah Lucinda Smith, Erdogan Rising Mark Mazower, Salonica, city of ghosts East versus west, secular versus religious, how the empire came to the point of collapse. Misha Glenny and Miles Warde on the centenary of the creation of the Turkish Republic in 1923. |
| 03 | A Balancing Act | 20231110 | 20240118 (R4) | 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, broken up, partitioned into mandates – Syria and Lebanon under the French, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq to the British, this based on the famous Sykes-Picot line agreed in 1916. The Ottoman empire had joined the wrong side in the war, and was going to pay. You could say this region is still paying, such has been the failure of those lines drawn in the sand.' Contributors include Soli Ozel of Kadir Has University; Eugene Rogan, author of The Fall of the Ottomans; and Suzy Hansen whose Notes on a Foreign Country was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde Misha Glenny on the birth of Turkey from the ruins of the old Ottoman Empire in 1923. Why did the Ottomans support Germany in the First World War, and what are the consequences today? '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, broken up, partitioned into mandates - Syria and Lebanon under the French, Palestine, Jordan and Iraq to the British, this based on the famous Sykes-Picot line agreed in 1916. The Ottoman empire had joined the wrong side in the war, and was going to pay. You could say this region is still paying, such has been the failure of those lines drawn in the sand.' |