Podcast Series: How To Invent A Country

There's nothing inevitable about how countries look today.

It could have been completely different: different borders, several languages, other kind of cultural references. When we study history at school we barely think about it. We take them for granted and see the creation of nation-states as a natural evolution from absolute monarchies or empires.

But that's simply not true.

In times like these, when nationalistic ideas are fueling extremist parties and movements across all western societies, when German neonazi groups feel strong enough to take to the streets and chase foreigners, it is more important than ever to remember nation building is a very recent and artificial process.

In this podcast series, the BBC's Misha Glenny goes back in time to look in detail at the creation of several countries. Just reading the title "The Invention of..." we realise this podcast is about historical events we might already know, but analyses and studies them from a different angle. For example, these are not "the memories of the German nation", which sounds like an unavoidable truth, but "the invention of Germany". The interesting thing about this series is the willingness of the reporter to focus on the darkest episodes of every country. To construct a nation you need myths, epic – and false – tales from a supposedly glorious past. But you also need blood and massacres. A lot of them. Such as, for example, the blood Italians shed in World War I only for a nationalist-fueled land grabbing desire in the Alps.

Or like the massacres committed during colonialism. And slavery, which, as we learn in the series, tends to be forgotten even in the last American country where it was abolished: Brazil.