Episode 30. Jakub Beneš: The Rural-Urban Divide in East-Central Europe

Jakub Beneš, Associate Professor in Central European History at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, joins us to discuss the role of peasant communities and anti-urban sentiment in the socio-political landscape of Austria-Hungary, its successor states and the independent Balkans. Challenging earlier characterisations of the peasantry as inherently reactionary, Jakub considers how the growth of the modern metropolis gave rise to more distinctive forms of rural identity. Alongside greater political and cultural agency, this was accompanied by an increasing sense of alienation from the state and urban elites, predicated on majority fears of ‘becoming a minority’ in one’s own land.