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Empire: World History

82. Crimea: The War on Repeat

Empire: World History

Goalhanger

History

4.55.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 September 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A slow grind of sieges and massacres. Long distance bombardments and gruelling inch-by-inch trench warfare. Battles for Sevastopol, Odessa, and control of the Black Sea. Is it 1853 or 2023? The parallels between the Crimean War and what is happening now in Ukraine are startling. Listen as William and Anita are joined by Orlando Figes to discuss this totemic 19th century clash and all of its modern-day resonances. Twitter: @Empirepoduk Email: empirepoduk@gmail.com Goalhangerpodcasts.com Producer: Callum Hill Exec Producer: Jack Davenport + Neil Fearn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of empire, a chat community,

0:06.7

discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast, add free listening and a weekly

0:11.5

newsletter, sign up to Empire Club at

0:14.4

W.

0:15.1

W. Empire pod UK.com. Hello and me,

0:23.1

me William Durham. And me, Welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnan.

0:33.0

And me, William Durham.

0:35.0

Now we're very excited about today because we are joined by Orlando Fijis,

0:39.0

and we're mostly excited because we got his name right.

0:42.0

I have had so many variations on that theme.

0:45.0

Elgar would be entirely jealous of it.

0:48.0

And my favorite Orlando, apart from being the greatest historian of Russia writing today, author of Crimea, the definitive book of the Crimean War, which is what we're talking about today.

0:57.0

You have the name that is most twistable. I thought it was mine, that it's yours. My favorite version was Figgies, which made me feel like it was Christmas. I've had Figgus.

1:08.0

Figgi pudding. I've been called all sorts of names, but yeah, Fijis will do.

1:12.6

Explain yourself.

1:14.0

Where does Fijis come from and well done William for always saying it right?

1:17.6

Well we're not sure I mean as far as one can tell on ancestry.com we're a bunch of

1:22.4

Londoners ever since records began but I suspect

1:26.7

we're either Huguenot immigrants or I like to think Catalans because the one place they

1:31.7

know how to pronounce my name was in Barcelona

1:33.7

so we must have been from that part of the world somewhere not a bad spot to be

1:37.6

recognised no no I'm happy and no sellers of figi putting in your ancestry for? No, no, no. All basic laborers from London,

...

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