Sarajevo 1914: The Assassin, the Archduke, and Nationalism's Crucible

On June 28, 1914, a single city became the fault line between empires, nations, and ideologies.

In Sarajevo, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand set in motion a chain of events that would drag Europe into total war. But the shots fired that morning did not emerge from a vacuum. They were shaped by decades of imperial rule, nationalist movements, revolutionary politics, and a generation convinced that history itself was accelerating.

This episode explores Sarajevo not just as the site of an assassination, but as a place where competing visions of power, identity, and liberation collided—revealing how the pressures of empire and ideology can turn a local act into a global catastrophe.

This episode also serves as a bridge to my new podcast, ISM: Ideas Meet Power, which explores the history of political ideologies through the moments when they collide with reality.

Written and produced by Matt Payne.

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Original Musical Compositions by Ian Payne: https://www.jamesianpayne.com/

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