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. "Eastern Europe's Minorities in a Century of Change", a podcast series on the history of minorities and minority experiences in twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe prepared by the BASEES Study Group for Minority History to mark the Institute for Historical Research’s centenary. The co-conveners of the Study Group are Olena Palko (Birkbeck) and Samuel Foster (University of East Anglia)