My only previous mention of Katya Adler was her 2021 introduction to Dante.
Later, early in 2025, she did a 2-parter on “The Balkans: Europe’s Forgotten Frontier” which I loved and shared thoughts with others on social media, but I didn’t blog any reference here. A must watch for anyone with opinions about the boundaries of European politics. So many historical divisions between east and west, and more.
Right now in 2026 she is in the middle of broadcasting her 3-parter “Europe on the Edge“, focussing on the bigger western European players – Italy, Germany, Spain and France, and the deep and long-standing divisions within those. In some senses scarier than the eastern examples because these countries at least operate as stable nation states in international dealings.
Her style is very gentle & empathetic and being knowledgeable & multi-lingual the locals seem to enjoy talking to her, so you feel you’re getting to hear what people really think.
It’s actually the very same subject as my previous post – about how sub-cultures operate within the society of a nation state, whether those sub-cultures are religious, ethnic or simply vagaries of history.
I have a rule of thumb that says boundaries that have been fixed for more than 3 or 4 human generations – where those people have grown-up with their home defined by such borders – should be treated as fixed for practical governance purposes. (An example – beyond the scopes here – is I always ask what people mean by Zionism in the 21st century – easy to agree starting from somewhere else that you would have resisted the creation of Israel, but no sense to deny that it does now exist. Deal with it.)
Where there a longer memories of painful divisive events, and there are many examples in Katya’s documentaries, they can’t be undone so the strategy must always be “truth and reconciliation” – properly recognising the pains before moving on jointly to better practical “federal” arrangements, within and beyond the nation states. Germany’s historical east-west division is obvious, but Italy and Spain have incredibly strong local identities within the nation. Spain has the 17 would-be autonomous regions. Understanding the relevance of the Spanish civil war is one thing, but the lasting pain and division is palpable. Italy often has dozens of identities within each historical city state within the nation. The depth of these divisions and the strength with which they are identified shouldn’t be underestimated.
If we can’t get it right in Europe, what chance have we on the global stage?
Catch “Europe on the Edge” being broadcast now or on iPlayer.
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