Speaker 1: When we last left spet Lana, she had just married
Speaker 1: William Wesley Peters, becoming spet Lana Peters, not that one,
Speaker 1: the other one, and Olga Vanna could not have been
Speaker 1: more pleased to once again have a daughter named spet
Speaker 1: LANAA something goes about my name Cela was some kind
Speaker 1: of a mysterious thing, you know. Before coming to Arizona,
Speaker 1: spet Lana had been in the driver's seat of her
Speaker 1: new American life. But here at Taliessen, it was already
Speaker 1: clear to her that Olga Vanna called the shots. After
Speaker 1: only three weeks together. There was still a lot she
Speaker 1: didn't know about this Montenegrin matriarch, and there's so much
Speaker 1: I want to tell you. As you'll see, Olga Vanna
Speaker 1: is a fascinating woman, a woman who lived through revolutions
Speaker 1: and revelations, all in the pursuit of immortality. I'm not
Speaker 1: making this up. That's really what she was after suss
Speaker 1: twelve years so I wish for immortality. If I realized
Speaker 1: that human life was so trungent that by the time
Speaker 1: a human bee has STEVI looked his powers he used
Speaker 1: to leave, it was impossible for me to accept, and
Speaker 1: I was stain that I was a way out, and
Speaker 1: I found for me that way out. So who was
Speaker 1: this woman who had yearned for speed Lana to come
Speaker 1: and visit, who had promised to be spet Lana's mother
Speaker 1: reincarnate if spet Lana would play daughter, and who seemed
Speaker 1: to be queen mother to everyone around her. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going back to find out to the shores of
Speaker 1: the Black Sea, to the origins of an existentially adrift
Speaker 1: aristocrat who became the devoted disciple of an Armenian mystic,
Speaker 1: the wife and partner of an architectural giant, and a
Speaker 1: force to be reckoned with in her own right. My
Speaker 1: name is Dankatroser, and this is Svetlana spet Lana. You
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning, you live your day, and
Speaker 1: then you do it tomorrow, and over and over again,
Speaker 1: and over again and over over again. Act one, The
Speaker 1: girl from Montenegro. When Olga Vana was fourteen, she went
Speaker 1: to a fortune teller in Betomy, Georgia, on the Black Sea.
Speaker 1: She describes it vividly in an autobiography published after her death.
Speaker 1: The creaky winding stairs, the sparse room with four chairs,
Speaker 1: a square table, and a milky crystal ball, the not
Speaker 1: at all creepy painting of a baby with bulging eyes
Speaker 1: that hung in the corner. Olgavannah listened to the woman
Speaker 1: as her brow furrowed with concentration. She warned of an
Speaker 1: early unhappy marriage, but added, and I quote, you will
Speaker 1: be given a chance to change your destiny. If you do,
Speaker 1: you will marry a very famous man. I think he
Speaker 1: has something to do with geometry. I see triangles, circles
Speaker 1: and squares. As a highly educated young woman who'd grown
Speaker 1: up amongst the aristocracy, her mother a fierce army general,
Speaker 1: her father the Chief Justice of Montenegro, Olgavannah had seemingly
Speaker 1: gone into the experience a bit skeptical, but she couldn't
Speaker 1: help but wonder who this man would be, this very
Speaker 1: famous man who had something to do with geometry. Okay, look,
Speaker 1: we all know who this man will be spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: as the kids say. But at the time Olgavannah wouldn't
Speaker 1: have known anything about Frank Lloyd Wright. She was a
Speaker 1: teenager halfway around the world, living with her rich sister
Speaker 1: in Georgia, yearning to move to Moscow to be an actress,
Speaker 1: and now she apparently needed to find her soulmate, the
Speaker 1: man who would save her from unhappiness and change her life,
Speaker 1: which gives us no other alternative than to go live
Speaker 1: from the closet inside my basement. Welcome to the Montenegrin
Speaker 1: dating game. It's time to meet our first three eligible
Speaker 1: bachelors and he they are. Will Olgavana end up with
Speaker 1: Bachelor number one, Valdemar Hinsenburg, a Latvian architect who comes
Speaker 1: on strong, marries this teen bride and gives her a daughter,
Speaker 1: staid Lana. Nope, Hinsenburg is more of a Hindenburg, a
Speaker 1: blimp of a marriage that's not gonna fly. So let's
Speaker 1: meet bachelor number two. It's Luigi. Luigi is a childhood
Speaker 1: friend who reunites with Olgavana as her cabaret costar at
Speaker 1: the theater her husband owns. Their chemistry explodes on and
Speaker 1: off stage. Could this man change her destiny? Nope. His
Speaker 1: parents find out about the affair and, mortified send him away.
Speaker 1: Before we meet bachelor number three, let's take a break
Speaker 1: and get really depressed. Things for Olgavannah were getting hard,
Speaker 1: and not just in her love life. The Russian Revolution
Speaker 1: had destabilized the region and where Olgavana had come from
Speaker 1: wealth and aristocracy. She was now like everyone else, selling
Speaker 1: her jewelry and waiting in line for bread. She was
Speaker 1: also still in a loveless marriage. The fortune teller had
Speaker 1: been right about that, and her little daughter spit Lana
Speaker 1: was sick with dysentery, you know that thing you always
Speaker 1: get in the organ trail game. It was a tough time,
Speaker 1: an all is lost kind of time. And in the
Speaker 1: midst of that despair, a friend told Olgavana that she
Speaker 1: ought to go see this Armenian mystic. He was teaching
Speaker 1: strange mathematical dances that could unlock the inner soul and
Speaker 1: perhaps lead to immortality. And didn't the fortune tellers say
Speaker 1: that her mystery man would have something to do with geometry.
Speaker 1: When Olgavana pushed open the door to see the dances
Speaker 1: of this strange mystic, she walked in on a bald
Speaker 1: man in his fifties with a Salvador Dali mustache, impishly
Speaker 1: instructing a group of women how to dance. This is
Speaker 1: bachelor number three. This is Joe Ji Gerjeff Gerjeff was
Speaker 1: born in Armenia in eighteen sixty six. To put that
Speaker 1: in context. That is exactly one year after eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: on a spiritual quest in the deserts of Afghanistan, Gurjeff
Speaker 1: discovered Sufi dances that awaken the soul. There's a very
Speaker 1: dull movie called Meetings with Remarkable Men about Gerjeff's ascendance,
Speaker 1: which lands on him witnessing these very dances called the Movements.
Speaker 1: Everyone in the monastery learns the alphabet of these movements.
Speaker 1: We can read him. The truths placed them many thousands
Speaker 1: of years ago. I understand riveting. The dances were unlike
Speaker 1: anything Olgavana had ever seen. They demanded a precision that
Speaker 1: would take hours, days, weeks, months to perfect. And they
Speaker 1: weren't just beautiful. They were transcendent, spiritual, mathematical meant to
Speaker 1: unite one's mind, emotions, and physical being. The dances were
Speaker 1: also centered on the pelvis. Gerjeff would say, ass is
Speaker 1: projector for understanding all other parts of a person. Ass
Speaker 1: is root, and this is why I love history. With
Speaker 1: these movements, along with a system of self development he
Speaker 1: called the Fourth Way, Gurjeff promised to develop quote harmonious
Speaker 1: individuals who could achieve a higher level of consciousness Olgavana
Speaker 1: was intrigued. Gurjeff's belief system was harsh but clear. You
Speaker 1: can become anything you want to be. Olgavannah recalls him
Speaker 1: telling her you can be godlike. You can do things
Speaker 1: plain mortals cannot do, provided you struggle with yourself to
Speaker 1: overcome your weakness Georgivinich. She said, most of all, I
Speaker 1: want immortality, and Gurjeff said he could help her. He
Speaker 1: sends her on a rocky style, rigorous training period that
Speaker 1: will make her into the best Gergiffian disciple of them all. First,
Speaker 1: fire your servants, cook and clean for yourself and for
Speaker 1: all the Gurgiffians. Jab jab left hook jab. Second, give
Speaker 1: up all material possessions, suffering as how you grow uppercut
Speaker 1: punch punch noogie jab. Third, learn the movements math dance,
Speaker 1: math dance, math dance. You can see it now, can't you.
Speaker 1: It's every dance montage rolled into one. It's Fossy Verdin,
Speaker 1: It's Julia Stiles and save the last dance. It's flashdance. People.
Speaker 1: We are maniac maniac on the floor. Olgavana was gaining
Speaker 1: favor and growing closer and closer to higher consciousness, but
Speaker 1: the tests were also getting harder and harder. In the
Speaker 1: most brutal test of all, Gergiev asks Olgavana to send
Speaker 1: away her daughter, spent Lana, to her brother in America.
Speaker 1: Spent Lana, her precious five year old. It's at this
Speaker 1: moment when I want to remind us all that decades later,
Speaker 1: our own spet Lana set Lana Aloyeva would be faced
Speaker 1: with the same dilemma. Go for the thing you really want,
Speaker 1: but give up your children on the way. But Olgavana,
Speaker 1: spet Lana was still a kid. This abandonment is the
Speaker 1: stuff of fairy tales, of biblical challenges. I offer you
Speaker 1: eternal life if you give up your child. Olgavana makes
Speaker 1: the deal. She packs up her little girl and sends
Speaker 1: her to America. Now alone, Olgavana can focus entirely on
Speaker 1: her studies in France with what Gergeff calls his Institute
Speaker 1: for the Harmonious Development of Man, the if Dom for short.
Speaker 1: No one calls it that, but I will. The if
Speaker 1: Dom is headquartered in an old forty five acre French
Speaker 1: estate outside of Paris called the Prior, three story mansion,
Speaker 1: with a sweet for Gerjef and former servants quarters for
Speaker 1: the disciples who are meant to part with all things comfort.
Speaker 1: Gergef is particularly hard on Olgovana, Knowing that her heart
Speaker 1: is aching for her daughter, he puts her in charge
Speaker 1: of caring for the children of other disciples, and when
Speaker 1: he catches herself soothing by eating desserts in the kitchen
Speaker 1: at night, he cuts off sweets from her diet. If
Speaker 1: making Olgavana take care of kids while hers is away
Speaker 1: is salt on a wound, then taking away her sweets
Speaker 1: is a dump in the mouth. But she understands that
Speaker 1: these hardships, these are a part of the journey. Do
Speaker 1: not shut yourself while taking on suffering. You can benefit
Speaker 1: and you can learn really inside. At the if dumb
Speaker 1: people flock to study and live under Gerjeff and his principles,
Speaker 1: nobody slept more than a few hours each night. They
Speaker 1: listened to him lecture and read his writings. During the day.
Speaker 1: They dressed in formal attire for meals at night, cooked
Speaker 1: by the fellow disciples, and then in the evening they
Speaker 1: perform the movements. It was rigorous and angular, and in
Speaker 1: unison it was math dance. Day after day there was
Speaker 1: notice and then at that time you really know what
Speaker 1: relaxation is. Then you enjoy the moments of your life
Speaker 1: to which you have given consent. Meanwhile, according to the Fellowship,
Speaker 1: Gerjeff was sleeping with most, if not all, of his
Speaker 1: young female followers, including married women, probably Olgavana too, who,
Speaker 1: fun fact, was still married to spet Lana's father. Oh
Speaker 1: and you want another fun fact. According to some lucky ladies,
Speaker 1: Gerjeff could apparently make a woman orgasm from across the
Speaker 1: room with just his gaze. But as great as this dance,
Speaker 1: billed fuck Topia was, money was always a challenge. Geometrically,
Speaker 1: dancing together outside of Paris is not exactly lucrative, and
Speaker 1: they were in danger of losing prearray. On Christmas Day,
Speaker 1: Olgavannah gathers with a hundred other followers for a banquet
Speaker 1: like an Armenian Willie Wonka. Gerjeff announces he's hidden a
Speaker 1: golden coin in the Christmas pudding. Whoever finds it will
Speaker 1: be marked for greatness, he says, and given the gift
Speaker 1: of a newborn calf. The disciples dig in, and as
Speaker 1: Olgavan a spoon dips below the surface, there's the sound
Speaker 1: of a clink, it's the golden coin. After dinner, Gerjeff
Speaker 1: brings Olgavana to the stables to the baby calf, and
Speaker 1: as she cradles it in her arms in the cold
Speaker 1: night in the winter outside of Paris, she knows the
Speaker 1: universe is calling her to a new place, a place
Speaker 1: where she can be reunited with her daughter, A place
Speaker 1: where the IF can reach new heights and save itself
Speaker 1: from financial ruin, a place where the roads are paved
Speaker 1: with gold and people bake apple pies out of baseballs
Speaker 1: and freedom, a place called America Act Too. Frankie and Olgavanni, Olgavana, Gerjeff,
Speaker 1: and an entourage of twenty one students decide to bring
Speaker 1: their revolutionary movements on tour to make some money and
Speaker 1: make a splash. They dance in Paris, Chicago, New York.
Speaker 1: A New York Times critic calls their performance quote the
Speaker 1: most amaz using dancing he had ever seen. In comparison,
Speaker 1: the best of the Russian ballet seems like child's play,
Speaker 1: and speaking of children, Olga Vana is finally reunited with
Speaker 1: her daughters. Fet Lana, who's been living in New York
Speaker 1: City this whole time, with Olgavannah's brother, mother, and daughter
Speaker 1: are back together again. The tour is a recruiting success,
Speaker 1: and there's hope of establishing an American bass Big time
Speaker 1: director Cecil B. DeMille even offers Olgavana a spot in
Speaker 1: the pictures as a Hollywood dancer. Olgavana declines she's devoted
Speaker 1: to her master, but her master doesn't seem as devoted
Speaker 1: to her because he apparently kicks her out of the preorree.
Speaker 1: And so in this new chapter of life, Olgavana eventually
Speaker 1: makes her way to Chicago, where she finally meets her
Speaker 1: four told geometry man, one mister Frank Lloyd Wright, on
Speaker 1: a Sunday afternoon in November of nineteen twenty four. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you like I can remember when you
Speaker 1: first heard the story of how the two of them
Speaker 1: fell in love and what that story was. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: I was just reading up on the story last night.
Speaker 1: That's Kieran Murphy. For twenty five years, she was a
Speaker 1: tour guide at tally Esen in Wisconsin, and as something
Speaker 1: of a Frank Lloyd Wright scholar, she even runs a
Speaker 1: blog devoted to writing in history Kieran Murphy dot com
Speaker 1: k e I Ran. When you go on tours of
Speaker 1: the tally Essen Estate in Wisconsin or tali Essen West
Speaker 1: in Arizona, you'll be sure to hear the story of
Speaker 1: how the Rights fell in love. Here's Kieran. They met
Speaker 1: by chance in Chicago, the Ballet on a Sunday matinee.
Speaker 1: Olgavana recalls in her autobiography that she'd had a sudden
Speaker 1: desire to refresh the memories of her youth, deciding spontaneously
Speaker 1: to attend a performance by the Russian Ballet. When she arrives,
Speaker 1: there's just one ticket left, in a partially your pie box.
Speaker 1: She takes it. It was a full house. He was
Speaker 1: in the box seat with his friend, and the only
Speaker 1: seat open was the seat next to his And he said,
Speaker 1: right before the lights came down, the usher brought in
Speaker 1: this dark, exotic, very beautiful woman, and that, of course
Speaker 1: was Olgavana. Frank Lloyd Wright is fifty seven. Olgavana is
Speaker 1: twenty six, with a dancer's live physique, thick dark hair,
Speaker 1: and an aristocratic bearing. By every account, she is stunning.
Speaker 1: It's no wonder she immediately catches Right's eye. Eventually he
Speaker 1: makes his move. Right was not impressed with the main ballerina,
Speaker 1: and he said, all of these people are dead. It's
Speaker 1: like the dead dancing for the dead. The dead dancing
Speaker 1: for the dead. That would have resonated deeply with old Gavana,
Speaker 1: who'd spent years under Gerjeff learning that most people live
Speaker 1: as if asleep. It was like Frank Lloyd Wright had
Speaker 1: uttered a secret code, She writes, I knew then that
Speaker 1: it was meant to be. They went out for tea later,
Speaker 1: and he said he fell in love with her that night,
Speaker 1: and she said later that she fell in love with
Speaker 1: him that night too. It's there over tea at the
Speaker 1: Congress Hotel on Michigan Avenue, where they divulged to each
Speaker 1: other their pasts, the good, the bad, and the fugley.
Speaker 1: Wright goes first, diving into his shit show of a life.
Speaker 1: Forgive me, I'm gonna gloss over what could easily be
Speaker 1: a whole other podcast. He tells her of the wife
Speaker 1: and six children he abandoned for a new life with
Speaker 1: another married woman, of the butler he fired, who then
Speaker 1: tragically acts murdered his mistress and her two children and
Speaker 1: burned his estate to the ground. Of the wealthy woman
Speaker 1: he'd fallen for in his grief, who'd helped him rebuild
Speaker 1: Taliessin from the ashes, and how they're relationship had since devolved,
Speaker 1: you know, really sexy first day kind of stuff. He
Speaker 1: was married, he told Olgavana, but utterly alone. Olgavannah goes next.
Speaker 1: She tells him of her studies with Gergiff, the movements
Speaker 1: and their supernatural powers. They discuss art and philosophy, each
Speaker 1: impressed with the other. She talks of her unhappy marriage
Speaker 1: and her young daughter, spet Lana. A string orchestra plays
Speaker 1: a Strauss waltz, and Wright asks her to dance. They're alone,
Speaker 1: gliding through the courtyard. I want to be with you always,
Speaker 1: Wright says to her. And you, yes, says Olgavanna always.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that I too stayed at the Congress
Speaker 1: on Michigan Avenue, but I did not fall in love
Speaker 1: or dance to a Strouse waltz. I'm merely ate deep
Speaker 1: dish pizza and befriended a janitor who told me stories
Speaker 1: about the ghost children who haunted the halls. Not long
Speaker 1: after their chance encounter, Frank invites Olgavannah to the newly
Speaker 1: rebuilt tally Essen where she implies they have sex all
Speaker 1: night long in the living room. Boy, isn't that just beautiful? Right?
Speaker 1: Calls it fate, Olgavannah, Thanks God, it's divine written in
Speaker 1: the stars. But fate doesn't allow them to just join
Speaker 1: forces as quickly as they've joined hearts and other things.
Speaker 1: They were both still married, after all, and it didn't
Speaker 1: take long for things to go off the rails. Let's
Speaker 1: flip through the insane calendar of nineteen twenty five. Shall
Speaker 1: we march? Oldgavannah is pregnant and she moves into tally Essen. April,
Speaker 1: tali Esen goes up in flames for the second time. December,
Speaker 1: Olgavannah gives birth to a baby girl, Yavanna, causing a
Speaker 1: Tabloyd sensation. This jolts their family out of Wisconsin and
Speaker 1: on the lamb. It sets Frank's estranged wife on a
Speaker 1: legal war path and writes a precarious financial situation forces
Speaker 1: the bank to seize tally Essen. This time is messy
Speaker 1: and chaotic, but I'll skip to the happy ish ending
Speaker 1: of that insane chapter. In nineteen twenty eight, Frank and
Speaker 1: Olga Vanna emerge triumphant, divorced, remarried, two kids back in
Speaker 1: their own home through some clever financial maneuvering. Yes they
Speaker 1: did it, Love winds. And then in the wake of
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, the public is burdened with the realities
Speaker 1: of unemployment and Thomas the Great Depression. If anyone is
Speaker 1: prepared for this moment, it's Frank and Olgavannah Lloyd Wright.
Speaker 1: At sixty two years young, Wright has spent his entire
Speaker 1: life spending money he doesn't have and bouncing back from
Speaker 1: financial ruin over and over again. Throughout much of his life,
Speaker 1: Frank Lloyd Wright was plagued by financial troubles, much of
Speaker 1: at his own doing, and having survived the Russian Revolution
Speaker 1: and spent years with Gercheff, Olgavana is a pro at
Speaker 1: thriving under duress. Hardship is her whole stick, and at
Speaker 1: this moment, when it feels like the world is collapsing,
Speaker 1: Frank and Olgavana Lloyd Wright both dream of forging a
Speaker 1: new world together, a utopia fashion from their most progressive
Speaker 1: and exciting architectural ideals and philosophical beliefs, a collective community
Speaker 1: of like minded individuals in pursuit of beauty and enlightenment.
Speaker 1: An enterprise that would sustain them during these trying times.
Speaker 1: Frank Lloyd Wright was booked before the depression hid in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine, but the few clients that came to
Speaker 1: see him at Talius and found themselves broke as well.
Speaker 1: He had to develop something, something to sustain himself. The
Speaker 1: Rights were building an army of apprentices who would pay
Speaker 1: to work at a time when you were lucky to
Speaker 1: have a job at all. No buildings to build at
Speaker 1: that hallowing moment, But why not build the builders of
Speaker 1: buildings against the time when buildings might again be built.
Speaker 1: Couldn't have said it better myself. The fellowship would cost
Speaker 1: more than Harvard. There would be no exams, no degrees.
Speaker 1: The goal, as the prospectives put it, would be to
Speaker 1: develop a well correlated human individual, the very thing Olgavana
Speaker 1: had been training to do for years. Don't you believe
Speaker 1: with me that that architect must be a full man
Speaker 1: with integrity, with honesty, courage. Wars When the Rights start
Speaker 1: to advertise their fellowship, eager students from around the world
Speaker 1: wrote in my desire to be one of the apprentices
Speaker 1: is so great that I would almost slave to be included.
Speaker 1: It has been said that those who come here, indeed
Speaker 1: all those whose work is inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright,
Speaker 1: are more disciples than students of the Master. In nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two, Right boldly announced his plans for the tally
Speaker 1: Essen Fellowship. Applications poured in from all over the world.
Speaker 1: By the summer of nineteen thirty two, their first apprentice,
Speaker 1: William Wesley Peters, makes his way to tally Esen and
Speaker 1: shakes the hand of Frank Lloyd Wright. Dozens more sign
Speaker 1: up to be the inaugural tally Essen Fellows. The Fellowship
Speaker 1: had begun Act three the struggle within decades later, in
Speaker 1: her interview with Roger Friedland and Harold Zelman spent Lana
Speaker 1: would admit that as soon as she met Olgavana in
Speaker 1: March of nineteen seventy, she had a familiar uneasy feeling.
Speaker 1: How did you feel about missus right, What was your
Speaker 1: sense of her? Well, my sense was tremendous disappointment number one,
Speaker 1: because I thought that I'm going to meet a woman,
Speaker 1: dark haired, dark eyed, probably like my mother, born the
Speaker 1: same year. She was looked like my mother. Told she
Speaker 1: was very strong, she was very assertive. She was telling
Speaker 1: people what to do. She was more like my father.
Speaker 1: She had this yellow spark in her eye. I could
Speaker 1: see people who are afraid of her. When the Fellowship
Speaker 1: began in nineteen thirty two, the apprentices were there to
Speaker 1: worship at the altar of Frank Lloyd Wright, But after
Speaker 1: his death, the person they answered to was Olgavana. Her
Speaker 1: power rested on her partnership with Right, the partnership that
Speaker 1: had been divined by God, by fate, by a lucky
Speaker 1: sea placement at a ballet performance in nineteen twenty four.
Speaker 1: But what if that tale told over and over again,
Speaker 1: the tale of happenstance of a man in his late
Speaker 1: fifties meeting a young woman in her twenties, launching him
Speaker 1: into the glorious third act of his life and career,
Speaker 1: and helping him to build this new world of the
Speaker 1: Talis and Fellowship. What if that wasn't coincidence at all.
Speaker 1: While working on their book, Roger and Harold wanted to
Speaker 1: deconstruct that chance meeting. Here's Harold the box seat that
Speaker 1: Right describes in the autobiographies over the stage. Those seats
Speaker 1: were always house seats. That's very meaningful because the person
Speaker 1: who organized the performance was a gre Chiefian Franklin Wright's
Speaker 1: seat was provided by a Grechiefian to Olgavanna and Frank
Speaker 1: those two seats together at the theater. Through years of research,
Speaker 1: Harold and Roger came to believe that the whole thing
Speaker 1: was an orchestrated attempt to bait Right with the irresistibly
Speaker 1: seductive Olgavana. A ruse. The Gregiffians had been searching for
Speaker 1: an American base, and Right was the perfect mark. Tally
Speaker 1: Essen could be their home, and Olgavannah, who'd been cast
Speaker 1: off by her teacher, could be useful to Gerjeff. Once again,
Speaker 1: there's a considerable evidence that her whole strategy, which involved
Speaker 1: arranging to meet Frank Lloyd Wright, was intended to find
Speaker 1: a perfect place to replace Kerchef's former institute in France.
Speaker 1: Olgavana's goal was to meet Frank Lloyd Wright, marry him,
Speaker 1: and have access to tally Essen in Wisconsin as a
Speaker 1: center for Gerscheff. Harold and Roger did a bunch of
Speaker 1: interviews and combed through old correspondence to find other details
Speaker 1: that support this theory. It's a complicated web of collusion,
Speaker 1: so if you want the full scoop, you can read
Speaker 1: their book. It's fabulous, but look, I'm a romantic. It
Speaker 1: certainly is a better story if Frank and Olgavana Lloyd
Speaker 1: Wright had happened to meet and fall in love by chance.
Speaker 1: Can't you just see them as one of those couples
Speaker 1: reminiscing and when Harry met Sally talking over each other.
Speaker 1: We met at the ballet. You was so beautiful, us
Speaker 1: so old. But I tend to believe that Olgavannah knew
Speaker 1: who'd be sitting in the box that day, that she
Speaker 1: found her mark and she played him. Yet I also
Speaker 1: believe that Olgavannah did genuinely fall for him, like in
Speaker 1: Ten Things I Hate About You, where Heath Ledger actually
Speaker 1: falls for Batman. Either way, the fellowship at tally Esen
Speaker 1: was the love child of both Olgavana and Frank Lloyd Wright,
Speaker 1: two powerful people with big dreams and big egos. Over
Speaker 1: the next thirty years, there are vivid accounts of their
Speaker 1: relationship as brimming with passion, but also of jealousy and
Speaker 1: anger as they fought for their opposing visions. Right wanted
Speaker 1: Olgavana to choose between the two great men in her life,
Speaker 1: him or Gerjeff Olgavana wanted Right to make room for
Speaker 1: them both. This struggle would persist throughout their marriage and
Speaker 1: the history of the fellowship. Olgovanna would teach dances in
Speaker 1: secret and lecture at night when Wright had gone to sleep.
Speaker 1: When he would find out, he'd erupt in rage and
Speaker 1: by many accounts, turn to violence. Did a man of
Speaker 1: such strong will permit a mere woman like yourself to
Speaker 1: keep her own identity? Did he make any effort to
Speaker 1: impose his ideas upon you? To impose his ideas upon me?
Speaker 1: Of course he did. We fought terribly. We fought marvelously too,
Speaker 1: upon practically every subject. But I don't believe that anyone
Speaker 1: thought I lack to identity. But the struggle finally ended
Speaker 1: when Right, at the ripe old age of ninety one, died.
Speaker 1: Simon and Garfuncle would sing about it death. The same year,
Speaker 1: speed Lana arrived at tally Esen West, So Glodry, I
Speaker 1: can't believe your song is the throne suddenly belonged to Olgavana,
Speaker 1: and Olgavana alone. No more dissenting opinions and power struggles.
Speaker 1: The fellowship was hers, and she could tune it to
Speaker 1: her will without objection, did I ever have an idea
Speaker 1: of a school? Of course I did, As you will know,
Speaker 1: I was strained in philosophy and psychology in Guji of school,
Speaker 1: which I believe was the greatest contribution to me. This
Speaker 1: is the tally es and that speed Lana is absorbed
Speaker 1: into a mishmash of architecture and mysticism. A royal court
Speaker 1: that reminded Svetlana in some ways of the life she'd
Speaker 1: left behind in Russia. An insular universe led by Olgavana
Speaker 1: with a velvet glove and an iron fist who'd always
Speaker 1: yearned for her throne. A daughterless mother and a motherless daughter,
Speaker 1: both in perpetual mourning. Two women trying to survive relationships
Speaker 1: with complicated and violent men and come into their own power. Yet,
Speaker 1: whether they realize it or not, these two women are
Speaker 1: now diametrically opposed to one another. To sustain the taliesin
Speaker 1: world order, Olgavana needs Fetlana to fall in line, but
Speaker 1: will Svetlana after everything she's been through. Ben the Knee
Speaker 1: will find out on the next episode of Svetlana. Svetlana.
Speaker 1: Svetlana stet Lana is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the documentary group I'm Your Host Dan Katrosser. The show
Speaker 1: was written and produced by me Adam Webber, Alison Joy,
Speaker 1: and Katherine Isaac. We also serve as executive producers at
Speaker 1: the documentary group. Our executive producer is Joe Batzilouitz, with
Speaker 1: production oversight by Stacy Kleiger an additional support from Tom
Speaker 1: Yellen and Gabrielle Tennenbau. Our iHeart team is supervising producer
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram and executive producer Maya Howard. Editing assistants from
Speaker 1: producers Christina Lorenger and Joey pat Original music by Elan Iszakov.
Speaker 1: Production counsel by Slas ekhous Dasky Haynes Lockoe, clearance counsel
Speaker 1: by Ballard Sparr, Fact checking assistance by Megan Trout, Research
Speaker 1: assistance by Caleb Martin Rosenthal, Emily Angg and Sophia Derso.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to my husband Jordan Siegel, and Roger Friedland
Speaker 1: and Harold Zelman, authors of the book The Fellowship, who
Speaker 1: kindly granted permission to include excerpts from their taped interview
Speaker 1: with Spetlana