WEBVTT - Part One: Isabelle Eberhardt: The Genderbending Vagabond 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.440 Hello, and welcome to Cool People That Did Cool Stuff, 0:00:02.480 --> 0:00:06.120 the only history podcast. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:08.319 with me today is a guest I'm super excited about. 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:11.200 It's Julie Holland. If you haven't heard Julie Holland's music, 0:00:11.320 --> 0:00:13.640 you're living your life from How Are You Today? Julie. 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:20.320 I am super super extra psyched because I love this podcast. 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.680 I'm so happy here. Yeay yeah. I had a moment 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.280 where I was like kind of fan girl and when 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:31.640 I realized that Julie Holland followed me on social media. Um. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:34.360 So our producer is the one and only Sophie Lijaman. 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:37.559 Hi Sophie, how are you? Hi? Magpie? I'm well, how 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:43.640 are you? You know? Life continues a pace. Our audio 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:45.960 engineers Ian. Our theme music was written for us by 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:51.920 a woman. So so today we're going to talk about 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:55.120 one of the most legendary gender benders in history. A 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.240 prolific writer who loved drinking and fucking, who's got to 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.120 complicated as fun childhood and a company gad his fun adulthood. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:03.800 And I figured, if she's good enough to get name 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:12.160 dropped in a Jolie Holland song, she's good enough for me? Uh? 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:18.000 Whoa are you talking about the Isabel ever heard? The 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:28.319 nihilist writer? Yep, Isabel ever heard? Or Yeah, actually I'm 0:01:28.319 --> 0:01:30.760 curious so how much. I don't want to put you 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:32.800 on the spot, but is this like are you already 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:36.120 like have you written biographies about her already? Or just 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:40.560 kind of like so clearly anyone who's listening. Um. One 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.960 of Jolie's songs, Old Fashioned Morphine has a line that says, 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:44.760 if it's good enough for Isabel ever heard, it's good 0:01:44.840 --> 0:01:47.400 enough for me? Um, And I'm gonna curious your background 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.800 with Isabel ever heard? I think that I found a 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.080 book around the house and I lived with in a 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:58.800 big house in San Francisco where there were a bunch 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:02.320 of artists back before or the culture of San Francisco 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:08.120 was completely destroyed by tech bros. Yah. Yeah, that seems 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.320 like a good way to I don't know whether the 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.760 first time I ran across as a Harberhart was either 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.400 through you in that song, or whether it was through 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.360 Eberhart Press, which is a an anarchist publisher based in 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:25.760 the Pacific Northwest that uses her as a namesake. Um, 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:30.440 but that's what we're gonna talk about today and or 0:02:30.520 --> 0:02:32.000 as she was known to many of her friends and 0:02:32.040 --> 0:02:38.720 lovers see Mahmasati, because she was Muslim and dressed as 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:41.240 a man and had a man's identity as often as 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.240 a woman's identity. And we're going to talk about a 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:47.320 lot of how complicated and hard to map our current 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:53.160 understandings of gender onto her life is. She's practically a 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:56.679 saint to the middle class European traveler vagabond who does 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.360 so safely but in search of authenticity, that sort of 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.079 like going out to go backpacking, you know, instead of 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.800 going to college immediately, sort of person um. But that 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:10.720 wasn't that wasn't Isabelle's thing at all. She did not 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:14.600 embrace safety. She threw herself uncompromisingly into life, desperate for 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.640 meaning and adventure. And she didn't come up on short 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:19.720 on any of those things, while she came up short 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:21.560 on life actually in the end. But we'll get to that. 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.080 And she's got more than one side to her at 0:03:25.080 --> 0:03:28.200 any given moment. She's got more than one name, she's 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.120 got more than one motive, more than one set of 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:34.000 loyalties and goals, and she's really hard to pin down. 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.280 Lots Before I've tried, and we're going to give it 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:42.839 a shot at pinning down Isabel everr heart excited. I'm 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:47.920 so excited this is Yeah. I've read a bit about 0:03:47.960 --> 0:03:53.160 her and she I think she was the first person 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.760 who was raised nihilist that I learned about, and I 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:02.640 don't know like how much she continued to embrace that identity. Well, 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:04.240 that's what we're gonna A lot of what we're gonna 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:09.080 talk about is that is that her parents were anarchist nihilists, um, 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.960 and there's like interesting ways that that crops up throughout 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:16.160 her life, even though that isn't her identity. By the 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.800 end um spoilers, she's has quotes about how she's much 0:04:19.839 --> 0:04:23.560 more Muslim than she ever was anarchist, or that she's 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.640 better at it, I think is the way. Whatever, there's 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:27.359 a direct quote that somewhere in the script that you 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.920 will hear, like a lot of the best history is 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:34.640 about Eberhart's family background. Sounds like some ship that's somebody 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.920 made up, and honestly like she did really amazing ship 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.680 and so did her parents. You've got her mom who 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:46.159 was born Natalie Eberhart, and she's aristocratic as fuck in Russia. 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:48.600 The ebber hearts had been hanging out in the circles 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:51.160 of the czars forever, and there's some stuff that I've seen. 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:53.800 She might have been an illegitimate child with a Jewish dad, 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:56.040 but if so, that's kept under wraps because she's in 0:04:56.040 --> 0:05:00.120 the aristocracy and through rubbing noses with the rich os, 0:05:00.160 --> 0:05:04.360 young Natalie meets her husband, who is forty three years 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:08.680 older than her. His name is Senator General Pavel Karlovitch 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:13.440 de Murder Mortar, by the way, means murderer in Germany. 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:19.720 That again, Margaret Murder. No, the entire name Senator General 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:25.760 Pavel Karlovitch de murder based. Yeah, well he sucks, but 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:31.320 it's a base name exactly, and it's like and nowhere 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:34.239 in any of the sources does anyone like point out 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:37.360 that his name means murderer, Like, you know, it's like 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:40.200 the Cooper's they make barrels and the smiths make like 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:45.560 stuff with out of iron and the murders. Anyway, So 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:48.800 this guy is a senior advisor to the czar, as 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.200 both a senator and a general, which is really rare. 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:55.120 He's like very high up, thus the title Senator General. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.279 His brother tutored the czar. He's a widower, and he 0:05:58.360 --> 0:06:01.520 marries the young Natalie and soon he's having a bunch 0:06:01.520 --> 0:06:04.560 of kids with her. She is not happy, she's not 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:08.040 excited about what life has to offer her young Natalie. 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.440 So she does what rich people do when they're unhappy. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:13.520 She retreats, retires to her country estate and spends her 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:16.920 days riding horses and sighing and letting the servants take 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.480 care of the kids. She also maybe does the unhappy 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.360 rich person thing that I wish more unhappy rich people did, 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:29.279 which was become an anarchist, militant class trader. And so 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.280 this tutor shows up, and his name is Alexander Nikolovitch Trufamosky, 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.240 and he's full of fire, and he's young, I mean 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:40.279 not actually, he's like more than a decade older than Natalie, 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:43.760 but that still leaves him thirty one years younger than 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:48.640 her husband, the Senator General. So you know, like the bars, 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.039 well the bar is not low, the bar is very high. Whatever. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:58.320 He's really smart. He speaks Russian, French, German, Italian, Arabic, 0:06:58.400 --> 0:07:02.679 and Hebrew, and he was Armenian, probably from a Turkish 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.800 and Muslim family background, though he was an Orthodox priest 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:11.040 immediately before he became an anarchist and a nihilist. And 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:12.440 and this part, I'm going to be kind of curious 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.680 your take on this, both of you all. So he's 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:19.840 a feminist in his way, like probably he's not faking 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.640 this to get into her pants. And he hates the 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:26.440 institution of marriage. For example, he left his wife and 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:30.000 kids because marriage is bad. And I don't know why, Right, 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:33.160 it could have been this like whoa babe, Marriage is 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:35.520 bad for women like gott to go have fun taking 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:39.440 care of the kids. But I actually feel more likely, 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:42.320 based on everything else that I've learned about him, I 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:44.679 think he had a major ideological break with his younger 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:46.679 life and it no longer suited him or his wife 0:07:46.680 --> 0:07:48.880 to stay together, and she might have caught him out 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:53.320 of the kid's life and her life. So because he 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.360 went from Orthodox priest to anarchist, Orthodox priests were allowed 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.160 to be married as long as they were married before 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:02.920 their ordination. So for whatever reason, he has left his 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:05.800 wife and kids, and now he shows up as a 0:08:05.840 --> 0:08:10.920 tutor in the house of this fabulously rich noble. And 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:13.640 for more background for anyone who's curious, we have an 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:16.320 episode about the Russian nihilists and all the conspiracies that 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:17.880 the anarchists were up to at the time and the 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:19.320 nihilists were up to at the time, which is like 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:22.000 a ven diagram, right, not all the anarchists or nihilists. 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.600 Not all the nihilists or anarchists. This man is both. 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:26.640 He has both of these identities. As far as I 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:29.880 can tell, Alexander is part of all of it. It's 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:32.360 possible that he found his way into tutoring the kids 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:34.080 of the Senator General as a plot, part of a 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:37.480 plot to kill the Senator General. And this makes me 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.480 very happy. And so he did funk up the Senator 0:08:40.559 --> 0:08:43.600 General's life. Whether or not he killed the Senator General, 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.040 no one actually knows. There's people who claim he did, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.360 and there's people who claim he didn't. He might have 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:55.000 just been really really good at his job. I know, 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.960 I know, And like that's what that's what you want, 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:05.200 you want, you want like nobody to know? Yeah, yeah, Well, 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.640 And and the fact that she gets raised into all 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:10.600 of this secrecy and plotting is not only a huge 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:12.840 part of her life, but it's a huge part of 0:09:12.880 --> 0:09:16.520 trying to untangle her life a hundred years later, because 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:20.840 she was up to some ship, probably in the background 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.880 of everything we're going to talk about today, but no 0:09:23.920 --> 0:09:26.560 one knows quite how much ship she was up to 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.120 at what given point. And I like conjectures, because of 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:35.160 course I do, but anyway the way, yeah, and and 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:40.480 like you're you're in a good position to imagine about 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:46.559 that more than other people. I have personally never been 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:50.319 part of a plot to assassinate high up Russian nobility. 0:09:51.160 --> 0:09:55.040 I wasn't insinuating that her, to be perfectly clear, I 0:09:55.080 --> 0:10:00.880 wasn't insinuating allegedary Yeah. No. That is actually something that 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:03.440 I find very frustrating about reading a lot of the 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:05.360 histories is that it's clear that the histories are written 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:07.320 by people who are excited about her as an adventurer 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:09.640 and as like a feminist icon, and they're going to 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:13.640 be doing certain types of work to recuperate her into 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.880 certain types of ways of thinking. And also specifically, like 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.319 don't really understand I don't totally understand anarchist nhilist politics 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:23.160 of the nineteenth century, but I think I understand them 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:27.480 better than the average historian of Isabel ever Heart. And 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:29.480 there's two ways that this could have happened. Him showing 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.560 up at the household, and the way it's like normally written, 0:10:32.679 --> 0:10:35.680 he shows up, him and Natalie get close, then biblically close, 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.720 and then she converts to anarchism or nihilism or you know, 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:42.400 very few people actually talk about her mom and her 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:46.480 political leanings and beliefs. Oh yeah, that that tracks yeah 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:53.240 like this lady. Yeah. And and a lot of historians 0:10:53.240 --> 0:10:55.640 are trying to take agency away from her and are 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:57.679 just like, I guess she got swept up by this 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.560 charming priest turn nihilist or whatever her And it's like, 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.480 I think it is just as likely that she's married 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:09.400 to a monster who is ruling Russia and shouldn't be. 0:11:09.760 --> 0:11:13.760 And so she's like, yo, check it out, come over here, 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:16.040 let's steal his kids and murder him and take all 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.839 his money and give all the money to the movement. Yeah, 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:24.280 she intimately saw the fucking sausage being made. Yeah. Yeah. 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:29.840 Uh So, whether or not she converted ahead of time 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.080 and invited him, or whether she converted later, she stays 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.199 the entire rest of her life. UM, not necessarily specifically 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:41.240 ideologically annihilist or an anarchist, but not specifically not that 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:45.360 either actually um, And she's very committed revolution whole time, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.720 so they're like, we can't stay here. This is not 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:52.960 a good idea where we will eventually get caught because 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:55.800 he is this anarchist with this background, and it's kind 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.680 of amazing that he got himself in as a tutor. Anyway, 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:00.240 it helps that he's like smart as hell and speak 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.640 seven languages or whatever. So they funk off, and in 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.600 eighteen seventy one they go to Geneva in Switzerland, which 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.360 is the cool anarchy place to be in one because 0:12:10.400 --> 0:12:16.120 all the the Paris Commune ours cr episode about Paris Commune, 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.520 thank you. They're all taking refuge there and all the 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:23.920 cool lefties are there, and Natalie's like, oh, darling senator General, 0:12:23.960 --> 0:12:25.880 who I'm totally not plotting to kill. I'd love to 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:27.520 stay around and like watch you get old and die 0:12:27.520 --> 0:12:29.560 while oppressing everyone in the country. But I need gentler 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.400 climbs for my soft womanly immune system, so I have 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:34.800 to go to Geneva and bring the kids and the 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:38.679 hot tutor. That's what she does. I'm paraphrasing heavily here, 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:40.040 but she did say it was for her health that 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.679 she needed warmer climbs. She actually her whole family is 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.720 kind of sickly the entire time, including her Isabelle and 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:51.120 Natalie and her father and anyway, we'll get to that. Yeah, 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.760 and how how many kids does she have at this point? 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.559 So she's starting off with three, right, She has a 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.160 young Nicholas Natalie Jr. I don't think they used junior, 0:13:01.240 --> 0:13:03.360 but that's how I'm going to distinguish Natalie Jr. From 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:11.880 Natalie Sr. And Vladimir, So of course, yeah, yeah, no, 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:15.560 totally yeah. So they get on some trains and they 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:17.400 get the funk out of the country, which is good 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.560 because this is our secret police were like probably just 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:21.520 about to be like, wait a second, this tutor is 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.200 an anarchist. And then nine months later, after she leaves, 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:29.560 Natalie has another kid. His name is Augustus Augustine. The 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:31.480 General comes down to Geneva and is like trying to 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:33.760 beg her back. It's like, babe, please come home, and 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:37.240 she's like no, but do you wanna do you wanna 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:39.920 accept this kid as as your kid and not your bastard? 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:42.960 And the General is like yeah, sure, fine, whatever, And 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.680 I think the General knows the Senator General knows that 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:47.800 Augustine is not his, but he's like willing to give 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.720 him the murderer name. So his name is Augustine de murder. Wow. 0:13:53.720 --> 0:14:00.800 And so two years later her aged husband eyed seventy 0:14:00.840 --> 0:14:04.280 eight years old and she inherits all his money. And 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.720 it's possible that Alexander had him poisoned. It has been alleged, 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:11.520 and I see no particular reason to doubt it. But 0:14:11.600 --> 0:14:14.679 also he's seventy eight years old, it's the nineteenth century. 0:14:15.280 --> 0:14:18.320 I don't know. So they're now in Geneva. They have 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:20.520 plenty of money, and they've got all of the fucking 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.760 nobilities kids with them. True to we don't believe in 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:27.640 marriage form Alexander and Natalie. They stay lovers, but they 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.320 get separate apartments and different parts of town, and they 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.640 spend like all of their time together. But they don't 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.320 like shack up, and they spend their time doing cool, 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.000 weird secret anarchy ship. Anarchists at the time and place 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:41.440 where obsessed with being in secret societies. So we really 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.680 don't know what they did besides maybe kill Natalie's husband 0:14:44.680 --> 0:14:50.320 and the father of her children. Then eighteen seventy seven, 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.360 six years after they've moved, they have another kid, Isabelle, 0:14:54.200 --> 0:14:56.600 Natalie's in her late thirties. At this point, Alexander's in 0:14:56.600 --> 0:15:01.560 his early fifties. And they don't claim Isabelle as like 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:05.520 Alexander Trofinowski never claims any of the kids as his. 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.320 It's like not a good idea for a lot of reasons. 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.920 But they also don't tell the kids their own parentage. 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:15.680 But he is like not a fucking fly by night father. 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:20.080 He is very actively involved in their entire life. They 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:22.480 move out of the city out onto two different estates. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:24.720 Natalie's family money bought them both, so this is a 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:27.840 continuing to like room of one's own vibe. Yeah, this 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.760 is this such a weird childhood. You know, she was 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:36.520 not going to grow up normal. That is, although some 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:38.720 of her kids, some of the kids tried to end 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:43.440 up normal. It kind of goes badly for everyone, honestly, right, 0:15:44.560 --> 0:15:47.360 That's there's the classic like if you're raised in a 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:53.600 really wild scene, you you know, try to be really conservative. Yeah, 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.560 and that happens to about half the kids. It's kind 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:02.760 of interesting. So they get this a state. Alexander gets 0:16:02.760 --> 0:16:04.760 really into gardening, and he just wants to spend the 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.360 rest of his life setting up an anarchy commune. But 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:09.480 no one is like into setting up an anarchy commune 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.560 with him, so he just doesn't help by himself and 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:14.640 like makes his kids help, and he's really into orchids 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:23.680 and cactuses us. My dad, Yeah, it's actually literally everybody's dad. Yeah, 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:26.880 it's just yeah, he's like, why want Why doesn't everyone 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:28.800 want to hang out and like work on cactuses with 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:33.200 me all the time? An exact text message I've received 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:40.800 from my dad. So he and he dotes on his kids, 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.640 especially as young daughter Isabel, who didn't know that she 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:48.040 was his daughter. I think I think that everyone suspected 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:51.280 and it was like I was gonna say, like allegedly 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:54.080 didn't know, but like, if somebody's taking that much of 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.440 an interest in you, you have to be somewhat aware, 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.040 and people have will make these alley Asians like directly, 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.720 but it will be part of politicking to get the 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:07.320 money back, because it turns out you actually can't rob 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.800 one of the richest and most powerful people in Russia 0:17:11.359 --> 0:17:15.800 and steal three to four of his children and not 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:22.520 have it not have like continuing effects. But he tried. Okay, 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:26.160 so so so Alexander tried in his way to raise 0:17:26.200 --> 0:17:28.600 his daughter's genderless as part of a feminist current in 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:32.320 anarchism at the time. Specifically, it wasn't about like keeping 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.280 women safe, girls safe by dressing up as as boys, 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.280 but instead about offering them the same opportunities that are 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.840 available to boys in terms of education, in terms of 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.679 like everything else. Is Basically it's a like this is 0:17:43.720 --> 0:17:46.920 the this is the like feminist thing we're all trying 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:50.639 right now. So it meant cropping Isabelle's hair short and 0:17:50.720 --> 0:17:54.440 her dressing as a boy. And I want to really 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:58.119 like this guy. He's complicated and will never exactly know 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.320 in what ways he had the kids stayed in his 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:04.119 walled villa wear their hair short, except the older daughter, 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:08.560 Natalie jr. Um. She refused to wear her hair short, 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:11.879 and he's like, that's fine. But it's funny because in 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:13.840 the biography would be like this tyrants who made her 0:18:13.880 --> 0:18:15.800 cut her hair that she like was like, no, I'm 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:21.159 not going out, and he's like okay, um, so whatever, 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.000 but we'll get to the complicated there in a second. 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:26.480 And made them help in the gardens, the oldest to 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.960 their closest to their dad and the Russian aristocratic life right, 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.080 and they hated all of this, and they referred to 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:37.040 it as slavery to be raised by this guy and 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:42.359 be forced to work on cactuses and learn like six languages. Wow. Yeah, 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:44.720 I mean it's on on one hand, it's kind of 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:47.800 like growing up in a cult, So they might they 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.600 might feel that way about it because it it definitely 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:56.399 like isolates you from your peers. Yeah, And it's interesting 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:00.480 because it's like, I don't quite know if they're being 0:19:00.480 --> 0:19:03.880 isolated from their peers. They might be. They're definitely being 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.480 isolated from their original upbringing and what it two of 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:11.000 them perceive as their heritage, which is to stomp the 0:19:11.080 --> 0:19:14.439 Russian peasants into the dust. Well, it definitely isolates you 0:19:14.480 --> 0:19:19.080 from mainstream culture totally, totally. But you know what else 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:25.360 will isolate you from mainstream culture is not buying. If 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.760 you want to be an occult, don't buy these products. 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:34.080 If you're reverse psychology, Margaret, Is that what we're doing? 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.160 I know, but I don't know whether my listeners actually 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:37.479 want to be an a cult or not, so it's 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:40.040 hard to know which way to go. It's really a 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.359 toss up. I actually think it's possible that whether or 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:45.359 not you support the people who support this podcast, I 0:19:45.480 --> 0:19:47.639 actually don't think it's going to make any difference into 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:59.600 your called affiliation. So here's some advertisers and we're back. No, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.840 it's it's absolutely true that there's this like, yeah, there's 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:06.159 this absolute tension, right and and you we see it 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.080 all the time. Yeah, you like raised by hippie parents, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:11.679 and then you're gonna reject it all, you know. Isabel 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:13.440 and two of her siblings don't see it this way. 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.560 Her two oldest siblings absolutely see it this way. And 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:21.000 Trophomowski Alexander anarchy dad, he gets described as paranoid, and 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.040 I wonder whether he was paranoid or if he was 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.160 an anarchist conspiration in the nineteenth century he was trying 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.080 to overthrow state power and oppression and closely tied with 0:20:27.119 --> 0:20:29.720 people were getting off for being that way, who had 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.200 stolen three or four children from Russian noble But he's, 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.760 oh yeah, he's he's in this like very complicated underworld. 0:20:38.880 --> 0:20:42.480 And I can see how that would just look paranoid 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:45.280 to other people. And you know, maybe he was like 0:20:45.400 --> 0:20:50.080 protecting his family from the details and we'll never know, no, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:51.800 I know. And also I think a bunch of the 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.159 families in on it. Isabel ever heart was absolutely in 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.560 on it um and I reason to believe his wife 0:20:56.600 --> 0:21:01.159 was in on it, Natalie. But you know, to everyone 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:02.960 in the outside, he's not going to be like, Well, 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:06.360 the reason I'm so reclusive is because the police are 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.480 after everyone I care about, you know, and they have 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:11.840 a bunch of visitors like this, and so they get 0:21:11.920 --> 0:21:14.320 something of a worldly education. Most of the visitors are 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.879 other exiles, in particular Russians and Turks, and I really 0:21:17.920 --> 0:21:21.520 want to know more, but don't about Turkish and Russian 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:24.199 relations as relates to anarchism and nihilism at this at 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:29.040 this point, because Russian means anywhere from the Empire, right, 0:21:29.200 --> 0:21:32.080 which absolutely includes large chunks of what would be considered 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:38.800 Southwest Asia today, including Alexander's own background. Isabelle grew up 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.000 loving her time on secret dad's anarchy villain and she 0:21:42.040 --> 0:21:44.480 grew up playing with animals and daydreaming and writing and 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.119 learning and meeting people from around the world. We're too 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.760 oldest siblings not so much. Their dad was the right 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:53.440 hand man of the god damn Zar, and they wanted 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.199 to get back at into well he means dead, but 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.840 you know this is their heritage from their point of view, right, 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.560 and I think I remember she rode a bunch of horses. 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:08.280 Did you did you come across that? There's like people 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:10.639 have talked about how she had the chance probably to 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:13.520 ride horses, but we don't necessarily have like super crazy evidence, 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:16.280 but yet almost certainly, and because horses are a huge 0:22:16.280 --> 0:22:19.120 part of her life, but I don't know whether she's specifically. 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.960 I didn't find one of those storians I read talked 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:25.159 about how like we don't know if she was a 0:22:25.200 --> 0:22:30.560 horse girl, but probably yeah, but we could. I think, Okay, 0:22:30.640 --> 0:22:33.040 we'll just decide everyone else. I I don't know where 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:37.600 I got that. I'm sorry, no, no, I mean like yeah, Also, 0:22:37.760 --> 0:22:39.399 like I still haven't read everything there is to know 0:22:39.400 --> 0:22:41.840 about There's been so much written about his Isabhaba from 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:44.200 so many different positions, and it's always trying to pin 0:22:44.240 --> 0:22:47.360 her down because she's so many different people to depending 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.840 on how you look at her. So older siblings, they're 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:54.159 piste off because he makes them read banned books like 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:57.359 a meal Zola. Older brother Nicholas, he fucks off back 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.320 to Russia. He runs away, he makes it, and he 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.560 returns to the a Murder family. The fifteen year old 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:07.680 brother Vladimir he's torn between these two worlds. Anarchy Dad's like, hey, Bud, 0:23:07.720 --> 0:23:11.320 stay here, like grow some cactuses, and Nicholas is like, no, 0:23:11.520 --> 0:23:15.159 come home to your true heritage as a nobility. And 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:18.080 so when he's fifteen, he tries to run away, and 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.240 anarchy Dad tracks him down, is like, talks him into 0:23:21.240 --> 0:23:25.080 coming home, and then, un characteristically to a modern context, 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:28.160