Part One: Isabelle Eberhardt: The Genderbending Vagabond

I realized that Julie Holland followed me on social media. Um. So our producer is the one and only Sophie Lijaman. Hi Sophie, how are you? Hi? Magpie? I'm well, how are you? You know? Life continues a pace. Our audio engineers Ian. Our theme music was written for us by a woman. So so today we're going to talk about one of the most legendary gender benders in history. A prolific writer who loved drinking and fucking, who's got to complicated as fun childhood and a company gad his fun adulthood.

And I figured, if she's good enough to get name dropped in a Jolie Holland song, she's good enough for me? Uh? Whoa are you talking about the Isabel ever heard? The nihilist writer? Yep, Isabel ever heard? Or Yeah, actually I'm curious so how much. I don't want to put you on the spot, but is this like are you already like have you written biographies about her already? Or just

kind of like so clearly anyone who's listening. Um. One of Jolie's songs, Old Fashioned Morphine has a line that says, if it's good enough for Isabel ever heard, it's good enough for me? Um, And I'm gonna curious your background with Isabel ever heard? I think that I found a book around the house and I lived with in a big house in San Francisco where there were a bunch of artists back before or the culture of San Francisco

was completely destroyed by tech bros. Yah. Yeah, that seems like a good way to I don't know whether the first time I ran across as a Harberhart was either through you in that song, or whether it was through Eberhart Press, which is a an anarchist publisher based in

the Pacific Northwest that uses her as a namesake. Um, but that's what we're gonna talk about today and or as she was known to many of her friends and lovers see Mahmasati, because she was Muslim and dressed as a man and had a man's identity as often as a woman's identity. And we're going to talk about a lot of how complicated and hard to map our current

understandings of gender onto her life is. She's practically a saint to the middle class European traveler vagabond who does so safely but in search of authenticity, that sort of like going out to go backpacking, you know, instead of going to college immediately, sort of person um. But that wasn't that wasn't Isabelle's thing at all. She did not embrace safety. She threw herself uncompromisingly into life, desperate for

meaning and adventure. And she didn't come up on short on any of those things, while she came up short on life actually in the end. But we'll get to that. And she's got more than one side to her at any given moment. She's got more than one name, she's got more than one motive, more than one set of loyalties and goals, and she's really hard to pin down. Lots Before I've tried, and we're going to give it a shot at pinning down Isabel everr heart excited. I'm

so excited this is Yeah. I've read a bit about her and she I think she was the first person who was raised nihilist that I learned about, and I don't know like how much she continued to embrace that identity. Well, that's what we're gonna A lot of what we're gonna talk about is that is that her parents were anarchist nihilists, um, and there's like interesting ways that that crops up throughout

her life, even though that isn't her identity. By the end um spoilers, she's has quotes about how she's much more Muslim than she ever was anarchist, or that she's better at it, I think is the way. Whatever, there's a direct quote that somewhere in the script that you will hear, like a lot of the best history is about Eberhart's family background. Sounds like some ship that's somebody made up, and honestly like she did really amazing ship

and so did her parents. You've got her mom who was born Natalie Eberhart, and she's aristocratic as fuck in Russia. The ebber hearts had been hanging out in the circles of the czars forever, and there's some stuff that I've seen. She might have been an illegitimate child with a Jewish dad, but if so, that's kept under wraps because she's in the aristocracy and through rubbing noses with the rich os, young Natalie meets her husband, who is forty three years

older than her. His name is Senator General Pavel Karlovitch de Murder Mortar, by the way, means murderer in Germany. That again, Margaret Murder. No, the entire name Senator General Pavel Karlovitch de murder based. Yeah, well he sucks, but it's a base name exactly, and it's like and nowhere in any of the sources does anyone like point out that his name means murderer, Like, you know, it's like the Cooper's they make barrels and the smiths make like

stuff with out of iron and the murders. Anyway, So this guy is a senior advisor to the czar, as both a senator and a general, which is really rare. He's like very high up, thus the title Senator General. His brother tutored the czar. He's a widower, and he marries the young Natalie and soon he's having a bunch of kids with her. She is not happy, she's not excited about what life has to offer her young Natalie. So she does what rich people do when they're unhappy.

She retreats, retires to her country estate and spends her days riding horses and sighing and letting the servants take care of the kids. She also maybe does the unhappy rich person thing that I wish more unhappy rich people did,

which was become an anarchist, militant class trader. And so this tutor shows up, and his name is Alexander Nikolovitch Trufamosky, and he's full of fire, and he's young, I mean not actually, he's like more than a decade older than Natalie, but that still leaves him thirty one years younger than her husband, the Senator General. So you know, like the bars, well the bar is not low, the bar is very high. Whatever.

He's really smart. He speaks Russian, French, German, Italian, Arabic, and Hebrew, and he was Armenian, probably from a Turkish and Muslim family background, though he was an Orthodox priest immediately before he became an anarchist and a nihilist. And and this part, I'm going to be kind of curious your take on this, both of you all. So he's a feminist in his way, like probably he's not faking this to get into her pants. And he hates the institution of marriage. For example, he left his wife and

kids because marriage is bad. And I don't know why, Right, it could have been this like whoa babe, Marriage is bad for women like gott to go have fun taking care of the kids. But I actually feel more likely, based on everything else that I've learned about him, I think he had a major ideological break with his younger life and it no longer suited him or his wife to stay together, and she might have caught him out

of the kid's life and her life. So because he went from Orthodox priest to anarchist, Orthodox priests were allowed to be married as long as they were married before their ordination. So for whatever reason, he has left his wife and kids, and now he shows up as a

tutor in the house of this fabulously rich noble. And for more background for anyone who's curious, we have an episode about the Russian nihilists and all the conspiracies that the anarchists were up to at the time and the nihilists were up to at the time, which is like a ven diagram, right, not all the anarchists or nihilists. Not all the nihilists or anarchists. This man is both. He has both of these identities. As far as I

can tell, Alexander is part of all of it. It's possible that he found his way into tutoring the kids of the Senator General as a plot, part of a plot to kill the Senator General. And this makes me very happy. And so he did funk up the Senator General's life. Whether or not he killed the Senator General, no one actually knows. There's people who claim he did, and there's people who claim he didn't. He might have

just been really really good at his job. I know, I know, And like that's what that's what you want,

you want, you want like nobody to know? Yeah, yeah, Well, And and the fact that she gets raised into all of this secrecy and plotting is not only a huge part of her life, but it's a huge part of trying to untangle her life a hundred years later, because she was up to some ship, probably in the background of everything we're going to talk about today, but no one knows quite how much ship she was up to

at what given point. And I like conjectures, because of course I do, but anyway the way, yeah, and and like you're you're in a good position to imagine about that more than other people. I have personally never been part of a plot to assassinate high up Russian nobility. I wasn't insinuating that her, to be perfectly clear, I

wasn't insinuating allegedary Yeah. No. That is actually something that I find very frustrating about reading a lot of the histories is that it's clear that the histories are written by people who are excited about her as an adventurer and as like a feminist icon, and they're going to be doing certain types of work to recuperate her into

certain types of ways of thinking. And also specifically, like don't really understand I don't totally understand anarchist nhilist politics of the nineteenth century, but I think I understand them better than the average historian of Isabel ever Heart. And

there's two ways that this could have happened. Him showing up at the household, and the way it's like normally written, he shows up, him and Natalie get close, then biblically close, and then she converts to anarchism or nihilism or you know, very few people actually talk about her mom and her political leanings and beliefs. Oh yeah, that that tracks yeah

like this lady. Yeah. And and a lot of historians are trying to take agency away from her and are just like, I guess she got swept up by this charming priest turn nihilist or whatever her And it's like, I think it is just as likely that she's married to a monster who is ruling Russia and shouldn't be. And so she's like, yo, check it out, come over here, let's steal his kids and murder him and take all his money and give all the money to the movement. Yeah,

she intimately saw the fucking sausage being made. Yeah. Yeah. Uh So, whether or not she converted ahead of time and invited him, or whether she converted later, she stays the entire rest of her life. UM, not necessarily specifically ideologically annihilist or an anarchist, but not specifically not that either actually um, And she's very committed revolution whole time,

so they're like, we can't stay here. This is not a good idea where we will eventually get caught because he is this anarchist with this background, and it's kind of amazing that he got himself in as a tutor. Anyway, it helps that he's like smart as hell and speak seven languages or whatever. So they funk off, and in eighteen seventy one they go to Geneva in Switzerland, which is the cool anarchy place to be in one because all the the Paris Commune ours cr episode about Paris Commune,

thank you. They're all taking refuge there and all the cool lefties are there, and Natalie's like, oh, darling senator General, who I'm totally not plotting to kill. I'd love to stay around and like watch you get old and die while oppressing everyone in the country. But I need gentler climbs for my soft womanly immune system, so I have to go to Geneva and bring the kids and the hot tutor. That's what she does. I'm paraphrasing heavily here, but she did say it was for her health that

she needed warmer climbs. She actually her whole family is kind of sickly the entire time, including her Isabelle and Natalie and her father and anyway, we'll get to that. Yeah, and how how many kids does she have at this point? So she's starting off with three, right, She has a young Nicholas Natalie Jr. I don't think they used junior, but that's how I'm going to distinguish Natalie Jr. From Natalie Sr. And Vladimir, So of course, yeah, yeah, no,

totally yeah. So they get on some trains and they get the funk out of the country, which is good because this is our secret police were like probably just about to be like, wait a second, this tutor is an anarchist. And then nine months later, after she leaves, Natalie has another kid. His name is Augustus Augustine. The General comes down to Geneva and is like trying to

beg her back. It's like, babe, please come home, and she's like no, but do you wanna do you wanna accept this kid as as your kid and not your bastard? And the General is like yeah, sure, fine, whatever, And I think the General knows the Senator General knows that Augustine is not his, but he's like willing to give him the murderer name. So his name is Augustine de murder. Wow. And so two years later her aged husband eyed seventy eight years old and she inherits all his money. And

it's possible that Alexander had him poisoned. It has been alleged, and I see no particular reason to doubt it. But also he's seventy eight years old, it's the nineteenth century. I don't know. So they're now in Geneva. They have plenty of money, and they've got all of the fucking nobilities kids with them. True to we don't believe in marriage form Alexander and Natalie. They stay lovers, but they get separate apartments and different parts of town, and they

spend like all of their time together. But they don't like shack up, and they spend their time doing cool, weird secret anarchy ship. Anarchists at the time and place where obsessed with being in secret societies. So we really don't know what they did besides maybe kill Natalie's husband and the father of her children. Then eighteen seventy seven, six years after they've moved, they have another kid, Isabelle, Natalie's in her late thirties. At this point, Alexander's in

his early fifties. And they don't claim Isabelle as like Alexander Trofinowski never claims any of the kids as his. It's like not a good idea for a lot of reasons. But they also don't tell the kids their own parentage. But he is like not a fucking fly by night father. He is very actively involved in their entire life. They move out of the city out onto two different estates. Natalie's family money bought them both, so this is a continuing to like room of one's own vibe. Yeah, this

is this such a weird childhood. You know, she was not going to grow up normal. That is, although some of her kids, some of the kids tried to end up normal. It kind of goes badly for everyone, honestly, right, That's there's the classic like if you're raised in a really wild scene, you you know, try to be really conservative. Yeah, and that happens to about half the kids. It's kind of interesting. So they get this a state. Alexander gets really into gardening, and he just wants to spend the

rest of his life setting up an anarchy commune. But no one is like into setting up an anarchy commune with him, so he just doesn't help by himself and like makes his kids help, and he's really into orchids and cactuses us. My dad, Yeah, it's actually literally everybody's dad. Yeah, it's just yeah, he's like, why want Why doesn't everyone want to hang out and like work on cactuses with me all the time? An exact text message I've received

from my dad. So he and he dotes on his kids, especially as young daughter Isabel, who didn't know that she

was his daughter. I think I think that everyone suspected and it was like I was gonna say, like allegedly didn't know, but like, if somebody's taking that much of an interest in you, you have to be somewhat aware, and people have will make these alley Asians like directly, but it will be part of politicking to get the money back, because it turns out you actually can't rob one of the richest and most powerful people in Russia and steal three to four of his children and not

have it not have like continuing effects. But he tried. Okay, so so so Alexander tried in his way to raise his daughter's genderless as part of a feminist current in anarchism at the time. Specifically, it wasn't about like keeping women safe, girls safe by dressing up as as boys, but instead about offering them the same opportunities that are available to boys in terms of education, in terms of

like everything else. Is Basically it's a like this is the this is the like feminist thing we're all trying right now. So it meant cropping Isabelle's hair short and her dressing as a boy. And I want to really like this guy. He's complicated and will never exactly know in what ways he had the kids stayed in his walled villa wear their hair short, except the older daughter, Natalie jr. Um. She refused to wear her hair short,

and he's like, that's fine. But it's funny because in the biography would be like this tyrants who made her cut her hair that she like was like, no, I'm not going out, and he's like okay, um, so whatever, but we'll get to the complicated there in a second. And made them help in the gardens, the oldest to their closest to their dad and the Russian aristocratic life right, and they hated all of this, and they referred to it as slavery to be raised by this guy and

be forced to work on cactuses and learn like six languages. Wow. Yeah, I mean it's on on one hand, it's kind of like growing up in a cult, So they might they might feel that way about it because it it definitely like isolates you from your peers. Yeah, And it's interesting because it's like, I don't quite know if they're being

isolated from their peers. They might be. They're definitely being isolated from their original upbringing and what it two of them perceive as their heritage, which is to stomp the Russian peasants into the dust. Well, it definitely isolates you from mainstream culture totally, totally. But you know what else will isolate you from mainstream culture is not buying. If you want to be an occult, don't buy these products. If you're reverse psychology, Margaret, Is that what we're doing?

I know, but I don't know whether my listeners actually want to be an a cult or not, so it's hard to know which way to go. It's really a toss up. I actually think it's possible that whether or not you support the people who support this podcast, I actually don't think it's going to make any difference into your called affiliation. So here's some advertisers and we're back. No, it's it's absolutely true that there's this like, yeah, there's this absolute tension, right and and you we see it

all the time. Yeah, you like raised by hippie parents, and then you're gonna reject it all, you know. Isabel and two of her siblings don't see it this way.

Her two oldest siblings absolutely see it this way. And Trophomowski Alexander anarchy dad, he gets described as paranoid, and I wonder whether he was paranoid or if he was an anarchist conspiration in the nineteenth century he was trying to overthrow state power and oppression and closely tied with people were getting off for being that way, who had stolen three or four children from Russian noble But he's, oh yeah, he's he's in this like very complicated underworld.

And I can see how that would just look paranoid to other people. And you know, maybe he was like protecting his family from the details and we'll never know, no, I know. And also I think a bunch of the families in on it. Isabel ever heart was absolutely in on it um and I reason to believe his wife

was in on it, Natalie. But you know, to everyone in the outside, he's not going to be like, Well, the reason I'm so reclusive is because the police are after everyone I care about, you know, and they have a bunch of visitors like this, and so they get

something of a worldly education. Most of the visitors are other exiles, in particular Russians and Turks, and I really want to know more, but don't about Turkish and Russian relations as relates to anarchism and nihilism at this at this point, because Russian means anywhere from the Empire, right, which absolutely includes large chunks of what would be considered

Southwest Asia today, including Alexander's own background. Isabelle grew up loving her time on secret dad's anarchy villain and she grew up playing with animals and daydreaming and writing and learning and meeting people from around the world. We're too

oldest siblings not so much. Their dad was the right hand man of the god damn Zar, and they wanted to get back at into well he means dead, but you know this is their heritage from their point of view, right, and I think I remember she rode a bunch of horses.

Did you did you come across that? There's like people have talked about how she had the chance probably to ride horses, but we don't necessarily have like super crazy evidence, but yet almost certainly, and because horses are a huge part of her life, but I don't know whether she's specifically. I didn't find one of those storians I read talked about how like we don't know if she was a horse girl, but probably yeah, but we could. I think, Okay,

we'll just decide everyone else. I I don't know where I got that. I'm sorry, no, no, I mean like yeah, Also, like I still haven't read everything there is to know about There's been so much written about his Isabhaba from so many different positions, and it's always trying to pin her down because she's so many different people to depending on how you look at her. So older siblings, they're piste off because he makes them read banned books like

a meal Zola. Older brother Nicholas, he fucks off back to Russia. He runs away, he makes it, and he returns to the a Murder family. The fifteen year old brother Vladimir he's torn between these two worlds. Anarchy Dad's like, hey, Bud, stay here, like grow some cactuses, and Nicholas is like, no,

come home to your true heritage as a nobility. And so when he's fifteen, he tries to run away, and anarchy Dad tracks him down, is like, talks him into coming home, and then, un characteristically to a modern context, the second time that the kid runs away, anarchy Dad goes to the cops. It's like, my kid ran away, and the cops helped track him down the kid and they bring him back home. After that, Vladimir lives the rest of his life on his villain happily working with plants. Wow,

sometimes unhappily. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But he just gave he gave up trying to go back to the von Murderers. Yeah, And I think it's the best I can tell based on actually the end of Vladimir's life is that it was like he was being really actively like Nicholas's older brother is like, fuck, you get the funk back here, right, And then anarchy Dad was maybe also being like funck you get the funk back here. I don't know, I don't know the

tone of him. I know the tone of Nicholas, which was aggressive. Um, but so he was he was torn right.

Older sister Natalie Jr. She runs away to marry someone who has close ties to Russia, also hates Alexander, and they all star at part of this like massive conspiracy, not even in like a negative way, right, Like there like Alexander and Natalie Sr. Like robbed the family of their inheritance and like pushed it into the anarchist movement instead, right, And so there becomes this like massive conspiracy to like get all of that money back and also like get

and that's part of why they like want Vladimir back. I'm imagining this is like a really really beautiful period drama.

This would be so incredible, Oh totally. The most complicated thing I know about anarchy Dad is that Natalie Jr. Said while she was making when she ran away and as she was making her way across, she said that m Alexandra Trofamoski propositioned her for sex and that she said no, And then also said that Alexandra Trofomoski had poisoned her dad or conspired to get her dad poisoned, and these things might be true. I have no I like hate to doubt that kind of claim. It's entirely

possible that he did that. It's just as entirely possible that she's like doing what she can to get back to Russia. But he might But anarchy dad alexand Trofmouski might have been a fucking creep like I don't know that he might have been so like like um, sexually liberated in the you know, the creepy senses that people have had in the past. We really just don't know definitively.

So we can't really make a definitive claim here. No. So, but Isabel elebr Heart grew up and she gets her mother's maiden name eber Heart instead of Murder like all of her siblings are de Murder. She grows up with a love of learning languages and Islam. Actually she was reading the Koran and Arabic with her dad, whose hatred of organized religion as a as an anarchist was way harder against Christianity than Islam by most accounts, and of course from his background what we would now call Swanna,

Southwestern Asia and North Africa. Um, but they probably called the Orient at the time that area. Swanna was more familiar and more part of their world than Europe and the West had been when when at least Dad was growing up. And so the people who are coming and visiting and stuff, um are much more from Swanna or the Orient or whatever. An anarchy. Dad is rekindling his interest in his Muslim his own Muslim background to his atheism is tempered more and more with Islam. He starts

signing his letters in traditional Muslim ways. I think that meaning peace be upon you. But I don't know if he wrote in Arabic or Russian or whatever. I did. Um, it just was like and signed it and you know, traditional Muslim wise or whatever, and tried to look do more work about that. He spends all of his time talking about Jesus Christ, which is also funny and not something that a devout Muslim wi necessarily do, but it is what a grouty x orthodox anarchist from a Muslim

background would do. And and I just find this really interesting that he's slipping more and more spiritualist as as he gets older. Well, I mean, he was already a priest, so he he had that like significant religious background, and it's it's hard to get away from that language, even if you are a straight up atheist that's your background. Yeah, yeah, And I think that actually there's this thing that we like talk about like the nineteenth century the left being

very like explicitly materialist and always atheist and stuff. But even these people who are like calling themselves atheists are still actually doing religioship all of the time. And like we we always try to did not by it, but it especially I think as people get older, Um, I think that people tend to drop materialism and start engaging more with religion as a well. Religion is also just like such a powerful organizing tool and it's great if

you can use that language to the advantage of your movement. Yeah, totally. And and Islam at this point in the late nineteenth century is tending more radical radical in a positive way, as I would describe it, um, the more like roughly

more socialist e direction. You've got this guy, his name is Jamala than al Afghani, and he's an Islamic thinker, and he's a leader who's trying to fight Western colonialism, and he's also trying to introduce reforms into Islam to make it more justin good he fights for Muslim Hindu

solidarity and driving the Brits out of India. And he's just like extra cool and interesting because he wasn't drive out Western powers by becoming conservative as fuck like say Isis or the Taliban you know, largely try to do now, but instead to seek political reforms that would help Islam return to its as he would perceive it. It's real roots of carrying injustice, not orthodoxy in law. And it becomes super beautiful, I know, and he and he believed that this was the path to um help Islam. Yeah,

drive out the colonists. And this guy keeps getting kicked out of everywhere and he keeps helping plant assassinations, and it's like, no wonder this Russian anarchist guy liked him because he sounds just like the Russian anarchist. He's not an anarchist, but he preaches love in resistance and he gets kicked out of everywhere and he like tries to murder people and he just keeps going. You know, it's like very familiar. I think I want to learn more

about him one day. Unfortunately it was like outside aside thing as I worked through this in her adult life, Isabel is very much a Muslim. She holds that she never converted to Islam because she was. She says she was born a Muslim with muzz Russian father and a Christian Russian mother, which is okay, so she's lying, but she's she's also not about to say, like what what did I miss? What? I want to interject and say that the people who convert to Islam. I know of

two people who just say that. They're like, I didn't becommon, I didn't become Muslim. I realized that I was interesting. And so that is that is. I don't know like how codified that is in terms of, you know, how everybody converts to Islam, but that is absolutely what Shad O'Connor said, and that's what another very dear friend of mine said when she converted, because that's not the language she uses when she recognized herself as a Muslim. So

that is, that's that's important. That's a thing to understand coming from Christian culture, as we do know that that or Judeo Christian. Yeah, that's interesting and it makes some sense and I think that ties into it. But she's also like she's claiming a specific existence of a specific father who's a Turkish, sometimes a Muslim, Russian and sometimes

Turkish Muslim, and she's making this this character up. But what's interesting is that she's like, because she doesn't officially know who her dad is, she invents this Muslim father in order to accept it. But her her father was an Armenian from a Turkish Muslim background, So it's like she's kind of claiming the truth by lying, and it's

like really weird way. But she also is absolutely someone who's going to like take on identities and refused to be getting kept about them, like because some of the people who like her mother later is going to more properly like sort of convert to Islam. But uh, as she grows up, she's like, oh my god, I gotta go to Magreb, which is the word for the Muslim parts of North Africa. She starts fantasizing about it and

kind of classic exoticization ways. She's like, Wow, that's where like the real stuff is happening, not like boring old Europe. And she's like always talking about being like the beauty of the wild Orient and all that kind of stuff. Uh huh. In the meantime, she's eighteen nineteen years old. She's spending time in town dressed like a sailor boy. Books say her dad insisted she just like a man to go into town, but everything implies that she's a percent down with us. She dresses like a sailor, She

goes around, she gets drunk. She hooks up with Mary, a married man who stoked about kissing a girl just like a boy, because she doesn't change. On the other hand, people that she tries to flirt with or like you, I don't know if you're a boy or a girl, or what race or nationality you are. So no, yeah, that's gross. Whenever I read about women in history present masculine, I always run across every guy observing them, like needing to make it real clear, either like wow, they're so hot,

or like you, what an ugly bitch? Because nothing changes, everything is exactly. Yeah, we need to we need to know, you need to know what their dick thought about that. Yeah. Wait till we get to the part where everyone conjectures about isabel ever Heart's interest in anal sex so way to not get pregnant. That is the conjecture that people are making, yes, um so during this time, she's nineteen years old, she's heavily involved in anarchism in the Russian

exile community. She uses her youth and disguise skills and her family connections to move about. She referred to it later as she was the secretary to the Central Council of Russian Terrorists, And she might have been I know, right, she was like probably trying to impress people when she said that, but she also wasn't lying, you know what a life. I know her dad was this big deal and that like let's kill Russian autocrats movement. She doesn't

last too long in the anarchist movement though. Overall. Basically she's like, it's too organized for me. She wants individual freedom to just do whatever she wants, not solemnly work in secret societies to make zars explode. And she wants a different sort of adventure. She wants less duty, more romance, less materialism, and more mysticism. So she starts writing at

this point. I think she's been writing in her whole life, but she starts publishing at this point under the name Nicholas put Alinski, and her first part, which is interesting because it's her brother's name, Nicholas, the brother she doesn't like, but Yeah, it's like ha ha suka taking the name

from you. Yeah, totally. Oh ship. There's that meme recently about like non binary people or like trans people, how they choose to name themselves and what d indie alignment it makes them and the chaotic evil one is steal someone else's name. M hm. So what is that coup song that's like I forget, It's like I want to drink a good looker and and fucking start a re Lucian. Yeah, that is that is her and she's um. She's also wants to write edge Lord fiction about necrophilia, which is

also a classic coup. No, probably not. Yeah, what is that? Is that like part of the like different ideas about like sexual liberation at the time. No, I think she's just a weird god who wants to funck corps. Isn't as obsessed with death. Her first published story, when she's eighteen, is under the name Nicholas potlin Ski and it's called Infernalia, and it's about a romantic and sexual attraction to the dead as a way of understanding the death or within us.

All you know, you do, you do? You is able ever heart and if you want to do you express your individuality by buying lifestyle that's advertised to you by the advertisers to the show, by into the culture of death. Yeah, this show is sponsored by the culture of death. Maybe, Sophie, just capital Isn't that just capitalism? Oh? That's true. But what if we like made it cool, like make death good? Oh? I thought you're gonna I thought you're gonna say, what

if we made capitalism cool? Like? It isn't that? It isn't not this podcast. I think that's I think that's what's happening. That's what the advertisers are trying to do. Absolutely well, here's the people we're talking about, the advertisers, and we're back. Hi. Hello, how did you enjoy those products and or services? Usually when I listened to these podcasts, I usually just get podcasts. I get ads about other podcasts, which is pretty innocuous. What do you usually get? Yeah?

I get podcasts and um, you know, people with extremely smartie voices selling things. It's just like it's all in the tone. Even if it's like people whose voices I like you, there's the smarminess. Yeah, I get complaints about smartiness about every ad Ever, thank you for thank you for taking all all that nonsense on. Even if they

like the ad still reads as a complaint. I mean, like, I don't think anyone's like, man, you know it's really cool is the fact that in order to do this and spend the amount of hours it takes to research one of these episodes, I need to get paid for it, and therefore I need to get some capitalist institution to

interact with me. Like, no one's like that. Rules, Like, of course the ads suck their ads, their ads, and we have they're mostly all programmatic and we have no idea what they are and have no saying and don't have any approval were action on them. Yeah, the good the goodness of potatoes is supporting us all. But we still need dollars. Yeah, yeah, I think we all have dogs mouths we need to feed. Okay, it's true that is something we determined ahead of time before and and

dogs dogs dental bills. I've learned. I'm just brush my dog's teeth, Margaret, Margaret learned so many things today. We're gonna leave it at that and not tell anyone else what I've learned. So she's anyway, Like we were talking about, isabel Lebrhard she's not yet twenty and she's publishing fiction. I don't see if I can do this normally. And she's publishing translations of Russian No, I can't. Okay, So it's not that that was a cool little bit. Yeah, thanks,

so totally okay. So she's publishing fiction, and she's publishing translations of Russian poets and ship. Meanwhile, her older probably full brother, Augustine, he's legally a de murder, probably Alexander's kid. Also, he's the black sheep, which is impressive. It's hard to be a black sheep and a family where one half of the family has fucked off to um crush Russian peasantry beneath their heels. And one of the other kids is abe lebber Heart, like one of the most famous

drug ease in history. But the family funk up is Augustine. They're morederm. How did he earn this? He just kind of like he just got like drunk and hung out, but he didn't like do anything cool with it, Like if you're going to be like a drunk funk up like go adventure. I guess it's the lesson anarchy. Dad tries to get him into chemistry, school, but he was more into drugs and hanging out on the street and

occasionally would come home to steal money. Um. But I think the family was like, not mad, just disappointed about all of this, like tried to help him out a lot, because when I imagine Alexander, um, I don't imagine him minding the stealing. He the villa was paid for by money that he stole, you know. But Augustine black sheep brother, her and Isabel were super close. It's possible that she was sleeping with him as a teenager. Historians liked conjecture.

They corresponded a bunch and talked about remember those kisses as we stole when no one was watching. Is all very tragic and European nobility. I don't know. Yeah. At one point Augustin joined the French Foreign Legion. Isabel applied him for information about North Africa. Then he wanted to leave, and Alexander had to intercede on his behalf. Basically he was like, I'm such a funk up, I'm gonna go

join the French Foreign Legion. And then like the French Foreign Legion had like a sign on the wall in the recruitment office that was like, look, you're dead now, and we're just going to decide where you die, which is not a very positive thing for a recruitment office. Yeah, that's terrifying. Yeah, So he's like, oh god, I think he likes Soper sup And he's like, oh god, what

have I done? And Alexander Trofinovski anarchy Dad has to intercede on his behalf and kind have threatened to make it an international incident if the French Foreign Legion doesn't kick him out and he doesn't show up and be like, hey, I'm a super cool nihilist. I'll blow you up if you don't let him go. Instead, he's like, that's a day murder you got there. If you it's gonna get messy. If you just just let him go, that's a that's a good targeted message. So Isabel tries to get so

Augustin gets out. Isabel tries to get him to move to Algiers or something so she can go hang out there because she really wants to go to North Africa. But instead he just like keeps doing drugs in Switzerland maybe France. At this point, he might have moved to Marseille at this point, I'm not sure. When he moves to Marseilles, So she's like kind of drugs as he doing. I don't know about him. I know there's alcohol. I think it's not hashish. That's more what Isabel Blaba Heart's

getting really into. But I like don't know I would. I'm trying to like drum up what I know about like Victorian European drugs and like probably like morphine and laudanum and right that stuff. Yeah, do you know, do you have a good sense of Victorian? I remember this little factoid that's just like so incredible to me, and I will probably get this wrong, but um, this is how I learned that the man who invented the syringe

his wife was the first Haroin addict that trucks. Oh oh no, uh yeah, but that's yeah, for everything you named, that sounds super plausible. I can't think of anything else. Well, I do know that there was this like Victorian fat. This might have been more English. It's fat for o rangatang adrenaline. Good fucking god, I know. Which is just like, how can we make drugs even more orientalists and involve of oppressing various people in other countries? And the answer

is a rangatang adrenaline. Um, yeah, that's terrifying. Yeah, so Isabel aber Heart, She's like, fuck it, you know, I'll I'll go myself to North Africa. And so she starts corresponding with a ton of people under a ton of different names and personas. She would have fucking loved the Internet. She's writing Islamic thinkers to ask questions about faith. She's writing French soldiers and algiers to learn about what their country is like. She's discussing like how to translate Russian

poetry into Arabic with people like all over the world beautiful. Yeah. And so the family, like mom and sort of dad, they've pulled off the caper of a lifetime. They've you know, stolen the inheritance and the children. As they keep going on about twenty years later, it looks like they might be in trouble for that. Nicholas de Murder, the oldest son, the one who would run away back to Russia. It

is his life's work to get revenge. Which fair They might have killed his dad and then stolen him and you know whatever, Like I'm on a side in this fight, but it's like fair that the other side is fighting yea. And the Vladimir, the middle brother, the one who would halfheartedly run away from home, He's back at the villa and Nicholas is pleading with him, like, hey, Bud runaway

joined despot family with me in Russia. And Vladimir is not sure, and then Nicholas start sending him letters that are like, you better get out because we're gonna funk up the villa and everyone in it. And if you don't get out, you're fucked. So the whole family is like, maybe Switzerland isn't the place for us anymore, Maybe we should go somewhere else. And Isabelle she's like, Algeria, Algeria, Algeria. I'm totally obsessed with Algeria. We have to move to Algeria.

So the family moved to Algeria, at least isabel and her mother, with one brother and dad remaining behind to try and sell the villa to various cact enthusiasts. Wow, they have trouble moving the cactus farm. People aren't people aren't necessarily excited about buying the weird cult anarchy cactus commune practuses are amazing. I mean, that's that's the Huntington's gardens here it's just like some crazy rich person's incredible

cactus collection and that rules. It's so beautiful. I I really appreciate that this is just a man with a hobby and it matters to him as much as anything else that's going on in his life. You know. Yeah, I mean sometimes those collections, it really preserves like the last of species. Yeah, yeah, I want to know more about his Like it keeps basically referring to it as like part of what's wrong with him, you know, is

that he's like obsessed with this stuff. But he likes spent all of his days in his hot house with cactuses and orchids, And I'm like, so he's clearly trying to he's trying to do like hard gardening, you know, he's trying to do gardening on hard mode and super. It was like it was scientific at the time, but like, I mean, they were wrong about hot houses. You don't need a hot house for orchids. Oh interesting, Okay, yeah they used to think, Well it was right, that's part

of it. Sophia is not an orchid? Is that an orchid from your dad behind me? There? Yeah, Well there aren't any orchids down here, but it is hard to tell what things are behind me, but there are some. I do have several Dad orchids upstairs. I'm I'm the I'm the person in my circle of friends who gets all the orchids that nobody wants to to funk with. Yeah. No,

that's my dad. That's like his main thing is like this orchid that hasn't been showing you anything for seven thousand years, look at the bloom and that's great for him. That's really really sweet. Yeah, I mean, I'm I only have one orchid right now, but it's uh it has three stocks instead of the two that it had last year, So I'm really excited. That's awesome and not easy to do. As I've been told by my dad. I think it's

pretty easy if you just know what to do. They just like to be I'm gonna be like, oh that thing you brag about heart, it was easy. Sorry, maybe get out of the hothouse. Uh they yeah, they like to be ignored. Yes, they just need the right kind of lighting. And while we're here, that myth that you're supposed to put an ice cube into orchids, No, yeah, that sounds I never did it because it just sounded kind of cruel, like I wouldn't want um like an ice cube on my feet, so I'm not going to

stick ice cube in my orchid yair so Algeria. Um, it's in North Africa. The whole region is called mc grab a lot of the time at this point, which is means the West because it's the western part of the Islamic world. Sometimes the area is called its called the Barbary Coast in the nineteenth century because the Berbers and indigenous people that region. Wow, okay, I needed to know that. I've heard about the Barbary Coast and I

didn't know what it was. I know it sounds like really it sounds like even more racist of a name than like something else, because it sounds like a Barbarian I guess exactly. Well, now, I like wonder I wish I had looked up the etymology of Barbarian because I wouldn't be shocked. Actually, you know what, I'm going to look up the etymology, okay. So so I just looked it up, and Barbarian means people who are foreigners, basically

from German and from Arabic. But it um, it's the admology goes the other way the Berbers got their name because of them being called Barbarians, so apparently, but at least that's as of a really quick Internet search. And if I'm wrong, I'm terribly sorry. So does Barbary Coast mean like a Barbarian coast? But I think they get called the Barbary Coast because of the Berber people. I

think it went. I think it went Barbarian means any foreigner because they sound funny, and then the Barbers, the Berbers got called that, and then the coast got called that, I think. But the whole history of this area is also a lot of crazy back and forth, because it's the history of various empires and colonial forces conquering it and trading it back and forth. In the period we're talking about, You've got Algeria, which is first taken by the French in eight but they didn't take it from

the indigenous people of the region. They took it from the hi An Empire sort of, who since the hundreds had in various levels of control, and the Ottoman Empire took it from Spain again sort of. Spain kept trying to control Algae's to various degrees of success before thirteen O two was largely controlled by people were actually from there. But if you go even back further, the Romans had it, and honestly, just the history of the Mediterranean is a

lot of people coming and fucking with it. Mm hmm. I have a really beautiful Tunisian rug here, this thing with the carball on it. Nice, it's it's a twenty years old and I got it off Craig's list. That's amazing. How do you know it was a hundred twenty years old because the dude was like a textiles collector that specialized in North African stuff. It was it was cheap. Yes, the light of my life at the time. It's so

happy to get it. Yeah. So this is the area that this family wants to move is Algeria during French occupation and Isabelle and Mom moved there as the advance guard, and they're definitely doing an orientalism here. They're not moving there in a colonial context because they're on the run from the Empire. They're fighting the Empire, which is the reason one of them is quote Russian at all, because

of you know, the Russian Empire stealing Armenia. But it's it's also worth noting at this point French Algeria is not just a colonial project but an orientalist romanticism. Napoleon the Third, who had recently been in charge, had been really into the idea of how like he was going to kindly rule and be a good emperor these super cool neat savages or whatever. And yeah, they're like frances

on like a gentler kindler colonialism kick um. And it's specifically just ties into Orientalism in some ways, like makes I mean ori Analism is like pretty old. But it's like really big thing going on at this point. And after all, says Napoleon the Third, what is northern Africa but basically just France interrupted by a big and land sea. And so it's like it's a alonial project that's meant to be kinder as in like they're basically France as compared to like that's the place we're just going to

go rob resources from it. Yeah, no, it's it's not in any way. Better family moves there to a city that was then called Bone and is now called Anaba, and it's the third biggest city. It's in the northeastern corner of the country. They issue the French areas. For the Arab areas um people they have more culturally and linguistically in common with, although I suspect they're still outsiders in these areas. Isabelle continues her pseudonyms and dressing like

a man more and more. She s Mohmed Sadi, a name that she's been using for a while at this point, but it like stops being a penpell name and it starts being like her name. When she goes about her life and she refers to herself basically as a tomboy. She talks about her own gender in a lot of different ways at a lot of different times. It was less that she always wanted to pass as a man, but instead it was about being socially treated as a man,

and for the most part it worked. She'd often be a mistaken for a man at first glance, but usually not for very long, and then she would reveal herself or be revealed as a woman and have the person be like, Okay, that's true. I'll still just keep treating like a man if that's what you want. And it sounds really nice, I know, I know. And we're gonna

talk a bit more about how all of that. How she gets away with that, and a lot of it has to do with a lot of it has to do with being in a Muslim country in the nineteenth century versus being in Europe in the nineteenth century. Yeah,

I mean, I think so. I don't know a whole lot about that that sort of thing in Islamic culture, but I think about you know, as a musician, I know a little bit about um kal Sum's life, and I know that she dressed as a boy when she was out singing with her father when she was a kid. Who is this umkal Sum? She's like one of the greatest singers in in Arabic okay, Egyptian singer. Absolutely astounding,

really really wonderful person. She she did a lot of fundraising to try to create the nation of the independent Nation of Egypt through her work as a as a singer, and she worked with all these amazing modern poets, and she's the first Egyptian composer to use electric guitar in

her work. She's absolutely astounding. Please check Kelsom out. Yeah, yeah, no. And it's interesting because I've I've learned mostly about nineteenth century conceptions of gender um in North Africa, and like it's interesting to know how it does and doesn't relate to more modern conceptions, you know. And and so basically she goes around the city. She's fucking and drink and smoking hashish, and she's just having a jolly good old time of being twenty years old in the big city.

And she yeah, yeah, she's just sucking doing her life. She makes her money writing about her experiences in the life in Algeria and selling them in European magazines. Meanwhile, her aging mother, Natalie de moder formally converts to Islam and changes her name to fat Minobia. She's sixty, is it Fatima? I believe it's Fatma, but I'm I'm not entirely certain. She's sixty. Issue, she's ill health and not long after she dies, and she so right before she

she dies. Basically, she converts to Islam. She cuts her trader kids, Natalie and Nicholas, the two had gone back to Russia, out of the will, and leaves the money to her boyfriend and the remaining radical kids, which is part of my whole Like she has agency and as part of this massive grift to rob the Russian aristocracy that she's from, you know, like on her deathbed, She's like,

this is still what matters to me. Well, the I mean, the Russian aristocracy is it's just so shocking the kind of wealth that they amassed, and it was by slavery. It was completely horrific. I was over in Russia like I don't know, like two thousand four or something, um and just saw like all the some of the old palaces have been turned into museums, and it's just it's just completely obscene. Yeah, you don't become the the biggest empire one of the Yeah, did you went around robbing people? Yeah?

And so Isabel's despondent after her mother dies and Alexander anarchy. Dad rushes over from Switzerland to Bone when his lifelong partner dies, and one older biographer, referencing a source that's now lost, says that Isabel told Alexander her I want to die with her, and Alexander very much the Russian nihilist in this version of the story pulls out a revolver and puts it on the table and says, go

ahead and handed her the choice. Basically, and this makes a very dramatic statement and as very Russian nihilist, but don't do this and I have no idea whether he did this or not. Yeah, not a good idea, no, But she she doesn't do it. She doesn't kill herself. And you know it's good for getting you out of some despondency. This isn't an ad transition. This isn't This is a transition to what I actually wish I was advertising. In the show Revolution, Machman gets caught up in a revolution.

Revolution is in the air. It's march. Muslim students are starting to get real fucking pissed at the colonial administration of their country. And Isabelle is like, damn, I hope it doesn't come to violence, but if it does, And now, instead of paraphrasing her, I'm gonna actually quote her. If the fight becomes inevitable, I won't hesitate for a single instant, because it would be cowardice. And that makes me smile.

Perhaps I shall be fighting for the Muslim revolutionaries like I used to for the Russian anarchists, although with more conviction and more real hatred against depression. I feel now that I'm much more deeply a Muslim than I was an anarchist. And so She's goes out at a demonstration and the French police attack and the crowd fights back with daggers and revolvers, and she's in it, and there's some more quotes from her. My chest was pounding and

my head spinning deliciously. I saw Blifia in front of me brandishing a truncheon. At every moment, it slashed into the surrounding police, cracking into skulls and arms raised in defense. Reba Bolifia seemed transfigured. He seemed to me to have an ineffable mystical beauty. And well, I know, I guess even better. I believe that this will mark the first person I featured on this show to fight cops by wielding a sword. Yeah, almost a year, but we got there.

Did she did she learn Like did she learn sword in like a bougee context when she was like on the family estate back in back in Russia, or like do we know anything about that? I don't know about how much fighting she's learned in her life. Um this is There's going to be two moments in her life that I'm aware of where she like reaches for a sword and gets some sword involved in some fighting ship.

But I straight up don't know. Um, she's spends all of her time, like drinking and hanging out with sailors, so it wouldn't put it past her. And also she totally could have learned whatever the Russian air aristocratic fencing was. I have no idea. It's it's really great to hear a poet's voice from that moment, you know, yeah, totally, yeah, like talking about it, like my head was spinning deliciously, so yeah, and like she's like, oh, my comrade looks

so beautiful right now. Right. So, her friend of a friend of hers is surrounded by cops and she's trying and he probably friends probably he is trying to hold them off with only a dagger. So she picks up a fucking sword and runs at the cops, saving her friend, and cut to black. I don't know what happened. I'm so annoyed. I don't know whether she fucked up a

cop or she just scared the cops off. But by wielding a sword, she successfully defended her friend, who had only a dagger against forearm police officers and the students were outnumbered. They're driven back a ton or arrested. She flees through the alleys and the next day she flees the country on a steamer to France because the colonial police are extra alert for any foreigners helping the Muslim rebels.

And that's where we're gonna leave it today. She's grown up, a radical, She's moved to Algeria, she stayed a radical, And when we come back, we'll get to see her more as history sees her as a vagabond, a mystic, a writer, and one complicated as fuck figure in the history of North Africa. Plus we get to meet her dog whoa Sophie smiled because I said dogs, I did. I smiled, really vague. That's exciting. Um do we do? We have anything we'd like to plug at the end

here from either of you? Totally what you got going on? I have so many things going on. I'm doing a hilarious thing right now with my Patreon where I'm releasing a very sketchy recording of me playing Tom Waits covers every single Monday and then calling it the Waits Thon. But by the time this comes out, maybe The Waits Than will be all done. But anyway, my Patreon is cool, and um, I have a record coming out. I don't know,

the summer, the fall. Who knows? It's hard to figure out with vinyl production, but that record will be called Haunted Mountain. And my wonderful friend Buck Meek, who is in the band Big Thief, is also releasing his solo record, also called Haunted Mountain because a bunch of songs together. Where can people follow you online so they can keep up with your music and other works? Thank you so

much for asking. Uh Instagram, I'm Jolie Holland Music and uh, I think I'm the same on the Twitter, which I'm still at. Yeah, and Margaret, you have a book coming out, It's true you can still for another short moment of time, depending on when you're listening to this, pre order my upcoming book, Escape from Insul Island, which is published by Strangers and the Tangled Wilderness. And if you order it, it's a fun devella. If you have a short attention span,

it's um you can read it in an afternoon. Novella means shortest book because I'm a writer who writes short things. And you can buy it and if you buy you get a poster and you can also follow me on the internet. I'm on Instagram at Margaret Killjoy and Twitter at Magpie Killjoy. What about you, Sophie. Oh, yeah, I know at cool Zone Media and all the things you can find out all the things from that, Margaret, Are you going to do an audiobook version of Escape from

Insult Island? Yes, And I don't entirely know what the context will be of how it will be released, so I can't answer directly yet, but there will absolutely be an audio version of it. And I I consume most of my books by audio, like actually the history books I read for this book, I read well pacing around my living room when my dog paces with me. It's very nice. He started pacing with me recently. That's so nice. It's beautiful. But fiction I tend to read by listening

to at this point. Yeah, and so we'll be back Wednesday. We are two who cool people Who Did? Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media, but more podcast the Cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool zone Media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. H