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True Believer · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Change is hard. Some
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  Speaker 1: people accept it begrudgingly, understanding the old ways might need
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  Speaker 1: a little updating. Others fight for what they've always believed in,
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  Speaker 1: even if it means losing everything and everyone they know
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  Speaker 1: in the process. Change came to Russia in the mid
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  Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds when the Russian Orthodox Church felt the Greeks
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  Speaker 1: had more to offer in the ways of liturgical practices.
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  Speaker 1: For example, there were differences in how many fingers were
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  Speaker 1: used when signing the cross over one's just on the whole,
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  Speaker 1: the two churches still believed in the same God, the
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  Speaker 1: scriptures were all the same. Other than a few minor differences,
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  Speaker 1: no significant changes would come to the Russian Orthodox Church,
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  Speaker 1: and while it took some convincing, some members eventually got
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  Speaker 1: the message. Most but not all. For the group that
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  Speaker 1: called themselves the Old Believers, any change was unwelcome, no
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  Speaker 1: matter how small. They wanted nothing to do with the
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  Speaker 1: Greek Orthodox Church and considered the proposed changes to be blasphemy.
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  Speaker 1: They lived in the shadows for centuries, evading the Church's
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  Speaker 1: influence and oppression. The Church didn't take kindly to dissenters,
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  Speaker 1: and many were tortured, imprisoned, and even murdered over the
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  Speaker 1: years for refusing to go along with the new ways.
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  Speaker 1: And one old believer named Karp Lankov had seen enough.
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  Speaker 1: After his brother was killed by Bolsheviks in ninety six,
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  Speaker 1: Krp took his wife and children away from their home
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  Speaker 1: to someplace new, someplace where the Church would never find them.
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  Speaker 1: They fled into the Siberian wilderness, where Carp built a
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  Speaker 1: home for his family out of nearby trees. They had
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  Speaker 1: no modern conveniences, no phones, no lights, no plumbing. They
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  Speaker 1: made shoes from tree bark and survived on what nature provided,
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  Speaker 1: like nuts and berries. When their clothes became too tattered
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  Speaker 1: from the elements, they fashioned a new wardrobe out of hemp.
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  Speaker 1: One family surviving on their own through harsh Siberian winters
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  Speaker 1: sounds impossible, I know, but the like Offs did it.
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  Speaker 1: And they didn't just survive, they thrived. New children were
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  Speaker 1: born into the family in the early nineteen forties, and Karp,
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  Speaker 1: along with his wife, Akulina, taught them all they needed
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  Speaker 1: to know. They learned how to speak Russian and Old Slavic.
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  Speaker 1: They were aware of Russian cities and geography, be even
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  Speaker 1: though they'd never seen anything outside the forest. Like most fundamentalists,
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  Speaker 1: the like Offs shielded their children from the dangers of
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  Speaker 1: the modern world, including anyone beyond their home. Their lifestyle
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  Speaker 1: worked for them for some time until one particular severe
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  Speaker 1: winter left them with almost no food. Akulina died of
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  Speaker 1: starvation in nineteen sixty one, after giving her portions of
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  Speaker 1: food to her children so that they might survive to
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  Speaker 1: see another day. No one had heard from the family
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  Speaker 1: for almost forty years. As far as anyone knew, they
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  Speaker 1: died out with the rest of the sinners who had
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  Speaker 1: refused to join the New Church. It wasn't until the
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  Speaker 1: late nineteen seventies when a group of geologists looking for
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  Speaker 1: iron ore came across an unusual site from high up
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  Speaker 1: in their helicopter. It was a garden, a well kept,
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  Speaker 1: man made garden in the middle of the wilderness. They
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  Speaker 1: had to know who might have made such a thing
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  Speaker 1: in a place where life was not expected to survive.
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  Speaker 1: After some searching, the geologists made contact with the remaining
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  Speaker 1: like Offs, including Karp. None of the family members knew
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  Speaker 1: about major historical milestones like the moon landing or the
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  Speaker 1: Cuban missile crisis. They had been cut off for almost
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  Speaker 1: half a century and had missed so much. The geologist
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  Speaker 1: made several visits to the Lyoffs, and on one trip
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  Speaker 1: they brought with them a television to illustrate how far
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  Speaker 1: technology had come. When Carp's son was shown a circular
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  Speaker 1: saw on another visit, he was amazed by its efficiency,
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  Speaker 1: but none of it mattered. In the end. The family
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  Speaker 1: refused to rejoin society, despite the allure of that big,
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  Speaker 1: glowing box of moving pictures. They were old believers, after all,
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  Speaker 1: and change wasn't something they cared for. Except for one
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  Speaker 1: the daughter, Agafia. Her brothers and father has passed away
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  Speaker 1: year ago, leaving her the sole remaining like of She
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  Speaker 1: does accept help now and then, traveling to hospitals for
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  Speaker 1: medical care and visiting distant relatives, but for the most
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  Speaker 1: part she's still on her own. I can't imagine most
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  Speaker 1: of us would give up our lives like that to
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  Speaker 1: live off the grid. No smartphones, no indoor plumbing, no television,
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  Speaker 1: talk about roughing it, but I'm not convinced what they
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  Speaker 1: did was so outrageous. A world without twenty four hour
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  Speaker 1: news networks and social media sounds like paradise to me.
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  Speaker 1: Some people get really into certain holidays. You've seen them
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  Speaker 1: around your neighborhood before. The folks who decorate their homes
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  Speaker 1: at Halloween and Christmas with flights and animatronic characters. They
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  Speaker 1: wait all year, often preparing months in advance, in order
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  Speaker 1: to make the most of the short time that they
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  Speaker 1: have to celebrate. And then there are the holidays we
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  Speaker 1: enjoy but we don't really think too much about, like
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  Speaker 1: April Fool's Day, one day a year when no one
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  Speaker 1: and no thing can be trusted. One historical figure who
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  Speaker 1: loved April fools Day the way many of us love
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  Speaker 1: Halloween and Christmas was Isaac Bickerstaff. Toward the end of
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  Speaker 1: seventeen oh seven, Isaac had taken issue with the seventeen
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  Speaker 1: o eight edition of Marylandis Almanac. It was periodical, like
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  Speaker 1: most almanacs, filled with facts and figures to help people
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  Speaker 1: navigate their daily lives in the following year, but it
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  Speaker 1: was one particular sentiment that rubbed Isaac the wrong way.
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  Speaker 1: The Almanacs writer astrologer John Partridge had made a sarcastic
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  Speaker 1: remark about the Church of England, referring to it as
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  Speaker 1: the infallible Church. Isaac was a devout follow were and
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  Speaker 1: could not let the statement like that stand, so he
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  Speaker 1: concocted a unique plan of retaliation. He would predict John's
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  Speaker 1: infallible death over the next year by writing several letters
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  Speaker 1: and one eulogy about his demise, to be published months apart.
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  Speaker 1: Leading up to April one, All Fool's Day, Bickerstaff published
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  Speaker 1: his first letter, the prediction of John Partridge's death by
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  Speaker 1: raging fever, in January of that year. The second letter,
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  Speaker 1: written not as Bickerstaff but as a government's employee, came
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  Speaker 1: out that March to confirm Bickerstaff's prediction. An elegy quickly followed,
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  Speaker 1: suits more of a poem than a letter, but it
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  Speaker 1: put the blame of Partridge's death on both Partridge himself
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  Speaker 1: and anyone who bought his almanacs. The hoax took off
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  Speaker 1: like a rocket. Mourners gathered outside partridge Is home, crying
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  Speaker 1: all night and keeping him awake no matter what he said.
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  Speaker 1: They it and believe he hadn't died after all the
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  Speaker 1: letters had been printed for the public. As a matter
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  Speaker 1: of fact, an undertaker even came to his house one
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  Speaker 1: day to arrange the drapes for awake while the stonemason
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  Speaker 1: started carving his gravestone. By that point, though, John Partridge
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  Speaker 1: had seen enough and published a letter of his own
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  Speaker 1: to dispel the silly hoax once and for all. But
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  Speaker 1: it didn't work. No one believed him, especially after Bickerstaff responded,
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  Speaker 1: writing they were sure no man alive ever to rid
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  Speaker 1: such damned stuff as this. I know it was a
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  Speaker 1: real jerk move. Finally, all fools Day had arrived and
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  Speaker 1: Isaac Bickerstaff gave up the ghost, so to speak. He
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  Speaker 1: published one last piece entitled A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff,
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  Speaker 1: in which he came clean about the whole charade. John
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  Speaker 1: Partridge hadn't died, There had never been a fever. The
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  Speaker 1: undertaker and the gravestone, and the morning people outside his
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  Speaker 1: home had all been in vain. John Partridge was alive
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  Speaker 1: and well and probably pretty angry. Bickerstaff's shenanigans didn't go unnoticed, though,
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  Speaker 1: the founder of the British literary journal The Tattler, named
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  Speaker 1: Bickerstaff his new editor, which wasn't surprising as Isaac had
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  Speaker 1: been a contributor to the publication in the past. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: Bickerstaff went on to publish numerous works throughout his life,
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  Speaker 1: such as essays, pamphlets, periodicals, and even fiction, mostly satire.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, Isaac Bickerstaff made his living from writing satire
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  Speaker 1: directed at the rich, the irreligious, and other groups he
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  Speaker 1: thought needed taking down a notch. His work is still
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  Speaker 1: read and taught in classrooms all over the world. He
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  Speaker 1: was prolific, and yet you probably have never heard of him,
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  Speaker 1: at least not as Isaac Bickerstaff. But you certainly know
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  Speaker 1: his essay A Modest Proposal in which he suggests in
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  Speaker 1: poverty Irish families sell their children to the rich as
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  Speaker 1: a food supply, or his travel journal parody Gould of
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  Speaker 1: Verse Travels. That's right, Isaac Bickerstaff. The man who convinced
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  Speaker 1: the world of one man's untimely death was actually none
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  Speaker 1: other and Jonathan Swift. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me,
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious.