True Believer

The Cabinet today plays host to those who go to extremes to make a point. Whether it involves running away, or jumping into the fray, there's something to be said for conviction.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
is an open book, all of these amazing tales are
right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Change is hard. Some

(00:29):
people accept it begrudgingly, understanding the old ways might need
a little updating. Others fight for what they've always believed in,
even if it means losing everything and everyone they know
in the process. Change came to Russia in the mid
eighteen hundreds when the Russian Orthodox Church felt the Greeks

(00:49):
had more to offer in the ways of liturgical practices.
For example, there were differences in how many fingers were
used when signing the cross over one's just on the whole,
the two churches still believed in the same God, the
scriptures were all the same. Other than a few minor differences,
no significant changes would come to the Russian Orthodox Church,

(01:12):
and while it took some convincing, some members eventually got
the message. Most but not all. For the group that
called themselves the Old Believers, any change was unwelcome, no
matter how small. They wanted nothing to do with the
Greek Orthodox Church and considered the proposed changes to be blasphemy.

(01:34):
They lived in the shadows for centuries, evading the Church's
influence and oppression. The Church didn't take kindly to dissenters,
and many were tortured, imprisoned, and even murdered over the
years for refusing to go along with the new ways.
And one old believer named Karp Lankov had seen enough.

(01:56):
After his brother was killed by Bolsheviks in ninety six,
Krp took his wife and children away from their home
to someplace new, someplace where the Church would never find them.
They fled into the Siberian wilderness, where Carp built a
home for his family out of nearby trees. They had
no modern conveniences, no phones, no lights, no plumbing. They

(02:20):
made shoes from tree bark and survived on what nature provided,
like nuts and berries. When their clothes became too tattered
from the elements, they fashioned a new wardrobe out of hemp.
One family surviving on their own through harsh Siberian winters
sounds impossible, I know, but the like Offs did it.

(02:42):
And they didn't just survive, they thrived. New children were
born into the family in the early nineteen forties, and Karp,
along with his wife, Akulina, taught them all they needed
to know. They learned how to speak Russian and Old Slavic.
They were aware of Russian cities and geography, be even
though they'd never seen anything outside the forest. Like most fundamentalists,

(03:06):
the like Offs shielded their children from the dangers of
the modern world, including anyone beyond their home. Their lifestyle
worked for them for some time until one particular severe
winter left them with almost no food. Akulina died of
starvation in nineteen sixty one, after giving her portions of
food to her children so that they might survive to

(03:28):
see another day. No one had heard from the family
for almost forty years. As far as anyone knew, they
died out with the rest of the sinners who had
refused to join the New Church. It wasn't until the
late nineteen seventies when a group of geologists looking for
iron ore came across an unusual site from high up

(03:48):
in their helicopter. It was a garden, a well kept,
man made garden in the middle of the wilderness. They
had to know who might have made such a thing
in a place where life was not expected to survive.
After some searching, the geologists made contact with the remaining
like Offs, including Karp. None of the family members knew

(04:11):
about major historical milestones like the moon landing or the
Cuban missile crisis. They had been cut off for almost
half a century and had missed so much. The geologist
made several visits to the Lyoffs, and on one trip
they brought with them a television to illustrate how far
technology had come. When Carp's son was shown a circular

(04:34):
saw on another visit, he was amazed by its efficiency,
but none of it mattered. In the end. The family
refused to rejoin society, despite the allure of that big,
glowing box of moving pictures. They were old believers, after all,
and change wasn't something they cared for. Except for one

(04:55):
the daughter, Agafia. Her brothers and father has passed away
year ago, leaving her the sole remaining like of She
does accept help now and then, traveling to hospitals for
medical care and visiting distant relatives, but for the most
part she's still on her own. I can't imagine most

(05:16):
of us would give up our lives like that to
live off the grid. No smartphones, no indoor plumbing, no television,
talk about roughing it, but I'm not convinced what they
did was so outrageous. A world without twenty four hour
news networks and social media sounds like paradise to me.

(05:51):
Some people get really into certain holidays. You've seen them
around your neighborhood before. The folks who decorate their homes
at Halloween and Christmas with flights and animatronic characters. They
wait all year, often preparing months in advance, in order
to make the most of the short time that they
have to celebrate. And then there are the holidays we

(06:12):
enjoy but we don't really think too much about, like
April Fool's Day, one day a year when no one
and no thing can be trusted. One historical figure who
loved April fools Day the way many of us love
Halloween and Christmas was Isaac Bickerstaff. Toward the end of
seventeen oh seven, Isaac had taken issue with the seventeen

(06:33):
o eight edition of Marylandis Almanac. It was periodical, like
most almanacs, filled with facts and figures to help people
navigate their daily lives in the following year, but it
was one particular sentiment that rubbed Isaac the wrong way.
The Almanacs writer astrologer John Partridge had made a sarcastic

(06:53):
remark about the Church of England, referring to it as
the infallible Church. Isaac was a devout follow were and
could not let the statement like that stand, so he
concocted a unique plan of retaliation. He would predict John's
infallible death over the next year by writing several letters
and one eulogy about his demise, to be published months apart.

(07:17):
Leading up to April one, All Fool's Day, Bickerstaff published
his first letter, the prediction of John Partridge's death by
raging fever, in January of that year. The second letter,
written not as Bickerstaff but as a government's employee, came
out that March to confirm Bickerstaff's prediction. An elegy quickly followed,

(07:39):
suits more of a poem than a letter, but it
put the blame of Partridge's death on both Partridge himself
and anyone who bought his almanacs. The hoax took off
like a rocket. Mourners gathered outside partridge Is home, crying
all night and keeping him awake no matter what he said.
They it and believe he hadn't died after all the

(08:02):
letters had been printed for the public. As a matter
of fact, an undertaker even came to his house one
day to arrange the drapes for awake while the stonemason
started carving his gravestone. By that point, though, John Partridge
had seen enough and published a letter of his own
to dispel the silly hoax once and for all. But

(08:24):
it didn't work. No one believed him, especially after Bickerstaff responded,
writing they were sure no man alive ever to rid
such damned stuff as this. I know it was a
real jerk move. Finally, all fools Day had arrived and
Isaac Bickerstaff gave up the ghost, so to speak. He
published one last piece entitled A Vindication of Isaac Bickerstaff,

(08:48):
in which he came clean about the whole charade. John
Partridge hadn't died, There had never been a fever. The
undertaker and the gravestone, and the morning people outside his
home had all been in vain. John Partridge was alive
and well and probably pretty angry. Bickerstaff's shenanigans didn't go unnoticed, though,

(09:11):
the founder of the British literary journal The Tattler, named
Bickerstaff his new editor, which wasn't surprising as Isaac had
been a contributor to the publication in the past. In fact,
Bickerstaff went on to publish numerous works throughout his life,
such as essays, pamphlets, periodicals, and even fiction, mostly satire.

(09:31):
Of course, Isaac Bickerstaff made his living from writing satire
directed at the rich, the irreligious, and other groups he
thought needed taking down a notch. His work is still
read and taught in classrooms all over the world. He
was prolific, and yet you probably have never heard of him,

(09:51):
at least not as Isaac Bickerstaff. But you certainly know
his essay A Modest Proposal in which he suggests in
poverty Irish families sell their children to the rich as
a food supply, or his travel journal parody Gould of
Verse Travels. That's right, Isaac Bickerstaff. The man who convinced

(10:12):
the world of one man's untimely death was actually none
other and Jonathan Swift. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me,

(10:35):
Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show and you can learn all
about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
And until next time, stay curious.