August 30, 1918:  Fanny Kaplan Becomes One of History’s Greatest Footnotes

Fanny Kaplan is not the kind of name with any historical portent.  In my old neighborhood, I might have known six of them, all friends of my grandmother.  None of these elderly yentas would be thought of as Fanny the Great.  So, who is the Fanny Kaplan?   This one killed Vladimir Lenin.   That sounds more erotic than it actually was.  Comrade Kaplan actually shot Lenin.

She was a Socialist Revolutionary, a political party more radical than the Bolsheviks.  It advocated land distribution to the peasants and terrorism.  The Socialist Revolutionaries (let’s be informal and call them the SR) had been in the forefront of resistance to the Tsar–when the Bolsheviks were debating dialectic materialism and playing chess.  Furthermore, the SR were just as defiant of Bolshevik tyranny.  The SR certainly were more popular than Lenin’s gang.  Russia had an election for a constituent assembly in November 25, 1917.  With their agrarian platform in a land where 90 percent of the people were peasants, the SR won more than half the seats in the assembly.  By contrast, the Bolsheviks came in a distant second.  When the Assembly met in January 1918, the Bolsheviks simply disbanded it.  The SR had the votes but the Bolsheviks had the guns.

Actually, the SR had guns, too.  They attempted an uprising in July 1918.  The Bolsheviks crushed it, but the SR still had recourse to political assassination.  On August 30, 1918 in Moscow, Lenin was shot twice by Fanny Kaplan.  One bullet did no worse than hitting his  shoulder, but the other lodged in the neck.  He did not die; by contrast, Kaplan’s execution was an immediate success.

However, the Russians were afraid to remove the bullet in Lenin’s neck.  At first, ignoring the bullet seemed an effective therapy.  Lenin seemed just as effective a tyrant as ever, leading the Reds to victory in a Civil War and initiating an agrarian policy of land distribution which he shamelessly stole from the SRs.  (From their ability, to his needs…)  Nor had Lenin lost his sense of fun; he sometimes ordered a Politiburo meeting to be conducted in English, German or French.  Speaking Russian just wasn’t enough of an intellectual challenge.

But then Lenin began suffering from headaches and insomnia.  He was physically deteriorating; the bullet in his neck clearly was threatening his life.  So Lenin finally agreed to an operation. No doctor in the Soviet Union had the skill or the nerve; a German specialist performed the surgery in April 1922.  The bullet was successfully extracted, and Lenin no longer had headaches and insomnia.  However, there may have been one side effect; he had a stroke in May.  He seemed to recover from it, but then a second stroke in December left him partially paralyzed.  In March 1923, a third stroke left him mute and bedridden.  He died in January 1924.

So, Fanny Kaplan killed Lenin, even if it took five years for him to realize it. 

Of course, I get my share of spam.  Some are prurient offers:  “Would you like people to think that you are shoplifting a flagpole?”  (No, I wouldn’t.)  Then, there are barely incoherent scams:  “Very brilliant writing you make.  Please link to sweatshopsareus.com.”  However, I was intrigued by this intrusion.

Hello, just to let you know that a superb estate is now for
sale in St-Nicolas, Québec, Canada. The 1,888 sq.ft. house
is build on a 45,000 sq.ft. woodland next to the chaudière
river and offer a magnific natural waterfall. It’s a must
see !

I wonder what I wrote that somehow sent a gullibility alert to this realtor.  Was it my essay on Captain Dreyfus? 

“Who cares about your disgrace and vilification when you can be imprisoned in beautiful St-Nicholas?  None of the heat and inconvenience of a dark cell on Devil’s Island.  Here you’ll wish that really were guilty, and would that Emile Zola stop all the annoying exoneration!”

Perhaps it was my discussion of the Hundred Years War and an obviously unbalanced shepherdess…;

“Is there that special someone in your family who hears voices and makes all sorts of psychotic pronouncements?  We all have a niece like that.  Why have her humiliate you in public when you can stow her in rural Quebec.  Beautiful, and all so conveniently isolated St-Nicholas is the perfect site for indefinite confinement.  And if you’ve any other solution, we won’t notice or just assume that you are burning leaves.”

And now I have to wonder what type of spam this musing will incite.

p.s.  Let’s not forget the historic significance of this day:  http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/08/07/profiles-in-futility-2/

On this day in A.D. 70:

If you had booked the Temple of Jerusalem for a wedding or a bar mitzvah, ask the High Priest for a refund. Either that, or ask the cater to set up some extra tables for a rampaging Roman army. On third thought, get the refund. The Romans destroyed the Temple. And don’t let the High Priest or your insurance agent claim that it was an act of God. After all, which God? I’d say it was Mars, although it took the War God and Rome four months to crush Jerusalem.

To commemorate this day, I will be eating spumoni ice cream. But for the Romans and their pacification policy of exiling the Judeans to Europe (where no doubt we would lose our identity), today I might look Yassir Arafat. (Worse, my wife might.) Instead we were forced to wade through some better looking gene pools. So, thanks Rome.

On This Day in 1704:

Austria gained control of Gibraltar. At least, the British claimed the captured peninsula on behalf of Archduke Karl, their candidate for the Spanish throne. Yet, the British somehow never did turn over Gibraltar; perhaps, they were waiting for the Austrian navy to show up. The British settled in and soon abandoned all pretense of acting for their Hapsburg ally. Of course, the Spanish and their French allies attempted to retake Gibraltar but they learned this lesson in military topography.  Attacking from the sea, you can take Gibraltar. Attacking from land, you can’t.

In 1713, with the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht, the Spanish ceded control of Gibraltar only on condition that “no leave shall be given under any pretence whatsoever, either to Jews or Moors, to reside or have their dwellings in the said town of Gibraltar.” The British agreed but they did not order their immigration officers to check everyone for foreskins. And once the Jews and Moors were back, the British did not ask them to leave. (Irish Catholics would have been less welcomed.) Of course, Spain declared that this was a violation of the Treaty and used it as a justification for another war. But once again the Spanish attacked by land, with predictable results.

Spain–with French support–attacked again in 1782 and this time remembered to use ships as well as a large army. Good strategy but bad timing. The British had been preoccupied trying to restore order over some dyspeptic colonies in North America, but after 1781 had signed an armistice with the rebels. Britain was now free to thrash the Spanish and the French–which is exactly what happened.

Yet Spain would try once more. In 1808, with Spanish permission, Napoleon and his forces marched into Iberia with the understanding that he take Gibraltar. But there must have been a misunderstanding; Napoleon seized Spain instead. Add a cedilla to the irony, the Spanish needed the British to drive out the French.

(And Hitler offered to march through Spain to take Gibraltar. For some reason, Franco refused.)

Of course, Spain still demands the return of Gibraltar. Britain will probably schedule that a week after it returns the Elgin Marbles.

p.s.  As if today did not have enough historical gossip, have some more:  http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/08/04/perhaps-the-most-incompetent-man-of-all-time-2/

July 22, 1934:  John Dillinger Picks the Wrong Movie

John Dillinger thought that he looked like Clark Gable…and who was going to tell him otherwise?  So the notorious bankrobber was eager to see his twin’s latest film “Manhattan Melodrama.”  Gable portrayed a suave, charming racketeer; he apparently saw his resemblance to John Dillinger.  The film tells the story of Blackie Gallagher and Jim Wade, devoted friends since boyhood; one grows up to a lawyer and the other a criminal.  If you can’t tell the professions apart, a lawyer might have better diction.  The gangster Blackie even kills to protect his friend, and then Jim has to prosecute Blackie.  But Blackie doesn’t mind going to “the chair” if it helps his friend become governor.  And Blackie and Jim are in love with the same woman; but since she is Myrna Loy that is the one plausible part of the plot.

So, imagine seeing this film, then stepping out of the Biograph Theater and into a FBI shooting range.  Wouldn’t it have been more merciful to have shot him before he saw the film?  Better yet, the Feds could have taken him to a better movie.  If the condemned get last meals, why not last films?

What else was playing in 1934?  The best film of the year was “It Happened One Night”, a delightful comedy starring that Dillinger lookalike as well as Claudette Colbert.  The usually wholesome Miss Colbert could also be seen in a sensuous milk bath luring men and kingdoms to destruction in “Cleopatra.”  (It would be comparative to Sandra Bullock as the Temptress of the Nile.)  If Dillinger preferred to leave life with a song and a dance, he would want to see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in “The Gay Divorcee.”  However, J. Edgar Hoover might have been touchy about that title.

Now, if Dillinger wanted to catch up on his reading, he could have gotten a little vicarious culture with “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.”  Fredric March, as Robert Browning, courts and rescues Norma Shearer (Miss Elizabeth Barrett) from her bullying and vaguely incestuous father Charles Laughton.  Mr. March was very cultured in 1934; he also was a Renaissance artist, lecher and gossip in “The Affairs of Cellini.”  (Cuckolding Frank Morgan wouldn’t be difficult–but it never seems right.)

But one film might have saved Dillinger’s life:  “Of Human Bondage.”  Seated in the theater, and withering in terror before the shrill, demented monster on the screen, the FBI agents would have realized that Dillinger wasn’t half as dangerous as Bette Davis.  They probably would have let him go with just a warning.

Ex-Romanian dictator Ceausescu and wife exhumed

It took 21 years but Blue Cross finally decided that the bullet wounds were covered by the Ceausescu’s policy.

 Several businesses have expressed interest in the Ceausescu.  Employing the late Rumanian tyrant as its chairman would certainly improve the image of BP.  And one can’t forget the natural affinity between totalitarianism and show business.  The scriptwriters for “Twilight IV” are already at work.  Mr. Ceausescu is also rumored to be a possible replacement for Charlie Sheen on “Two and a Half Men”; of course, depending on Ceausescu’s state of preservation, the show may be retitled “One and Two Half Men.”   He and his wife have been offered the leads in the road company production of “The Addams Family” but they didn’t care for that musical.  As Ceausescu explained to Larry King, “‘Carousel’ would be tempting.”

On This Day in 1403

Henry IV was very disappointed in the Percy clan. It was a powerful family in Northern England and very useful to a conniving usurper. After helping him seize the English throne and kill the rightful (if preposterously incompetent) King Richard II in 1399, however, it turned out that the Percys could not be trusted. The rapacious family actually expected every title and estate that Henry had promised them. Didn’t they understand politics? Apparently not. The Percys rose in rebellion, having suddenly realized that Henry was an usurper. The now legitimatist nobles were supporting the royal claims of the Earl of March–who happened to be related to the Percys by marriage.

Of course, Shakespeare covered this topic–in iambic pentameter–in Henry IV, part I. So you know that the rebels were led by the dashing teenage jock, “Hotspur” Percy but he was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury in a climactic duel with that reprobate teenager Prince Hal. Well, not quite….

Hotspur once had been a teenager; it is a prerequisite when you are 38 years old. That was his age at the battle of Shrewsbury. In fact, he was two years older than Henry IV. Prince Hal actually was a teenager–16–but he did not kill Hotspur. That deed was accomplished by an anonymous archer whose arrow determined the outcome of the battle. Up to Hotspur’s unlucky catch, his forces seemed to be winning; not a knockout decision but ahead on corpse totals. However with the death of their leader, the rebels abandoned the field and Henry IV retained the throne.

But that was Percy luck. Even the competent commanders in the family tended to get killed; and you can imagine the actuarial tables for the inept ones. Here is a brief recitation. Hotspur’s father was killed fighting against the Lancastrians. Hotspur’s son was killed fighting for the Lancastrians. (Changing sides did not improve the family luck.) Hotspur’s grandson was killed fighting for the Lancastrians. Hotspur’s great-grandson was killed in a rent riot. (Now that has to be embarrassing, killed by your disgruntled tenants.)

By some fluke, Hotspur’s great-great grandson died of natural causes at the age of 50. (16th century medicine was as deadly as the warfare.) Of the great-great-great grandsons, one may have died of natural causes; but being a Catholic once engaged to Anne Boleyn, he was definitely on Henry VIII’s “To-Do List.” And his brother was decapitated–as was his son! The 8th Earl of Northumberland–the great-great-great-great-great grandson–was mysteriously shot while in the Tower of London. (It must have been a suicide!)

You have to wonder why the British royals did not simply strip the Percys of their titles and properties, reducing them to fishmongers in Newcastle. Perhaps the Percys offered the Renaissance equivalent of a fox hunt: just catch and kill them. You could also wonder why the Percys did not choose a safer social niche. They must have felt a certain glamour to it all. Whether riddled with arrows or in the midst of their decapitation, they would have gasped “What, and give up show business?”

Two years ago the New York Times had an article on the Duchess of Northumberland. Being egaliterian/vulgar Americans, we would call her Mrs. Percy. After six hundred years, that is definitely job security.

Sarah Palin Invents New Word: Refudiate

Refudiate (verb) post-coherent English:  To revive the principles and policies of Elmer Fudd.

Elmer Fudd (1940–) Republican icon.  Speech therapist for George W. Bush.  Spokesman for the National Rifle Association.  Physical prototype and sperm donor of the Neo-Conservative movement. 

Revered, along with Yosemite Sam,  as the token humans of Merrie Melodies cartoons, Fudd heroically fought the carrot-stealing socialism of a pushy New York rabbit as well as the uppity behavior of a black duck.  Off screen, he displayed the same patriotic zeal and was a friendly witness at the HUAC hearings.  (Pepe Le Pew had to work in Europe for years.)

Although now semi-retired–he only sits on 47 corporate boards– Fudd remains an idol of the American Right.  There is talk that a well-known Conservative think tank will be renamed the Hoover and Fudd Institute.   And when planning the capture of Osama bin Laden, Donald Rumsfeld always considered “What would Elmer Fudd do?”

And let’s not forget the historic significance of this day: http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/07/20/on-this-day-in-1944-2/

Henry VIII and I share a wedding anniversary. Of course, everyone could say that. In my case, the date of Henry’s marrage to Katherine Parr coincides with my marriage to Karen.

We should also consider my other remarkable similarities to Mr. Tudor. Both Henry and I are equally plausible as the head of the Church of England. Henry had syphillis; I certainly tried to–but during the Sexual Revolution I must have been classified as 4-F. Henry had a brother-in-law beheaded; that is on my to-do list.

But how can we compare Katherine Parr and Karen Finerman? They are equally entitled to your pity.

Happy Anniversary to my noble martyr and lovely wife.

and now more about the other bride…

 Katherine Parr Borough Neville Tudor Seymour

In choosing Katherine Parr as his sixth wife, Henry VIII made a very sensible choice. By 1543 Henry’s libido was a subject of nostalgia. Her family was established but staid English gentry: no social-climbing Boleyns or power-mad Howards. And her resume was impeccable: she was a virtuous, affable woman who made of a career of being a wife.

Henry was her third husband. In her first marriage, she was a bride at 15 and a childless widow at 19. Apparently infertile and definitely unlucky, the widow was not considered a great catch, But her family found someone. At 21, she was married off to a man twice her age; he basically needed a nurse. (She was his third wife, and his first two marriages had produced an adequate number of children.) At 31, she was a widow again, but with a comfortable income. (Her stepchildren didn’t quibble over her allowance; she really was a nice person.)

Now the wealthy widow was being pursued by a handsome adventurer, Thomas Seymour. Seymour was the brother of the late Queen Jane Seymour and had stayed in the favor of his mercurial royal brother-in-law. However, that same brother-in-law also wanted a wife. Having the soul of a pimp, Thomas encouraged Henry’s interest in Katherine Parr; after all, she would be an even richer widow as Mrs. Tudor. So Katherine once again was a married nurse, dealing with the obese, gout-strickened Henry. However she wasn’t that good a nurse; Henry died four years later in 1547.

Now Katherine could finally have a handsome virile husband. And Mrs. Thomas Seymour died as the result of it in 1548: childbirth.

Brit Finds $5M in Roman Coins With Metal Detector

July 8)   A British treasure hunter has stumbled upon the country’s biggest-ever find of Roman coins buried in a field in southwest England.

Using a metal detector, Dave Crisp found a hoard of more than 52,000 coins buried in an enormous pot in county Somerset. The bronze and silver coins date from the third century and include some minted by self-proclaimed Emperor Carausius.

The stash has been valued at around $5 million and weighs more than 350 pounds, The Associated Press reported.

“I have made many finds over the years, but this is my first major coin hoard,” Crisp told the BBC.

Crisp was first alerted to the stash when he found a tiny coin buried about a foot deep. The more he dug, the more coins he unearthed. After pulling up a dozen of them, he called in the experts.

It took staff at the British Museum a full month to wash the coins and three more months to catalog them, according to The Guardian.

It isn’t clear how the huge quantity of coins got into the field. A Roman road runs near the site, but there is no evidence of any Roman villa or settlement there. Archaeologists believe they may represent the life savings of an entire community and may have been buried as part of a religious ceremony.

The find may change the way the British view their Roman heritage, putting greater emphasis on the story of Carausius. Carausius was a Roman naval officer who was declared an outlaw when Emperor Maximian suspected he was making deals with pirates.

Carausius fled to Britain in 286 and declared himself emperor, ruling over Britain and part of France for seven years before being killed by his finance minister.

“”This find presents us with an opportunity to put Carausius on the map,” Roger Bland, a coins expert from the British Museum, told AP. “Schoolchildren across the country have been studying Roman Britain for decades, but are never taught about Carausius our lost British emperor.”

Actually, Carausius could have had a revived popularity after the 1988 premiere of “The Lair of the White Worm.”  The Roman usurper was mentioned, if not depicted, as being the lover of a snake goddess–played by Amanda Donahoe–who was still devouring men, in so many ways, some 1700 years later.  The story was based on a novel by Bram Stoker, who evidently was trying to avoid being a one-hit wonder.  (He failed.)  British director Ken Russell adapted the story–which is to say that he made it unrecognizable, inexplicable and way beyond kinky.  Stoker never imagined a crucified Jesus being attacked by a large white snake; that was one of Mr. Russell’s more sedate images.

Unfortunately, aside from that casual name-dropping, Carausius has never been depicted in film or television.  So, you can’t envision him within six degrees of Kevin Bacon.  Well, you are wrong.  Carausius was defying the Emperor Maximian, who at least appeared in the sword & sandal B-grade feature “Constantine and the Cross”.  Maximian was portrayed by Tino Carraro.  No, you’ve never seen him in a Sergio Leone western; Carraro wasn’t that good.  Maximian was the father-in-law of Constantine who was played by Cornel Wilde.  (So, the first Christian Emperor looked like a Hungarian Jew.)  Wilde took the Lira and the income from other awful films to finance an excellent movie called “The Naked Prey”.  He was its producer, director and star.  In the film, Wilde is a scout of a hunting party that is massacred by African tribesman.  Wilde’s character avoids summary execution but is turned loose to be hunted by a group of warriors; their leader was played by a Ken Gampu.  Mr. Gampu, a South African actor, would subsequently avoid the temptation to massacre Kevin Bacon in “The Air Up There.”

So, that is Carausius, Maximian, Tino Carraro, Cornel Wilde, Ken Gampu and Kevin Bacon:  five degrees and 1700 years.

p.s.  Here is the story of an even more interesting treasure hoard:  http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2010/04/17/the-rakes-progress-or-the-road-to-rune/

p.p.s.  Dour, dismal but spiritually-correct birthday, John Calvin:  http://finermanworks.com/your_rda_of_irony/2009/07/10/the-joys-of-misery-and-the-embarrassment-of-evolution/