Gadfly

 Title of a Soviet movie popularized by D. Shostakovitch' music.

I remember it from the roots.

Year 1955. In Poland, the ices of Cold War began to crackle a little, the thaw was approaching. It was on this wave that the book by the English author E. Voynicz - Gadfly - entered the market. The reviews mentioned that the book was controversial in the West. And here it is - the Polish reader can check for himself what is nurturing the "free West".

The author's name sounded a bit Russian, but my mother caught the hook.

We lived in a one-room flat without heating, so on winter evenings we were warmed by discussions about books, and my mother experienced it very intensely.

The story in a nutshell runs like this: Italy, 1848, the independence uprising against Austria. The protagonist is a young revolutionary who takes the pseudonym Gadfly. Carelessly, during confession, he reveals data about his organization. Arrests follow. The case goes to an Italian cardinal who supports harsh sentences for the conspirators. Severe, means the death penalty for leaders including Gadfly.

On the eve of Corpus Christi, the sentence is carried out, and at the same time the cardinal learns that Gadfly was his biological son.

The procession of Corpus Christi, the cardinal carries the monstrance and is being traversed by comparisons to God the Father - they both condemned their sons to death, but the cardinal cannot accept the fact that God the Father treated this tragedy so lightly. The dilemmas are so intense that the cardinal throws the monstrance to the ground.

My very religious mother was shocked.

(God) Father condemned his son to death !? I realized that she could not accept it, she would not have sent her child to death, rather she would have condemned herself. The atmosphere in our tiny room has become very dense.

Few months later the movie with D. Shostakovitch music was screened.
We found it saturated with anti religious propaganda and that somehow lessened impact of the book.

Only recently I got idea to check credentials of the author - where from this Russian-sounding name?

Easy to check - Ethel Voynich was born Boole - yes THIS Boole - creator of zero-one algebra, foundation of computer technology.
Professional career of her father is amazing - LOOK!

Daughter followed him...

Ethel Lilian Boole (born 1864) was orphaned by her father at the age of 5 months and had a difficult childhood. At the age of 18, however, she gained the right to access the inheritance left by her father, she abandoned her family, and went to Berlin to study music.

In Germany, she came into contact with the Russian circles, which fascinated her enough to learn the language and look for a job as a governess in St. Petersburg. There she made contacts with Russian anarchists and revolutionists. After two years, she returned to England, where she was a co-founder of the Society of Friends of Russian Freedom.

In 1890 she met there the Polish revolutionist Michael Habdank Wojnicz and they lived together. Ethel took the surname Voynich, and in 1902 they got married.
Full biography HERE.

I save you the life story of Michael, I think Ethel is more than enough.

In 1895, she met in London British spy, Sidney Reilly, and hepersuaded her to travel together to Italy. This trip, plus possibly the facts from S. Reilly's life, inspired the book.

The book, published in 1897, gained considerable publicity in England. So much, that Ethel asked her friend George Bernard Shaw to turn it into a play and thus prevent attempts of fakes and plagiarism. G.B. Shaw complied with this request.

As the years passed, the book was forgotten, but not in the Soviet Union.

Already in 1928, a film based on this novel was produced in Georgia. However, the real renaissance came in 1955.

The book became a literary hit, 2.5 million copies were sold. Similar popularity has gained in China, over 2 million copies.

Even more people watched the movie.

Soviet publishers and filmmakers believed in 1955, that the author of the book published almost 60 years earlier had long been dead.

Nothing could be more wrong. Ethel Voynich was alive (in the US) and doing well. In 1955, a Soviet diplomat visited her and expressed his appreciation. An American diplomat also visited her and paid $ 15,000 for missed royalties.

Each country has its way of honouring artists.

She died in 1960 at the age of 96.

P.S. I apologize for so many links in this post, but I can't help but add one more - Sidney Reilly, associate of Scotland Yard.

Born as Rosenblum, maybe in Odessa, maybe in the vicinity of Grodno (Belarus). The rest of his life is much more tangled. Apparently he was a model for the character of James Bond. Impossible to take full advantage of, as his career as a special agent was much more complicated.

I will only mention that he died in 1925 in the Soviet Union, tricked by the OGPU under the pretext of assassination of W.I. Lenin. Details HERE.