Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Exile In Buyukada
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Exile In Buyukada
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00 [VIDEO PLAYBACK]
00:00:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:05 - Istanbul, as Constantinople, capital city
00:00:15 of the Byzantine Empire, as Istanbul,
00:00:20 capital of the Ottoman Empire.
00:00:22 More than 2,000 years of history steeped
00:00:25 in great culture and international power struggles.
00:00:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:00:34 In the Sea of Marmara, south of the Bosphorus
00:00:36 that slices through the city, lies the island of Buyukada,
00:00:41 the biggest of the prince's islands,
00:00:43 a haven of peace and tranquility 12 miles
00:00:47 from the urban chaos of the city.
00:00:54 No roar of engines, no blaring horns, no exhaust fumes
00:00:59 to mar the tranquility of its luxurious mansions,
00:01:03 just the clip-clop of horse carriages,
00:01:06 the only means of transport on Buyukada.
00:01:08 When Istanbul was called Constantinople,
00:01:14 this island was known as Prinkipo.
00:01:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01:23 Buyukada can be best described in the words
00:01:39 of the German author Gustav Schlumberger,
00:01:42 written 100 years ago.
00:01:45 A ferry runs alongside a long, picturesque quay,
00:01:48 which is always filled by people.
00:01:50 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:01:53 Here, coffee houses are never empty.
00:01:58 Various flowers and trees, cascades of ivies,
00:02:02 white-flowered acacias, Judas trees, jasmine--
00:02:05 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02:09 --all of which provide a colorful background
00:02:17 for this cheerful town.
00:02:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02:21 Its name came from its function, a place of exile
00:02:28 for the princes of the city.
00:02:30 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:02:43 In 1929, just six years after the new Republic of Turkey
00:02:47 replaced the Ottoman Empire, it served again
00:02:51 as a place of exile, this time for the co-leader
00:02:54 of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky.
00:02:57 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:06 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:10 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:54 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:23 The seagulls meant that land was close by,
00:04:26 for Leon Trotsky, who had been traveling
00:04:29 since the beginning of January, it
00:04:32 was an unknown country with a language he could not speak.
00:04:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:39 It would be home for the immediate future,
00:04:44 or perhaps, as he feared, the place of his death
00:04:47 at the hands of an assassin.
00:04:48 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:52 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:04:57 It was February the 12th, 1929, and it was very cold.
00:05:01 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:05:05 The Ilyich had left the Soviet port of Odessa
00:05:10 on the Black Sea six days earlier.
00:05:13 Leon Trotsky had led the opposition to Stalin
00:05:16 since Lenin's death in 1924.
00:05:20 Now 2,000 oppositionists were in Soviet prisons,
00:05:25 but Trotsky was being deported to the Republic of Turkey.
00:05:29 Trotsky was accompanied by his wife, Natalia Sedova,
00:05:33 their youngest son, Leon Sedov, whom they called Levova,
00:05:38 and agents of Stalin's secret police.
00:05:42 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:05:44 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:05:46 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:05:49 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:05:52 Leon Trotsky had been expelled from the Soviet Union
00:05:55 by the GPU, Stalin's secret police.
00:05:59 The GPU agents were there to escort Trotsky.
00:06:02 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:06:05 They were agents of Stalin's regime,
00:06:10 which wanted to silence Trotsky.
00:06:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:06:16 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:19 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:21 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:24 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:26 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:29 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:31 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:34 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:36 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:39 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:41 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:43 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:46 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:48 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:51 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:53 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:06:56 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:06:58 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:07:01 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:07:03 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:07:06 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:07:08 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:07:11 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:07:13 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:07:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:07:19 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:07:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:07:25 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:07:28 Stalin's secret police were not the only threat Trotsky
00:07:52 faced in his new land of exile.
00:07:54 There were the remnants of the white Russian armies,
00:07:57 which had fought a long, bitter four-year war
00:08:01 against the Soviet Union.
00:08:03 The last commander of the white army, General Vrangel,
00:08:06 had died the previous year.
00:08:08 But many of the 150,000 men who had fled with him to Istanbul
00:08:12 in 1920 were still there.
00:08:16 Two leaders and two tendencies opposed each other
00:08:20 when Lenin died in 1924.
00:08:22 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:08:25 Leon Trotsky, born Lev Bronstein,
00:08:30 a brilliant orator and writer, co-leader of the October
00:08:33 Revolution, and leader of the Red Army.
00:08:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:08:39 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:08:42 And Joseph Stalin, born Yosef Djugashvili,
00:08:59 General Secretary of the Communist Party,
00:09:02 who Lenin opposed and tried to remove in December 1922,
00:09:07 making his views known in his political testament, which
00:09:11 was suppressed during Stalin's lifetime.
00:09:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:09:16 Under Stalin, the Communist Party
00:09:19 had become a bureaucratic apparatus,
00:09:22 destroying party democracy for 1 and 1/2 million members
00:09:26 and crushing all opposition to Stalin's central policy,
00:09:30 socialism in one country.
00:09:34 Trotsky took his stand on the first four
00:09:36 congresses of the Communist International,
00:09:39 the liberation of workers and peasants
00:09:42 in all countries from capitalist poverty, oppression, and war.
00:09:47 He founded the left opposition.
00:09:50 With the growing support of workers and young students
00:09:53 in the Soviet Union, in 1927, the Communist Party's
00:09:57 central committee expelled the left opposition
00:10:01 and began arrests, exile, and imprisonment.
00:10:04 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:10:07 The tsars of Moscow and the sultans of Constantinople
00:10:12 had been sworn enemies for many centuries.
00:10:14 But almost simultaneous revolutions
00:10:19 in the 20th century had consigned both empires
00:10:23 to history and created a wary solidarity
00:10:27 between the young, new, but ideologically different regimes
00:10:32 of Russia and Turkey.
00:10:33 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:10:37 Just before he disembarked at Constantinople,
00:10:55 Trotsky wrote two letters.
00:10:57 The first, angry one, was to the central committee
00:11:00 of the Soviet Communist Party in Moscow.
00:11:03 Stalin, the GPU, and the nationalist Turkish regime
00:11:07 were conspiring against him, he wrote.
00:11:10 And if he were to be killed during his Istanbul exile,
00:11:13 the responsibility would lie with the central committee
00:11:16 and, of course, Stalin.
00:11:17 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:11:20 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:11:23 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:11:26 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:11:29 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:11:33 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:11:36 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:12:03 The second letter, polite but ironic,
00:12:06 was addressed to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the president
00:12:09 of the new Turkish Republic.
00:12:11 Dear Mr. President, at the gates of Constantinople,
00:12:23 I have the honor to inform you that it is not
00:12:25 by my own free will that I have arrived
00:12:27 at the frontier of Turkey.
00:12:30 I am crossing this frontier only because I
00:12:33 must submit to force.
00:12:39 I would have preferred to go to a country I know
00:12:42 and whose language I speak.
00:12:44 But those who exile seldom consider
00:12:50 the wishes of the exiled.
00:12:52 Please, Mr. President, accept my appropriate sentiments.
00:12:56 Leon Trotsky, February 12th, 1929.
00:13:00 [KNOCKING]
00:13:01 [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
00:13:09 Trotsky's harrowing journey into foreign exile
00:13:12 had begun in Alma-Ata, Kazakhstan,
00:13:15 22 days before the Ilyich moored at Istanbul.
00:13:20 At the end of the voyage, right at the gates of Istanbul,
00:13:24 he received one final communication
00:13:26 from Stalin's Central Committee, an envelope
00:13:30 containing $1,500.
00:13:47 World War I had shattered Europe,
00:13:49 bringing down most of the continent's empires
00:13:52 and replacing them with nation states.
00:13:57 With Trotsky's arrival, two revolutions
00:14:00 crossed paths at the gates of Istanbul.
00:14:03 Trotsky had helped to destroy Tsarist Russia.
00:14:06 Ataturk had formed a new republic
00:14:11 from the rubble of the Ottoman Empire.
00:14:13 It had taken a costly four-year war of independence to achieve
00:14:22 and marked not only popular rejection of a map imposed
00:14:25 by foreign powers, but also a determination
00:14:29 to change into a modern, westernized society.
00:14:33 When Trotsky arrived in Istanbul,
00:14:35 the republic was only six years old.
00:14:38 No longer the sick man of Europe,
00:14:41 Turkey was young and healthy.
00:14:43 Hats and suits ousted the fez and the kaftan.
00:14:46 Latin characters replaced the Arabic alphabet.
00:14:55 Women who had been slaves in harems
00:14:57 now had the right to vote.
00:14:59 The films of the time told the importance of the day
00:15:22 and the dynamism of the country.
00:15:23 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:15:27 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
00:15:55 At 4 PM, Trotsky entered the arrival hall
00:15:58 of the port of Istanbul.
00:16:00 Along with the Turkish security officials to greet him
00:16:06 was Suzlov, the Soviet consul.
00:16:09 It was more like the arrival of a foreign dignitary
00:16:12 than a common exile.
00:16:13 [SPEAKING TURKISH]
00:16:16 Your passport, please.
00:16:33 [SPEAKING TURKISH]
00:16:36 [SPEAKING TURKISH]
00:16:40 On the instructions of Turkish Interior Minister
00:17:03 Shukru Kaya to the governor of Istanbul, security was tight.
00:17:08 There were no journalists.
00:17:09 [SPEAKING TURKISH]
00:17:12 [SPEAKING TURKISH]
00:17:16 [SPEAKING TURKISH]
00:17:23 While the paperwork was being completed
00:17:36 and pleasantries exchanged, young Sidof
00:17:39 stood guard over 12 chests.
00:17:41 Everything that Trotsky owned.
00:17:43 They contained no money or jewelry,
00:17:49 only the books and documents the exile
00:17:51 would use to direct the opposition against Stalin.
00:17:54 Officials told Trotsky on his arrival
00:18:02 that they had not been told he was being exiled,
00:18:05 only that he was arriving for health reasons.
00:18:08 Ataturk knew he had to be careful.
00:18:10 Any mishap that might befall Trotsky in Turkey
00:18:13 could have major international implications.
00:18:16 He instructed Muhyiddin Nusdondag,
00:18:23 the governor of Istanbul, to reply to Trotsky's letter.
00:18:27 Our police have taken all the necessary security measures
00:18:31 regarding your safety.
00:18:32 It would be advisable for you to inform the officers in charge
00:18:36 of your security of any suspicious movement
00:18:39 or activity you may perceive.
00:18:42 But implementing that security was another question.
00:18:48 Trotsky would first reside at the Soviet consulate, which
00:18:51 was Soviet territory and where the Turks could not
00:18:54 protect him.
00:18:55 But no one believed Stalin would be foolish enough
00:18:58 to make an attempt on his rival's life
00:19:00 inside the compound.
00:19:02 The Turkish authorities could only
00:19:04 help once Trotsky stepped outside the consulate, which
00:19:08 meant he had to inform the police beforehand
00:19:10 of his every move.
00:19:13 The authorities were particularly
00:19:14 uneasy with the white Russian population of Istanbul,
00:19:18 victims of Trotsky's Red Army.
00:19:20 Police headquarters were flooded with informants' reports
00:19:34 of hitmen flocking to Istanbul, ready to empty their guns
00:19:38 on Trotsky when the moment came.
00:19:40 The list of suspects grew by the hour.
00:19:47 But Trotsky was not Turkey's only security problem.
00:19:51 There was considerable opposition
00:19:53 to Ataturk's reforms.
00:19:55 Anti-Western riots throughout the country, some of them
00:19:58 foreign-inspired, were an almost daily occurrence.
00:20:03 With Trotsky's arrival, communist sympathizers
00:20:06 joined demonstrations, posters mushroomed everywhere,
00:20:10 calling for a people's uprising.
00:20:12 Ataturk was confident, however, and did not
00:20:26 see the communist movement as a threat to Turkey
00:20:28 or its way of life.
00:20:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:20:33 Trotsky's first home in Istanbul still stands today
00:20:46 as the Russian consulate.
00:20:47 During the first days of Trotsky's stay,
00:20:55 the consulate served as a meeting point
00:20:57 for the Russian consulate.
00:20:59 In the first days of Trotsky's stay,
00:21:01 the consulate staff treated him cordially
00:21:04 and were diplomatically correct.
00:21:06 Their personal belongings were never searched,
00:21:09 no questions were asked, and they
00:21:11 were free in their movements.
00:21:13 Trotsky chose to remain mostly indoors,
00:21:16 while his wife and son stepped into the lively streets
00:21:18 of the city to run their errands.
00:21:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:21:23 The consulate was near Beoglu.
00:21:29 At the turn of the century, Pera, as it was then known,
00:21:37 with its diplomatic missions, theaters, hotels, casinos,
00:21:42 cafes, music halls, foreigners, had
00:21:45 been the symbol of Western civilization
00:21:47 for the Ottoman Empire.
00:21:49 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:21:52 Dinner at the Tocatlian Hotel would be followed by drinks
00:22:09 and a game of billiards at the Luxembourg,
00:22:11 and a late stop at the Concordiae
00:22:13 to dance what was left of the night away.
00:22:16 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:22:19 In one corner were women who avoided
00:22:23 gazing eyes with extremely polite but ignoring eyes.
00:22:28 On the other hand, there were men
00:22:31 who tried equally hard to steal the women's hearts
00:22:34 and draw their attention.
00:22:36 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:22:39 A major contribution to the nightlife
00:22:43 came from Trotsky's sworn enemies,
00:22:46 the bankrupt generals and aristocrats of Tsarist Russia
00:22:49 had brought with them a style of entertainment
00:22:51 the city had never known before.
00:22:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:22:57 [CHANTING]
00:23:00 They performed in cabarets and ran restaurants,
00:23:19 introducing exotic Russian fare such as chicken Kiev,
00:23:24 lamb Karski, and beef stroganoff,
00:23:26 which were to become staples on Turkish menus.
00:23:29 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:23:32 Proud generals who once guarded the borders of the Russian
00:23:42 Empire now stood guard for small tips at nightclub toilets,
00:23:47 and pale-skinned countesses struggled to eke out
00:23:51 an existence as prostitutes.
00:23:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:23:56 Mercifully for the Turkish police,
00:24:03 Trotsky's days at the Soviet consulate were numbered.
00:24:05 [CHANTING]
00:24:09 Less than a month after he first walked through its gates,
00:24:13 all pretense of courtesy disappeared.
00:24:17 Trotsky decided to leave, and the doors of the consulate
00:24:20 closed behind him.
00:24:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:24:24 The glamorous Tocatlyan Hotel stood just a few hundred yards
00:24:30 from the consulate.
00:24:32 Trotsky and his family made a discreet entrance at midnight
00:24:36 through the service door.
00:24:38 They took over rooms 67, 68, and 70.
00:24:42 In the dying days of the Ottoman Empire,
00:24:48 guests would have consisted of French, Italian, British
00:24:52 officers, and fallen Russian aristocrats
00:24:55 who had to sell their jewelry to afford the Tocatlyan.
00:24:58 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:25:02 In the early days of the republic,
00:25:14 well-off Turks from out of town and visiting
00:25:17 foreign businessmen made up most of the clientele.
00:25:20 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:25:23 The businessmen spent much of their time
00:25:28 lounging around the lobby, the restaurant, and bar.
00:25:31 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:25:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:25:38 Their number was to increase considerably
00:25:55 after Trotsky arrived.
00:25:57 The hotel was full of Turkish, Soviet, German,
00:26:01 and British agents keeping an eye
00:26:03 on the illustrious new guest.
00:26:06 Trotsky's followers from all over Europe
00:26:08 came to visit him in his new quarters.
00:26:12 One particularly welcome guest was Maurice Paz
00:26:16 and his wife, Madeleine, who came from Paris
00:26:19 bearing a gift of 20,000 francs.
00:26:22 Trotsky had very little money.
00:26:24 He was waiting for $10,000 in royalties
00:26:27 for his books that never seemed to arrive from the United
00:26:30 States.
00:26:31 He needed the money not only for his family's survival,
00:26:35 but also to publish a newsletter
00:26:37 for the opposition in Russia.
00:26:40 Trotsky and Maurice Paz worked for five days
00:26:43 discussing future strategy under an ever watchful
00:26:47 and mounting Turkish police presence.
00:26:52 The Turkish police were not concerned
00:26:54 about the discussions between Trotsky and Paz,
00:26:57 but they did care about Stalin's secret service.
00:27:00 They did not want a political assassination
00:27:03 on their territory.
00:27:05 The need to find a really safe place for Trotsky to live
00:27:08 was becoming more and more urgent.
00:27:10 As Trotsky searched for a new home
00:27:16 from the safety of his suite, his son,
00:27:18 Lvova, kept track of political developments
00:27:21 from the newspapers.
00:27:25 The German press interested Trotsky the most,
00:27:28 firstly because of the political situation there,
00:27:32 also because he had applied for a visa
00:27:34 and had many supporters there.
00:27:36 About a month after his arrival, Trotsky
00:27:43 began to give interviews and to write for newspapers
00:27:46 around the world--
00:27:47 the Paris Journal, the New York Times, the English Daily
00:27:51 Express.
00:27:52 And he revealed his feelings about his host country
00:27:55 in his first interview with a Turkish newspaper,
00:27:58 Milliyet, considered at the time to be a mouthpiece
00:28:01 of the Turkish government.
00:28:03 "The Turkish government showed me great hospitality.
00:28:10 Before I came, I did not know how I
00:28:12 was going to be received here.
00:28:13 I wrote a letter to the president.
00:28:18 I got a reply from the governor immediately.
00:28:26 The Turkish government never limited my movements."
00:28:29 Ataturk, in response to Trotsky's safety concerns
00:28:40 in the letter from the boat, the Ilyich,
00:28:42 had replied through Governor Ustundag.
00:28:45 "The violence that you mention in your letter
00:28:47 cannot take place in Turkey.
00:28:50 You are free to go to any country you like.
00:28:53 If you wish to extend your stay in Turkey,
00:28:55 you will benefit from Turkish hospitality.
00:28:58 You will fully enjoy all the rights extended to all
00:29:01 foreigners living in Turkey."
00:29:03 Why did Trotsky first settle in the Soviet consulate?
00:29:14 And why did he leave?
00:29:16 He explained to the newspapers.
00:29:19 "I had applied to go to Germany.
00:29:23 I didn't move to a hotel because I thought
00:29:25 a reply would come quickly."
00:29:26 Trotsky had made clear in his letter to Ataturk
00:29:36 that Turkey was not his first choice.
00:29:40 "You may ask why I want to leave Turkey.
00:29:42 It's because I do not speak the language.
00:29:45 I'm old now, and I cannot learn a new language.
00:29:48 There's no other reason why I should not
00:29:49 stay in your country, which I love,
00:29:51 and where I am shown great hospitality."
00:29:54 Trotsky knew Turkey and the Turkish people fairly well.
00:30:02 He had written of Turkey's experiences
00:30:04 in its search for freedom and followed the War
00:30:06 of Independence closely.
00:30:08 He admired Ataturk.
00:30:12 He told Milliyet, "You owe your independence
00:30:16 to the will of your great leader.
00:30:18 Ataturk's greatness has been acknowledged
00:30:21 by the entire world.
00:30:23 It is a pleasure for me to repeat this fact here."
00:30:25 Trotsky's growing visibility in the media
00:30:39 was an added safety risk.
00:30:41 Turkish security reports were tense.
00:30:45 Istanbul was full of agents, and most of them
00:30:47 were after Trotsky.
00:30:49 One informant said white Russians were planning
00:30:52 to kill Trotsky for allegedly having ordered
00:30:55 the deaths of 60,000 people in the Crimea
00:30:58 after it was evacuated by General Wrangel's army.
00:31:01 For days on end, police picked up and questioned
00:31:15 former tsarist leader, Vladimir Putin,
00:31:18 former tsarist officers and soldiers.
00:31:22 Many were summarily expelled from Turkey.
00:31:25 Trotsky had driven them from their homes 12 years before.
00:31:29 Now, because of him, they were being forced
00:31:32 from their chosen land of exile.
00:31:34 (music)
00:31:57 (music)
00:32:17 (music)
00:32:37 (music)
00:32:48 All Trotsky wanted was a safe place
00:32:51 where he could devote himself to his writing.
00:32:54 (music)
00:33:05 (music)
00:33:09 A red-cliffed island set in deep blue,
00:33:12 Buyu-Kadah crouches in the sea
00:33:15 like a prehistoric animal drinking.
00:33:18 Trotsky wrote these words in his unpublished memoirs.
00:33:23 The village cemetery seemed more alive
00:33:26 than the village itself.
00:33:28 (music)
00:33:33 Around 1930, Buyu-Kadah was still as deserted
00:33:37 as it probably was when the disgraced brothers
00:33:40 and cousins of the Byzantine emperors
00:33:42 lingered away their lives on its shores.
00:33:46 Nature itself seemed to have designed the spot
00:33:50 to be a regal penitentiary.
00:33:53 The islanders, a few fishermen and shepherds,
00:33:57 lived as their forefathers did a thousand years earlier.
00:34:01 The horn of a motor car never disturbed the stillness.
00:34:04 Only the braying of an ass came down
00:34:07 from the outlying cliffs and fields into the main street.
00:34:12 For a few weeks in the year, noisy vulgarity intruded.
00:34:17 (music)
00:34:23 In the summer, multitudes of holidaymakers,
00:34:25 families of Istanbul merchants,
00:34:27 crowded the beaches and the huts.
00:34:33 Then calm returned, and only the braying of the ass
00:34:37 greeted the still and splendid onset of the autumn.
00:34:42 (music)
00:34:47 (music)
00:34:52 (music)
00:34:59 Trotsky had finally found a safe home.
00:35:03 (music)
00:35:08 Buyu-Kadah was relatively difficult to access,
00:35:11 and comings and goings were easy to control,
00:35:14 and the Turkish security was happy.
00:35:17 Trotsky changed addresses several times
00:35:20 before he found his final home.
00:35:23 In some places he was simply uncomfortable.
00:35:26 In others, mysterious fires broke out,
00:35:29 blamed on the GPU, but never proven.
00:35:33 (music)
00:35:40 (music)
00:35:45 (music)
00:35:50 (music)
00:35:55 (music)
00:36:00 (music)
00:36:04 Trotsky liked the new house, a spacious,
00:36:07 dilapidated villa rented from a bankrupt Pasha.
00:36:11 He immediately got to work.
00:36:13 The securities allowed friends to visit,
00:36:16 and one of the first to join him was his secretary.
00:36:20 Madame Sarah.
00:36:25 (speaking in Russian)
00:36:30 (speaking in Russian)
00:36:35 (speaking in Russian)
00:36:40 (music)
00:36:44 (speaking in Russian)
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00:37:16 (speaking in Russian)
00:37:21 With Trotsky's arrival,
00:37:43 the Turkish communists became more visible.
00:37:46 Posters and leaflets mushroomed.
00:37:51 May Day demonstrations rocked Istanbul and Izmir.
00:37:55 Many were arrested.
00:37:58 All eyes turned to Trotsky when one of those arrested
00:38:01 said the communist pamphlets he'd been caught distributing
00:38:05 were given to him by the owner of a club on Boyukata.
00:38:12 Was Trotsky the source?
00:38:15 Nothing came out of the investigation.
00:38:19 The Turkish security forces were becoming apprehensive.
00:38:23 More and more people showed up on Prinkipur.
00:38:26 The police were certain that some of them were communists.
00:38:31 When a policeman came to the house
00:38:33 and asked for a list of the people inside,
00:38:35 Trotsky was furious.
00:38:37 He immediately wrote to the Istanbul police chief
00:38:40 and complained.
00:38:42 "Today a policeman came to my house
00:38:44 "and asked for a list of the people staying and working with us.
00:38:47 "I'm sure you were not informed of this incident,
00:38:50 "but I find it unacceptable.
00:38:52 "This is a violation of my personal rights.
00:38:55 "However, if you like, I am prepared to come to your office
00:38:59 "and answer all your questions."
00:39:02 Still, Trotsky was not always correct
00:39:05 in his judgments about the growing number of visitors
00:39:08 on Boyukata.
00:39:10 Among those who came to the island
00:39:13 was Sobolevikos, a Lithuanian
00:39:15 who appeared to be a militant oppositionist.
00:39:18 He settled in the house
00:39:20 after Trotsky personally asked for him to be granted a visa.
00:39:24 He and his brother stayed on Boyukata for three years,
00:39:28 and they also worked as bodyguards
00:39:30 and were always armed.
00:39:33 Thirty years later, in 1960,
00:39:35 Sobolevikos was arrested in the United States for spying,
00:39:40 carrying papers that identified him as Jack Sobol.
00:39:44 He told FBI agents during interrogation
00:39:48 that he had been in the employment of the GPU,
00:39:51 reporting on the activities of the Boyukata household
00:39:55 directly to Stalin.
00:39:57 Jacob Blumkin had been recruited by Trotsky
00:40:01 into the Communist Party.
00:40:03 He was an officer of the GPU.
00:40:06 He asked for a meeting with Trotsky,
00:40:10 which was arranged by Trotsky's son, Leon Sidov,
00:40:14 who said that he'd met Blumkin in the street by chance.
00:40:18 Jacob Blumkin offered to smuggle Trotsky's writings
00:40:21 into the Soviet Union using Turkish fishermen.
00:40:25 Trotsky declined, but the two men had a long talk,
00:40:30 and Trotsky gave Blumkin a carefully worded message
00:40:33 to the oppositionists back home.
00:40:36 A few months later, news came that Stalin had executed Blumkin
00:40:40 for being a Trotskyist.
00:40:43 The informant was said to be Blumkin's lover, Liza Gorskaya,
00:40:47 herself a GPU agent,
00:40:49 who Blumkin had confided in
00:40:51 and told about his meetings with Trotsky.
00:40:56 Trotsky, shocked, called on his supporters around the world
00:41:00 to raise a storm of protest over the execution of Blumkin.
00:41:05 The circle around Trotsky became wider
00:41:15 with every passing day and week.
00:41:18 They came from all over Europe,
00:41:23 and they spent most of their time in Trotsky's study.
00:41:27 Some were no strangers to the Turkish police.
00:41:32 The recent crisis in Germany, which has turned into a revolution,
00:41:36 should have turned the small bourgeoisie
00:41:39 towards the working class.
00:41:41 But that didn't happen.
00:41:43 The opposite happened.
00:41:45 The small bourgeoisie joined Hitler.
00:41:48 This threatens the death of the entire working class.
00:41:52 We must change our tactics immediately.
00:41:59 They must switch to defense.
00:42:02 If Hitler goes to a direct confrontation with the working class,
00:42:06 he will expose himself, and that will be his end.
00:42:10 If this doesn't happen,
00:42:12 he can be supported by the Social Democrats,
00:42:15 who are supported by a part of the working class.
00:42:18 So they must tell them,
00:42:20 "Comrades, if you are attacked,
00:42:24 we will defend you.
00:42:26 Will you do the same to us?"
00:42:30 We must address the millions of workers in Europe.
00:42:40 Your future is in your hands.
00:42:43 If fascism comes to power,
00:42:46 the Nazis will crush the proletariat of Europe with tanks.
00:42:50 Only the consolidation of the entire working class,
00:42:54 only a single front,
00:42:57 can stop fascism.
00:42:59 There is no time left.
00:43:01 We must not lose a minute.
00:43:04 The Russian Revolution and Trotsky
00:43:13 had many sympathizers in Turkey.
00:43:16 Although early during the War of Independence,
00:43:21 Mustafa Kemal, reflecting on the revolution, wrote,
00:43:25 "Our friendship with Russia continues.
00:43:29 However, the state of our country,
00:43:33 the domestic situation of the nation,
00:43:36 and the vigor of our national traditions
00:43:39 make it clear that communism cannot be an option for Turkey."
00:43:44 [Music]
00:43:47 Trotsky continued to search for a visa.
00:43:58 He applied to Germany, to England, and to France.
00:44:02 All of the applications were rejected.
00:44:05 No government would accept him.
00:44:07 He applied for an American visa
00:44:10 to the U.S. consulate in Istanbul.
00:44:13 Leaving aside the question of medical consultation
00:44:17 necessary for my wife and for myself,
00:44:20 the aim of my voyage is of a purely scientific nature.
00:44:24 I recently published in the United States
00:44:27 a work in three volumes on the history of the Russian Revolution,
00:44:31 which I noted with satisfaction,
00:44:33 met with a favorable reception
00:44:35 on the part of almost the entire American press.
00:44:39 The fourth volume will be devoted to the history of the Red Army
00:44:43 and the Civil War.
00:44:45 While studying in connection with this theme
00:44:48 the history of the wars of Cromwell in England
00:44:50 and the war between the northern and southern states in America,
00:44:54 I was struck by the extraordinary resemblance
00:44:57 in point of form and method
00:44:59 between the Civil War in the United States
00:45:02 and the Civil War in Russia.
00:45:04 The consul never replied.
00:45:07 The first official U.S. communication he received
00:45:10 was from the Internal Revenue Service.
00:45:13 The records of this office disclose
00:45:17 that you have received income from sources within the United States.
00:45:21 It is requested that you advise
00:45:23 whether you filed returns with any collector of internal revenue
00:45:27 in the United States for the year 1932.
00:45:31 [Music]
00:45:39 While Trotsky pursued his quest for a visa,
00:45:42 Turkey organized its first beauty pageant
00:45:45 with all Turkish contestants.
00:45:48 Hundreds of young women applied.
00:45:52 Trotsky and other problems were forgotten for a few months
00:45:56 as the secluded, veiled women of a decade earlier
00:45:59 appeared before the world clad in bathing suits.
00:46:03 Feriha Tevfik became the first Miss Turkey.
00:46:06 Her successor two years later, Keriman Halis,
00:46:10 was crowned the most beautiful woman in the world.
00:46:14 [Music]
00:46:24 [Music]
00:46:52 Trotsky had arrived on Boyukadar with only his wife, his son, and a secretary.
00:46:57 By 1931, he was surrounded by a large group of supporters.
00:47:02 When they took the strategy, they went outdoors for a picnic.
00:47:06 But Turkish security was always close by.
00:47:09 Nothing was left for chance.
00:47:12 [Music]
00:47:23 Among them were the French banker Raymond Molinier
00:47:26 and his young and attractive wife, Jeanne.
00:47:30 Raymond had plans to transform Trotskyism into a major movement
00:47:34 backed by mass circulation newspapers that would have wide appeal.
00:47:39 [Russian]
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00:48:52 [Russian]
00:49:06 Molinier practically took over the Boyukadar house,
00:49:09 bought new furniture, and hired secretaries and writers from Europe.
00:49:14 In the meantime, his wife, Jeanne, fell in love with Lvova, Trotsky's son.
00:49:21 Their love affair grew.
00:49:24 While Trotsky and Raymond worked on their projects,
00:49:28 Lvova and Jeanne took long walks in the garden.
00:49:32 When Raymond decided to return to Paris,
00:49:35 Jeanne was on the pier, waving goodbye.
00:49:39 [Russian]
00:49:53 [French]
00:50:01 [French]
00:50:20 [Music]
00:50:30 [Russian]
00:50:34 Trotsky decided to send his son to Germany
00:50:37 to organize the Bureau of the Left Opposition there.
00:50:41 Lvova was his right hand, the only person he really trusted.
00:50:47 [Music]
00:50:53 He wrote to the German and Turkish governments,
00:50:55 saying his son had to go to Germany for health reasons.
00:50:59 Visas arrived quickly, and Lvova and Jeanne left Turkey together.
00:51:05 [Music]
00:51:34 [Music]
00:51:44 After Lvova left Bujukada, Trotsky's daughter, Zina, arrived.
00:51:50 [Music]
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00:52:24 [Russian]
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00:53:01 [Music]
00:53:08 Zina was one of two daughters Trotsky had from his first marriage
00:53:12 with Alexandra Sokolovskaya, a revolutionary comrade from the 1900s.
00:53:18 [Music]
00:53:27 Trotsky had left her when he fled his first Siberian exile for Europe in 1902.
00:53:33 When he returned to Russia in 1905, it was with Natalia, whom he had met in Paris.
00:53:40 [Music]
00:53:45 Zina was not well. The death at a young age of tuberculosis of her sister Nina
00:53:52 had depressed her, and she suffered from depression in addition to serious respiratory problems.
00:53:59 Trotsky wanted her to come to Turkey first, and immediately travel on to Germany for treatment.
00:54:06 Again, Trotsky faced a visa problem. In a telegram he sent to Tevfik Rustu Aras,
00:54:12 the foreign minister, he indicated that Zina was waiting sick in Odessa,
00:54:17 and he asked for an urgent visa to have her brought to Turkey.
00:54:22 Trotsky also said he was ready to pay all telegraph and visa fees.
00:54:29 The next day, the foreign minister sent him a telegraph.
00:54:32 "Order given to our Odessa consulate to issue visa for Miss Zina Volkova. Stop."
00:54:40 "No need for a telegraph fee. Stop. Tevfik Rustu."
00:54:48 But Zina was happy on Buyukida. She didn't want to leave her father's side.
00:54:55 The pine-rich air of the island was good for her lungs, and being with Trotsky and Natalia
00:55:00 and helping around the house was good for her soul.
00:55:05 Trotsky was convinced she needed treatment in Germany.
00:55:10 [music]
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00:56:03 Zina felt unwanted and went into a severe depression.
00:56:19 She wrote to her mother, complaining of her father's aloofness.
00:56:23 She felt that he did not want her around.
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00:56:29 [music]
00:56:44 Zina finally accepted her father's wishes and went to Germany in 1932,
00:56:50 where the Nazis were growing in strength.
00:56:55 Zina had intensive treatment for pneumonia and depression,
00:57:00 but her health was not improving,
00:57:02 and the situation in Germany with the Nazis frightened her, for she was Jewish.
00:57:09 Lvova wrote to his father on January 5, 1933, informing him that Zina had killed herself.
00:57:18 The final words on her suicide note were thoughts for her little son,
00:57:22 who had joined her in Germany from Bujukada just before she took her own life.
00:57:29 "I feel my end approaching. I don't think I can take care of my child.
00:57:34 He doesn't speak a word of German. Call my brother."
00:57:41 She then locked herself in the kitchen and turned on the gas.
00:57:51 [knocking]
00:57:53 Trotsky was shocked and riddled with feelings of guilt.
00:57:59 Pierre Frank, his secretary, recounted that Trotsky locked himself up in his room
00:58:11 and would not talk to anyone for five days.
00:58:16 [music]
00:58:18 When he emerged, his hair had grown whiter than before.
00:58:28 [music]
00:58:30 To escape the sorrow and the agony of Zina's death, Trotsky returned to fishing.
00:58:53 He could be seen every day with his fisherman friend, Haralambos,
00:58:57 who only spoke Turkish and Greek.
00:59:00 They communicated only with gestures,
00:59:02 but Trotsky soon became expert at handling the hooks, the lines, and the nets.
00:59:07 News of his prowess as a fisherman was heard even in Russia.
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01:00:53 In 1933, Turkey prepared to celebrate its 10th anniversary as a republic.
01:01:08 Ataturk wanted to show the world how far Turkey had gone in one short decade.
01:01:15 Countrywide gala events, balls, and ceremonies lasted throughout the year.
01:01:20 Stalin, aware of Turkey's growing role in the Balkans,
01:01:39 began keeping a close watch on Turkey
01:01:42 and started to develop relations from 1932 onwards.
01:01:46 There was a nonstop exchange of delegations between the two countries
01:01:51 and when the Turkish Prime Minister, Esmet İnönü,
01:01:54 returned from a visit to Moscow with a credit line of $8 million,
01:01:59 the Istanbul newspapers were full of Stalin's praise.
01:02:03 Trotsky was anxious.
01:02:08 He was convinced Stalin was putting pressure on Turkey to expel him.
01:02:12 Once again, it was time to leave.
01:02:16 By early summer 1933, Trotsky knew his days on Buryukhada were numbered.
01:02:27 He contacted a number of European countries,
01:02:31 asking them to urgently reactivate his earlier visa applications.
01:02:36 [BIRDS CHIRPING]
01:02:38 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:02:42 He pressed his friends in France in particular into action,
01:02:48 but weeks passed and there was no reply.
01:02:51 His hopes were raised when he was allowed to Denmark to deliver a lecture,
01:02:56 but the Communist parties protested his trip through Europe
01:03:00 and he returned to Prinkypur.
01:03:04 His finances were dwindling and money started to become a serious problem
01:03:09 for the first time since his arrival in Turkey.
01:03:12 He wrote to Henri Moliniere on June the 7th,
01:03:16 "I could even live in Corsica if only France would open its doors."
01:03:20 Finally, four and a half years after his initial request,
01:03:27 the French government granted him a visa,
01:03:30 but there were strict conditions.
01:03:32 Trotsky would not be allowed into Paris
01:03:35 and would have to live in a southern suburb under constant police supervision
01:03:40 and the threat of immediate expulsion
01:03:42 if he failed to obey any of the conditions put forth by the French government.
01:03:47 Trotsky accepted and started packing.
01:03:51 Isaac Deutscher wrote,
01:03:53 "It was not without a tug of emotion that he took leave of the splendor of the Sea of Marmara
01:03:59 and the fishing expeditions, and that he thought of his faithful fishermen,
01:04:04 some of whom their bones saturated through with the salt of the sea,
01:04:08 had recently found their rest in the village cemetery,
01:04:12 while others had, in these years of depression,
01:04:15 to struggle harder and harder to sell their catch."
01:04:23 Trotsky and Natalia left Buryukhada on June 25th, 1933
01:04:29 to board the ship Bulgaria bound for France.
01:04:33 [Music]
01:04:53 He wrote one final letter to the government in Ankara,
01:04:57 a letter of thanks for the hospitality and the security they provided
01:05:01 during the past four and a half years.
01:05:04 [Music]
01:05:21 But there was also emotion.
01:05:23 In his memoirs, he wrote of his last moments in the villa in Buryukhada.
01:05:29 "The house is already empty.
01:05:32 The wooden cases are already downstairs.
01:05:35 Young hands are driving in the nails.
01:05:38 The floor of our old and dilapidated villa was painted with such queer paint in the spring
01:05:45 that even now, four months later, tables, chairs, and our feet keep sticking to it.
01:05:52 Oddly, I feel as if my feet had gotten somewhat rooted in the soil of Prinkipur."
01:05:59 [Music]
01:06:09 Trotsky's French visa expired in 1935.
01:06:15 He was forced to leave Norway, where the government was under pressure,
01:06:19 and finally traveled to his last place of exile, Mexico,
01:06:24 where he had been invited by the artist couple of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo.
01:06:32 There, he would suffer another blow.
01:06:35 His son, Lvov, whom he'd sent to Germany in 1931,
01:06:40 had fled to France after Hitler came to power in 1933
01:06:45 and was leading a happy life there with Jeanne, now his wife, and continuing his father's work.
01:06:52 With a new but trusted French supporter, Etienne,
01:06:56 Lvov was organizing the left opposition in Paris.
01:07:00 Etienne had access to Lvov's private letters and read all the instructions Trotsky sent his son.
01:07:07 Lvov died mysteriously in 1938.
01:07:11 According to the official hospital report, he fell from his bed
01:07:15 and died in the hospital where he had just undergone an operation for appendicitis.
01:07:21 In 1958, Etienne was arrested under his true identity of Mark Sporovsky, GPU agent.
01:07:31 Mark Sporovsky said that the accident in the Paris clinic was arranged on Stalin's orders.
01:07:38 All of Trotsky's children were now dead.
01:07:45 Trotsky devoted himself full-time to writing,
01:07:49 producing a flood of books including "My Life,"
01:07:52 a matchless autobiographical history of the Russian Revolution.
01:07:57 [Music]
01:08:06 He survived at least one assassination attempt,
01:08:10 but on August the 20th, 1940, seven years after he left Buryukheda,
01:08:16 Stalin's GPU finally caught up with Trotsky.
01:08:23 Ramon Mercader, a Stalinist agent who'd made his way into Trotsky's household in Mexico,
01:08:29 fatally wounded him with an ice axe.
01:08:38 Trotsky died the following day.
01:08:40 He was 61 years old.
01:08:43 [Music]
01:09:01 Years later, Isaac Deutscher wrote,
01:09:04 "Despite all the adversities, the years Trotsky had spent on Prinkipo
01:09:09 were the calmest, the most creative, and the least unhappy time of his exile."
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01:11:51 [BLANK_AUDIO]