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- [00:00]
T-Mobile Advertiser
Breaking News T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network. Switch now. Keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com keepandswitch up to 4 lines of your virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service report in 90 days device eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.
- [00:30]
Holly Fry
You know that feeling when you're about to score 30% off? But they want your number? Ugh. Give them your line 2 number instead. It's a second line on your phone, perfect for nabbing promo codes without inviting spam to your party. Sign up for every discount under the sun, then block the junk texts that follow. You get all the perks, but none of the spammy baggage. More codes, less chaos. Visit line2.com audio or download line2 in the app Store and get your shopping sidekick today because the only thing blowing blowing up your phone should be good deals.
- [01:01]
Maria Tremarchi
Explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the Wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. 5 Find more crime and Cocktails on Criminalia Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [01:38]
Holly Fry
A crime makes headlines. People talk about it for a few days. Then it disappears. But for the people left behind, their.
- [01:44]
Tracy V. Wilson
Story is just beginning.
- [01:47]
Holly Fry
But at night, we hear the garage opening and my son hears it. We freak out. Honestly, I didn't tell my son this, but I felt that was it from the exactly right network. This is the Knife. Real stories of crime's ripple effects told by those who lived them. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to the knife on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:12]
Tracy V. Wilson
Happy Saturday. Franz Nopscha was born May 3, 1877, or 148 years ago today. So our episode on him is our Saturday classic.
- [02:23]
Holly Fry
This originally came out on April 8, 2019. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry.
- [02:43]
Tracy V. Wilson
And I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
- [02:45]
Holly Fry
And today we are talking about a fascinating gent whose story I stumbled across while looking for something else entirely. As is often the case with me, I'm on one track, and then I go, ooh, what's that shiny object? And then I'm on a whole other track. He's very complicated and complex to look at and kind of figure out who he was. He's Baron Franz Nopcha, who lived from 1877 to 1933. And he was Transylvanian. He identified dinosaurs. He inserted himself into Albanian politics and became a scholar on Albania. And he wrote volumes and volumes of books and papers. And he was one of those people that led that sort of adventurous scholarly life that only an aristocrat of his time could have managed. And he bypassed most formal education. And so he was funded in all of these efforts by his family money. It wasn't as though he was doing it to make a living. He was just living and pursuing his interests. And he was definitely a man clearly who had and took advantage of his privilege, although he did ultimately lose it. I also have to give you a heads up, listeners, that this episode contains gun violence and suicide. I feel bad because I know I've had to put similar warnings on several episodes lately. I swear I am not doing that on purpose. It's always like the thing I find out late in the game and then go, oh, man. But that is near the end. So if you would like to listen to most of the show but maybe not get that, you can tap out if you just leave after our second AD break, because it comes after that. So if you just missed that last segment, you won't get any of that.
- [04:18]
Tracy V. Wilson
So he was born on May 3, 1877, in Seychelles, Transylvania, which is now the city of Deva, Romania. At the time, this was all part of the Austro Hungarian Empire. And as highly noted earlier, his family was wealthy. His mother, Mathilde, was from an aristocratic family. His father, Alexius, was the vice director of the Hungarian Royal Opera. Franz was the first of three children for the two of them. And as children of a pretty wealthy family, he and his siblings were well educated. They all spoke multiple languages. And the family wasn't just wealthy, but also very well connected. His uncle was well known in the Court of Austria and was a favorite of Empress Elizabeth. And that connection was pretty helpful, maybe even pivotal in Franz's life.
- [05:05]
Holly Fry
And when Franz was still a teenager, his sister brought him something that would shift his life significantly because it sparked what has often been called an obsession on Franz's part. Ilona, the sister, had found some sort of animal skull on a riverbank while she had been out for a walk. And she thought her older brother might help her figure out what it was. There is an alternate version of this story that you will sometimes read, which involves local peasants bringing his sister Ilona the skull. But regardless of which of those is accurate, it did pass from her to her brother and make him very curious indeed.
- [05:39]
Tracy V. Wilson
That was the same year that he was starting some studies at the University of Vienna. So he decided to bring it to one of his professors there, Edward Seuss, for identification. They didn't get the help that he was looking for, though. Seuss initially seemed kind of intrigued by this whole thing, but he lost interest and instead the professor told the 18 year old Franz that he needed to do his own legwork to figure out what he had. And Nopja did exactly that.
- [06:05]
Holly Fry
Yeah, he returned to his family's castle and he basically set up his own little research center there. There were a lot of books already available to him in the family library, and from those he gave himself a foundational knowledge in geology, physiology and anatomy. And then he started reaching out to various scholars, asking for more research materials so that he could continue his self education. And then he started his own amateur excavation site on the riverbank where that skull had been found.
- [06:34]
Tracy V. Wilson
So he was an amateur, but he was doing meticulous work. He found a number of other fossils as he was digging, and he started applying the things that he knew about animal physiology to the things that he found. He was reconstructing the anatomy of what it turned out were 70 million year old dinosaur bones from the late Mesozoic era. For the next four years, he worked on figuring out not only the anatomy of the species that he had accidentally come across, but also its reproduction and its behavior. And he did this once again by comparing things he found, like nests, to the nests of existing animals, to try to figure out where there were parallels and where there were differences. And because of this work, he's considered one of the first paleophysiologists.
- [07:20]
Holly Fry
In 1899, Franz Nopche was ready to show the scientific world what he had been working on. So he went to the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and as a 22 year old with no formal scientific training beyond like his, basically the equivalent of high school, he offered up a lecture that both wowed and insulted the scientific community. It seemed that the combination of youthful confidence and having worked outside of academia on his project made Nopja completely comfortable telling well known scientists that they were doing it wrong. He also doled out some praise along the way, but in a really condescending way. So again, he was 22, and at one point he mentioned that the Belgian paleontologist Louis Dolo was really doing quite well for his age. It was like, oh, you've contributed so much despite how young you are. And this was a man in his 40s. So Dolo, we should also say, had been in charge of the dig site where one of the most famous Iguanodon finds in history took place at this point.
- [08:21]
Tracy V. Wilson
But it was obvious to everyone present that he was brilliant. He actually had come to some well founded conclusions. His late Cretaceous dinosaur was called the Telmatosaurus Transylvanicus. It was the first of dozens of species that he would identify over his career.
- [08:37]
Holly Fry
That first dinosaur he identified was little, at least in dinosaur terms. It was no bigger than a crocodile, which I suppose if you came across it in the wild, might seem like a big animal compared to you, but for a dinosaur, not so much. Several other species he found in that same area were also relatively small. A theory started to circulate in the scientific community that Nopja had somehow found only juvenile specimens. But he did not agree with that assessment and he worked really hard to disprove it. To that end, he started, among other things, microscopic examinations of the bones that he had in cross section, cutting very thin slices from his samples to do his work. And from these he was able to determine that the dinosaur specimens he had been working with all along had been adults.
- [09:22]
Tracy V. Wilson
His hypothesis was that the area near the river had actually been an island during the Cretaceous period, and that the limited environment had also limited the size of the animals that lived there. And this was something that he called Island Theory. The idea was that fewer resources meant that smaller animals were able to survive, while larger ones couldn't sustain their size with the food sources. So the larger animals would die off.
- [09:47]
Holly Fry
Yeah, if that sounds familiar, it is, and we'll talk about that a little bit at the end of the episode. But next up, we're going to talk about kind of the next phase of Nopja's life, which takes an interesting turn. But first we're going to hear from one of the sponsors to keep stuff you missed in history class going.
- [10:04]
T-Mobile Advertiser
Breaking news. T Mobile network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now, keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to four lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualify and unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days, device and eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.
- [10:35]
Maria Tremarchi
Want to keep your personal number private but still stay connected? With line 2 you can get a second phone line right on your device with a super simple app and no need for another phone. Whether it's for online shopping, dating or shielding your main number from spam, Line two is an easy way to manage it all ready for peace of mind without breaking the bank call, text block and more for only $9.99. Get started with line2.com audio or download line2 in any app store today. Line 2 your second line simplified hey.
- [11:08]
Holly Fry
Everyone, we want to tell you about our podcast.
- [11:11]
Maria Tremarchi
Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary.
- [11:16]
Holly Fry
Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies and there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating. All right, well basically we're both nerds.
- [11:28]
Maria Tremarchi
We love learning about this extraordinary universe and we love sharing what we've learned.
- [11:32]
Holly Fry
So that's what we're going to do. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is all about the mind blowing discoveries we've made about this crazy beautiful cosmos.
- [11:44]
Maria Tremarchi
From the tiniest particles to the biggest blue whales.
- [11:47]
Holly Fry
Each Tuesday and Thursday we take an hour long dive into some science topic, during which time I try to suppress my biologist training and keep the poop jokes to a minimum.
- [11:57]
Maria Tremarchi
Learn all about our amazing and beautiful.
- [11:59]
Holly Fry
Universe on day Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary.
- [12:01]
Maria Tremarchi
Universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1978, Roger Caron's first book was published and he was unlike any first time author Canada had ever seen.
- [12:15]
T-Mobile Advertiser
Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted.
- [12:18]
Holly Fry
Has spent 24 of those years in.
- [12:21]
Maria Tremarchi
Jail, 12 years in solitary. He went from an ex con to a literary darling almost overnight.
- [12:27]
Tracy V. Wilson
He was instantly a celebrity, he was.
- [12:31]
Holly Fry
An adrenal and he was the star of the show.
- [12:35]
Maria Tremarchi
Go Boy is the gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable.
- [12:41]
Tracy V. Wilson
I had a knife go in my stomach, puncture my spleen, break my rib I had my guts all in my.
- [12:47]
Maria Tremarchi
Hands, only to find himself back where he started.
- [12:50]
Tracy V. Wilson
Roger's saying is, I've never hurt anybody but myself.
- [12:53]
Holly Fry
And I said, oh, you're so wrong.
- [12:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
You're so wrong on that one.
- [12:57]
Maria Tremarchi
Rod from Campside Media and iHeart Podcasts, listen to GoBoy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [13:16]
Holly Fry
In his early 20s, Franz Nopcha was making waves in paleontology, but he was also shifting his scientific curiosity to other subjects. During this time, he wasn't abandoning dinosaurs, but he was just becoming interested in other things as well. Specifically, he decided that he wanted to study the tribes of the Albanian mountains. And this was a subject he learned about from a Transylvanian count named Louis Dreskovic that he was close with. And the two men may have been romantically involved, although that's not entirely clear.
- [13:45]
Tracy V. Wilson
With money from his uncle, who was in the Austrian court, Franz mounted his first expedition into the mountains of Albania in 1903. Early on in this trip, he did some bird hunting, and he shot several birds. This earned him a reputation as a good shot, and that helped him with some of his relationships with the locals. Although there was a lot of danger in this undertaking, including some attempts on his life, he and his uncle both kept this trip a secret from Franz's parents.
- [14:12]
Holly Fry
Yeah, eventually, after he came back from the trip, they came clean, but they didn't really know that he was going off to do this. And this kind of trip, obviously, is something that he could not have done on his own had he not been from a wealthy family with an uncle willing to fund it. But that connection to his uncle and then his uncle's connection to the highest levels of power in Austria, Hungary, at the time, actually shifted his fortunes in a slightly unexpected way.
- [14:38]
Tracy V. Wilson
Franz made numerous trips into Albania after 1903, and the funding for them eventually shifted from coming out of his uncle's pocket to coming from the empire itself. Because Nopesha had been recruited as a. The area where he was conducting his research trips was right between the Ottoman Empire and the Austro Hungarian Empire. So it made sense to make his work, which involved mapping the area and studying the culture into an official but secret effort on the part of the government.
- [15:08]
Holly Fry
Yeah, this was obviously, we'll talk about it a little bit more, kind of a time of destabilization in that area. And so the Austria Hungary authorities thought, like, hey, it would be really beneficial for us to know exactly what's going on in this. This stretch of land. And he's already making the. So if we pay for these trips, maybe he can just share his notes with us. So that's what he did. And on one of these trips, Franz met a man in a mountain village named Bajazid Elmas Doda, and he hired him to be his personal secretary. The two men were very close. They were together the rest of their lives, and they probably were romantically involved. Nopchen named one of his discoveries an Upper Cretaceous turtle species that he discovered after Bajazid. And he once wrote of Doda that, quote, he was the only person who has truly loved me.
- [15:56]
Tracy V. Wilson
We should really not play down the important role that Bajazi Doda made. He was a scholar in his own right. And from the time they met until their far too early end, which we will get to later, Nopcha and Doda traveled together. And while Bachazid was supporting the aristocrats work, he was also photographing and documenting the culture of the Muslim people of the Upper Rica Valley. He wrote several books about the Albanian people. And this was a time of great instability in Albania. The Ottomans had ruled Albania off and on since the 15th century. And dodo was capturing in photographs and in words the isolation that Albanians felt as they were cut off from the rest of the world in this whole geopolitical maneuvering of the Ottoman Empire.
- [16:43]
Holly Fry
Yeah, you can find some of his photographs online and they're really quite striking. I mean, one when you consider like where photography was at, they're already really, really interesting to look at. But he does a really nice job of just like capturing these moments in the lives of these people that are just trying to figure out their place in a world that is shifting around them very rapidly, but that they have very little say in. And they're quite beautiful, so I recommend them. During a trip in 1907, Franz and Bajazid found themselves in a rather precarious situation. They had been sent to the home of a man named Mustafa Lita in the mountains of Debra on the advice of an abbot that they had met. Mustafa Lita was a bandit of some renown, described by Nopcha in his memoir as, quote, one of the most dastardly robbers of Debra in all of Turkey at the time. And despite that reputation, the two men did indeed set out to meet him at his home.
- [17:37]
Tracy V. Wilson
They were welcomed and they stayed for several days as guests. And at first they were sort of delayed from leaving because of bad weather, but then as the weather cleared up, Mustafa Lita kept coming up with other reasons to keep them there. He finally told them that they were his prisoners. He was demanding 10,000 Turkish pounds as a ransom for their return and another 10,000 if any of the dwellings of his people were damaged in any kind of a rescue attempt. At one point, Mustafa Lita attempted to bribe Bajazid to assist him in this whole plan by offering him 2,000 pounds to betray his friend. And Bajazid turned this down?
- [18:14]
Holly Fry
Yeah, he basically went back and told Franz, like, you'll never guess what he just did. Told him the whole story, and there were no secrets between them. Then Mustafa Lita and the Baron Franz Nopcha discussed the situation. And Nopcha kind of made a deal. And he was given five days to decide who they should contact to get the ransom money. During that time, he did manage to get a message out to the abbot who had sent him to the robber. And he told the abbot to send, quote, 500 armed men or opium and 20 men. Nopcha also discussed the matter with one of Mustafa Leeta's attendants, a man named Dalip, who was displeased that their guests were being betrayed. So he thought Dalip might be a on his side. And Dalip also wanted to work this situation to his own advantage and benefit.
- [19:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
According to Nopja's memoirs, he And Dalip discussed three possible ways this whole situation could go. Quote One was that Mustafa Lita would demand his £10,000. My Albanian friends and Turkish troops would arrive. Lita's family lineage would be dishonored and everyone would be massacred. The second possibility was that Mustafa Lita would demand a bimbashlik position for my release. In this case, I would try to calm down my friends and would endeavor to keep Turkish troops out of Kalis and negotiate with the authorities. The end result in this event was unclear. The third variant was that Mustafa Lita would take me to prison and turn me in as a spy. He would thus be amnestied by the government and I would support his request for a bembashlik.
- [19:47]
Holly Fry
Yeah, also for clarity, that first option where everyone would be massacred, he was including himself and Bajazid in it. He was like, if this goes down, we're all gonna d, but maybe we can work out one of these other options. So for a little bit of additional clarity, a bimba shlik is a military position roughly akin to that of an army. Major Dalip agreed to take these three possible scenarios to Mustafa Leta to consider. And even as they negotiated after this with Mustafa Lita and his men, Franz Nopcha and Bajazid Doda, were making backup plans in case the talks broke down, including hiding a razor under a rug with the intention of killing a guard and escaping out the window using sheets and carpets to shimmy down from the high floor.
- [20:29]
Tracy V. Wilson
So, upon hearing these three options, at first, Mustafa Lita told his captives that he had captured them basically as a joke to see if they were weak, and he said that they could go free. But Nopcha thought that this was a trap, and he did not accept the offer. The Baron once again offered to campaign for the robber to get his military position if he would turn him over to the Turkish government as a spy. And Mustafa Lita agreed.
- [20:54]
Holly Fry
So, as they rode into the city of Pritrin, Mustafa Lita claimed that he had found Nopce in disguise as a local man along the trail and had captured this spy to bring him to the proper authorities. Nopcha was put into a prison cell which he had been counting on to separate him from his captor. And meanwhile, Bajazid was also taken to Pritzrin, but was released per the terms of their agreement. And he was able to get a note written by Nopche to the consulate there. And then the consulate sent help.
- [21:22]
Tracy V. Wilson
Before long, this whole affair was over. Mustafa Leta realized that he had been outsmarted and headed back to his own territory. Bajazid's father had gotten word of the kidnapping and had shown up with a small army of men planning to kill Mustafa Lita. But his son and Nokcha convinced him that he and his men could stand down.
- [21:40]
Holly Fry
During their travels, Franz became well known in the various areas they visited. He built up connections and friendships there, and he became fluent in several different Albanian dialects. He became so invested in the fate of Albania that he supported the idea of a rebellion against the Young Turks. And he actually saw himself as the Albanians potential leader in such a war effort. There is obviously a little bit of a white savior complex in play there. But he also felt he knew more about warfare and the people they might be meeting than anybody else.
- [22:10]
Tracy V. Wilson
In 1913, the Albanian Congress of Trieste was organized. From February 27 to March 6, delegates from the various tribes of Albania came to discuss their future as an independent nation and to petition the great powers to recognize their status. This event and the politics surrounding it could be its whole own subject. But as it relates to Baron Franz Nobschke, the great powers of the time, which were Austria, Hungary, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and Italy, all had in mind that they would install a European as king.
- [22:42]
Holly Fry
And Nopja suggested himself for the job, feeling that he knew more about the area and its people than any other aristocrat that might be installed in a position of leadership. And indeed, he really was recognized as the most knowledgeable candidate, both by people in Albania and by the rest of the assembly. But instead, Germany's Prince Wilhelm of Wied was established as monarch, and at that point Nopcha declared that his Albania was dead.
- [23:09]
Tracy V. Wilson
After this disappointment, Nopsha faced a whole different hurdle, and that was the loss of his family fortune. During World War I. He had resumed his spy work for Austria Hungary, and he had run guns to Northern Albanian tribes. He had even headed up an Albanian division. But he was often really frustrated at how the government was handling things like occupation of Albanian territories. The Austro Hungarian empire collapsed in 1918 and Nopsha's homeland became part of Romania. With that point, his family estate was no longer his property.
- [23:41]
Holly Fry
And we're going to talk about the last part of Franz Nopch's life in a moment. But first we will take another quick.
- [23:46]
T-Mobile Advertiser
Sponsor Breaking News T Mobile Network outperforms expectations in all sectors because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off at the $800 per line via prepaid cart. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service report in 90 days device ineligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card is no cash access and expires in six months.
- [24:21]
Maria Tremarchi
Want to keep your personal number private, but still stay connected? With line 2 you can get a second phone line right on your device with a super simple app and no need for another phone. Whether it's for online shopping, dating, or shielding your main number from spam, Line two is an easy way to manage it all. Ready for peace of mind without breaking the bank call, text block and more for only $9.99. Get started with line2.com audio or download line2 in any app store today. Line 2 your second line simplified.
- [24:54]
Holly Fry
Hey everyone, we want to tell you about our podcast.
- [24:56]
Maria Tremarchi
Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist and I think our universe is absolutely extraordinary.
- [25:02]
Holly Fry
Hello, I'm Kelly Wienersmith. I study parasites along with nature's other creepy crawlies. And there's just endless things about this universe that I find fascinating. All right, well, basically we're both nerds.
- [25:14]
Maria Tremarchi
We love learning about this extraordinary universe and we love sharing what we've learned.
- [25:18]
Holly Fry
So that's what we're going to do. And on our podcast, Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is all about the mind blowing discoveries we've made about this crazy beautiful cosmos.
- [25:29]
Maria Tremarchi
From the tiniest particles to the biggest blue whales.
- [25:33]
Holly Fry
Each Tuesday and Thursday we take an hour long dive into some science topic, during which time I try to suppress my biologist training and keep the poop jokes to a minimum.
- [25:43]
Maria Tremarchi
Learn all about our amazing and beautiful universe on Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe every Tuesday and Thursday on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:53]
Holly Fry
I'm Michael Kassen, founder and CEO of 3C Ventures and your guide on Good Company, the podcast where I sit down with the boldest innovators shaping what's in this episode, I'm joined by Anjali Sud, CEO of Tubi, for a conversation that's anything but ordinary. We dive into the competitive world of streaming how she's turning so called niche into mainstream gold, connecting audiences with stories.
- [26:18]
Maria Tremarchi
That truly make them feel seen.
- [26:20]
Holly Fry
What others dismiss as niche we embrace as core. It's this idea that there's so many stories out there and if you can find a way to curate and help the right person discover the right content. The term that we always hear from.
- [26:34]
Tracy V. Wilson
Our audience is that they feel seen.
- [26:37]
Holly Fry
Get a front row seat to where media, marketing, technology, entertainment and sports collide and hear how leaders like Angeli are carving out space and shaking things up a bit in the most crowded of markets. Listen to Good company on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, so as we come back, I just want to remind you that if you heeded our warning at the top of the episode about some violence that's coming up and you do not wish to hear it, this would be a good time to check out and we bid you adieu. But getting back to Franz Nopche While paleontology was becoming a more established science at this point as a self taught scientist with a reputation for being kind of eccentric and even rude, it was pretty difficult for the Baron who at this point you remember had lost his fortune to make connections into the field that he had in some ways helped.
- [27:43]
Tracy V. Wilson
To Pioneer, in April 1925, Nopja was offered the position of Director at the Royal Hungarian Institute of Geology. He worked there until November 1928. He reorganized the institute, which was a move that was seen as a success. But he was never really happy there and his health was suffering at One point, he was in bed for an entire year. He wrote extensively in his three years with the Institute, though he covered paleontology, geography and ethnology, along with other subjects. In total, he wrote almost 200 different works, and roughly a quarter of them were about Albania and its people.
- [28:21]
Holly Fry
And Nopja's health continued to decline. In 1928, he gave the opening remarks at a Paleontological Society conference that he had invited to come to Budapest. But he was so weak at that point that he had to give his lecture. Lecture from a wheelchair. And in his mind he believed that his career was basically over and that his lecture would likely be his last work. It was not. He continued to write a great deal in the next several years, but he resigned from his job just a few months later, and he and Bajazid first took a motorcycle tour of Europe, starting in Italy until they ran out of money, and then they moved to Vienna.
- [28:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
On April 26, 1933, Franz Nopsa was living in an apartment in Vienna with Bajazi Doda, and they had been living there together since he retired from his job at the Geological Institute. And that day, while Bajazid was asleep, Nopsha sent the housekeeper away on an errand. And then he shot his sleeping companion and then himself, killing both of them.
- [29:17]
Holly Fry
And Nopcha, this was clearly something he had been planning to do, because he left behind a lot of envelopes for people like lawyers and whatnot. But he also left behind a note for the police, and it read, quote, the motive for my suicide is a nervous breakdown. The reason that I shot my longtime friend and secretary, Mr. Bajazid Elmaz Dota, in his sleep without his suspecting is that I do not wish to leave him behind sick in misery and without a penny because he would have suffered too much. I wish to be cremated.
- [29:49]
Tracy V. Wilson
This entire incident was described in detail in Vienna's New Free Press, all the way down to autopsy details and Nope's note. And it ran under the unfortunate and sensational headline, quote, bloody Drama in the Singerstrass Scholar commits murder and Suicide Quickly. A lot of the scholarly work that Nopesha and Doda had done was eclipsed by the dramatic story of their death.
- [30:12]
Holly Fry
And the two men were actually buried across the street from one another. Doda was buried in a Muslim section of one of Vienna's cemeteries, and Nopcha's cremated remains were interred in a vault, and their burials were coordinated so that the two were placed in their final resting places at exactly the same time.
- [30:30]
Tracy V. Wilson
While Nopja had left a list of his unpublished work with a colleague named Norbert Jokel, along with instructions about who to contact to have them published. That publication didn't happen initially. There were financial issues, and Jokel held onto the works, but was killed by Nazis in the early 1940s. The remaining manuscripts are in the Austrian National Library, but some of what's believed to have been his most comprehensive writing on Albania has been lost.
- [30:58]
Holly Fry
Yeah, a lot of his fossil work was actually retained because before his death, he had sold a lot of it to, I think, the British Museum. So it's still intact. Most of that research. But a lot of his Albanian work that people think is probably some of the most important is completely mia. We have no idea where it ended up. Throughout his life, the passionate and obsessive Franz Nobcha had dealt with health issues, which are a little bit nebulous in terms of what we actually know about them. He was prolific in his work, but his efforts were often interrupted throughout his life by what he called shattered nerves. And his mother told people at various times, even when he was an adult, like, she would kind of write notes to excuse him from things, saying that he had a recurring illness, but she never really gave details about them. Even in his own memoirs, he doesn't really detail his personal thoughts or feelings. It's all kind of like, here are the things that happened, but he doesn't really discuss the personal aspects of those. Those experiences at all.
- [31:56]
Tracy V. Wilson
As a consequence, it's still something of a struggle for historians to really get a sense of what Nosha was like as a person. Even his colleagues at the time described him as enigmatic and hard to read. He was really passionate about his work and he could be generous with his research. He didn't seem like he was seeking fame, but he did think he was way ahead of most other people. And he was prone to mood swings, which could make him very unkind to the people around him.
- [32:23]
Holly Fry
Yeah, there have been a lot of theories put forth about what exactly was his problem in terms of mental health, but those are always tricky, as we've discussed many times on the show. Like, to diagnose somebody postmortem is a whole messy thing, particularly for someone who is just doing a casual assessment from a historical standpoint rather than someone who's actually trained in psychology. But in a paper on Nopsch's work written by David B. Weishampel and Wolf Ernst Reif, the writers make a really nice point about how privilege and a lack of formal education kind of robbed Nopcha of his ability to turn a critical eye to his own work, and perhaps consequently learn to moderate his behavior, they wrote. Quote yet to characterize Nopche as arrogant is to overlook the obvious problem of combining in one person a high level of intelligence and creativity, not often tempered with the ability of self criticism. Nopcha's studies in tectonic geology, evolutionary biology, paleobiogeography, and sexual dimorphism prove his ability to intelligently discover problems and solve them in remarkable ways. The inability to criticize his own work acted both against and for Nopsha against because of outlandish and easily falsified ideas which he presented on paper, and four because he excelled at assembling disparate ideas into new frameworks.
- [33:46]
Tracy V. Wilson
A lot of his ideas that were met with skepticism while he was living have come to be pretty widely accepted in the years since his death. For example, his idea that the area known as Hatzig had been an island during the Cretaceous period has been supported by additional research over the years. His island theory about limited resources causing dwarfism in species is now known as the Island Rule, although it's credited in its more formally detailed form as Foster's Rule, which is named for biologist J. Bristol Foster, who wrote a paper establishing the idea in 1964.
- [34:19]
Holly Fry
And Saschel Castle, the family home of Franz Nopsa, has fallen into ruin, and it has, through historical conservation efforts, been placed on a list of Cultural Heritage Sites in Romania with the intent that the government will provide financial support for restoration and upkeep, although those funds have actually been slow to materialize, so it is still in a pretty sad state of disrepair at this point. Did you know women are more likely than men to develop dry eyes, which.
- [35:13]
Maria Tremarchi
May be due to hormonal changes during.
- [35:15]
Holly Fry
The menstrual cycle or after menopause and the use of oral contraceptives. Give your dry burning or irritated eyes a daily refresh with refresh Optiv Mega.
- [35:26]
Tracy V. Wilson
3 Lubricant Eye Drops, a preservative free formula that provides fast acting, lasting relief. Refresh Optive Mega 3 is safe to use as often as needed. Find Refresh online or in the eye.
- [35:39]
Holly Fry
Drop aisle at all major retailers.
- [35:42]
Maria Tremarchi
Want to keep your personal number private but still stay connected with line two? You can get a second phone line right on your device with a super simple app and no need for another phone. Whether it's for online shopping, dating or shielding your main number from spam, Line two is an easy way to manage it all. Ready for peace of mind without breaking the bank call, text block and more for only $9.99. Get started with line2.com audio or download line2 in any app store today. Line 2 your second line simplified explore the winding halls of historical true crime with Holly Fry and Maria Tremarchi, hosts of Criminalia, as they uncover curious cases from the past. The legend of the Highwayman suggests men dominated the field, but tell that to Lady Catherine Ferrers, known as the wicked lady who terrorized England in the mid-1600s. Her legend persists nearly 400 years after her death. Highwaymen are in the hot seat this season. Find more crime and cocktails on Criminalia. Listen to criminalia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [36:52]
Holly Fry
A crime makes headlines. People talk about it for a few days. Then it disappears. But for the people left behind, their.
- [36:59]
Tracy V. Wilson
Story is just beginning.
- [37:01]
Holly Fry
But at night, we hear the garage opening and my son hears it. We freak out. Honestly, I didn't tell my son this, but I felt that was it. From the exactly right network, this is the Knife. Real stories of crime's ripple effects told by those who lived them. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to the knife on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.