For the past couple of days, I've been looking into two questions: when was Illion in Siberia, and when did he actually write his two Tibet books. I have no solid answer. I can only guess he was in Siberia before 1931 since he would have a difficult time to go there when compared with his newspaper appearances.
I made another list, this time from Igor's article:
1931
- Brussels, Belgium - Illion’s first book is published: En Cacahouetoulanie: reportages sensationnels et inédits (a copy (the copy?) of which is said to be in Antwerp) He would have to be there to hand over the manuscript. It is noted that one of Illion’s characters says that “Catholicism, Brahmanism, and Lamaist Buddhism are essentially the same thing.” Notice that ‘Lamaist Buddhism’, or Tibetan Buddhism, is mentioned here. Why Lamaist Buddism if he was never in Tibet?
1933
- Belgium - Illion’s second book is announced to be published. According to Igor, is unknown if it was, though it was mentioned later that it did not sell well. (BTW: La grande guerre entre la Prunanie et la Figoulanie can be found here, though there’s no digital copy. Still: wow!)
- Nov. - Stockholm, Sweden
1934
- April - England- Illion announces he is taking a trip to Tibet and is looking for companions.
- July 5 - Istanbul, Turkey
- Nov. 26 - Danish newspapers presumably write about Illion (Is he in Denmark?)
- Dec. 15 - Stockholm, Sweden - Illion is in Stockholm and Swedish fans say his trip was “surprisingly fast”
- Dec. 17 - Danish newspaper publishes a detailed report of Illion (he is also now an expert on South America)
1935
- Feb. 7 - Sweden
- May 3 - Luxembourg
- Aug. - Illion is broadcast in Germany regularly through recordings. No idea if he's actually in Germany.
- Aug. 29 - Iceland
- Sept. 10 - Norway
- Nov. 11 - Transiting through Sweden to Central Europe
1936
- Unknown until July.
- July 20 - ‘Baltic Tour’ - Riga, Latvia - In the interview, it is mentioned that Illion has been twice to Central Asia and Tibet. (I don’t know when the first time was since Turkey is not part of ‘Central Asia’. Was he there before 1930?)
- Estonia
- Finland
- Oct. 1 - Riga, Latvia
- Nov. - Amsterdam, Holland
1937
- Frequent appearances on German radio. 'Second' book planned to be published in England by winter.
- Oct./Nov. 30 - Norway
- Dec. 16 - Already in Iceland. Talks about his 8 month trip in Tibet. (Nov. 11, 1935 - July 20, 1936?) Announces a lecture about the mysterious Tibetan “underground city” he visited.
1938
- Jan. 5 - Reykjavik. Leaves shortly after.
- Second book Darkness is published in England soon after. German version of book is not published at this time and Illion is gone from radio airwaves.
- Sept. 26 - Estonia
1939
- Feb. - Holland (The Hague)
- May - Zurich, Switzerland
1945
- Moves to Austria at some point and eventually makes his home in the ‘Salzburg area’.
When it comes to writing his books, I had a thought. For
In Secret Tibet (which is apparently his 3rd book), the lengths to which he creates the cover that he was never in (or even going into) Tibet are so complex that at least a rudimentary plan had to have been made
before he even announced its publishing. And before he needed a reason to even have a plan for a cover story, he would have to have had already written the book or, at the very least, have the idea for the book. Once he made his April, 1934 announcement in the English paper that he was going to make a trip into Tibet and was looking for companions, he put his plan into action. Those companions didn't work out. Then, on July 5 in Istanbul, the paper says he's there to look for new companions who can walk 50 km/day and live on breadcrumbs. Besides the
Hansel and Gretel reference, he's made the requirements so unappealing, imo, that he doesn't want companions. I don't think he wants witnesses.
So,
between July 5 - Nov. 26, 1934, Illion is supposed to journey through Tibet starting in Istanbul. (Later in Dec. a Norwegian radio station broadcasts a recording of Illion titled “
4 Months in Tibet”) The story of how he got into Tibet only comes from Illion:
Turkey -> Persia -> illegally crossing Soviet border -> through the Pamir mountains (7,649 m (25,095 ft) the original “Roof of the World”, btw) -> enters Tibet through the north -> travels south into India.
Looking at a bunch of maps of that time, the ‘Soviet border’ (which does not mean ‘Russian border’) could be referring to Tajik SSR, known today as Tajikistan, whose borders encompass the Pamir mountain range. If he crossed the Pamir mountains and entered Tibet from the north, he would've had to enter Xinjiang Province first, from the west, and then turn south, crossing the Xinjiang/Tibet border from the north. Nepal or Bhutan are not mentioned so he really only has one exit into India from the south. Otherwise he’d be exiting from the west. There is no mention of Afghanistan or Xinjiang either.
Complete guess of Illion's '1st' journey into Tibet:
I very roughly calculated this journey to be 2250 km one way. Igor calculates the entire round-trip journey from England to be 9000 km. Transportation is one-third by vehicle, one-third on horseback and one-third on foot. I'll just
mention that: “The level of oxygen at a sea level is 20.9%, at 3,000 meters it is 14.3% and at 5,000 meters it lowers to 11.2%.” So maybe 12.5% oxygen in Tibet (4,380 m (14,000 ft)) itself.
I did this to see if Illion's story hold's up, even if he wasn't there. It's possible, I guess, but... y'know? I do wonder how he got back to Denmark or Sweden if he only had a few coins while he was in Tibet. Was it enough to buy a train ticket back to Denmark? And if he was never going into Tibet, what was he doing in Istanbul anyway?
Anyway, long story short, I got nowhere looking into info like passports (Nansen, Soviet...) if he was coming out of Courland or Livonia (Soviet Latvia, Lithuania area), or if he was Jewish born in the Baltic area and a possible link through the mention of him wanting to be “assigned to Manchukuo”, a puppet state of Japan (where he said he went to after running away at age 12) that existed between 1932-1945. Maybe he just said that as a diversion, but just to the north across the border in Russia was the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, designated in 1928 and established in 1934. Did he walk from there across Siberia? ...
blahhhh...
This morning I browsed Håkan Blomqvist blog article and re-read a quote from the Swedish newspaper
Dagens Nyheter from Nov. 3, 1933:
He is now in Stockholm where he will lecture at several places a.o. The Theosophical Society.
I didn't pay much attention to this before, but I took a look now because I was going nowhere else.
I didn't find the report of the Swedish Theosophical Society lecture, but I did find the Icelandic newspaper reports of Illion (
Theodore) (
Theodor) as well as the reports of Illion giving lectures at the Icelandic Theosophical Society. Reading the much poorer Google translation (because DeepL does not translate Icelandic) his first lecture (Dec. 31, 1937) on the 'underground cities' in Tibet featured in his forthcoming book were so popular that people were turned away for lack of room, and so scheduled a second lecture (Jan. 5, 1938) by popular demand.
Then, looking around some more, I was surprised to find that
The Fifth World Congress of the Theosophical Society was held in Salzburg on July 14, 1966! There are reports (
May 9,
July 8,
July 15) in the SN about it:
On July 14, the World Congress of the Theosophical Society will begin in the Salzburg Congress Center. Over 1000 delegates from all over the world are expected to attend.
The thing is, I don't think Illion was in Salzburg at the time. In the Salzburg list, between 1965-1970, Illion is gone from the SN. He reappears on Jan. 12, 1970 with a new lecture on Biafra and Nigeria. Was he in Africa for five-ish years?
I don't know if he's actually a member of the Theosophical Society, or if he's just using the buildings to lecture in, maybe? I'll say he isn't a member because he doesn't seem to be a guy that wants to be nailed down to anything.
Siberia? >pffff< Good luck looking!