Fortean
Times 376
(February 2019) carries an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s book The Lion Boy and Other Medical Curiosities. The article deals with hyperpedestrians:
these are mostly men who walk extremely long distances, including round the
world. There was a craze for this
occupation around the turn of the twentieth century, but it was killed off by
the First World War. Naturally it was an
unregulated field, with non-standardised routes and often unverifiable claims.
The major hyperpedestrian Bondeson
covers is German-American George M Schilling, but he includes a variety of
others, including four Romanians who set off to walk round the world. These were Dumitru Dan (often spelled Demetre
Dann in newspapers), Gheorghe Negreanu, Paul Pîrvu (or Pârvu) and Alexandru
Pascu. The four were students in Paris
in 1908 when the Touring Club de France announced a contest, with 100,000
francs (one for every kilometre covered) offered to the first person who walked
round the world. Bondeson’s FT article gives a brief account of
their journey, but there is plenty of Romanian-language material available on
the quartet.
The intrepid Romanians decided to
enter the contest and returned to Romania to prepare. They learned folk songs and to play
instruments so they could support themselves, not being allowed to receive
external funding during the journey, and between them had a good spread of
languages. In 1910, wearing traditional
costume and accompanied by Harap the dog (it seems virtually all
hyperpedestrians took dogs), they set out on their circumnavigation. There were about 200 competitors in all, but
the four do not seem to have been unduly worried about being beaten through
starting late.
Much of the detail of the journey
relies on later reminiscences by Dumitru Dan and cannot be independently
verified. He states that they plotted a
route which appears eccentric but was designed to avoid wintery conditions as
much as possible. Even on board ship
they kept walking, marching round the deck for up to 12 hours a day in all
weathers, using a form of pedometer to record their mileage and asking the
captain to verify the distance.
Unfortunately, the expedition was
beset by tragedy. In 1911 Alexandru
Pascu died from opium poisoning after indulging with the Rajah of Bombay. Gheorghe Negreanu died the following
year after a fall navigating a mountain pass in China. Paul Pîrvu made it to Florida but he had injured his
legs and developed gangrene. Dumitru Dan
left him with Harap to recover but despite having both legs amputated, Pîrvu died in 1915.
So Dan was left on his own to
continue, but it was not a good time to try to cross continental Europe and
although he was back in Romania in 1916, he completed his epic journey only in
1923 when he walked from Bucharest to Paris.
He claimed the prize, though the amount was much reduced by inflation,
having passed through 74 (or 76) countries while walking over 62,000
miles. Dan had worn out 28 national
costumes and nearly 500 pairs of traditional footwear.
Unsurprisingly Dan became a
geography teacher, and in later years lectured extensively on his youthful
travels. He died in 1978, the sole
survivor of a remarkable expedition, and is buried in the Heroes’ Cemetery at
Buzău. He has a very nice monument adorned
by his bust and casts of part of a globe and a pair of opinci, and an inscription attesting to his role as an ambassador
for Romania.
Update 7 November 2020:
Opinci/My Father’s
Shoes
(2019)
An 18-minute animated film about
the expedition, Opinci/My Father’s Shoes, directed by Anton and Damian
Groves (2019), was shown as part of the online 2020 Romania Rocks:
Romanian-British Literature festival. The film was introduced by Roger
Bunyan, author of the book Against All Odds. The Stories of 25 Remarkable
Adventurers, which includes a chapter on Dan. He provided an overview
of Dan’s and his companions’ endeavour. Bunyan’s daughter lives in
Bucharest, which gave him the opportunity to investigate the story.
It is a beautiful film, told by an
older Dan to his young daughter Steliana, the story of the four friends related
in flashback. The pair live alone as they come to terms with the loss of
Stelaina’s mother who died in childbirth, and the father-daughter relationship
is touchingly conveyed. Steliana was born in 1929, and the final moments
cut from the animation to film of her being interviewed in old age. The
film is dedicated to her, the four companions, and Harap. For a short
film the impact is powerfully moving.
The screening was followed by a
Q&A with the English directors Anton and Damian Groves, illustrators Maria
and Ileana Surducan, plus Bunyan. It was particularly interesting as it
shed light on the animation process, real actors wearing large papier-mâché
heads used as the basis for Dan and Steliana, cut into the animated scenes.
The undertaking was complex, and the end result took almost six years,
but it was worth the effort.
The directors talked about the tone
they achieved, making the film suitable for both children and adults despite
dealing with themes of hardship and loss.
They ended with the hope that, like Dumitru Dan before it, the film will
travel the world.
However…
In checking the claim that Dan had
been included in the Guinness Book of
World Records, I discovered an article from December 2019 which casts
considerable doubt on the veracity of his story. Blogger ‘Davy Crockett’ situates Dan’s global perambulation within a brief tradition of
hoaxing in which fraudsters claimed to be in a competition organised by the
Touring Club de France or similar organisations.
Crockett, who has done extensive
research on hyperpedestrianism, notes that it is a field full of
exaggeration. He points out that the
main source for Dan’s claim is an interview given late in life which the World Records organisation took on trust
when including him in the 1978 edition, despite discrepancies with lectures he
had given, certificates he had acquired, and what newspaper coverage exists.
He subjects Dan’s claim to
extensive scrutiny and concludes that ‘most of his story was fiction,’ full of
contradictions and falsehoods. There was
no competition, and the Touring Club de France’s focus was on cycling and
latterly motoring, with no interest in pedestrianism. The distances he said he had travelled were
covered implausibly fast in the conditions of the time. (I have to say I had
wondered where Dan and his companions sourced all those pairs of opinci
as they travelled.)
Dan’s story changed over the years
and there is convincing evidence, based on surviving records, that the trips to
Africa, Australia, Central and South America, Asia and Alaska did not
happen. In fact he fought in the 1912-13
Balkan War and the following year was in various Western European
countries. There was no newspaper
coverage of the alleged finish in Paris in 1923, surprising in itself for such a
significant achievement, and which an organisation would be expected to milk
for maximum publicity.
Thus, Pascu could
not have overdosed on opium in India, nor Negreanu fallen off a cliff in China,
because Dan was never in those countries.
Their involvement (and that of Harap), if any, remains murky despite the
famous photograph of the quartet. Pîrvu was
actually a Hungarian living in Ohio who spent three months travelling with Dan
in the midwestern United States, and he died in 1938. Otherwise, evidence suggests Dan travelled
alone.
While conceding we will never know
for sure, Crockett estimates that Dan probably walked no more than 5,000 miles
in Europe and North America, assuming he really walked between towns, for which
there is no independent verification.
The analysis is compelling, and it is all rather sad to discover Dan was
a fraud.
Presumably Roger Bunyan did not reach
the same conclusion as Crockett when writing his book, or was too polite to
mention any reservations during his introduction to Opinci and the subsequent Q&A, as he took the standard
narrative at face value. It seems the
evidence was there all the time, but nobody (including the museum at Buzău,
which spent a large sum developing a Dumitru Dan section) had bothered to look
because it was a great yarn hearers wanted to be true.
Update 22 March 2023:
Despite Dan’s dubious claim, an
exhibition dedicated to his feat (pun intended), Around the World on Foot: The Story of
the 497 Pairs of Opinci, has
just opened in the city of Ath, Belgium. Marking the centenary of the conclusion of
Dan’s tour, the exhibition, which runs from 18-31 March 2023, includes personal
items, documents from the journey, and 20 images. There will be lectures and a showing of the
Groves’ film Opinci.
It is organised by the Brussels
Romanian Cultural Institute, Buzău County Museum, Buzău County Council, the
RoAth Association (‘connecting the Romanian cultural heritage with the
inhabitants of the Ath region’), Wallonia City Hall and the Embassy of Romania
in the Kingdom of Belgium. The opening
was attended by the Romanian ambassador, in addition to representatives of the
participating associations. So it is a
pretty big deal.
Celebrating a Romanian
hyperpedestrian in a provincial Belgian town may seem surprising. The event has been mounted to mark
International Francophonie Day, observed each year on 20 March to celebrate the
French language. A statement by the
organisers provides the following rationale for the focus on Dan:
‘To mark the International Day of
La Francophonie, ICR Brussels considers the project to be in line with the
objectives of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie "to
promote and protect the diversity of cultural expressions in the policy of
supporting cultural heritage and artistic creation as a new form of human
solidarity."
‘Also, “Around the World on Foot.
The story of the 497 pairs of opinci" is a project designed to strengthen
the ties between the two cultures, by (re)discovering and knowing the
"other", paralleling the Romanian cultural past and values vis-à-vis
the Belgian ones, in a city where folklore and traditions served as the
starting point for a renewed campaign to promote them.’
One might deduce from the waffle
that there was a certain amount of head-scratching to think up notable links
between Romania and Belgium. The reason
given for the exhibition’s location in Ath is that according to the Buzău
museum director, Daniel Costache, it is only 10-15 kilometres away from the
point where Dan entered Belgium on 18 March 1914 en route to France. As Dan
received a transit paper, and there are other documents indicating his presence
in the area, it is clear at least this part of his journey was genuine.
The publicity though recounts Dan’s
claims uncritically and does not indicate that there are good grounds for scepticism,
but as the Buzău museum is involved, and it is in their interest to promote
Dan, it is hardly surprising. If only
his travelling companions had survived, we would have had independent
corroboration that Dan is worthy of the exhibition and the accolades.
