Who were the Bogdanoff brothers really? A whole generation got to know them in the spaceship of the avant-garde show Time X. Others discovered them through the numerous scientific and philosophical works written by four hands. And then, there was the media anchoring, between television sets, parodies, documentaries and sketches, where they were watched and perceived as UFOs.
Everything - and anything - has been written about Igor and Grishka, from their physical transformation to their disappearance. “As they had fun letting go of a bunch of fantasies, everyone had fun saying anything,” regrets their sister Véronique. The latter has just published Igor and Grichka - Chronicles of our happy siblings, released six days before Remind me, my beautiful by Anna Ostasenko Bogdanoff, Igor's daughter. The two works retrace, each in their own way, an extraordinary family history which says more about... who the Bogdanoff brothers were.
Two different but not opposing visions
These two works, “an intimate portrait” on the one hand, “a literary investigation” on the other, offer two different approaches, and two visions of the same story. Which one sticks most to reality? “I didn’t recognize myself in the prism of my niece’s book,” Véronique Bogdanoff told 20 Minutes, explaining that she was unaware of the release of this novel. Anna Ostasenko Bogdanoff did not wish to respond to our requests. Each ultimately lays down its truth, its interpretation of a story made up of legends to be unraveled.
But more than the divergences, it is the similarities which are striking, because it is they which, in mirror, outline the contours of a personal story hitherto unknown - or poorly known. Gone are the media characters shaped by the twins, between myths and fantasies, the spotlight goes out from the first pages of each of the two works. For the first time, far from this public life, Igor and Grichka are revealed in a new intimacy, through a moving, although romantic, family story.
A life worthy of a novel
“Imagination”, a term that we find several times in both works, has shaped both the media life and the personal life of the Bogdanoff brothers. But the family history, as it is drawn from the pens of Véronique and Anna, itself seems to come straight out of a novel. Countess Bertha, the grandmother, nicknamed Istenne by the twins, is the main character, due to her choices, as well as the influence that she will exert on Igor and Grichka from start to finish. Married to Count Hieronymus with whom she had four children, this Czech aristocrat began an affair with the African-American tenor Roland Hayes in the 1920s.
Istenne aspires to have a mixed-race child to unite beyond skin color. “It was a hundred years ago, so for a woman you had to have courage,” confides Véronique Bogdanoff. More precisely, her grandmother wants a boy to give to Gandhi, but it is a girl, Maya, who is born from this forbidden love. Both set down their suitcases at the Château de Saint-Lary, in Gers, far from the scandal. Istenne raises him alone until the birth of Igor and Grichka, on whom she transfers her aspirations, convinced that they will accomplish great things. Two books, one version of these facts.
Love, support and legacy
This “melting pot means that nothing is ever ordinary,” says Véronique. “We were never seen as ordinary people. » Is this why Igor and Grishka always wanted to appear extraordinary? The question is raised, the answer never clearly stated. A fortiori, the two main protagonists have always diverted it. Always in mirror, Véronique and Anna both evoke the unique connection between the twins, an ear always on the lookout when they were separated, their fear of aging and death, that of abandonment too. The authors, through an approach and a vision that sometimes clash, have given a special place to the last moments of Igor and Grichka, lost to Covid-19 six days apart.
“I always knew that I had to accompany them in this moment to hold their hand, to reassure, to love,” confides Véronique. A desire that we find in Anna's book, at her father's bedside until his last breath. Mourning, although experienced differently, is no less similar in the nocturnal, dreamed encounters with one or the other of the twins. It also appears as the genesis of the two works, through the story of a privileged witness or the catharsis of one who is still looking for her place.
And then, Véronique and Anna wrote because one day or another, Igor and Grichka pushed them to do so. “He instills writing in me like a virus,” we can read in Rappelle-moi, ma belle. “They passed on writing to me and always told me that they wanted me to write,” confides Véronique. The taste for storytelling, even romance, as a common heritage, to better know and understand those who are dear to them. Is it ultimately surprising that these two books came out (almost) at the same time?
