Editing George Gurdjieff (section)

==Career==
From 1913 to 1949, the chronology appears to be based on material that can be confirmed by primary documents, independent witnesses, cross-references and reasonable inference.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.gurdjieff.org.uk/gs9.htm |title=James Moore, Chronology of Gurdjieff's Life |publisher=Gurdjieff.org.uk |access-date=2014-03-02 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219040514/http://www.gurdjieff.org.uk/gs9.htm |archive-date=2015-02-19 }}</ref> On New Year's Day in 1912, Gurdjieff arrived in [[Moscow]] and attracted his first students, including his cousin, the sculptor [[Sergey Merkurov]], and the eccentric Rachmilievitch. In the same year, he married the Polish Julia Ostrowska in Saint Petersburg. In 1914, Gurdjieff advertised his ballet, ''The Struggle of the Magicians,'' and he supervised his pupils' writing of the sketch ''Glimpses of Truth.''{{cn|date=March 2025}}

===Gurdjieff and Ouspensky===
In 1915, Gurdjieff accepted [[P. D. Ouspensky]] as a pupil, and in 1916, he accepted the composer [[Thomas de Hartmann]] and his wife, Olga, as students. He then had about 30 pupils. Ouspensky already had a reputation as a writer on mystical subjects and had conducted his own, ultimately disappointing, search for wisdom in the East. The Fourth Way "system" taught during this period was complex and metaphysical, partly expressed in scientific terminology.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

During the revolutionary upheaval in Russia, Gurdjieff left [[Petrograd]] in 1917 to return to his family home in Alexandropol (present-day [[Gyumri]] in Armenia). During the [[October Revolution]], he set up a temporary study community in [[Essentuki]] in the Caucasus, where he worked intensively with a small group of Russian pupils. Gurdjieff's eldest sister Anna and her family later arrived there as refugees, informing him that Turks had shot his father in [[Alexandropol]] on 15 May. As the area became increasingly threatened by civil war, Gurdjieff fabricated a newspaper story announcing his forthcoming "scientific expedition" to "Mount Induc". Posing as a scientist and wearing a red fireman's belt with brass rings<ref>Olga de Hartmann: Our Life with Mr Gurdjieff p. 112</ref> Gurdjieff left Essentuki with fourteen companions (excluding Gurdjieff's family and Ouspensky). They travelled by train to Maikop, where hostilities delayed them for three weeks. In the spring of 1919, Gurdjieff met the artist Alexandre de Salzmann and his wife Jeanne and accepted them as pupils. Assisted by Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff gave the first public demonstration of his [[Gurdjieff movements|Sacred Dances]] (Movements at the [[Tbilisi]] Opera House, 22 June).{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In March 1918, Ouspensky separated from Gurdjieff, settling in England and teaching the Fourth Way in his own right. The two men were to have a very ambivalent relationship for decades to come.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

===Georgia and Turkey===
In 1919, Gurdjieff and his closest pupils moved to [[Tbilisi]], [[Democratic Republic of Georgia|Georgia]], where Gurdjieff's wife Julia Ostrowska, the Stjoernvals, the Hartmanns, and the de Salzmanns continued to assimilate his teaching. Gurdjieff concentrated on his still unstaged ballet, ''The Struggle of the Magicians''. [[Thomas de Hartmann]] (who had made his debut years ago, before [[Emperor of Russia|Tsar]] [[Nicholas II of Russia]]), worked on the music for the ballet, and [[Olgivanna Lloyd Wright|Olga Ivanovna Hinzenberg]] (who years later wed the American architect [[Frank Lloyd Wright]]), practiced the dances. It was here that Gurdjieff opened his first [[Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man]].{{cn|date=March 2025}}

In late May 1920, when political and social conditions in Georgia deteriorated, his party travelled to [[Batumi]] on the [[Black Sea]] coast and then by ship to [[Constantinople]] (today [[Istanbul]]).<ref>[[Thomas de Hartmann]], ''Our Life With Mr. Gurdjieff'' (1962), Penguin 1974 pp.94–5.</ref> Gurdjieff rented an apartment on Kumbaracı Street in [[Pera (Beyoğlu)|Péra]] and later at 13 Abdullatif Yemeneci Sokak near the [[Galata Tower]].<ref>[http://www.gurdjieff-movements.net/newsletter/2003-03/06_gurdjieff_istanbul.htm "In Gurdjieff's wake in Istanbul"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061031072357/http://www.gurdjieff-movements.net/newsletter/2003-03/06_gurdjieff_istanbul.htm |date=2006-10-31 }}, Gurdjieff Movements, March 2003.</ref> The apartment is near the [[Khanqah]] (Sufi lodge) of the [[Mevlevi Order]] (a [[Tariqa|Sufi order]] following the teachings of [[Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi]]), where Gurdjieff, Ouspensky and [[Thomas de Hartmann]] witnessed the ''[[Sema|Sama]]'' ceremony of [[the Whirling Dervishes]]. In Istanbul, Gurdjieff also met his future pupil, Capt. [[John G. Bennett]], then head of the [[Directorate of Military Intelligence (United Kingdom)|British Directorate of Military Intelligence]] in [[Ottoman Turkey]], who described his impression of Gurdjieff as follows:

<blockquote>
It was there that I first met Gurdjieff in the autumn of 1920, and no surroundings could have been more appropriate. In Gurdjieff, East and West do not just meet. Their difference is annihilated in a world outlook which knows no distinctions of race or creed. This was my first, and has remained one of my strongest impressions. [[Caucasus Greeks|A Greek from the Caucasus]], he spoke Turkish with an accent of unexpected purity, the accent that one associates with those born and bred in the narrow circle of the [[Ottoman court|Imperial Court]]. His appearance was striking enough even in [[Ottoman Turkey|Turkey]], where one saw many unusual types. His head was shaven, immense black moustache, eyes which at one moment seemed very pale and at another almost black. Below average height, he gave nevertheless an impression of great physical strength.{{cite quote|date=March 2025}}
</blockquote>

===''Prieuré'' at Avon===
In August 1921 and 1922, Gurdjieff travelled around western Europe, lecturing and giving demonstrations of his work in various cities, such as Berlin and London. He attracted the allegiance of Ouspensky's many prominent pupils (notably the editor [[A. R. Orage]]). After an unsuccessful attempt to gain British citizenship, Gurdjieff established the [[Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man]] south of Paris at the ''Prieuré des Basses Loges'' in [[Avon, Seine-et-Marne|Avon]] near the famous ''[[Chateau Fontainebleau|Château de Fontainebleau]].'' The once-impressive but somewhat crumbling mansion set in extensive grounds housed an entourage of several dozen, including some of Gurdjieff's remaining relatives and some [[White émigré|White Russian]] refugees. Gurdjieff is quoted by his students in ''Views from the Real World'' as saying: "The Institute can help one to be able to be a Christian." An aphorism was displayed which stated: "Here there are neither Russians nor English, Jews nor Christians, but only those who pursue one aim{{snd}}to be able to be."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Recollections |first=Pupils |title=Views From The Real World |pages=152, 286 |url=http://www.gurdjieff.am/library/views.pdf |year=1973 |publisher=Routledge and Keegan Paul |isbn=0525228705 |language=en}}</ref>

New pupils included [[C. S. Nott]], {{ill|René Zuber|fr|vertical-align=sup}}, [[Margaret C. Anderson|Margaret Anderson]] and her ward [[Fritz Peters (author)|Fritz Peters]]. The intellectual and middle-class types who were attracted to Gurdjieff's teaching often found the Prieuré's spartan accommodation and emphasis on hard labour on the grounds disconcerting. Gurdjieff was putting into practice his teaching that people need to develop physically, emotionally and intellectually, so lectures, music, dance, and manual work were organised. Older pupils noticed how the Prieuré teaching differed from the complex metaphysical "system" that had been taught in Russia.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gurdjieff.org/lipsey1.htm |title=R. Lipsey: ''Gurdjieff Observed'' |publisher=Gurdjieff.org |date=1999-10-01 |access-date=2014-03-02}}</ref> In addition to the physical hardships, his personal behaviour towards pupils could be ferocious:

<blockquote>
Gurdjieff was standing by his bed in a state of what seemed to me to be completely uncontrolled fury. He was raging at Orage, who stood impassively and very pale, framed in one of the windows... Suddenly, in the space of an instant, Gurdjieff's voice stopped, his whole personality changed and he gave me a broad smile—and looking incredibly peaceful and inwardly quiet, motioned me to leave. He then resumed his tirade with undiminished force. This happened so quickly that I do not believe that Mr. Orage even noticed the break in the rhythm.<ref>Fritz Peters, ''Boyhood with Gurdjieff''.</ref>
</blockquote>

During this period, Gurdjieff acquired notoriety as "the man who killed Katherine Mansfield" after [[Katherine Mansfield]] died there of [[tuberculosis]] on 9 January 1923.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Moore |first=James |title=Gurdjieff and Mansfield |page=[https://archive.org/details/gurdjieffmansfie0000moor/page/3 3] |quote=In numerous accounts Gurdjieff is defined with stark simplicity as "the man who killed Katherine Mansfield". |year=1980 |publisher=Routledge & Kegan Paul |isbn=0-7100-0488-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/gurdjieffmansfie0000moor/page/3 }}</ref> However, James Moore and Ouspensky<ref>Ouspensky, ''In search of the Miraculous,'' chapter XVIII, p. 392</ref> argue that Mansfield knew she would soon die and that Gurdjieff made her last days happy and fulfilling.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Fraser |first=Ross |title=Gabrielle Hope 1916–1962 |journal=Art New Zealand |volume=30 |issue=Winter |url=http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issues21to30/hope.htm |access-date=2011-05-10 |archive-date=2017-10-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171022213005/http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issues21to30/hope.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===First car accident, writing and visits to North America===
{{anchor|First car accident, writing and visits to America}}
Starting in 1924, Gurdjieff made visits to North America, where he eventually received the pupils taught previously by A. R. Orage. In 1924, while driving alone from Paris to [[Fontainebleau]], he had a near-fatal car accident. Nursed by his wife and mother, he made a slow and painful recovery against all medical expectations. Still convalescent, he formally "disbanded" his institute on 26 August (in fact he dispersed only his "less dedicated" pupils) which he expressed was a personal undertaking: "in the future, under the pretext of different worthy reasons, to remove from my eyesight all those who by this or that make my life too comfortable".<ref>Life is Only Real then, when 'I Am'</ref>{{incomplete citation|date=March 2025}}

While recovering from his injuries and still too weak to write himself, he began to dictate his magnum opus, ''Beelzebub's Tales'', the first part of ''All and Everything'', in a mixture of Armenian and Russian. The book is generally found to be convoluted and obscure and forces the reader to "work" to find its meaning. He continued to develop the book over some years, writing in noisy cafes which he found conducive for setting down his thoughts.{{cn|date=March 2025}}

Gurdjieff's mother died in 1925 and his wife developed cancer and died in June 1926. Ouspensky attended her funeral. According to the writer Fritz Peters, Gurdjieff was in New York from November 1925 to the spring of 1926, when he succeeded in raising over $100,000.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Taylor |first=Paul Beekman |title=Gurdjieff's America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=50w1tPTV0EEC&pg=PA103 |page=103 |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-904998-00-6 |quote=What Gurdjieff was doing during the winter of 1925–1926...|publisher=Lighthouse Editions Ltd }}</ref> He was to make six or seven trips to the US, but alienated a number of people with his brash and impudent demands for money.

A Chicago-based Gurdjieff group was founded by [[Jean Toomer]] in 1927 after he had trained at the Prieuré for a year. [[Diana Huebert]] was a regular member of the Chicago group, and documented the several visits Gurdjieff made to the group in 1932 and 1934 in her memoirs on the man.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/253516461/Diana-Faidy-Reminiscences-of-My-Work-With-Gurdjieff|title=Diana Faidy – Reminiscences of My Work with Gurdjieff|last=Faidy|first=Diana|access-date=12 February 2019}}</ref>

Despite his fund-raising efforts in America, the Prieuré operation ran into debt and was shut down in 1932. Gurdjieff constituted a new teaching group in Paris. Known as The Rope, it was composed of only women, many of them writers, and several lesbians. Members included [[Kathryn Hulme]], [[Jane Heap]], Margaret Anderson and [[Enrico Caruso]]'s widow, Dorothy. Gurdjieff became acquainted with [[Gertrude Stein]] through its members, but she was never a follower.<ref>{{Cite web
| first= Rob | last= Baker | year= 2000
|title=No Harem: Gurdjieff and the Women of The Rope|url=https://www.gurdjieff.org/rope.htm|access-date=2023-03-20|website=www.gurdjieff.org}}</ref>

In 1935, Gurdjieff stopped work on ''All and Everything.'' He had completed the first two parts of the planned trilogy but then started on the ''Third Series.'' (It was later published under the title ''Life Is Real Only Then, When 'I Am'.'') In 1936, he settled in a flat at 6, {{ill|Rue des Colonels-Renard|fr|vertical-align=sup}} in Paris, where he was to stay for the rest of his life. In 1937, his brother Dmitry died, and The Rope disbanded.{{cn|date=March 2025}}