Hi love this community. As a junior historian myself and an addict for the obscured asprcts of history, one thing that has always alluded me is the fate of the eunuchs. I know that almost universally during an empire's death rattle and just before the final death of an ild regime, the eunuchs are evicted from the palatial complexes that serve as the base of governance. From the Topkapi to the Forbidden City the eunuchs' exit preludes the death of the old regime. But what then? They seemingly dissappear from history, except for the last eunuch of imperial China who got to tell his tale and shed some light. But what becomes of them? Do they leave with just the clothes on their backs or with a severance package? Do the ones who attained wealth keep it or do they have to leave with a portion of their wealth hidden under their clothes? They were stigmatised by the rest of the country but could they return to the real world or even their families? And what becomes of them as citizens in this new world? Dying to know what answers you have.
Nice question!
I’ve actually answered in some depth for both Chinese eunuchs (focusing on Sun Yaoting, as you’d guess) and Italian castrati (focusing again, as you’d guess, on Alessandro Moreschi). I covered that in an early solo episode of the AskHistorians Podcast (it was an experimental time okay!) but I have the script in my Google drive so I’ll paste the text as a reply to this comment so you can read it if that’s more convenient. However! I have never written about the last Ottoman eunuchs at all, so let’s complete the last-eunuchs-trinity and do them today.
The story of the last eunuchs of the Ottoman empire is pretty darn similar to the last eunuchs of Imperial China, which is not too surprising. It’s not all bad. Eunuchs lasted in the Ottoman empire up until the bitter end, although their political power had very slowly atrophied to nothing since maybe the mid 18th century. The last official palace eunuchs didn’t fare particularly well under the Young Turks, as you’d expect. They were the ultimate symbols of imperial decadence, and stereotyped corrupt to boot. The top eunuch (not a true powerful Chief Eunuch of old like Beshir Agha or other such big names) was actually hanged by the Young Turks, but the 2nd eunuch Nadir Agha capitulated to demands, showed the revolutionaries the location of the treasures that had been hidden when they invaded the palace, and survived. He later went on to become a very successful dairy farmer and died in 1957. The other remaining imperial eunuchs pooled together for social and monetary reasons, some lived together. They found various jobs, and a fair amount remained in service to formally imperial or wealthy households, this time for pay instead of enslaved.
This information is from a new book by the foremost Ottoman eunuch historian Jane Hathaway, and you can read a decent amount of it in Google books preview here.
An interesting addition to Hathaway’s basic account here is from an older book Harem: The World Behind the Veil, which is not academic, and was written by a Turkish woman who was 2 generations out of the harem (so her mother grew up in a harem, but she did not.) She speaks of a eunuch she knew as a child (in the 40s) who visited her family and gave her treats so she remembers him fondly. The book is a bit of a history mess, but the anecdote is interesting, because it shows that eunuchs living in a post-imperial post-slavery Turkey didn’t all just live lonely in poverty waiting to die, they went out and visited, this guy had apparently enough money for spoiling children, and were decently socially accepted by the people of their former life (I’d classify the author and her family as White Turks.)
The eunuchs of Mecca and Medina are often forgotten in the great sexy drama of the harem eunuchs, but they are (maybe) still around... There is pretty good record of the holy tomb eunuchs of Medina continuing to buy African child castrates in the late 20s and early 30s to maintain their ranks. In a 1990 interview with the Saudi official in charge of the eunuchs of Mecca, which reported that at that time there were 14 eunuchs serving at Mecca and 17 at the tomb of the Prophet in Medina. There is no indication the ranks are being maintained with replacements. He places their origin as former Ethiopian captives of Mussolini’s army, who castrated them for reasons not explained. This is... well it’s a highly politically convenient origin story for the holy eunuchs, let’s say that. The more likely story, is that these men were trafficked out of Ethiopia as children in the 30s-40s. Ethiopia (Abyssinia) was traditionally considered the “best” source of elite slaves. They might have been the very last African children castrated and trafficked to be elite slaves. I certainly would like to believe they were the last. The eunuchs themselves were not interviewed in that article. The last record I know of them is an interview with a eunuch of Medina from 2010, which you can attempt to read in translation if you wish he repeats the Italian story, but also says he is married, and expresses satisfaction in his life of religious service to the mosque, so that’s nice.
So, their life after the revolution was not fantastic, but it wasn’t totally bad, and they by all accounts made their way through the rest of their natural lives in some sort of employment and in the company of their fellow eunuchs.