The 19th century Polish archaeologist Tadeusz (Thaddeus) Wolansky could not have imagined that the publication of his discoveries could endanger his life. The Polish Catholic clergy not only got angry, but set out to resolve the issue with the archaeologist radically - to burn him at the stake out of their own books. The Pole was saved by Emperor Nicholas I, who shielded the scientist from attacks and ordered the Russian army to protect the archaeologist and facilitate his further research. Why did Volansky so angered the Catholic Church?
He fought with Russia, but did not become a Russophobe
Tadeusz Volansky was born in 1785 in the city of Shavel (Siauliai) in Lithuania. During the war of 1812, he fought in the army of Napoleon Bonaparte against Russia and was even awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor. After the war he got married, settled in Poland and started studying runic Slavic writing, archeology and collecting. Most of all he was interested in ancient coins, amulets, medals, inscriptions on monuments (stones and tombstones), as well as the antiquities of North Africa.
Perhaps, the impetus to the study of the presence of the Slavs in Italy and on the African continent was given by two finds that turned out to be in his collection - a figurine of the god Osiris and a ritual figurine of ushabti, which in ancient times the Egyptians placed in a coffin for a deceased. The figurines of the 7th – 4th centuries BC were found during excavations on the Baltic coast and spoke of trade relations between Ancient Egypt and the Slavic peoples.
As a result of studies of ancient monuments, Volansky came to the conclusion that many inscriptions incomprehensible to Europeans can be easily read using Slavic languages. He suggested that even before Cyril and Methodius the Slavs had their own very ancient alphabet, and discovered that with the help of the Slavic languages most of the Etruscan (Rassene) inscriptions could be read.
Volansky suggested that the Etruscans are not only the closest relatives of the Slavs, but that it was this people who became the real founder of Rome. The scientist believed that in ancient times the Slavic peoples were known not only throughout Europe, their influence extended to North Africa up to Nubia.
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Volansky believed that he had already managed to decipher most of the Etruscan inscriptions and many incomprehensible inscriptions on various artifacts. He set out his observations in letters, which he addressed to the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, then to Copenhagen to the Royal Danish Society for the Study of History, then to the Royal Scientific Society of Bohemia. But the lover of antiquity was not taken seriously.
F. Volansky's reading of the Etruscan inscription. Photo Chronology.org.ru
Without waiting for an answer, in 1846 at his own expense in the city of Gniezno Volansky published the book "Letters about Slavic Antiquities". In it, an archaeologist in German in five letters with an attachment of 12 engravings depicting 145 artifacts, described the oldest finds in his collection and in the collections of his friends, and came to the conclusion that the history of the Slavic peoples is very ancient, and the distribution their influence and widespread settlement in Europe are hushed up and hidden in every possible way.
From India to Scandinavia
In the book, he easily argued that many coins, medals and inscriptions on artifacts, which were previously attributed to the Danes, the Swedes, or the Romans, belong to the Slavs - Lyutichs, Litvin (Lithuanians), who were later mistakenly attributed to the unknown Balts, Bohemians, Moravians, Russians and other peoples.
He defined the Indian god Shiva as the Slavic god Siva or Zhivu and presented as proof of this a bracteate (a coin with a minting on one side) with the image of this god and an inscription in Slavic ZYWIE. Volansky found on medallions and amulets the names of Russian princes, who were considered by the Germans to be almost fictional. Now these inscriptions testified to the historicity of the legends. He found the name of Rurik, the names of princes Oleg and Igor, princess Olga.
The 7th century coin with portraits of the Byzantine emperor Constantine II and the Slavic prince Hostivit is absolutely unique in the Volansky collection. The inscription on the coin read: HOSTIVIT ET CONSTANS P. F. AVG. This artifact confirmed the wars between the Romans and the Slavs, as well as the peace concluded between them.
Volansky searched for artifacts, the origin of which was attributed to Rome or Persia, Slavic letters and images of Slavic gods - Radogast, Chernobog, the god of war Yarovit, the god Chura. In the inscriptions on Indian temples, he found the name of Tur-god and translated what was written on Etruscan tombstones.
Volansky admitted that in his research there could be individual errors due to his lack of special knowledge or poor preservation of artifacts, but he really wanted to be paid attention to his research. Three years later, the second book "Letters about Slavic Antiquities" was published, which included seven letters and 88 drawings.
Unnecessary attention
In the same year, the Archbishop of Gnezno of the Polish Catholic Church turned to Emperor Nicholas I for a petition, nothing less than "to apply to the Wolansky auto-da-fe at the stake from his book." Quite surprised by the malice of the Jesuits, the emperor decided to familiarize himself with Volansky's book, for which he bought several copies of "Letters …" and summoned another famous Slavophile of the 19th century, teacher and writer Yegor Klassen, to St. Petersburg from Moscow, to conduct an examination of the book.
The liberal youth of that time called the emperor a soldier and Nikolai Palkin. However, Nicholas I was not a limited person and knew exactly who he was inviting. Klassen was also a supporter of the idea that the Etruscans are the closest relatives of the Slavs and that they are the founders of Roman civilization and the city of Rome itself. Klassen tried to prove that the Slavs realized their statehood at the same time as the Greeks and Phoenicians, and considered the Norman scholars at least "unscrupulous".
After Klassen's report, the emperor ordered the purchase of the "required" amount of books in order to put them "under strong storage", the author was assigned a guard from the military, whom he ordered not only to protect Volansky, but also to assist in every possible way in the expeditions of the archaeologist to collect ancient Slavic artifacts.
In order not to irritate the Poles once again and not lead to conflict, the rest of the book's circulation was ordered to be burned. This last order was fulfilled with great pleasure by the Jesuits, who not only destroyed the book, but also, remembering that some of its copies were preserved in St. Petersburg, entered it into the Vatican's "Index of Forbidden Books". From now on, every Catholic who opened the "Letters on Slavic Antiquities" committed a sin. He was obliged to either transfer the book to a person who had the right to read such literature, or destroy it.
The missing library
Nevertheless, most of Tadeusz Volansky's discoveries became known to the public: Yegor Klassen, at the behest of Nicholas I, included them in one of his works. True, not everything was included, but only what was reviewed by the Russian Orthodox Church - the images of the Slavic gods, and especially the “shameful oud”, were too inapplicable. The images by the pagans of Christ, whom they included in their pantheons and whom they tried to worship in the same way as other gods, by making sacrifices, were not published either.
The book was less fortunate than the author - it was burned. At the end of the XX century in the library of the city of New York was found a single copy of "Letters …", which miraculously survived. At the request of the Russian writers Oleg Gusev and Roman Perin, it was translated into Russian and published again with private funds.
In the 19th century, people started talking about Volansky's discoveries for a while, and then the political situation changed, and they forgot about him for many years. It is known that the archaeologist died in early 1865 in Poland. Its unique collection of antiquities was donated to the Krakow University Museum, where it is still kept. But his vast library was gone, perhaps it was taken over by the Catholic Jesuits.
Unfortunately, even now the work of Tadeusz Wolanski is ignored by traditional historical science and is used only by historians who are almost contemptuously called alternatives. And in the USSR and in Russia, generations of people grew up who were taught from an early age that before Cyril and Methodius the Slavs did not have writing.
