Descending from the sacred Mount Sinai, where he received from God the tablets (stone boards) with the "Ten Commandments" written on them, the leader of the Israelite people, Moses, saw with bitterness that his fellow tribesmen worship an idol made by their own hands - the golden calf. This meant one thing: people voluntarily renounced faith in the true God, fell into paganism. This angered Moses so much that he "threw the tablets from his hands and broke them under the mountain" (Old Testament, Exodus 32, 19). The Bible has brought to us the first destruction of a book in history, the tragic beginning of the destruction of written historical evidence. Once having begun the process of eradicating the memory of their own past, people have not stopped there to this day.
From the early Christian manuscripts alone of the first two centuries of our era, most have disappeared. In the Old Testament there are references to some ancient book: “Isn't this written in the Book of the Righteous: the sun stood in the sky and did not hurry westward for almost the whole day” (2 Kings 1, 18). It was not a trifle that was recorded in that mysterious book, but some event of a truly cosmic scale: the sun itself remained motionless (maybe time stopped at that moment ?!). But today no one knows anything about the Book of the Righteous. And the ancients knew!
Likewise, we do not know anything about such sources of biblical antiquity as the "Book of Wars of Yahweh" or "The Book of the History of Solomon"; in total, the Bible contains 54 references to 20 unknown ancient books. Many scholars believe that some simply appeared in Scripture under different names; nevertheless, after analysis, about a dozen books still remain, the trace of which is forever lost. For example, from some apocryphal (that is, not officially included in the Bible) Gospels, some scraps have come down to us. It is known that there was also the “Gospel of completion” or the sensational “Gospel of Judas” lately.
The problem of disappeared primary sources affects not only religion. It is suspicious that especially large holes in the memory of mankind gape where it is about its origins, the decisive phases of the formation of civilization. There are no primary sources of Ancient Egypt, in which, starting from the 4th millennium BC, all important events of each year were scrupulously recorded down to the water level in the Nile River! Only pathetic scraps of these chronicles have been found, which raise more questions than they answer. Lost two-thirds of the "Roman History from the Founding of the City" by Titus Livy, written 2000 years ago. The original "Annals of Fenestella" about the everyday life of the Roman Republic (52 BC - 19 AD) has disappeared; today, from references in other works, we know only a few details of this book. All the works of the first and most famous Roman emperor Augustus, who was revered as a god during his lifetime, and by whose name the month of August is named, have been lost. Gone is his autobiography, as well as Pamphlet Against Brutus, one of the assassins of Guy Julius Caesar, who was Augustus' adoptive father. There are no 48 speeches of the Roman poet and human rights activist Cicero (106-43 BC), who left a lot of catchphrases (“A bad world is better than a good war”). The most important works of the philosopher Diogenes have disappeared (died 320 BC). About a third of ancient literary works have disappeared. Of the 330 authentically existed works of the famous ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, only 46 have survived.one of the assassins of Guy Julius Caesar, who was the adoptive father of Augustus. There are no 48 speeches of the Roman poet and human rights activist Cicero (106-43 BC), who left a lot of catchphrases (“A bad world is better than a good war”). The most important works of the philosopher Diogenes have disappeared (died 320 BC). About a third of ancient literary works have disappeared. Of the 330 authentically existed works of the famous ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, only 46 have survived.one of the assassins of Guy Julius Caesar, who was the adoptive father of Augustus. There are no 48 speeches of the Roman poet and human rights activist Cicero (106-43 BC), who left a lot of catchphrases (“A bad world is better than a good war”). The most important works of the philosopher Diogenes have disappeared (died 320 BC). About a third of ancient literary works have disappeared. Of the 330 authentically existed works of the famous ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, only 46 have survived. Of the 330 authentically existed works of the famous ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, only 46 have survived. Of the 330 authentically existed works of the famous ancient Greek playwrights Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes, only 46 have survived.
Over the course of history, many books have been destroyed by humanity. With them, the knowledge of bygone cultures was lost. Much in our history could be different if we got acquainted with the content of all those millions of ancient papyri, parchments and folios, in which generations that lived before us recorded their knowledge, discoveries and achievements. How much smarter we would be, how much effort would we save on “inventing the bicycle” if the knowledge of our ancestors reached us in a more or less complete form, or if there was at least an approximate catalog of what they discovered, accomplished, what they achieved and how really lived.
This idea is especially legitimate in relation to the origins of science, as the most important type of human activity. But even here, as luck would have it, all the works of Thales, one of the "Seven Wise Men" of the 6th-7th centuries BC, disappeared, who already then came to the conclusion that water is the basis of all things. Similarly, the disappearance of the works of the Greek mathematician Diophantus (250 BC) with hundreds of proven mathematical formulas is mysterious.
Knowledge is a dangerous weapon
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The question arises: "Where did all these works disappear?" The assumption that they crumbled to dust over time is unfounded, because both papyrus and parchment can be stored for centuries.
The answer is simple: the books were destroyed. A kind of Bermuda triangle of ancient literature - the famous library of the city of Alexandria, containing up to half a million manuscripts. It was founded in the 3rd century BC, was destroyed many times (most often by fires), including deliberately, as, for example, in the civil war under Emperor Aurelius in the 3rd century, Christians in 391, Muslims on the orders of Caliph Omar in the 7th century.
Destruction of original sources was one of the main goals of the infamous "Index of Forbidden Books", compiled by the Catholic Church since 1559; in Western Europe, the books included in it were mercilessly destroyed.
In the era of medieval witch hunts, it was common practice to burn at the stake with the convicts all the records found on them. And if we are talking about the many tens of thousands of those executed (in some regions of Germany, up to a third of all women were killed), one can only assume how many really ancient texts were burned in the hands of these people.
“Knowledge is more valuable than money, sharper than a saber, stronger than cannons,” the proverb says, and that is why libraries were a desirable target in wars: in 1814, the American Library of Congress was destroyed, in 1914 and 1940, the famous library of the Catholic University in Belgium the city of Leuven.
Millions of books were destroyed in the course of political upheavals, coups, and power changes. Thus, the first Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, who unified the Celestial Empire in the 3rd century BC, ordered to burn in the conquered provinces all written sources that seemed to him useless.
After the "progressive" French Revolution of 1789, a lot of books were collected and disappeared without a trace in the so-called "literary depots."
The burning of books in Germany during the time of the possessed Adolf was also an attempt to burn out entire layers of knowledge and many names from the memory of people, but in the era of the massive scale of book replication, the Nazis no longer had a chance to achieve their goal.
However, already in 1993, the National Library of Bosnia-Herzegovina with its huge collection of Arabic scientific manuscripts was destroyed. But we cannot be indifferent to the fate of the destroyed primary sources of information, if only because it was here, in the Balkans, that unique materials on the still undisclosed secret of inciting the First World War could have been liquidated on the sly. Someone continues to work hard to clean up history.
Content is the main enemy
All this was once, somewhere, and, in general, it doesn't really concern us, is it? However, this is what they did with the Russian primary sources.
In 1682, during the reign of Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich in Moscow, "Discharge books" were collected and burned. To this day, it is stupidly repeated that “this was done for progressive reasons,” but it is clear that they purposefully destroyed information about the origin of the Russian boyar families, that is, their true ancient genealogy, about the origin of the Russian State itself. A new version of history, new "Discharges from Rurik", was quickly added to the vacant space, and it was they who later became the official source, to which even the patriot Lomonosov referred. Disappeared, and, it seems, a long time ago, the so-called "Royal Book" - the official chronicle of all the dynasties that ruled in our country.
What original documents were left, say, from Tsar Ivan IV Vasilyevich (the Terrible)? Virtually none. Not a single (!) Document with his personal seal has survived, nor his famous "Decree on the oprichnina", nor "Synodik" - a text allegedly written by him after remorse for the evil he had done. Today there is no archive of the oprichnina, which contained the court cases of this period.
Or, say, such a confusing question as "Liberia (library) of Ivan the Terrible", which disappeared after his death during the 1st Time of Troubles. The mystery of its disappearance in our country can only be compared with the loss of the “Amber Room”. Contrary to all the regular reports that the liberey has finally been found, things are still there.
Yet it is assumed that it contained two-thirds of the missing volumes of Titus Livy's "Roman History from the Founding of the City"; 12 equally ancient books of "History" of Tacitus; manuscripts (!) of the Iliad and Odyssey, which are 3000 years old; the works of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates; the most ancient Gospels that can turn the history of Christianity. And the first Russian printed book "Apostle" (1564) was certainly in this "liberey". But there is no library. Someone diligently "worked" on our story.
A group of Russian researchers led by G. V. Nosovsky and A. T. Fomenko managed to find one of those books that shed light on the past. We are talking about the work of Mauro Orbini “Book of historiography of the name, glory and expansion of the Slavic people and their Kings and Masters under many names and with many Kingdoms, Kingdoms, and Provinces. Collected from many history books, through the Lord Mavroubin Archimandrite of Raguga. " Written in Italian, it was published in 1601, translated into Russian in 1722. Pay attention to this place in its title - "Collected from many historical books." Orbini gives in it a list of the authors of these books, that is, people who recorded in writing a completely different history of the world than you and I officially know. And therefore erased from the memory of mankind, afterhow their labors were destroyed. Some of them are known to us, even if we did not graduate from universities: Diogenes, Herodotus, Strabo. But how many of you know such ancient Russian historians as Ivan the Great of Gothic or Jeremiah Rusin? And Orbini knew! And he referred to their work as a great authority. There are hundreds of such names in Orbini's book! And behind each of them is at least one disappeared book, in which something was written down, because of which it had to be destroyed. Orbini's book itself escaped the fate of the bulk of historical works only because Tsar-reformer Peter I was keenly interested in it. device.even if we did not graduate from universities: Diogenes, Herodotus, Strabo. But how many of you know such ancient Russian historians as Ivan the Great of Gothic or Jeremiah Rusin? And Orbini knew! And he referred to their work as a great authority. There are hundreds of such names in Orbini's book! And behind each of them is at least one disappeared book, in which something was written down, because of which it had to be destroyed. Orbini's book itself escaped the fate of the bulk of historical works only because Tsar-reformer Peter I was keenly interested in it. He was “offended for the state”, which the manipulators of human memory tried to push to the backyard of civilization, concocting for it “their” version of the place in the world device.even if we did not graduate from universities: Diogenes, Herodotus, Strabo. But how many of you know such ancient Russian historians as Ivan the Great of Gothic or Jeremiah Rusin? And Orbini knew! And he referred to their work as a great authority. There are hundreds of such names in Orbini's book! And behind each of them is at least one disappeared book, in which something was written down, because of which it had to be destroyed. Orbini's book itself escaped the fate of the bulk of historical works only because Tsar-reformer Peter I was keenly interested in it. He was “offended for the state”, which the manipulators of human memory tried to push to the backyard of civilization, concocting for it “their” version of the place in the world device. And he referred to their work as a great authority. There are hundreds of such names in Orbini's book! And behind each of them is at least one disappeared book, in which something was written down, because of which it had to be destroyed. Orbini's book itself escaped the fate of the bulk of historical works only because Tsar-reformer Peter I was keenly interested in it. device. And he referred to their work as a great authority. There are hundreds of such names in Orbini's book! And behind each of them is at least one disappeared book, in which something was written down, because of which it had to be destroyed. Orbini's book itself escaped the fate of the bulk of historical works only because Tsar-reformer Peter I was keenly interested in it. device. He was “offended for the power”, which the manipulators of human memory tried to push to the margins of civilization, concocting “their” version of the place in the world order for it. He was “offended for the power”, which the manipulators of human memory tried to push to the margins of civilization, concocting “their” version of the place in the world order for it.
In the mass of the advancing troops, imposing a new order, there are always Sonderkommandos performing special tasks of their masters to "clean up history." And it doesn't matter what era is in the yard, and what these teams are equipped with: knightly armor, Tiger tanks or satellite guidance systems.
Manuscripts don't burn
Since the purposeful collection of ancient primary sources began in the 18th and 19th centuries, approximately 2,500 works by Greek and Roman authors have been found, most of which were known only by hearsay. In 1890, in Egypt, an American missionary found Aristotle's "Constitution of Athens" (384-322 BC); in 1896 they found "Metrica", the work of the ancient mechanic Heroes (60 AD), in which the author, the inventor of the first steam engine, gives a method for calculating the square root, which still works in computers. In 1905, between the pages of a manuscript, a play by the Greek poet Menander (341-290 BC) was discovered in Cairo, who is now considered the creator of the comedy genre. In 1946, 800 early Christian scrolls with the Old Testament were found in caves on the Dead Sea, as well as many texts unknown to anyone at all.
With such efforts of researchers, only a matter of time is the discovery of stone tablets with the "Ten Commandments" (which Moses received from the Almighty for the second time). At least, Hollywood figures have already sung this, filming in 1981 a blockbuster about the brave and resourceful Indiana Jones, who went in search of a relic between Nepal and Cairo. The result is an insanely interesting story, which in between times through a computer game "infected" millions of children in the world. A story that has nothing to do with the real difficulties of saving what can still be saved. Restorers could have presented many more unique works to the world if mice and “liquidators” were not faster.
Wolf Mazur
