On December 29, the Russian film "Viking", which tells about the coming to power of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich, is released on the screens of cinemas. "Veles's book" is supposedly the most ancient written monument of the Slavs, created by the ancient wise men. Written on wooden tablets that no one has seen, and narrates events that cannot be confirmed. Nevertheless, they try to study and interpret it. "Lenta.ru" tells why "Velesova Kniga" is a gross falsification.
In 2015, the Conceptual Publishing House published a three-volume book "Expertise of the Veles Book". “Some say that it is a fake, others that it is the original. But neither opinion has a solid foundation. After all, there was no full-fledged scientific study of the "Veles" book ", says the annotation of the publication, which, according to the idea of its initiators, is designed to solve this problem.
At the presentation of this work, its authors branded scientists who considered the "Velesov Book" a fake, and assured that the Slavic letters carved on wooden tablets were the original of the 7th-9th centuries.
“Some comments [on the Veles book] are just outrageous. For example, academician from philology Zaliznyak wrote that Russians do not need ancient history. Moreover, it is harmful. Because it gives rise to xenophobia, superiority over other peoples and nationalism. The Spaniards need ancient history, the Germans, Germans or Jews need ancient history, but the Russians do not need ancient history! It is harmful! It is simply impossible to see a greater manifestation of Russophobia! And this is written by the academician - the main critic of the "Veles Book" ", - one of the authors of the three-volume edition Anatoly Klesov was indignant, standing on the podium decorated with a poster" The Roads of the Aryans. Scientific Conference".
What is the "Veles's Book" and why does the denial of its authenticity insult patriotic scientists and Russian neo-pagans so much?
Isenbek and planks
According to Yuri Mirolyubov, the only person who claimed to have seen and studied Veles's book in the original, the situation was as follows.
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In 1919, when the Civil War in Russia was in full swing, Colonel of the Volunteer Army Ali Isenbek took part in the offensive against Moscow. On the way, his detachment entered the plundered princely estate - the owners of the estate were killed by the Reds. Wandering around the looted house, in the library Isenbek came across strange artifacts - wooden planks trampled into the floor by the boots of the Red Army. With the help of some sharp object, incomprehensible letters were carved into them, which he could not read.
Participants of the summer solstice holiday jump over a bonfire in the village of Okunevo, Omsk region Photo: Alexey Malgavko / RIA Novosti
Realizing their possible value, Isenbek took the boards with him. He did not part with them, and when he went into exile. In Brussels, the colonel met the writer Yuri Mirolyubov, who was keenly interested in these artifacts. Mirolyubov began to study the tablets, rewrite and translate the letters cut out on them. I photographed some. Alas, in 1941 Isenbek departed to another world, and "Veles's book" disappeared. There are several versions about where she went: either she was stolen by Hitler's "Ahnenerbe", an organization created by the Nazis to study the Aryan race and its achievements, or she was taken to Britain and sold to someone there. One way or another, the trail of the boards is gone.
But Mirolyubov's work was not lost in vain - in 1953, rumors about him reached the publisher of the Firebird magazine, a researcher of Slavic paganism, Alexander Kurenkov, and he took up the publication of the text of the tablets. Then the texts were collected in what was called "Veles's book".
In general, the story is very similar to the plot of the film about Indiana Jones. Mirolyubov, however, maintained until the end of his days that all this was pure truth.
Russian national
If you believe Mirolyubov, then the ancient wise men, who compiled the "Veles book" in the 9th century AD, kept chronology from the 9th century BC (that is, the Magi talk about the events of a thousand years ago). It was then that a certain forefather of the Rus Bohumir lived in Semirechye, from whose seed all Slavic tribes went. In Old Testament times, they managed to migrate to Mesopotamia, Syria, to be in captivity with the king of Nabsursar, after which they moved to the Carpathians, where they spent five centuries.
The comfortable life ended in the 3rd century AD. Attack after misfortune rained down on the Russians: first they were attacked by the nomadic tribe of the Costoboks, then by the Khazars. Some of the Slavs remained under the yoke of the Khazars, others went to the Iranian Skoten, who had a strong cavalry. In the end, the Khazars were defeated, and the Slavs occupied the lands on which Kiev would later be erected.
In general, the message of the book is simple: do not think that Russia traces its history from some undeveloped primitive tribes. The Rus traveled half the world, possessed writing, vast territories were subject to them and, in general, were an extremely advanced people. This cannot be confirmed or refuted: most of the names and titles are taken from foreign chronicles, but the events described are not mentioned anywhere else.
The same can be said about the "invaluable information" about the religion of the ancient Slavs. There is very little real evidence of the pagan deities of pre-Christian Russia - mainly the few surviving idols and the Tale of Bygone Years.
"Veles's book" shows a completely different picture. The ancient Slavs allegedly had a single god Triglav in three persons, as well as small gods. The system of "reality, rule and navi" was in effect, which Miroslavsky interpreted as follows: "reality" is the material world, "nav" is the spiritual world (where the disembodied souls of ancestors live), and "rule" is the laws by which there is " reality". Of this set of terms in other sources, only nav is found - this is how, according to Dahl's dictionary, the dead were called in some provinces.
Storyteller
But the point is not only the implausibility of the events set out in the Veles book. One of the tablets, photographed before Isenbeck's death and presented as a photograph to the public, is not a tablet. As L. P. Zhukovskaya in the article "Fake Pre-Cyrillic Manuscript", the inscription appearing in this picture was not applied at all on wood, but on flexible material - most likely paper, as evidenced by the shadows and focusing of the photo. This is not to mention the fact that over many centuries the wooden tablets should have become very fragile and would not have survived the plundering of the estate and the boots of the Red Army.
The text on the alleged tablet is written rather strangely. So, for some reason the author uses the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, although it is stated that this is some kind of pre-Cyrillic writing, and forgets about the designations of the nasal vowels that were used at that time. There are signs that are not found in any other source, but clearly not adapted to convey the sounds of ancient Slavic speech.
Celebration of "Kupala" on Red Meadow near Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga Region Photo: Ilya Pitalev / RIA Novosti
Of course, not all the events of the "Veles Book" are taken out of my head. To create an aura of believability, Mirolyubov used The Tale of Bygone Years and The Tale of Igor's Host, as well as other historical sources. The names of tribes and historical characters, however, he needs only in order to ascribe completely unconfirmed acts to them.
Some of Mirolyubov's defenders say that there was absolutely no reason for him to invent these tablets. In fact, there were plenty of reasons.
Before the "Veles Book" Mirolyubov was actively engaged in pseudo-historical research, including those that anticipated his main work. Here is a detailed description of the "prehistory" of the Slavs, and their thousand-year wanderings, and pagan religion. That is, Mirolyubov had an abundance of motives for creating a fake. After all, "Veles's book" confirmed his bold "scientific" conclusions. In the early works of Mirolyubov, there is even an assertion that soon "we will have to turn the whole story", which he did in the "Veles book", guided by a free interpretation of some historical sources and folk legends told to him by "two old women."
But this does not prevent the modern "researchers" of the "Veles Book", who are seriously studying the text and interpretation of the "Isenbeck tablets" and making far-reaching conclusions. For them, critics of Mirolyubov's work are Russophobes who do not remember their kinship, deserving condemnation, like the Nazis and Bandera.
Mikhail Karpov
