Many travelers to Muscovy are known, whose works are provided with detailed descriptions and beautiful drawings.
One of, perhaps, the most revered is Baron Sigismund von Herberstein (German Siegmund Freiherr von Herberstein, August 23, 1486 - March 28, 1566) - an Austrian diplomat, a native of modern Slovenia (he owned local dialects, which helped him in Russia), writer and historian …
He is best known both in Russia and abroad for his extensive works on geography, history and the internal structure of the Moscow Grand Duchy and the Russian kingdom. He twice visited the Moscow principality: in 1517 he acted as an intermediary in the peace negotiations between Moscow and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in 1526 - in the renewal of the 1522 treaty.
So, about the famous notes of Herberstein in 1567 it is worth reading on the forum of the New Chronology. A very interesting discussion about issues of authenticity and the number of published copies of Herberstein's book perfectly illustrates how things stand with the falsification of historical documents.
Here are some excerpts from the discussion:
“A very remarkable bibliographic phenomenon took place in 1795, when the German translation of Herberstein's Notes on Muscovite Affairs (published in 1567) was reprinted at the behest of Catherine II, who accidentally read this work, found it very curious and intended to publish it. Weitbrecht, the court bookseller, took over the publication, and Buckmeister took over the editing. Weitbrecht set to work with love, ordered a special yellowish paper in Paris, which would match the color of the original; the font was chosen as the oldest one that was in the printing house, and which, nevertheless, differed from the original. A year later, the publisher had already finished printing and reported to the Empress about the imminent publication of the book: all that remained was to make maps and drawings."
Today, such a publication would simply be called a fake, then, apparently, it was in the order of things.
“Not all of the prints described were included in the first edition of the book. It appeared in Vienna, in the printing house of Egidius Adler (Aquila) and Johann Kohl (Carbo), without specifying the date, place and author. " [from the 1549 edition description given in the 1988 edition on pages 360-361]"
Promotional video:
Further, in the process of discussion, it turns out that at least 3 versions of the editions existed before Catherine, that there were about ten editions in total about which, however, little is known for certain, we only know that the Catherine's fake is supplemented with a drawing of a two-headed eagle on the title.
In the book of Fafurin G. A. the title pages of the edition published in Basel and St. Petersburg are given. The difference in the font used is visible, the Petersburg copy is supplemented with a drawing of a black double-headed eagle.
And now we have the opportunity to compare with a specimen from Göttingen and Lausanne.
Please note that the editions date from the same year, supposedly books were released in the same city, although it is known for certain that this is not the case. One can only guess whether the author was honest and objective when publishing his book for the first time, and even more so, there is less and less faith in the texts republished later.
Counterfeiting of historical documents and even coins is not new today, but once they were seriously engaged in this, and openly, at the state level.
Igor Shkurin gave examples of mass coin falsification at the level of the St. Petersburg Mint:
“The requests for the manufacture of counterfeit coins were carried out quite officially, and the head of the mint Armstrong writes:“… instead of the benefits that one might expect from the increase in the numismatic collections of ancient coins, the current fabrication of them will serve directly to the harm of science.”And further: "… I do not believe that the Mint, … the place where all the counterfeit coins found in the state are destroyed, could prepare such ancient coins, which in their essence should also be counted as counterfeit", especially since "among all educated peoples forgery of an ancient coin is considered impermissible and dishonorable."
There was no end of collectors: “In October 1845, the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs (hereinafter referred to as the DGSD), which was subordinate at that time to the Mint, received another, by no means the first, petition from the St. Petersburg merchant S. A. Eremeev, who called himself “Commissioner of the Imperial Public Library for Numismatics, Competitor of the Moscow Society for the History and Antiquities of Russia,” asked “to replenish the collections of some government institutions and my own collection” (this is his usual formula for applications of this kind) to instruct the Mint to make coins according to the register attached to the application …"
In addition to the merchant Eremeev, V. V. Bartoshevich also cites other customers whose range of requests is exceptionally wide: among the ordered were coins of the Grand Dukes Vasily Dmitrievich, Vasily Vasilyevich and Ivan Vasilyevich, rubles and a half of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, False Dmitry, Peter's tynfs, silver two-ruble coins of 1722, trial rubles of Alexander I, sestroretsk ruble of 1771, beard signs and others.
Even if the whole head of the Petersburg Mint understands that it is not good to make fakes, writes reports about it, but at the same time continues to carry out the policy of the party and government, then what can we say about some scribes, officials and other literate people of conquered Muscovy? They will write the "decree of Peter-1" right there "on the knee" in a maximum of half an hour. And for a stable piece of bread, they will rewrite in the ancient handwriting of the "17th century" even all world literature, just go ahead, boss."
Witsen and Olearius were also reprinted more than once. I do not presume to judge the authenticity of the ancient texts, but the drawings for books, if we compare the first and subsequent editions, became less and less.
Just for comparison: the edition of Olearius in 1696 and 1967. In the new one, besides the title page, there are a couple of low-quality mosaics of tiny engravings.
It would seem that book printing was improving, beautifully executed old engravings would only add consumer demand to books, and who are we to correct historical documents, but no, drawings from new editions mysteriously disappeared.
You don't have to be a historian or visionary to understand the reasons for this. It is enough to find the lost engravings in the primary sources and see what is on them! There is such an opportunity.
But, even the drawings left behind hardly ever agree with the text, an example of this, again, is Witsen in a modern edition. Under the picture of the Crimean fortress Perekop, we see descriptions of wild tribes living there since ancient times, archery, who cannot cook food on fire.
Nikolaas Witsen & quot; North and East Tartary & quot; Perekop.
It is quite obvious that the text does not in any way agree with Perekop's view and there are a lot of examples of such absurdities.
Therefore, when they tell me that the drawings I cite are a fake, a joke or just nonsense, that no versions can be built on the basis of them, that most historical documents are completely consistent and that 2-3 strange drawings cannot be opposed to them - I find it funny. It is precisely from such pictures, bit by bit, that one can still compose a picture of the past, and not from the texts.
And it is not necessary to change the entire texts - sometimes, especially when translating, it is very easy to change the meaning of a phrase even to the opposite one, and a comma placed in the wrong place can radically change the meaning of a statement. I missed one paragraph or page, changed something, blurred it somewhere, somewhere corrected some thought, and that's all.
With a drawing, such tricks will not work. Each of us, comparing the drawings of two different editions in any language, will see the differences right away, but there are not so many translators from Old German or reading Latin, for example.
Author: Sil2