A fictional "history" of the made-up Tang Dynasty. Great deception. fictional history of Europe Fictional history

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Section I. National history in the system of socio-humanitarian knowledge. History of Russia before the beginning of the 20th century

Uwe Topper

Great deception. A fictional history of Europe

Uwe TOPPER

THE GREAT DECEPTION. A FICTIONAL HISTORY OF EUROPE

Today it is difficult to find a professional historian who would not react in one way or another to the theory of the new chronology of A. T. Fomenko and G. V. Nosovsky. There is a heated debate between its supporters and opponents, characterized by harshness and intransigence. German writer and expert on the East Uwe Topper in his book “The Great Deception. The Fictitious History of Europe”, independently of Russian authors, shows how the early history of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and with it Europe, was invented, and how the chronology that is considered generally accepted today was extended by a millennium, or even a year and a half. The Old Testament, Koran, New Testament and Talmud were written almost simultaneously in the second “Christian” millennium. The ancient conquest of Spain by the Arabs was invented to justify the Spanish takeover of the southern Iberian Peninsula. Ancient authors were invented around 1500, and “their” books were written then. And the Jesuits sucked up the history and chronology of China in the 17th and even 18th centuries. Topper's book is a brilliant example of how a purely substantive humanities analysis of ancient texts confirms the validity of a new chronology.

Introduction

German writer and man of the universe Uwe Topper (b. 1940) is a rare phenomenon in the modern world of academic careers, armchair scientists and established opinions. Immediately after high school, he goes on a six-month trip to Egypt. Then he entered the Art Academy in Berlin (all his life, at the very least, he was fed by his paintings). But his love for the East again takes him away, and he leaves to study languages, philosophy, ethnography, and takes his young wife there. A few years later, fleeing the persecution of a young prince who fell in love with her, a student from Pakistan ends up in North Africa.

The countries of the Maghreb and the Iberian Peninsula became for the rest of my life the main love of an inquisitive researcher who wanted to see everything with his own eyes. Here he searched and found traces of several terrible and thoroughly forgotten catastrophes of the relatively recent past, about which he wrote his first (and thickest) book, “The Legacy of Giants,” published in 1977. (See Topper, 1977.)

Topper becomes interested in the Berbers, masters their language, writes down their stories, and becomes a member of the Berber tribe in Morocco. For about 20 years, the family has been wandering with this tribe, but instead of camels, Berber tents, modest belongings, a library and a desk with a typewriter are transported by an old omnivorous gas generator truck. In the tents, the Toppers raised four children, one of whom became a Spanish journalist, the other a bard who sang in many languages. The two youngest children returned to Berlin in the 90s and work in the social sector.

Topper published Sufism in the Maghreb (1984), Tales of the Berbers (1986), and Ask the Earth (1988), the latter dealing with Berber ideas about nature. In the meantime, he became a co-initiator of a successful movement for recognition of the Berber language as one of the state languages ​​in Morocco, and sought the creation of a department of Berber studies at the University of Cadiz in Spain. His book on art history and a collection of Berber folk tales are published in Spanish. Until 1993, German publishers published two of his books on the history of religion.

After the reunification of Germany, Topper, who had meanwhile settled first in Spain and then in Portugal, decides to return to Germany, without parting with a residential tower in the middle of a vineyard acquired in the vicinity of Porto. A life of two houses begins, which continues to this day. Twice a year, Topper and his wife cross the whole of Western Europe, each time along a new route. Each such move turns into a research expedition with the collection of material for new books. And staying on site (in Germany or Portugal) is used for additional expeditions.

In Germany, Topper became interested in criticizing traditional history and became one of the founders of the Berlin and then the Potsdam Historical Salons. His six books published since then have been devoted to various aspects of historical criticism and prehistory. The real one was the first in this series. It contains the most significant points of his criticism: an analysis of the process of inventing European history and constructing a chronology based on nothing.

For the Russian reader, familiar with the criticism of traditional history and chronology from the standpoint of natural sciences, statistics and the history of technology, Topper’s book is primarily interesting because his humanitarian approach to historical criticism is completely independent of Russian studies, but in many ways leads to the same results , as well as the works of Russian critical authors.

Uwe Topper compensates for the pure humanitarianism of his criticism due to the breadth of his research, his knowledge of languages ​​and the involvement of new names from the cohort of critical researchers. As a result, he manages to open new fronts of attack on traditional politicized and ideological historiography, not to mention the completely arbitrary chronology of antiquity.

Although the book was published only five years ago, today Topper would have formulated many of his points in a much more radical form. He would shift many of the chronological estimates given in the book (13th century and earlier) several centuries closer to the present day. To some extent, I tried to reflect this more radical position of mine in my comments.

The attitude in Germany towards the works of Russian critics of chronology can be clearly seen from the difficult path that Uwe Topper took to his current radical critical position. He studied the Russian language at one time in Morocco, but practically used it little and now, unfortunately, is not able to get acquainted with the books of Russian authors in the original.

This, as well as his purely humanitarian attitude and the poetic and at the same time wary attitude towards the exact sciences characteristic of many humanities scholars, led to the fact that he did not read either the original or the English translation of the books of A. T. Fomenko and the books mainly written by him in collaboration with G. B. Nosovsky.

His acquaintance with the works of Russian “novochronologists” was limited to several reports given:

1) in Hamburg and Berlin, referred to below as Heribert Illig, Christoph Marx and Martin Nofmann, as well as

2) V.V. Kalashnikov and me at the annual meetings of subscribers of the magazine “Time Jumps”, published by Illig, in Leipzig and Leonberg in 1976 and 1977.

H. Illig is the leader of a large part of the German movement for the revision of chronology and has serious services to it. At the same time, he published a review article in his “thick” journal “Zeitenspriinge” (“Time Jumps”), in which he took a negative position in relation to Fomenkov’s approach and its results. It was Illig, speaking in a magazine in 1995 about the English edition of A. T. Fomenko’s book, who demonstrated a lack of understanding of the nature of the dependencies found by A. T. Fomenko between the ruling dynasties of different time periods.

Over time, Illig took a position hostile to all the results of Fomenko’s theory, which is explained as follows: X. Illig devoted several books to proving the fictitiousness of Charlemagne, but was never able to explain the emergence of this legendary image. Therefore, he is irritated by the fact that the books of A. T. Fomenko demonstrate various prototypes of the great, albeit fictitious, German-Frankish ruler. And in general, Illig is confident that Fomenko’s theory can never be “sold” to us, critics, historians, under any circumstances, but he would like to achieve recognition from the official “historical science”.

In addition, the activities of X. Illig have their negative sides, which have recently become increasingly apparent. They are rooted in his personality as a person, undoubtedly gifted, historically widely educated, very efficient, energetic and businesslike, but lacking academic experience and scientific tolerance. He has no tolerance for authors who don't march in step.

This has already led to a narrowing of the thematic spectrum of the Time Jumps magazine. It is currently dominated by the theme of shortening medieval history by 297 years. The need for such a “surgical intervention” was substantiated by Illig in a series of books in which the phantom nature of the period of medieval history from 614 to 911 was proved.

In addition, the narrowing of the spectrum of criticism to 297 phantom years led to a personal conflict between Illig on the one hand and a number of veterans of the German critical movement (Chr. Marx, Chr. Bloess and many others) on the other. Some authors who joined the movement relatively recently are also involved in this conflict (H. Friedrich, G. Geise, W. Topper, Chr. Pfister and the author of these lines). Authors “excommunicated” from the journal are not published in it, are excluded from the list of speakers at the annual meeting of subscribers, or are not even invited to such meetings.

Of the numerous books by N. A. Morozov, only one was translated into German at one time: “In a Thunderstorm and a Storm” (see.

Morozov, 1907). The publication was accompanied by an interesting preface by the famous critic of the historicity of Christ, Arthur Drews. W. Topper read this book relatively recently and took a skeptical position in relation to the interpretation of Morozov, who saw in the Apocalypse a description of a horoscope that makes it possible to undertake an accurate retro-calculation dating of the events described in the “Revelation of John”. The fact is that in the book he published at one time on the analysis of the Apocalypse (see Topper, 1993), the emphasis was on the historiographical side and Morozov’s interpretation contradicts the concept developed by Topper in this book that the Apocalypse was processed many times by different authors and editors.

Most modern German critics of historiography first learned about the very existence of N. A. Morozov after my report about him in 1997 in Leipzig at the annual meeting of subscribers to the magazine “Time Jumps”. This report was repeated in expanded form at the Berlin Historical Salon. His account was published in the magazine Time Jumps. A number of my articles were devoted to the presentation of N. A. Morozov’s views on ancient Chinese history (let me remind you that he discovered in it borrowings from Roman history, most likely included there by the Jesuits in the 17th century), on ancient astronomy and alchemy, on Russian history .

Another critic of chronology - presumably of Russian origin - is worthy of special mention: K. Phillipov (K. v o n Phillipoff). He published a journal article in German in 1932 in Cologne entitled “Antiquity – a Mirage?” (Altertum – ein Trugbild?). In it, he reacted positively to the first six volumes of “Christ” by N. A. Morozov, published by that time. Morozov reports about his correspondence with Fillipov in the introduction to the seventh volume of Christ.

I reintroduced this article into German circulation at a talk at the Berlin Historical Salon. The report was repeated at the Historical Salon in Karlsruhe and subsequently published (without illustrations) in a review of the activities of this Salon. In 2002, an illustrated version of this interesting review article was published by Magazine2000Plus, which has a significant circulation. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find out anything about the personality of K. Fillipov. Perhaps one of the readers has come across this name (or this pseudonym) and can help us find out at least something about the personality of this author.

Not a single one of A. T. Fomenko’s books has yet been translated into German. Berlin historians Martin Hoffmann and Army Jene began to translate one of Fomenko's first books into German, but they were unable to find a publisher for this manuscript, and they have not yet completed this work. They also read two reports on the theory of A. T. Fomenko at the Berlin Historical Salon, one of which was published in the hard-to-find “Bulletin of the Berlin Historical Salon”. Unfortunately, all German critics of historiography, with the exception of a handful who speak Russian, know at best only two books translated into English and - due to the high price - inaccessible books by A. T. Fomenko and his co-authors (see Fomenko, 1994 and Fomenko , Kalashnikov and Nosovsky, 1993).

I dedicated the books of N. A. Morozov, A. T. Fomenko and G. V. Nosovsky, as well as the historical-critical movement “Civilization” during recent years more than a dozen articles and a dozen reports. But all this is just the beginning of a long journey. Despite everything said above, acquaintance with the ideas and results of Russian critics of chronology in Germany is practically just beginning. With rare exceptions, most leading German critics of history demonstrate a lack of understanding of the essence of the results of A. T. Fomenko or, like H. Illig, an active reluctance to “give up territory” to Russian “competitors.” All my attempts to convince Illig that we were talking about allies and not competitors were unsuccessful.

This can be partly explained by the fact that among German critics of historiography, people with a humanities education predominate, for whom even calculating probabilities is a cultic act from an unfamiliar foreign religion. But main reason I see in G. Illig’s deliberate policy of boycotting this topic, as a result of which the propagandists of ideas coming from Russia were deprived of access to the main part of the historical-critical audience.

No reports, articles or texts on the Internet can replace translations of the main Russian books on the criticism of history and chronology. Unfortunately, German publishers are extremely reluctant to publish books on this topic, even when it comes to leading German authors in this field. For this reason, many of these authors (including Illig) are forced to print their books at their own expense.

This is exactly how the first book in German was recently published, in which A. T. Fomenko’s ideas were recognized and developed. It's about about the book “The Matrix of Ancient History” (Die Matrix der alten Geschichte. Friboung, Dillum, 2002) by Christoph Pfister, a historian and specialist in classical languages ​​from Switzerland. The book is subtitled "An Analysis of the Religious Fiction of History."

Topper’s acquaintance with the works of A. T. Fomenko mainly occurred after the publication of his present book, which is now being presented to the Russian reader. Our numerous conversations played an important role in this. They began during our joint trip with Chr. Marx at the conference of the international catastrophist Society for Interdisciplinary Studies in London in 1998 and continued through numerous meetings at the Historical Salons in Berlin, Karlsruhe and Potsdam.

As an active member of the editorial board of the multilingual online journal Geschichte&Chronologie (History and Chronology), www.jesus1053.com, Topper actively contributed to the publication of materials on the work of Fomenko and Nosovsky, as well as other Russian critics of chronology. The two of us edited a translation into German by one of the readers of the first two lectures from Fomenko’s book “Critique of the traditional chronology of antiquity and the Middle Ages (What century is it now?)”, Moscow, 1993. They were published in the above-mentioned online magazine.

An important role in W. Topper’s understanding of the Russian approach to the criticism of chronology was played by his acquaintance with the “Book of Civilization” by J. A. Kesler and I. V. Davidenko. He read both the English and French translations of this book. Since Topper has been engaged in exposing forgeries exhibited in many historical and archaeological museums around the world for many years, he was impressed by the critical approach to the dating of artifacts, technologies and materials associated with the history of technology. Promoted by G.K. Kasparov, who wrote the preface to this book, the idea of ​​organizing a large-scale scientific examination of museum collections by an interdisciplinary group of experts is supported by Topper.

German and Russian criticism of historiography and chronology developed in the 80s and 90s with almost no contact with each other. The translation of Topper's book into Russian should be considered one of the first steps towards overcoming the associated mutual ignorance of research results.

Evgeniy Gabovich (Potsdam, Germany)

Preface

The purpose of this book is to expose. The arena of action is a huge period of world history, shrouded in a mysterious flair: from Antiquity to the Renaissance. We will flood the laboratories of medieval historiographers with the ruthless light of analysis, dispel the clouds of romantic fog and try to imagine the actual appearance of the past. This is not an easy task: the eyes are accustomed to the traditional picture of the world of past eras, although it is obvious that history was not at all the same as what we were taught at school.

Our goal is exposure, but not iconoclasm. Of course, it’s annoying to suddenly realize that Great Hero History turned out to be a hastily prepared scarecrow: the cult of heroes is an urgent need of European peoples that meets the religious aspirations, along with the veneration of ancestors, the worship of idols and the search for one’s self. The noisy overthrow of heroes from the pedestal is not my intention: after all, people continue to believe in God even after they learn that Christ was not a historical figure.

Below I will try to describe the phenomenon designated by Kammeier as “Large-Scale Operation”, namely the falsification of our history in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to use Kammeier’s works as the basis for constructing a system of evidence: during his lifetime he did not receive recognition and his ideas are not known to the general public. I'll limit myself summary his theses, adding his own thoughts to them.

My reconstruction in no way diminishes King Arthur or Emperor Charlemagne as classic European heroes, but it does give an idea of ​​when and why these characters arose, whose grandiose deeds are the products of a dark and beautiful fantasy. Only in this capacity will we introduce them to our common history: as a literary expression of the need of Western European peoples for a heroic model of behavior.

After all, if Charlemagne really killed four thousand representatives during a dinner party best birth Saxons or, in revenge for his friend Roland, drowned 130,000 Saracens in the Ebro (and God stopped the sun so that Charles could fully quench his thirst for blood), then he, as a historical figure, would have caused our decisive rejection.

Only by clearing history of such misconceptions and establishing that these “events” are fairy tales and fables, lies and propaganda, will we be able to achieve mutual understanding and achieve peaceful coexistence with our neighbors.

What I am about to talk about is not exclusively my personal discovery: before me, in all eras, there were scientists and writers who understood the true state of affairs, recognized falsifications and decisively fought against them. Figuratively speaking, there has always been a second track in science, running parallel to the official imposed teaching. Researchers who took this path fearlessly exposed the unauthorized and deliberate distortion of the historical picture of the world. The arguments of the scientific heretics that I encountered during my research are presented in this book.

In addition, the views of some modern authors who have made a huge contribution to the study of the issue (Gertrud Bodmann, Regina Sonntag, Jacques Le Goff, etc.) and scientists who worked at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries (Delitzsch, Harnack, Wellhausen and others) will be presented. etc.). I will turn to the authority of these specialists in full in a positive sense- not for the purpose of refutation, but by reading their works from a new angle, discovered by Baldauf, Spengler, Kammeier, Olague, de Oliveira and Junke.

St. Petersburg.: 2004. - 320 p.

The famous German critic of historiography and chronology, prolific writer and expert on the East Uwe Topper in his book “The Great Deception. The Fictional History of Europe" fascinatingly and clearly demonstrates the mechanisms of constructing church and secular history and the stretching of chronology in Europe and the Middle and Far East. A meaningful analysis of ancient documents and works confirms the theory of A. T. Fomenko and G. V. Nosovsky, according to which true story Europe has nothing in common with the one we knew until now.

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CONTENT
Introduction
Preface
Note
Chapter 1. THREE ACCUSERS
Gardouin
Linguist Baldauf
Kammeier and the "Wide-Scale Operation"
Chapter 2. MARTYRS
Motto: “Ave, Deo, morituri te salutant”
Ignatius of Antioch
Chapter 3. HUMANISTS
German nun Roswitha von Gandersheim
Erotic ass Apuleius
Nikolai Kuzansky
CONSPIRACY?
Tacitus and his Germany
Chapter 4. IN THE WORKSHOP
Highest flourishing
Forger on the Papal throne
Marcus Aurelius, Christian Emperor
Fundamentalist Erasmus of Rotterdam
King Arthur as a historical character
Chapter 5. RECONQUEST OF SPAIN
Antonio and his "Critique of Fictional History"
In a better society
"First Church" in Spain
Fake headstones?
Gothic coins
Chapter 6. FATHERS OF OUR HISTORIOGRAPHY
Julian Africanus
Eusebius of Caesarea
Interim balance
Orosius and Gregory
Beda Venerable
On the edge
Chapter 7. THE BIRTH OF PURGATORY
Augustine
A look into the past
Saint Patrick
Conversion
Chapter 8. Heretics and pagans
Arianism
Paganism
Language
Art
Chapter 9. WHEN DID THE BIBLE ARISE?
Old Testament
New Testament
First result of analysis: mysteries
Rapprochement
Time calculation
Chapter 10. KEY WITNESSES
Torah
Qumran scrolls
Septuagint
Maccabees
Gospel
Gospel Harmony
In the East
Biblical Latin
Formation of the canon
Manuscripts
Chapter 11. EARLY ISLAM
Peaceful expansion of Islam
Time of occurrence
Chapter 12. DEFENSE STRATEGIES: EUROPE AND CHINA
Rome in China
Exposing an Undetectable Forgery
Astronomy: an outpost of Christ and European historicism
A fictional "history" of the imagined Tang Dynasty
Chapter 13. PROTECTION STRATEGIES: SELF-CLEANING
"Iconoclast"
Jesuit Germont
Bollandists
Bottom line
Afterword to the Russian edition
Footnotes

The thesis that Christianity is a European creation that arose no earlier than the 10th century AD, with all its obviousness and a huge number supporters, still needs some clarification. It will be given below and, of necessity, will be quite brief: for a more detailed presentation of it, we would need to involve material in a volume many times greater than the modest size of this publication, including the history of the Christian church, the history of antiquity and the early Middle Ages.

Three Great Thinkers different eras and peoples were not afraid - each in their own time - to challenge official historiography, established ideas and all the “ordinary” knowledge that was drummed into the heads of many generations of schoolchildren. Perhaps not all of their modern followers know the names of these predecessors, at least not all of them mention them.

Gardouin

The first was Jean Hardouin, a Jesuit scholar who was born in 1646 in Brittany and worked as a teacher and librarian in Paris. At the age of twenty he joined the Order; in 1683 he headed the French Royal Library. Contemporaries were amazed at the breadth of his knowledge and inhuman efficiency: he devoted all his time to scientific research from 4 o’clock in the morning until late at night.

Jean Hardouin was considered an indisputable authority in the fields of theology, archaeology, the study of ancient languages, numismatics, chronology and philosophy of history. In 1684 he published the speeches of Themistius; published works on Horace and on ancient numismatics, and in 1695 presented to the public a study of the last days of Jesus, in which, in particular, he proved that according to the traditions of Galilee Last Supper should have taken place on Thursday, not Friday.

In 1687, the French Church Assembly entrusted him with a task of colossal scope and significance: to collect materials from all Church cathedrals, starting from the 1st century AD, and, bringing them into accordance with the changed dogmas, prepare for printing. The work was ordered and paid for by Louis XIV. 28 years later, in 1715, the titanic work was completed. The Jansenists and adherents of other theological movements delayed publication for ten years, until in 1725 the materials of the Church Councils finally saw the light of day. Thanks to the quality of processing and the ability to systematize material that is still considered exemplary, he developed new criteria for modern historical science.

Simultaneously with the main work of his life, Gardouin published and commented on many texts (primarily “Critique of Pliny’s Natural History”, 1723). But, despite the fact that an impeccable lifestyle and scientific achievements Jesuit scientist gained him fame and respect in the educated strata of society - his criticism of the written heritage of antiquity caused fierce attacks from his colleagues.

Back in 1690, analyzing the “Epistle of St. Chrysostom to the monk Caesar,” he suggested that most of the works of supposedly ancient authors (Cassiodorus, Isidore of Seville, St. Justin Martyr, etc.) were created many centuries later, that is, fictitious and falsified. The commotion that began in the scientific world after such a statement was explained not only by the fact that the harsh verdict of one of the most educated people of that time was not so easy to refute. No, many of Gardouin’s colleagues were well aware of the history of falsifications and most of all feared exposure and scandal.

However, Hardouin, continuing his investigation, came to the conclusion that most of the books of classical antiquity - with the exception of the speeches of Cicero, the Satyrs of Horace, Pliny's Natural History and Virgil's George - were falsifications created by monks of the 13th century and introduced into European cultural literature. everyday life The same applies to works of art, to coins, to materials from Church councils (until the 16th century), and even to the Greek translation of the Old Testament and the supposedly Greek text of the New Testament. Citing numerous evidence, Gardouin showed that Christ and the Apostles - if they existed - should have prayed in Latin. The theses of the Jesuit scientist again shocked the scientific community, especially since this time the argument was irrefutable. The Jesuit Order imposed penalties on the scientist and demanded a refutation, which, however, was presented in the most formal tones. After the scientist's death in 1729, scientific battles between his supporters and more numerous opponents continued. Passions were heightened by the found working notes of Gardouin, in which he directly called church historiography “the fruit of a secret conspiracy against true faith" He considered Archon Severus (13th century) to be one of the main “conspirators”.

Gardouin analyzed the writings of the church fathers and declared most of them to be forgeries. Among them was Blessed Augustine, to whom Hardouin dedicated many works. His criticism soon became known as the "Gardouin system" because, although he had predecessors, none of them examined the question of the reliability of ancient texts so insightfully. After the death of the scientist, official Christian theologians recovered from the shock and began to retroactively “recapture” the fake relics. For example, the Epistles of Ignatius (early 2nd century) are still considered holy texts.

One of Hardouin’s opponents, the learned Bishop of Hue, stated: “For forty years he worked to discredit his good name, but he failed.”

The verdict of another critic, Henke, is more correct: “Gardouin was too educated not to understand what he was encroaching on; too smart and vain to risk his reputation frivolously; too serious to amuse his learned colleagues. He made it clear to his close friends that his goal was to overthrow the most authoritative fathers of the Christian Church and ancient church historiographers, and with them a number of ancient writers. So he questioned our entire history."

Some of Gardouin's works were banned by the French parliament. One Strasbourg Jesuit, however, managed to publish in London in 1766 “An Introduction to the Criticism of Ancient Writers.” In France, this work is prohibited and is still a rarity.

Gardouin's works on numismatics, his system for recognizing counterfeit coins and false dating are recognized as exemplary and are used by collectors and historians all over the world.

Linguist Baldauf

The next was Robert Baldauf, at the beginning of the 20th century - privatdozent at the University of Basel. In 1903, the first volume of his extensive work “History and Criticism” was published in Leipzig, in which he analyzed the famous work “Gesta Caroli magni” (“Acts of Charlemagne”), attributed to the monk Notker of the monastery of St. Gallen.

Having discovered in the St. Gallen manuscript many expressions from everyday Romance languages ​​and from Greek, which looked like an obvious anachronism, Baldauf came to the conclusion: “The Acts of Charlemagne” by Notker-Zaika (IX century) and “Casus” by Eckehart IV, a student of Notker the German (XI century ), are so similar in style and language that they were most likely written by the same person.

At first glance, in terms of content they have nothing in common with each other, therefore, it is not the copyists who are to blame for the anachronisms; therefore, we are dealing with falsification:

“The St. Gallen tales are remarkably reminiscent of reports considered historically reliable. According to Notker, with a wave of his hand, Charlemagne cut off the heads of tiny, sword-sized Slavs. According to Einhart's annals, at Verdun the same hero destroyed 4,500 Saxons overnight. Which do you think is more plausible?

There are, however, even more striking anachronisms: for example, “Tales from the Bath with Piquant Details” could only have come from the pen of a person familiar with the Islamic East. And in one place we encounter a description of water ordeals (“ God's judgment"), containing a direct allusion to the Inquisition.

Notker even knows Homer's Iliad, which seems completely absurd to Baldauf. The mixing of Homeric scenes with biblical ones in “The Acts of Charlemagne” leads Baldauf to even bolder conclusions: since most of The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is closely related to the romances of chivalry and the Iliad - it can be assumed that they arose around the same time.

Analyzing Greek and Roman poetry in detail in the second volume of History and Criticism, Baldauf cites facts that will make any inexperienced lover of classical antiquity shudder. He finds many mysterious details in the history of classical texts that “floated out of oblivion” in the 15th century and sums up: “There are too many ambiguities, contradictions, and dark places in the discoveries of fifteenth-century humanists in the monastery of St. Gallen. Isn't this surprising, if not suspicious? It's a strange thing - these finds. And how quickly what you want to find is invented.” Baldauf wonders whether Quintilian was not “invented” when he criticizes Plautus as follows (vol. X, 1): “the muses had to speak the language of Plautus, but they wanted to speak Latin.” (Plautus wrote in vernacular Latin, which was absolutely unthinkable for the 2nd century BC.)

Did copyists and falsifiers practice their wit on the pages of their fictional works? Anyone familiar with the work of the “Knights of Charlemagne” with their “Roman” poets from Einhard will appreciate how funny they joke about classical antiquity!

Baldauf discovers in the works of ancient poets features of a typically German style, completely incompatible with antiquity, such as alliteration and end rhymes. He refers to von Müller, who believes that Quintilian's Casina-Prologue is also "elegantly rhymed."

This also applies to other Latin poetry, says Baldauf and gives striking examples. The typically German end rhyme was introduced into Romanesque poetry only by the medieval troubadours.

The scientist's suspicious attitude towards Horace leaves the question open whether Baldauf was familiar with the works of Hardouin. It seems incredible to us that a venerable philologist has not read the criticism of a French researcher. Another thing is that Baldauf in his work decided to proceed from his own premises, different from the two-hundred-year-old arguments of the learned Jesuit.

Baldauf reveals internal relationship between Horace and Ovid and to the question: “how can one explain the obvious mutual influence of two ancient authors” he himself answers: “to some this will not seem suspicious at all; others, reasoning at least logically, assume the existence of a common source from which both poets drew.” He further refers to Wölfflin, who states with some surprise: “classical Latinists did not pay attention to each other, but we took for the peaks classical literature what are in fact later reconstructions of texts by people whose names we may never know.”

Baldauf proves the use of alliteration in Greek and Roman poetry, cites the example of a poem by the German Muspilli and asks the question: “how could alliteration be known to Horace.” But if a “German trace” is found in Horace’s rhymes, then the influence of the Italian language, which had already been formed by the Middle Ages, is felt in the writing: the frequent appearance of the unpronounceable “n” or the rearrangement of vowels. “However, this will, of course, be blamed on careless copyists!” – Baldauf ends the passage (p. 66).

Caesar's Notes on the Gallic War are also “literally teeming with stylistic anachronisms” (p. 83). About the last three books of “Notes on the Gallic War” and the three books “ Civil War“Caesar he says: “They all have the same monotonous rhyme. The same applies to the eighth book of “Notes on the Gallic War” by Aulus Hirtius, to the “Alexandrian War” and “African War”. It is incomprehensible how the authors of these works can be considered different people“: a person with the slightest sense of style will immediately recognize the same hand in them.”

The actual contents of the Notes on the Gallic War make a strange impression. So, Caesar’s Celtic Druids are too similar to Egyptian priests. "Amazing parallelism!" - exclaims Borber (1847), to which Baldauf remarks: “Ancient history is full of similar parallelisms. This is plagiarism!” (p. 84).

“If the tragic rhythms of Homer’s Iliad, end rhymes and alliteration belonged to the usual arsenal of ancient poetry, then they would certainly be mentioned in classical treatises on poetic craft. Or did outstanding philologists, knowing about unusual techniques, keep their observations secret?” - Baldauf continues to sneer.

In conclusion, I will allow myself one more lengthy quotation from his work: “The conclusion suggests itself: Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Aristotle, previously separated by centuries, came closer to each other and to us. All of them are children of the same century, and their homeland is not at all ancient Hellas, but Italy XIV-XV centuries. Our Romans and Hellenes turned out to be Italian humanists. And one more thing: most Greek and Roman texts, written on papyrus or parchment, carved on stone or in bronze, are ingenious falsifications of Italian humanists. Italian humanism gave us a written recorded world of antiquity, the Bible and, together with humanists from other countries, the history of the early Middle Ages. In the era of humanism, not only learned collectors and interpreters of antiquities lived - it was a time of monstrously intense, tireless and fruitful spiritual activity: for more than five hundred years we have been walking along the path indicated by humanists.

My statements sound unusual, even daring, but they are provable. Some evidence I have presented in the pages of this book, others will emerge when the era of humanism is explored to its darkest depths. For science, such research is a matter of primary importance” (p. 97 ff).

As far as I know, Baldauf was not able to complete his research. His scientific plans, however, included the study of later editions of the Bible. Therefore, there is no doubt that in Baldauf’s manuscripts, if they were ever found, we will encounter many more shocking surprises.

Kammeier and the "Wide-Scale Operation"

The third prominent prosecutor was Wilhelm Kammeier, born “between 1890 and 1900” (Nimitz, 1991). He studied law and worked at the end of his life as a school teacher in Thuringia, where he died in the 50s in complete poverty.

The field of application of his research activity was written evidence of the Middle Ages. Every legal act, he believed, be it an act of donation or confirmation of granted privileges, satisfies primarily four basic requirements: it makes it clear who issued this document to whom, when and where. A document whose addressee or date of issue is unknown loses its legal force.

What we take for granted was perceived differently by people of the late Middle Ages and early modern times. Many old documents do not bear the full date; the year, or the day, or neither is indicated. Their legal value is therefore zero. Kammeier established this fact by thoroughly analyzing the collections of medieval documentation; for the most part he worked with the multi-volume edition of Harry Bresslau (Berlin, from 1889 to 1931).

Bresslau himself, who took most documents at face value, states with amazement that the 9th, 10th and even 11th centuries were a period “when the mathematical sense of time among scribes, even those who served – no less, in the imperial chancellery, was in its infancy ; and in the imperial documentation of this era we find countless proofs of this.” Bresslau further gives examples: from January of the 12th year of the reign of Emperor Lothar I (respectively, 835 AD), the dating jumps to February of the 17th year of the reign of the same monarch; events run their course only until March, and then - from May for two and a half years, dating supposedly represents the 18th year of reign. During the reign of Otto I, two documents are dated 976 year of the incarnation instead of 955, etc. The documents of the papal office are full of similar errors. Bresslau tries to explain this by local differences in the counting of the beginning of the new year; confusion of the dates of the act itself (for example, donation) and the notarial record of the act (drawing up a deed of gift), psychological misconceptions (especially immediately after the beginning of the year); the negligence of the scribes, and yet: a great many written testimonies have completely impossible dates.

But the thought of falsification does not occur to him; on the contrary: a frequently repeated error confirms for Bresslau the authenticity of the document. This is despite the fact that many of the dates are obviously backdated, sometimes in such a way that they are simply incomprehensible! Bresslau, a man of encyclopedic education, who, with the diligence of a mole, rummaged through a mass of material, worked through tens of thousands of documents, was never able to evaluate the results of his scientific search and, having risen above the material, see it from a new angle.

Kammeier was the first to succeed.

One of Kammeier’s contemporaries, Bruno Krusch, who, like Bresslau, worked in academic science, in “Essays on Frankish Diplomacy” (1938, p. 56) reports that he came across a document in which letters were missing, and “in their place there were gaping gaps." But he had previously encountered letters where empty spaces were left for names “for later filling in” (p. 11). There are many fake documents, Krush continues, but not every researcher is able to spot the forgery. There are “ridiculous forgeries” with “inconceivable dates,” such as, for example, the charter of the privileges of King Clovis III, exposed by Henschen and Papebroch back in the 17th century. The charter presented by King Chlothar III to Béziers, which Breslau considers quite conclusive, Crusch declares “ clean water a fake, never disputed, probably for the reason that it was instantly recognized as such by any understanding critic.” Krush unconditionally classifies the collection of documents “Chronicon Besuense” as falsifications of the 12th century (p. 9).

Studying the first volume of Pertz’s “Collected Acts” (1872), Krush praises the author of the collection for discovering, along with ninety-seven supposedly genuine acts of the Merovingians and twenty-four allegedly authentic acts of majordomos, almost as many forgeries: 95 and 8, respectively. “The main goal Any archival research is to determine the authenticity of written evidence. A historian who has not achieved this goal cannot be considered a professional in his field.” In addition to the forgeries exposed by Pertz, Krush calls many of the documents recognized by Pertz as originals as such. This has already been partially pointed out by various other researchers. Most of the falsifications not recognized by Pertz, according to Krush, are so obvious that they are not subject to serious discussion: fictitious place names, anachronisms of style, false dates. In a word, Kammeier turned out to be simply a little more radical than the luminaries of German science.

Several years ago, Hans-Ulrich Nimitz, having again analyzed Kammeier's theses, concluded that the factual material collected by the modest teacher from Thuringia is capable of awe-inspiring any sane representative of academic science: not a single important document or serious document exists in the original manuscript literary work Middle Ages. The copies available to historians are so different from each other that it is not possible to reconstruct the “original original” from them. The “family trees” of surviving or cited chains of copies lead to this conclusion with enviable tenacity. Given that the magnitude of the phenomenon excludes chance, Kammeier concludes: “Numerous supposedly 'lost' originals never actually existed” (1980, p. 138).

From the problem of “copies and originals” Kammeier moves on to an analysis of the actual contents of the “documents” and, among other things, establishes that the German kings and emperors were deprived of permanent residence, being on the move all their lives. Often they were present in two places at the same time or covered vast distances in the shortest possible time. Based on such documents, modern “chronicles of life and events” contain information about the imperial chaotic throwings.

Many official acts and documents lack not only the date and place of issue, but even the name of the addressee. This applies, for example, to every third document from the reign of Henry II and to every second from the reign of Conrad II. All these “blind” acts and charters have no legal force and historical accuracy.

Such an abundance of counterfeits is alarming, although a limited number of counterfeits would be expected. Upon closer examination, Kammeier comes to the conclusion: there are practically no genuine documents, and forgeries are made in most cases at an extremely low level, and sloppiness and haste in the production of forgeries do not honor the medieval guild of forgers: anachronisms of style, spelling, and inconsistency of fonts. The common reuse of parchment after scraping off old records is contrary to all the rules of the art of forgery. Perhaps the repeated scraping of texts from old parchments (palimpsest) is nothing more than an attempt, by “aging” the original canvas, to give greater authenticity to the new content.

So, it has been established: the contradictions between individual documents are insurmountable.

To the question about the purpose of producing countless, in a material sense, worthless forgeries, Kammeier gives, in my opinion, the only logical and obvious answer: the falsified documents were supposed to imitate “History” by filling the gaps with ideologically and ideologically “correct” content. The legal value of such " historical documents" is equal to zero.

The gigantic volume of work determined its haste, uncontrollability and, as a result, negligence in execution: many documents are not even dated.

After the first errors with contradictory dates, they began to leave the date line blank, as if the compilers were waiting (and did not wait) for some kind of unified reference line to appear. The “Large-Scale Operation,” as Kammeier defined the enterprise, was never completed.

To the highest degree unusual ideas Kammeier's ideas, which now seem to me to be based on the correct basic idea, were not accepted by contemporaries. The continuation of the investigation he began and the search for clarity should be the most important task all historians.

Understanding Kammeier's discovery prompted me to undertake research, the result of which was the firm conviction that, indeed, since the time early humanists(Nicholas of Cusa) and before the Jesuits, a conscious and diligent falsification of history was carried out, devoid, as already said, of a single precise plan. There has been a terrible change in our historical knowledge. The results of this process affect each of us, for they obscure our view of actual past events.

None of the three above-mentioned thinkers, not initially realizing the true scale of the action, was forced to gradually, step by step, examine, and then, one after another, reject the documents of antiquity and the Middle Ages that they considered authentic.

Despite the fact that forced renunciations, prohibitions by state or church authorities, “accidents,” and even constrained material circumstances contributed to the erasure of evidence of historical accusations from scientific memory, there have always been and are new truth-seekers, including among historians’ own ranks -professionals.

Fragment of the book "The Great Deception. A Fictional History of Europe" " Uwe Topper