5 pseudo-historical concepts that outrage scientists

"Everything we know about the dating of historical events is not true." "Peter I was replaced during a trip abroad." "The insidious CIA director Allen Dulles destroyed the USSR." All these are not April Fool's jokes, but real, supposedly historical theories, in which many people believe. We talked about them in one of the previous articles.

Such concepts are calledVolodikhin D. M. The Folk-History Phenomenon / International Historical Journal Folk-history in Russia and the CIS and pseudohistory abroad. Representatives of this pseudoscientific trend like to talk about “discoveries that will turn the established picture of the world” and the truth that scientists and authorities for some reason hide.

They also ignore the work of other historians, research principles, and data from related fields. Therefore, their works are examples of pseudoscience and obscurantism.

In this article, we will discuss five more pseudo-historical theories.

1. The historical process is controlled by a certain cosmic energy

Why do some people end up on the pages of history textbooks, while no one will ever write a line about others? Why do some peoples and civilizations create amazing culture or consume other nations entirely, while others remain primitive?

Ethnographer Lev Gumilyov tried to answer these questions in his theory of passionary ethnogenesis. It can bePetrov A. E. An inverted story. Pseudoscientific Models of the Past / New and Contemporary History to be considered one of the progenitors of all pseudo-historical concepts that flourished in the late USSR and post-Soviet Russia.

Gumilyov believedGumilev L. N. "Ethnogenesis and the biosphere of the Earth"that every nation is born, flourishes and dies. And in this regard, in his opinion, a certain passionate energy played a great role.

By itself, it allegedly comes from the biosphere of our planet and from space (solar and stellar wind), and people can accumulate it in different ways. Sometimes passionarity breaks out of the Earth in a limited territory, "charging" individuals who have fallen into the field of its "eruption" - passionaries.

A powerful person with passion, for example, can be an individual. When there are many such people, the ethnos is on the rise. He is active and active - for example, conquering other nations. When there is little, it is passive and gradually degrades.

At the same time, sooner or later, the energy of any ethnic group ends. The people, according to Gumilev, live for about 1,200 years. maybePetrov A. E. An inverted story. Pseudoscientific Models of the Past / New and Contemporary History, this figure is associated with the duration of the existence of the Roman Empire, since there are no other examples of 12-century cycles in history.

Gumilev's conclusions often did not coincide with the generally accepted picture of the past. For example, he consideredthat Russia at the time of the Mongol invasion was in a phase of decline. And the collision with the civilization, which was on the rise, benefited the Russian state.

The yoke and conquest, in his opinion, were not cruel. And the remains of burnt cities that archaeologists find are traces of the internecine wars of the princes.

Gumilev's theory of ethnogenesis is criticizedKorenyako V. To criticism of L. N. Gumilyova / Ethnographic Review for the lack of convincing evidence of the existence of passionarity. And also the author never really explained what kind of energy it is and what its nature is. In addition, in his writings, Gumilev demonstrated a clear amateurism in the field of astrophysics and biology.

However, the historical attempts of Gumilev are also reproached for mistakes that lie outside the field of esotericism. For example, he absolutely categorically attributed the process of the emergence of the Slavs as a separate nationality to the 1st century AD. e. That is, by the 13th century (when the Mongols came), in his opinion, the Russian ethnos was about 1,200 years old.

Critics also emphasize that Gumilyov too highly placed the factor of nature and climate in the development of society. He practically ignored social development, culture, religion and other driving forces.

In addition, Lev Nikolaevich used in his works only those historical sources and scientific works that confirmed, and did not refute, his theory. At the same time, he sometimes fell into obvious contradictions. For example, he said that there was no Mongol conquest, but at the same time he mentioned several affected cities.

He was also cool about the discoveries of archaeologists. Well, do not forget that some facts the author of the passionary theory is simply invented: for example, that the Mongols participated in the Battle of the Ice.

2. In ancient times, there was a highly developed extinct civilization

The Egyptian and Sumerian civilizations are considered one of the most ancient. However, pseudo-historians claim that this is not so, and "find" prehistoric cultures. For example, Lemuria, which sank in the Indian Ocean, and Atlantis.

Initially, the existence of the continent of Lemuria was talked aboutNield T. Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of our Planet. biologists in the 19th century. They tried to understand how lemurs from Madagascar got to Africa and India. The theory of the movement of lithospheric plates put an end to these assumptions. Thanks to her, it became clear that they were all part of a single continent before.

However, back in 1870, biologist Ernst Haeckel put forwardRamaswamy S. The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories / University of California Press the hypothesis that Lemuria was the ancestral home of not only big-eyed primates, but also of humanity in general. She quickly became popular with the occult. In particular, they argued that the Lemurians were created by the extraterrestrial being Manu, which brought monkeys from other planets, wanting to accelerate evolution on Earth. It happened supposedly back in the days dinosaurs.

The inhabitants of Venus taught the Lemurians to make fire, engage in agriculture and crafts. Gradually, Lemuria began to go under water, and the Lemurians on Earth were replaced by a more advanced race of Atlanteans. However, they also drowned. It became known about this from the descending "revelation".

Another ancient civilization, according to the folk-historian, “the genius of world alternative medicine”, astrologer, psychologist, culturologist, psychic Viktor Kandyba, became Kandyba V., Zolin P. "History and Ideology of the Russian People" orus.

These were "thin-bodied" people resembling snakes, from whom the modern "corpulent" inhabitants of the Earth originated.

The Oruses allegedly originated from the first god-man, Oriya, and appeared more than 18 million years ago. The Russians, according to Kandyba, are the descendants of the Orians, who founded their first city in the valley of the Tigris River. It sank 36 thousand years ago. The author of the theory believes that all evidence of "thousands of years of Russian history" was destroyed by the Romanov dynasty, and historical sources were falsified.

Another concept of “lost civilizations” was proposed by British writer Graham Hancock in his 1995 book “Footprints of the Gods”. He also believes that the drawings of the gods of the ancient Egyptians and Indians depict a bygone advanced civilization that lived in the territory of modern Antarctica. But the shift in the poles of the Earth, according to Hancock, destroyed this culture.

Such concepts most often intersect or turn out to be closely associated with the New Age movement - the so-called religions of the new century, or, more simply, sects. All these theories are united by the idea that one people became the primary basis for all subsequent civilizations. But there is virtually no evidence of this point of view.

And yet all such theories are shattered when compared with other disciplines such as archeology and linguistics. For example, even a relatively small (about a thousand years of history) falsification is impossible.Yanin V. L. "Yawning heights" by academician Fomenko / Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University from the point of view of specialists. What can we say about the likelihood that our ancestors were able to destroy traces of many thousands of years of human history and create new ones.

Therefore, the stories about Lemuria, Atlantis, the Kandyb Orus or Hancock's Antarctic supercivilization can be safely attributed to the rich imagination of the authors.

3. The Etruscans were the Russian-speaking people who built Rome

A significant layer of pseudo-historical theories in Russia is associatedVolodikhin D. M. The Folk-History Phenomenon / International Historical Journal with neo-paganism and nationalism. Supporters of such concepts in every possible way strive to "lengthen" the history of the Slavs and idealize pre-Christian Russia. They find (create) "monuments" of this era, like a fakeDanilevsky I. N. "Vlesova kniga" / Orthodox encyclopedia "Veles book". Pseudo-neo-pagan historians, as well as supporters of the existence of prehistoric civilizations, are often associated with sects.

Against this background, the concept of the philosopher Valery Chudinov, who at one time even held a position on the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, stands out for its originality. He found outChudinov V. BUT. The Eve of the Scientific Revolution in Historiography / Trinitarian Academy Slavic clue "of the Etruscan writing: supposedly the name of this people literally translates as" these are Russians. "

The Etruscans are an ancient people who inhabited the territory of modern Tuscany. It is believed that this civilization had a great cultural influence on the ancient Romans.

Language the Etruscans have not yet been deciphered, and its origin remains a matter of controversy.

Chudinov claims that Moscow sent the Etruscans to Italy to found Rome. The choice of the name of the pseudo-historians is no less extravagant: they say, although the Etruscans spoke Russian, they wrote from right to left, and in fact “Rome” is “Peace».

This, in general, is not surprising, since Valery Chudinov generally believes that before the Neolithic - the late Stone Age (about 10-3 thousand years BC). BC) - other peoples did not exist.

In the 1990s, Chudinov's concept was popularDanilevsky I. N. "Ancient Russia through the eyes of contemporaries and descendants" among the members of the Liberal Democratic Party in whose newspapers they wrote that the Russians (Etruscans) settled in Europe long before the emergence of the Roman Empire. The very same ancient state was based on Russian culture. In general, our ancestors were the first to learn how to build sea ships and discovered America.

Chudinov is skeptical about the works of his predecessor historians. He states that all credible evidence was destroyed by Europeans by the 19th century. In addition, like many of his fellows in the pseudo-historical workshop, he considers the data of archeology to be biased.

Chudinov's Russian is the single language of Europe, and indeed of the whole world. Its author finds the concept in Arabic script, in the Latin alphabet, and in runes, and in drawings of the Stone Age, and even on the lunar and solar surfaces.

However, the amateur linguist is not limited to this, claiming that he sees esoterically readable inscriptions on any objects (even those where there is nothing). For example, it discoversChudinov V. BUT. "Devilish drawings of Pushkin» runes in the drawings on the margins of Alexander Pushkin's manuscripts.

For professional linguists, Chudinov's and other similar concepts are surprising at best.

For example, they proclaimPolinichenko D. Yu., Burkhanova M. FROM. Amateur linguistic concepts in modern Russia / Philological research Russian is a universal standard, but they ignore the fact that words of different languages ​​differ in meaning. Amateur linguists are also indifferent to the facts related to the development of the language, do not bother to explain logical inaccuracies and ignore the laws already known to science.

Simply put, when "analyzing" the origin of words, they choose those that confirm their hypotheses, and ignore all the others, forgetting that the ancient language was different from the modern one. Also, such authors often demonstrate ignorance of the etymology (origin) of the norms of word formation.

4. Great Tartary existed on the territory of Russia, destroyed by nuclear war in the 18th century

The opuses of Chudinov and Kandyba are similar to the works of Nikolai Levashov - a "healer" and a sectarian who was going to become the president of Russia and wrote extremistArefiev A. Omsk court found Levashov's book extremist / Rossiyskaya Gazeta books.

In his opinion, once on the territory of Russia there wasLevashov N. IN. "Great Tartary - Empire of the Rus" huge empire of Tartary. It was allegedly inhabited by the Slav-Aryans, who fought with China in the war of the Magi for thousands of years. After suffering many catastrophes such as violent Christianization and civil wars, this Vedic empire was destroyed by atomic weapons in the 18th century.

Levashov cites data that at the beginning of the 19th century there was an abnormally cold year 1816 - “a year without summer”. It was supposedly such a nuclear winter.

All the argumentation of the supporters of the hypothesis of Tartaria boils down to the fact that on some historical maps a huge territory was called so, which sometimes included Russia. They also cite information about the disappearance of forests as evidence of a nuclear attack.

In fact, Tartary was called for a long timeKalutskov V. N. Grattez le russe et vous trouverez le tartare, or about the fate of one mythological country / Bulletin of Moscow University the region of Central and Central Asia, and not any particular country. It included all the territories and peoples that were somehow connected with the pre-Mongol tribe of Tatars.

Gradually, this erroneous name was discarded, and Tartary disappeared from the maps.

The abnormal cold in 1816 was associated with the eruption of the Tambora volcano in Indonesia. And the forests in Russia are relatively young due to agriculture.

5. All upheavals in Russia in the 20th century are the business of Western intelligence services

Despite the fact that the history of the 20th century is well documented, there are those who are trying to rewrite it. For example, Nikolai Starikov. He is sureStarikov N. “From Decembrists to terrorists. Investing in chaos "that all anti-government demonstrations in Russia - from the Decembrist uprising of 1825 to the present day - are the work of foreign intelligence.

So, the revolution of 1917, we supposedly owe the British. They did not seem to want the Russian army to defeat Turkey in the First World War, and to capture the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. That is, it has become the hegemon of European politics. Starikov declares the Bolsheviks not German, but British spies.

Historians criticizeGeorgiev Yu. IN. IN. AND. Lenin and Pre-War Japanese Imperialism / Japan Yearbook; Gordin Ya.A. New Decembrist studies - the technology of "destruction of myths" / Petersburg Historical Journal Starikov for the use of unconfirmed information, selective selection of facts and banal ignorance of the historical context of the events described. In 2019, the works of Nikolai Starikov reachedVRAL - 2019 before the final of the anti-award "VRAL".

It is naive to believe that some external forces can provoke a revolution in a fairly short period of time. If we talk about the same 1917, it is worth remembering that it all began not with October, but with February revolution. Although both did not occur contrary to the course of the historical process.

The February revolution did not happenFebruary Revolution / Great Russian Encyclopedia it would be without the miscalculations of the cabinet of Nicholas II at the front and in the rear, which caused popular discontent. And the events of October 1917 were largely determined by the weakness of the Provisional Government, which replaced the monarchy. In addition, a huge number of other factors played a role.