Book of Veles
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Image:Vlesknig.png The Book of Veles (also: Veles Book, Vles book, Vlesbook, Isenbeck's Planks, Велесова книга, Влес книга, Влескнига, Книга Велеса, Дощечки Изенбека, Дощьки Изенбека) is claimed to be a text of ancient Slavic religion and history.
It contains religious passages and accounts of history interspersed with religious morals. The earliest events in the book could be dated around 7th century BC and the latest happened in 9th century AD.
The book was allegedly discovered in 1919 and lost in 1941. Its authenticity is disputed, it is suspected to be a forgery made in the 1940s or the early 1800s; Moreover, different modern editions of the book have different versions of its text. Regardless, most Slavic Neopagans use it as their sacred text.
Contents |
Authenticity
There exist divided opinions about the authenticity of the book. Many scholars consider it a forgery given the lack of agreement as to the book's authorship and the time it was written. History of the book can be reliably traced only as far as mid-1950s, when the transcribed book and the photograph of one of the planks first surfaced in a San Francisco-based, Russian emigrant newspaper. Some scholars believe that the entire book was a product of collaboration of the editors of this newspaper and Yuriy Mirolyubov, who later claimed to have found the book. Others believe that either the entire book or the only plank available, were forged in the early 1800s by the Russian collector and forger Alexander Sulakadzev. Finally, it is not unlikely that Mirolyubov found one or several authentic pages of the Book of Veles and falsified the rest of the text to fit his theories about early Slavs.
The book is written in a language that is very similar to ancient East Slavic language. Consequently, a large part of the book's text, once transcribed into a modern alphabet, is readable by modern speakers of Slavic languages. However, professional historians, particularly the specialists in ancient Slavic, are concerned by some features of its language—use of words, spelling, etc. These features seem to indicate that the text was artificially "aged" by someone with imperfect knowledge of ancient Slavic. On the other hand, problems with language are minor and could be attributed to local dialect variations (if the book was written or compiled from accounts of multiple people, as it is claimed by its supporters). The alphabet of the book is also a controversial issue, since the book was written using an alphabet similar to Cyrillic. The very existence of written language among Slavs prior to the introduction of Cyrillic during 10th century is still disputed.
Those who believe in authenticity of the Book of Veles claim that all the criticism can be successfully countered, arguing for instance that language errors could occur duriing transcription of the text. They also note that a forgery of such authenticity would require greater talent than Mirolyubov or Izenbek had, and that there was no personal gain for them in forging the book.
As long as the original planks are lost, there will probably never be a consensus about the book's authenticity. There is possibility that future discoveries of artifacts from pre-Christian era of Slavic lands will either support or contradict the facts from the Book of Veles, thus either confirming or disproving its authenticity.
The planks
Indo-European languages have a common word related to writing (English "book", German "Buch", Russian and Bulgarian "буква" (bukva)—"letter") which is cognate to beech, and so it was conjectured that the earliest writings were carved on beech wood. The Book of Veles was the first such text written on wooden planks ever found; recently, more such texts have been found, notably the birch bark writings of Novgorod.
The planks were 38 cm wide, 22 cm tall and about 0.5 cm thick. The edges and surfaces of the planks are uneven and near the top there are two holes for joining the planks. The text is carved into the planks and later covered with some coloring. Text alignment lines (roughly straight and parallel) are drawn across the planks and the tops of letters are aligned with these lines. The text is written below the lines, rather than above. The size and shape of the letters are different, suggesting that more than one person wrote the text. Some planks were partially or mostly rotten.
History of the book's discovery
In 1919, a Lieutenant of the White Russian Army, Fedor Arturovich Izenbek found a bunch of wooden planks written in strange script in a looted mansion of Kurakins near Kharkov. After the defeat of the Army, Isenbeck emigrated to Belgrade where in 1923 he unsuccessfully tried to sell the planks to the Belgrade library and museum. In 1925 he settled in Brussels where he gave the planks to Yuriy P. Mirolyubov, who was the first to study them seriously. Izenbek treated the planks very carefully, did not allow them to be taken out of his house and refused a suggestion by a professor of University of Brussels to hand them over for studying. Later this refusal to permit others to study these texts would lead people to suspect them as forgeries.
For fifteen years Mirolyubov restored, photographed, transcribed (as photographs proved to be unreadable) and finally translated the text. He managed to transcribe most of the planks.
In August 1941 Germans occupied Brussels, Izenbek died and the planks were lost. Some think that the Germans took the planks to their archive (located in Ahnenerbe) and then moved to England at the end of WWII to be stored near Aldershot or Crookham to this day. Much of the Ahnenerbe archive seems to have been captured by Soviet forces, in which case the planks would likely have ended up in secret KGB archives instead. Others believe that the planks were burned in a fire.
Mirolyubov emigrated to the United States and handed his material to the Russian museum in San Francisco. The materials were found in 1953 by professor A. A. Kurenkov (Kur) who then published them in the magazine Zhar-Ptica from March 1957 until May 1959. Later the text was studied by S. Paramonov (Lesnoi).
An alternative history of a forgery
Historians doubting the authenticity of the Book of Veles have constructed an alternative account of the first appearance of the book. Further doubt is cast on the history of the book's discovery given by Mirolyubov and Kurenkov with analysis of their ideological goals and previous academic forgeries.
Alexander Kurenkov was a Russian immigrant and former soldier of the White Army living in the United States since the 1940s. While working as a janitor, Kurenkov had a high opinion of his academic qualifications obtaining a "Ph.D." from the nonexistant College of Divine Metaphysics, supposedly located Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1945 he participated in the hoax claiming that Noah's Ark had been found on Mount Ararat, where he reported having personally seen documents from a 1916 Tsarist expedition to the site. His involvement with the Noah's Ark hoax and his anti-communist political ideology brought him in close association with the Christian evangelical movement in the US. Notable among his associates was John Kinnaman the editor of the Bible Archeological Digest.
Kinnaman touted Kurenkov's claim to have seen evidence of Noah's Ark's discovery. Kinnaman's own academic background, while started at the well respected University of Chicago, was clouded by his claim to be the 23rd member of the excavation team of King Tut's tomb. He also subscribed to the Mound Builder theory that Indian burial mounds found throughout the US were the work of early European settlers because American Indians lacked the technical knowledge to build such edifices. Kurenkov's anti-communist ideology also brought him to join the Anti-communist league of California. This was the same organization founded by Wesley Swift a proponent of the Christian Identity movement, a white supremacist group.
Kurenkov's associations in the 1940s point out his propensity for academic forgery as well as highlight some key influences that appear in the Book of Veles. The Book of Veles claims that the Russian people are not Slavs but are the true descendants of the lost tribes of Israel and that present-day Jews are really Turks. The Book goes on to claim that Christianity is an evil ideology created by the Jews to take over the world. These claims appear to be less out of place claims when examining the Book of Veles as a forgery by Kurenkov. The claims about the origins of the Russian people are extremely similar to claims made by British Israelism, as filtered through the later ideology of Christian Identity.
In the late 1940s Kurenkov and Mirolyubov, in Belgium, begin correspondence. Kurenkov published a letter in Zhar-Ptica asking if any readers had heard of this document, describing something like the Book of Veles. Mirolyubov immediately responded saying that he had seen this document. Over the course of the next few years pieces of the Book were published, but not the whole text until 1953. Many historians point to the fractured release of the document as further evidence of Kurenkov and Mirolyubov's complicity in its manufacture.
Excerpts
Plank 2/B
We were forced to retreat to woods and live as hunters and fishermen. So we could
get away from danger. We survived one darkness and started to build cities
and houses everywhere. After the second darkness there was great frost and we moved
to south for many places there were grassy ... and then Romei were taking our cattle
at a good price and were true to their word. We went
to southern ... greengrassland and had a lot of cattle ...
From Plank 7/A
Enemies are not as numerous as we are, for we are Russians and they are not.
Plank 11/A
We pray and bow to the first Triglav and to him we sing a great glory.
We praise Svarog, grandfather of gods who is to whole gods' kin forefather
and creator of everything living, eternal spring that flows in the summer
and everywhere and in winter and never it freezes. And with that living wather he nourishes
and life gives to us until we reach the blessed fields of paradise. And to god Perun, the thunderer, god of battle and fight we say:
"You hold us in life by neverending turning of the circle and lead to path
of Prav through battles to Great Trizn". And all who got killed in the battle -
may they live forever in the Perun's regiment. To god Svetovid glory we
are exalting for he is the god of Prav and Jav and to him we sing the song for he is the light
with which we see the world. We are looking and in Jav we are, and he from Nav
guards us and therefore praise we sing him. We sing and dance to him and call
god of ours to Earth, Sun and stars constantly in light keeps.
And glory all to Svetovid, god of ours that
hearts ours opens for us to admit bad deeds ours
and to good we turn. May he hug us like children for this has been said:
what is created with half of the mind could not be seen,
for it is a great secret how can Svarog be at the same time both Perun and Svetovid.
Two beings in skies Belobog and Crnobog are
And both of them Svarog holds and commands them.
After them come Horos, Veles and Stribog and then Visenj, Lelj and Letic.
From Plank 26/B
...As time passes, we come to the blue river as time ours
is not endless. There we meet
forefathers our and mothers that in Svarga herds are grazing and trusses
fastening. Their life is just as ours, only there are no Huns nor
Greeks...
Further reading
- The Book of Vles or Vles knyha, trans. by Victor Kachur. Columbus, Ohio, 1973. English translation.
- Kaganskaya, Maya. "The Book of Vles: Saga of a Forgery," Jews and Jewish Topics in Soviet and East-European Publications, # 4 (1986-1987) 3-27.
- See the article in the Russian Wikipedia for an extended list of further readings in Russian.
External links
- English translation
- A. Asov: The book of Veles
- Translation to Russian by A. Asov in the book of S. Lesnoy
- Translation to Russian by N. V. Slatina
- Translation to Ukrainian by B. I. Yacenko
- Russian Neo-Pagan Myths and Anti-Semitism
- On the same topic, more evidence of forgery (in Czech)bg:Велесова книга
it:Libro di Veles pl:Księga Welesa ru:Велесова книга fi:Velesin kirja sr:Велесова књига