Book of Veles
|
The only known contour copy of a plank; the book is named after this plank, as it begins with "To Veles this book we devote..." |
The
Book of Veles (also:
Veles Book,
Vles book,
Vlesbook,
Isenbeck's Planks, Π'Π΅Π»Π΅ΡΠΎΠ²Π° ΠΊΠ½ΠΈΠ³Π°, Π'Π»Π΅Ρ ΠΊΠ½ΠΈΠ³Π°, Π'Π»Π΅ΡΠΊΠ½ΠΈΠ³Π°, ΠΠ½ΠΈΠ³Π° Π'Π΅Π»Π΅ΡΠ°, Π"ΠΎΡΠ΅ΡΠΊΠΈ ΠΠ·Π΅Π½Π±Π΅ΠΊΠ°, Π"ΠΎΡΡΠΊΠΈ ΠΠ·Π΅Π½Π±Π΅ΠΊΠ°) 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.
There exist divided opinions about the authenticity of the book. Nearly all
scholars consider it a forgery. 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, there is a possibility that Mirolyubov found one or several 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 many features of its language—use of words (modern or medieval Slavic words occasionally and unwittingly used in place of their ancient equivalents), spelling, phonetics (lack of understanding of the sound 'f', which existed in Proto-Slavic but disappeared later on, the haphazard handling of reduced vowels, etc., etc.), grammar (grammatical forms incompatible with early Slavic languages), etc. These features seem to indicate that the text was artificially "aged" by someone with imperfect knowledge of ancient Slavic. In the words of the historian O.V. Tvorogov:
"This analysis leads us to a definite conclusion: we are dealing with an artificial language, "invented" by a person unacquainted with the history of Slavic languages and one who couldn't create his own.. language system." [http://janaberestova.narod.ru/kozlov.html]
The opponents of mainstream science claim, however, that the problems with language 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 during transcription of the text. They also claim that a forgery of such authenticity would require greater talent than Mirolyubov had, and that there was no personal gain for him, apart from nationalistic pride, in forging the book.
As long as the original planks are lost, there will probably never be a consensus about the book's authenticity among amateurs. There is a 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
Germanic languages and
Slavic languages have a common word related to writing (
English "
book",
German "Buch",
Russian and
Bulgarian "Π±ΡΠΊΠ²Π°" (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.
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 (
Ahnenerbe) archive, and then were 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).
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 Hors, 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...*
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.
*
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)
