Today we continue the topic of ancient Russian writing and the replacement of the history of Rus', which we started earlier. We will talk about the works of two enthusiastic researchers who made a huge contribution to science.
Audio release of the program
http://sun-helps.myjino.ru/sop/20180526_sop.mp3A major role in the study of Proto-Slavic writing belongs to Gennady Stanislavovich Grinevich. For more than 20 years, he enthusiastically studied history and linguistics, trying to uncover the secret of the Phaistos disk. He collected and systematized ancient inscriptions in the territories of modern settlement of the Slavs, compiling comparative tables of different types of written characters. Assuming that the inscription on the Phaistos disk was made in the Proto-Slavic language, Grinevich proposed his own interpretation of this text.
Also, a significant contribution to the study of Proto-Slavic inscriptions was made by the works of the epigraphist Valery Alekseevich Chudinov. He spent a lot of time and effort reading hundreds of ancient Slavic inscriptions from different countries, written in runitsa (Slavic runes) and Proto-Cyrillic.
Works carried out by a number of philologists, including Grinevich and Chudinov, showed a striking similarity of most of their characters with Proto-Russian features and cuts. They compared different types of alphabetic and runic writing in Europe and Asia, ancient Indian, Cretan and Etruscan writing. From this we can make an unambiguous conclusion that the runic writings of the Scandinavians, the inscriptions of the island of Crete, the Etruscans, the Western Slavs and Ancient India are daughter formations, having a basis in Proto-Slavic features and cuts. Grinevich is absolutely convinced that lines and cuts are the most ancient writing on earth.
Professor of Etruscology Radivoje Pesic found all the signs of the Etruscan alphabet in the inscriptions of the Vinca culture, which convincingly proved that they were written in Proto-Russian writing. It is used in ancient written monuments of our planet from the 5th millennium BC. and until the 13th century AD. These include:
- Terterian tablets,
- inscriptions of Mesopotamia,
- tripolian inscriptions,
- proto-Indian inscriptions,
- Cretan inscriptions, including the famous Phaistos disc,
- inscriptions found on the territory of the modern settlement of the Slavs, written in the so-called “devil and cuts” type script,
- Orkhon-Yenisei inscriptions of Southern Siberia and Northern Mongolia.
Etruscan inscriptions The language of all the above inscriptions is the Proto-Russian written language, in its grammatical structure and vocabulary extremely close to the Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian languages. The Slavic writing was of two types - sacred, which only priests could read; it was syllabic, and syllabic signs were often glued together into ligatures, so it was impossible to read it quickly; it was called - runes of Mokosh. And there was a secular, alphabetic letter - runes of Rod.
Scribe-layman Kirill created an artificial Church Slavonic language by adding part of the letters of the Greek alphabet to the Bulgarian language. Then, retroactively, this language was renamed Old Church Slavonic, which supposedly existed in the Slavic states. In fact, no one spoke it, unlike the Proto-Russian language, which was international for thousands of years!
Chudinov, based on his work on deciphering ancient inscriptions from different countries, draws the following conclusions:
- Slavs undoubtedly existed in the 7th century BC. e., but were not formed at all in the 5th century AD. e., as modern historiography claims. In other words, even 1200 years before the great migration of peoples, there was not just one Slavic state, but an entire empire of Rus' SLAVS.
- Secondly, the Veneti were Slavs, and this is not the opinion of modern researchers who came to this conclusion through armchair reasoning, but the firm opinion of the Veneti themselves, inscribed on their battle armor.
- Third, Slavic states from the 7th to the 3rd centuries. BC e. there were several, and one of them was NORIK, apparently the other was VENETIA (or, in Latin pronunciation, VENICE).
- Fourth, the language most closely related to modern Russian was used as a common Slavic language.
- Fifthly, all inscriptions for common Slavic communication were written in the common Slavic font - syllabic Slavic writing - runica.
- At sixth, due to the fact that Gaius Julius Caesar banned writing in Slavic languages and in Slavic script, in contrast to this, secret writing on Slavic religious objects and in everyday inscriptions spread throughout Europe - inscribing text in Russian into drawings, the so-called cryptopictography. This is how many original texts were preserved, having escaped editing over the centuries: the Catholic clergy had forgotten the runic by this time. This style of writing does not represent isolated random finds, but a special, refined and verified style of the iconographic canon, which requires experience and skill in decoding.
A typical example of such secret writing is given by V. A. Chudinov in the article “Jesus - the Slavic Face.” On the mosaic icon in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Constantinople, built in the 10th century, there is an image of Jesus Christ with the Gospel in his left hand. The folds of clothing form a purely Russian text, written in Cyrillic and Runic alphabet, partially merged into ligatures. After decomposing the ligatures into individual characters, identifying them with the standard ones and translating them into Cyrillic letters, the inscription reads like the formula familiar to a Christian believer: I pray, Lord! Other secret inscriptions on the icon read as “The Face of Christ”, “Rus”, “Workshop of the Temple of Peace”.
This in no way correlates with existing history, which claims that Christianity allegedly came from Judea. After all, this secret writing was made neither in Hebrew, nor in Aramaic (which Jesus Christ spoke), nor in Greek and nor in Latin, but in Russian. The most amazing thing is that the word “Rus” can be read on many medieval images throughout Europe. Traces of Russian civilization are found everywhere in Europe. This gives reason to believe that in ancient times, almost all of Europe was Rus'.
And Veles said:
Open the box of songs!
Unwind the ball!
For the time of silence is over
and it's time for words!
Songs of the bird Gamayun
...It's not scary to lie dead under bullets,
It's not bitter to be homeless,
And we will save you, Russian speech,
Great Russian word.
A. Akhmatova
No culture of a spiritually developed people can exist without mythology and writing. There is very little factual data about the time and conditions of the emergence and development of Slavic writing. The opinions of scientists on this issue are contradictory.
A number of scientists say that writing in Ancient Rus' appeared only when the first cities began to emerge and the Old Russian state began to form. It was with the establishment of a regular management hierarchy and trade in the 10th century that the need arose to regulate these processes through written documents. This point of view is very controversial, because there is a number of evidence that writing among the Eastern Slavs existed even before the adoption of Christianity, before the creation and spread of the Cyrillic alphabet, as evidenced by the mythology of the Slavs, chronicles, folk tales, epics and other sources.
Pre-Christian Slavic writing
There is a number of evidence and artifacts confirming that the Slavs were not a savage and barbaric people before the adoption of Christianity. In other words, they knew how to write. Pre-Christian writing existed among the Slavs. The Russian historian Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev (1686 - 1750) was the first to draw attention to this fact. Reflecting on the chronicler Nestor, who created “The Tale of Bygone Years,” V.N. Tatishchev claims that Nestor created them not from words and oral traditions, but based on pre-existing books and letters that he collected and organized. Nestor could not so reliably reproduce from words the Treaties with the Greeks, which were created 150 years before him. This suggests that Nestor relied on existing written sources that have not reached the present day.
The question arises, what was pre-Christian Slavic writing like? How did the Slavs write?
Runic writing (traits and cuts)
Slavic runes are a writing system that, according to some researchers, existed among the ancient Slavs before the baptism of Rus' and long before the creation of the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet. Also called the “damn and cut” letter. Nowadays, the hypothesis about the “runes of the Slavs” has support among supporters of non-traditional ( alternative) history, although there is still no significant evidence or refutation of the existence of such writing. The first arguments in favor of the existence of Slavic runic writing were put forward at the beginning of the last century; Some of the evidence presented then is now attributed to the Glagolitic alphabet, and not to the “pynitsa” alphabet, some turned out to be simply untenable, but a number of arguments remain valid to this day.
Thus, it is impossible to argue with the testimony of Thietmar, who, describing the Slavic temple of Retra, located in the lands of the Lutichians, points to the fact that the idols of this temple were inscribed with inscriptions made by “special” non-German runes. It would be completely absurd to assume that Thietmar, being an educated person, could not recognize the standard minor Scandinavian runes if the names of the gods on the idols were inscribed by them.
Massydi, describing one of the Slavic temples, mentions certain signs carved on stones. Ibn Fodlan, speaking about the Slavs at the end of the 1st millennium, points to the existence of grave inscriptions on pillars among them. Ibn El Hedim speaks about the existence of Slavic pre-Cyrillic writing and even gives in his treatise a drawing of an inscription carved on a piece of wood (the famous Nedimov inscription). The Czech song “The Court of Lyubysha,” preserved in a 9th-century copy, mentions “tables of truth” - laws written on wooden boards in some kind of writing.
Many archaeological data also indicate the existence of runic writing among the ancient Slavs. The oldest of them are the finds of ceramics with fragments of inscriptions belonging to the Chernyakhov archaeological culture, uniquely associated with the Slavs and dating back to the 1st-4th centuries AD. Already thirty years ago, the signs on these finds were identified as traces of writing. An example of “Chernyakhov” Slavic runic writing can be fragments of ceramics from excavations near the village of Lepesovka (southern Volyn) or a clay shard from Ripnev, belonging to the same Chernyakhov culture and probably representing a fragment of a vessel. The signs visible on the shard leave no doubt that this is an inscription. Unfortunately, the fragment is too small to make deciphering the inscription possible.
In general, the ceramics of the Chernyakhov culture provide very interesting, but too meager material for decoding. Thus, an extremely interesting Slavic clay vessel was discovered in 1967 during excavations near the village of Voiskovoe (on the Dnieper). An inscription containing 12 positions and using 6 characters is applied to its surface. The inscription cannot be translated or read, despite the fact that attempts to decipher it have been made. However, it should be noted that there is a certain similarity between the graphics of this inscription and the runic graphics. There are similarities, and not only similarities - half of the signs (three out of six) coincide with the Futhark runes (Scandinavia). These are the Dagaz, Gebo runes and a secondary version of the Ingyz rune - a rhombus placed on the top.
Another - later - group of evidence of the use of runic writing by the Slavs is formed by monuments associated with the Wends, the Baltic Slavs. Of these monuments, we will first of all point out the so-called Mikorzhinsky stones, discovered in 1771 in Poland.
Another - truly unique - monument of the "Baltic" Slavic pynik are the inscriptions on cult objects from the Slavic temple of Radegast in Retra, destroyed in the mid-11th century during the German conquest.
Runic alphabet.
Like the runes of the Scandinavian and continental Germans, the Slavic runes go back, apparently, to the North Italian (Alpine) alphabets. Several main variants of Alpine writing are known, which were owned, in addition to the northern Etruscans, by the Slavic and Celtic tribes living in the neighborhood. The question of exactly how the Italic script was brought to the late Slavic regions remains completely open at the moment, as well as the question of the mutual influence of the Slavic and Germanic pynics.
It should be noted that runic culture should be understood much more broadly than basic writing skills - it is a whole cultural layer, covering mythology, religion, and certain aspects of magical art. Already in Epyria and Venice (the lands of the Etruscans and Wends), the alphabet was treated as an object of divine origin and capable of exerting a magical effect. This is evidenced, for example, by finds in Etruscan burials of tablets listing alphabetic characters. This is the simplest type of runic magic, widespread in North-West Europe. Thus, speaking about the ancient Slavic runic writing, one cannot help but touch upon the question of the existence of the ancient Slavic runic culture as a whole. This culture was owned by the Slavs of pagan times; it was preserved, apparently, in the era of “dual faith” (the simultaneous existence of Christianity and paganism in Rus' - the 10th-16th centuries).
An excellent example is the widespread use of the Freyr-Inguz rune by the Slavs. Another example is one of the remarkable Vyatic temple rings of the 12th century. Signs are engraved on its blades - this is another rune. The third blades from the edges bear the image of the Algiz rune, and the central blade is a double image of the same rune. Like the Freyra rune, the Algiz rune first appeared as part of Futhark; it existed without changes for about a millennium and was included in all runic alphabets, except for the later Swedish-Norwegian ones, which were not used for magical purposes (around the 10th century). The image of this rune on the temporal ring is not accidental. Rune Algiz is a rune of protection, one of its magical properties is protection from other people's witchcraft and the evil will of others. The use of the Algiz rune by the Slavs and their ancestors has a very ancient history. In ancient times, the four Algiz runes were often connected so that a twelve-pointed cross was formed, which apparently had the same functions as the rune itself.
At the same time, it should be noted that such magical symbols can appear among different peoples and independently of each other. An example of this can be, for example, a bronze Mordovian plaque from the end of the 1st millennium AD. from the Armyevsky burial ground. One of the so-called non-alphabetic runic signs is the swastika, both four- and three-branched. Images of the swastika are found everywhere in the Slavic world, although not often. This is natural - the swastika, a symbol of fire and, in certain cases, fertility, is a sign too “powerful” and too significant for widespread use. Like the twelve-pointed cross, the swastika can also be found among the Sarmatians and Scythians.
Of extreme interest is the one-of-a-kind temporal ring, again Vyatic. Several different signs are engraved on its blades at once - this is a whole collection of symbols of ancient Slavic magic. The central blade bears a slightly modified Ingyz rune, the first petals from the center are an image that is not yet completely clear. On the second petals from the center there is a twelve-pointed cross, which is most likely a modification of the cross from the four Algiz runes. And finally, the outer petals bear the image of a swastika. Well, the master who worked on this ring created a powerful talisman.
World
The shape of the World rune is the image of the Tree of the World, the Universe. It also symbolizes the inner self of a person, the centripetal forces striving the World towards Order. In a magical sense, the World rune represents protection and patronage of the gods.
Chernobog
In contrast to the Peace rune, the Chernobog rune represents the forces pushing the world toward Chaos. The magical content of the rune: destruction of old connections, breakthrough of the magic circle, exit from any closed system.
Alatyr
The Alatyr rune is the rune of the center of the Universe, the rune of the beginning and end of all things. This is what the struggle between the forces of Order and Chaos revolves around; the stone that lies at the foundation of the World; This is the law of balance and returning to square one. The eternal circulation of events and their immovable center. The magical altar on which the sacrifice is performed is a reflection of the Alatyr stone. This is the sacred image that is contained in this rune.
Rainbow
Rune of the road, the endless path to Alatyr; a path determined by the unity and struggle of the forces of Order and Chaos, Water and Fire. A road is more than just movement in space and time. The road is a special state, equally different from vanity and peace; a state of movement between Order and Chaos. The Road has neither beginning nor end, but there is a source and there is a result... The ancient formula: “Do what you want, and come what may” could serve as the motto of this rune. The magical meaning of the rune: stabilization of movement, assistance in travel, favorable outcome of difficult situations.
Need
Rune Viy - the god of Navi, the Lower World. This is the rune of fate, which cannot be avoided, darkness, death. Rune of constraint, constraint and coercion. This is a magical prohibition on performing this or that action, and material constraints, and those bonds that fetter a person’s consciousness.
Steal
The Slavic word "Krada" means sacrificial fire. This is the rune of Fire, the rune of aspiration and embodiment of aspirations. But the embodiment of any plan is always the revelation of this plan to the World, and therefore the rune of Krad is also the rune of disclosure, the rune of the loss of the external, superficial - that which burns in the fire of sacrifice. The magical meaning of the Krada rune is purification; releasing intention; embodiment and implementation.
Treba
Rune of the Warrior of the Spirit. The meaning of the Slavic word “Treba” is sacrifice, without which the embodiment of intention on the Road is impossible. This is the sacred content of this rune. But sacrifice is not a simple gift to the gods; the idea of sacrifice implies sacrificing oneself.
Force
Strength is the asset of a Warrior. This is not only the ability to change the World and oneself in it, but also the ability to follow the Road, freedom from the shackles of consciousness. The Rune of Strength is at the same time the rune of unity, integrity, the achievement of which is one of the results of movement along the Road. And this is also the rune of Victory, for the Warrior of the Spirit gains Strength only by defeating himself, only by sacrificing his outer self for the sake of freeing his inner self. The magical meaning of this rune is directly related to its definitions as the rune of victory, the rune of power and the rune of integrity. The Rune of Strength can direct a person or situation towards Victory and gaining integrity, it can help clarify an unclear situation and push towards the right decision.
Eat
The rune of Life, mobility and natural variability of Existence, for immobility is dead. The Rune Is symbolizes renewal, movement, growth, Life itself. This rune represents those divine forces that make grass grow, the juices of the earth flow through tree trunks, and blood run faster in the spring in human veins. This is the rune of light and bright vitality and the natural desire for movement for all living things.
Wind
This is the rune of the Spirit, the rune of Knowledge and ascent to the top; rune of will and inspiration; an image of spiritualized magical Power associated with the element of air. At the level of magic, the Wind rune symbolizes Wind-Power, inspiration, and creative impulse.
Bereginya
Bereginya in the Slavic tradition is a female image associated with protection and motherhood. Therefore, the Beregini rune is the rune of the Mother Goddess, who is in charge of both earthly fertility and the destinies of all living things. The Mother Goddess gives life to souls who come to incarnate on Earth, and she takes life away when the time comes. Therefore, the Beregini rune can be called both the rune of Life and the rune of Death. This same rune is the rune of Fate.
Oud
In all branches of the Indo-European tradition, without exception, the symbol of the male penis (the Slavic word “Ud”) is associated with the fertile creative force that transforms Chaos. This fiery force was called Eros by the Greeks, and Yar by the Slavs. This is not only the power of love, but also a passion for life in general, a force that unites opposites, fertilizes the emptiness of Chaos.
Lelya
The rune is associated with the element of water, and specifically - Living, flowing water in springs and streams. In magic, the Lelya rune is the rune of intuition, Knowledge beyond Reason, as well as spring awakening and fertility, flowering and joy.
Rock
This is the rune of the transcendental unmanifested Spirit, which is the beginning and end of everything. In magic, the Doom rune can be used to dedicate an object or situation to the Unknowable.
Support
This is the rune of the foundations of the Universe, the rune of the gods. The support is a shamanic pole, or tree, along which the shaman travels to heaven.
Dazhdbog
The Dazhdbog rune symbolizes Good in every sense of the word: from material wealth to the joy that accompanies love. The most important attribute of this god is the cornucopia, or, in a more ancient form, a cauldron of inexhaustible goods. The flow of gifts flowing like an inexhaustible river is represented by the Dazhdbog rune. The rune means the gifts of the gods, the acquisition, receipt or addition of something, the emergence of new connections or acquaintances, well-being in general, as well as the successful completion of any business.
Perun
Rune of Perun - the thunder god who protects the worlds of gods and people from the onslaught of the forces of Chaos. Symbolizes power and vitality. The rune can mean the emergence of powerful, but heavy, forces that can move the situation from a dead point or give it additional energy for development. It also symbolizes personal power, but, in some negative situations, power not burdened by wisdom. This is also the direct protection provided by the gods from the forces of Chaos, from the destructive effects of mental, material or any other destructive forces.
Source
For a correct understanding of this rune, one should remember that Ice is one of the creative primordial elements, symbolizing Force at rest, potentiality, movement in stillness. The Rune of Source, the Rune of Ice means stagnation, a crisis in business or in the development of a situation. However, it should be remembered that the state of frozenness, lack of movement, contains the potential power of movement and development (signified by the rune Is) - just as movement contains the potential for stagnation and freezing.
Archaeologists have provided us with a lot of material for thought. Particularly interesting are the coins and some inscriptions found in the archaeological layer, which dates back to the reign of Prince Vladimir.
During excavations in Novgorod, wooden cylinders were found dating back to the years of the reign of Vladimir Svyatoslavich, the future baptist of Rus', in Novgorod (970-980). The inscriptions of economic content on the cylinders are made in Cyrillic, and the princely sign is cut in the form of a simple trident, which cannot be recognized as a ligature, but only as a totemic sign of property, which was modified from a simple bident on the seal of Prince Svyatoslav, Vladimir’s father, and retained the form of a trident for a number of subsequent princes. The princely sign acquired the appearance of a ligature on silver coins, coins issued according to the Byzantine model by Prince Vladimir after the baptism of Rus', that is, there was a complication of the initially simple symbol, which, as the ancestral sign of the Rurikovichs, could well have come from the Scandinavian rune. The same princely trident of Vladimir is found on the bricks of the Tithe Church in Kyiv, but its design is noticeably different from the image on the coins, which makes it clear that the fancy curls do not carry a different meaning? than just an ornament.
An attempt to discover and even reproduce the pre-Cyrillic alphabet was made by the scientist N.V. Engovatov in the early 60s, based on the study of mysterious signs found in Kirill's inscriptions on the coins of Russian princes of the 11th century. These inscriptions are usually built according to the scheme “Vladimir is on the table (throne) and all his silver” with only the name of the prince changing. Many coins have dashes and dots instead of missing letters.
Some researchers explained the appearance of these dashes and dots by the illiteracy of Russian engravers of the 11th century. However, the repetition of the same signs on the coins of different princes, often with the same sound meaning, made this explanation insufficiently convincing, and Engovatov, using the uniformity of the inscriptions and the repetition of mysterious signs in them, compiled a table indicating their supposed sound meaning; this meaning was determined by the place of the sign in the word written in Cyrillic letters.
Engovatov’s work was talked about on the pages of the scientific and mass press. However, opponents did not have to wait long. “Mysterious characters on Russian coins,” they said, “are either the result of the mutual influence of Cyrillic and Glagolitic styles, or the result of engravers’ mistakes.” They explained the repetition of the same signs on different coins, firstly, by the fact that the same stamp was used for minting many coins; secondly, by the fact that “insufficiently competent engravers repeated the errors that existed in the old stamps.”
Novgorod is rich in finds, where archaeologists often dig up birch bark tablets with inscriptions. The main, and at the same time the most controversial, are artistic monuments, so there is no consensus on the “Veles Book”.
The “Book of Woods” refers to texts written on 35 birch tablets and reflecting the history of Rus' over a millennium and a half, starting from approximately 650 BC. e. It was found in 1919 by Colonel Isenbek on the estate of the Kurakin princes near Orel. The tablets, badly damaged by time and worms, lay in disarray on the floor of the library. Many were crushed by soldiers' boots. Isenbek, who was interested in archeology, collected the tablets and never parted with them. After the end of the civil war, the “planks” ended up in Brussels. The writer Yu. Mirolyubov, who learned about them, discovered that the text of the chronicle was written in a completely unknown ancient Slavic language. It took 15 years to rewrite and transcribe. Later, foreign experts took part in the work - orientalist A. Kur from the USA and S. Lesnoy (Paramonov), who lived in Australia. The latter gave the tablets the name “Vles’s Book,” since in the text itself the work is called a book, and Veles is mentioned in some connection with it. But Lesnoy and Kur worked only with texts that Mirolyubov managed to copy, since after Isenbek’s death in 1943 the tablets disappeared.
Some scientists consider the “Vlesov Book” to be a fake, while such well-known experts on ancient Russian history as A. Artsikhovsky consider it quite likely that the “Vlesova Book” reflects genuine paganism; the past of the Slavs. A well-known specialist in ancient Russian literature, D. Zhukov, wrote in the April 1979 issue of the magazine “New World”: “The authenticity of the Book of Vles is questioned, and this all the more requires its publication in our country and a thorough, comprehensive analysis.”
Yu. Mirolyubov and S. Lesnoy basically managed to decipher the text of the “Vlesovaya Book”.
After completing the work and publishing the full text of the book, Mirolyubov writes articles: “Vlesova Book” - a chronicle of pagan priests of the 9th century, a new, unexplored historical source” and “Were the ancient “Russians” idolaters and did they make human sacrifices,” which he forwards to address of the Slavic Committee of the USSR, calling on Soviet specialists to recognize the importance of studying the Isenbek tablets. The parcel also contained the only surviving photograph of one of these tablets. Attached to it were the “deciphered” text of the tablet and a translation of this text.
The "deciphered" text sounded like this:
1. Vles book syu p(o)tshemo b(o)gu n(a)shemo u kiye bo natural pri-zitsa strength. 2. In the ony time (e)meny bya menzh yaki bya bl(a)g a d(o)closer b(ya) to (o)ts in r(u)si. 3. Otherwise<и)мщ жену и два дщере имаста он а ск(о)ти а краве и мн(о)га овны с. 4. она и бя той восы упех а 0(н)ищ(е) не имщ менж про дщ(е)р(е) сва так(о)моля. 5. Б(о)зи абы р(о)д егосе не пр(е)сеше а д(а)ж бо(г) услыша м(о)лбу ту а по м(о)лбе. 6. Даящ (е)му измлены ако бя ожещаы тая се бо гренде мезе ны...
The first person in our country to conduct a scientific study of the text of the tablet 28 years ago was L.P. Zhukovskaya is a linguist, paleographer and archaeographer, once the chief researcher at the Institute of the Russian Language of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Philology, author of many books. After a thorough study of the text, she came to the conclusion that the “Vlesova Book” is a fake due to the inconsistency of the language of this “book” with the norms of the Old Russian language. Indeed, the “Old Russian” text of the tablet does not stand up to any criticism. There are plenty of examples of the noted discrepancy, but I will limit myself to just one. Thus, the name of the pagan deity Veles, which gave the name to the named work, is exactly what it should look like in writing, since the peculiarity of the language of the ancient Eastern Slavs is that the combinations of sounds “O” and “E” before R and L in the position between consonants were successively replaced on ORO, OLO, EPE. Therefore, we have our own original words - CITY, SHORE, MILK, but at the same time, the words BREG, CHAPTER, MILKY, etc., which entered after the adoption of Christianity (988), were also preserved. And the correct name would not be “Vlesova”, but “Velesova Book”.
L.P. Zhukovskaya suggested that the tablet with the text is, apparently, one of A.I.’s forgeries. Sulukadzev, who bought ancient manuscripts from vetoshniks at the beginning of the 19th century. There is evidence that he had some beech planks that disappeared from the field of view of researchers. There is an indication about them in his catalog: “Patriarsi on 45 beech boards of Yagip Gan stink in Ladoga, 9th century.” It was said about Sulakadzev, famous for his falsifications, that in his forgeries he used “the wrong language out of ignorance of the right one, sometimes very wild.”
And yet, the participants of the Fifth International Congress of Slavists, held in 1963 in Sofia, became interested in the “Vlesova Book”. In the reports of the congress, a special article was dedicated to her, which caused a lively and sharp reaction in the circles of history buffs and a new series of articles in the mass press.
In 1970, in the magazine “Russian Speech” (No. 3), the poet I. Kobzev wrote about the “Vlesovaya Book” as an outstanding monument of writing; in 1976, on the pages of “The Week” (No. 18), journalists V. Skurlatov and N. Nikolaev made a detailed popularization article; in No. 33 of the same year, they were joined by the candidate of historical sciences V. Vilinbakhov and the famous researcher of epics, writer V. Starostin. Articles by D. Zhukov, the author of a story about the famous collector of ancient Russian literature V. Malyshev, were published in Novy Mir and Ogonyok. All these authors advocated recognition of the authenticity of the Book of Vles and presented their arguments in favor of this.
Knot letter
The signs of this writing were not written down, but were transmitted using knots tied on threads.
Knots were tied to the main thread of the narrative, constituting a word-concept (hence - “knots for memory”, “connect thoughts”, “connect word with word”, “speak confusingly”, “knot of problems”, “intricacy of the plot”, “plot” and “denouement” - about the beginning and end of the story).
One concept was separated from another by a red thread (hence - “write from a red line”). An important idea was also knitted with a red thread (hence - “runs like a red thread through the entire narrative”). The thread was wound into a ball (hence, “thoughts got tangled”). These balls were stored in special birch bark boxes (hence - “talk to three boxes”).
The proverb has also been preserved: “What she knew, she said, and strung on a thread.” Do you remember in fairy tales, Tsarevich Ivan, before going on a journey, receives a ball from Baba Yaga? This is not a simple ball, but an ancient guide. As he unwound it, he read the knotted notes and learned how to get to the right place.
The knotted letter is mentioned in the “Source of Life” (Second Message): “Echoes of battles penetrated the world that was inhabited on Midgard-earth. At the very border there was that land and the Race of pure light lived on it. Memory has preserved many times, tying into knots the thread of past battles.”
The sacred knot script is also mentioned in the Karelian-Finnish epic “Kalevala”:
“The rain brought me songs.
The wind inspired me to sing.
The sea waves brought...
I rolled them into one ball,
And I tied a bunch into one...
And in the barn under the rafters
He hid them in a copper casket.”
In the recording of Elias Lönnrot, the collector of the Kalevala, there are even more interesting lines that he recorded from the famous rune singer Arhipp Ivanov-Pertunen (1769 - 1841). Rune singers sang them as a beginning before performing the Runes:
“Here I am untying the knot.
Here I am dissolving the ball.
I will sing a song from the best,
I will perform the most beautiful..."
Maybe, ancient Slavs had balls with knotted writings containing geographical information, balls of myths and religious pagan hymns, spells. These balls were stored in special birch bark boxes (is this where the expression “three boxes lie” comes from, which could have arisen at a time when myths stored in balls in such boxes were perceived as a pagan heresy?). When reading, threads with knots most likely “wound around the mustache” - it may very well be that these are devices for reading.
The period of written, priestly culture apparently began among the Slavs long before the adoption of Christianity. For example, the tale of Baba Yaga's ball takes us back to the times of matriarchy. Baba Yaga, according to the famous scientist V. Ya. Propp, is a typical pagan priestess. Perhaps she is also the keeper of the "library of tangles."
In ancient times, knotted writing was quite widespread. This is confirmed by archaeological finds. On many objects recovered from burials of pagan times, asymmetrical images of knots are visible, which, in my opinion, served not only for decoration (see, for example, Fig. 2). The complexity of these images, reminiscent of the hieroglyphic writing of eastern peoples, makes it reasonable to conclude that they could also be used to convey words.
Each hieroglyph node had its own word. With the help of additional knots, additional information about him was communicated, for example, his number, part of speech, etc. Of course, this is only an assumption, but even if our neighbors, the Karelians and Finns, had knot writing, then why couldn’t the Slavs have it? Let's not forget that Finns, Ugrians and Slavs have lived together since ancient times in the northern regions of Russia.
Traces of writing.
Are there any traces left knot writing? Often in the works of Christian times there are illustrations with images of complex weaves, probably redrawn from objects of the pagan era. The artist who depicted these patterns, according to the historian N.K. Goleizovsky, followed the rule that existed at that time, along with Christian symbolism, to use pagan symbols (for the same purpose as defeated snakes, devils, etc. are depicted on icons).
Traces of knotted writing can also be found on the walls of churches built in the era of “dual faith,” when Christian churches were decorated not only with the faces of saints, but also with pagan patterns. Although the language has changed since then, an attempt can be made (with some degree of certainty, of course) to decipher some of these signs.
For example, a frequently encountered image of a simple loop - a circle (Fig. 1a) is supposedly deciphered as a sign of the supreme Slavic god - Rod, who gave birth to the Universe, nature, gods, for the reason that it corresponds to the circle of a picture, i.e. pictographic, letter (that , what Brave called features and cuts). In pictographic writing this sign is interpreted in a broader sense; Genus - as a tribe, group, woman, organ of birth, verb to give birth, etc. The symbol of Rod - a circle is the basis for many other hieroglyphic nodes. He is able to give words sacred meaning.
A circle with a cross (Fig. 1b) is a solar symbol, a sign of the Sun and the god of the solar disk - Khors. This interpretation of this symbol can be found among many historians.
What was the symbol of the solar god - Dazhbog? His sign should be more complex, since he is the god not only of the solar disk, but also of the entire Universe, he is the giver of blessings, the progenitor of the Russian people (in "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" Russians are called the grandchildren of Dazhbog).
After research by B. A. Rybakov, it became clear that Dazhbog (like his Indo-European “relative” - the solar god Apollo) rode across the sky in a chariot harnessed to swans or other mythical birds (sometimes winged horses), and carried the Sun. Now let’s compare the sculpture of the solar god of the Western Proto-Slavs from Duplyan (Fig. 2b) and the drawing on the headpiece from the Simonov Psalter of the 13th century (Fig. 2a). Isn’t it depicted the symbol of Dazhbog in the form of a loop-circle with a lattice (Fig. 1c)?
Since the time of the first Eneolithic pictographic records, the grid has usually denoted a plowed field, a plowman, as well as wealth and grace. Our ancestors were plowmen, they also worshiped the Family - this could have caused the combination of the symbols of the field and the Family in a single symbol of Dazhbog.
Solar animals and birds - Leo, Griffin, Alkonost, etc. - were depicted with solar symbols (Fig. 2c-d). In Figure 2d you can see an image of a mythical bird with solar symbols. Two solar symbols, by analogy with cart wheels, could mean a solar chariot. In the same way, many peoples depicted a chariot using pictorial, i.e., pictographic, writing. This chariot rolled across the firm vault of heaven, behind which the heavenly waters were stored. The symbol of water - a wavy line - is also present in this picture: this is a deliberately elongated crest of the bird and a continuation of the thread with knots.
Pay attention to the symbolic tree depicted between the birds of paradise (Fig. 2e), either with or without a loop. If we consider that the loop is a symbol of the Family - the Parent of the Universe, then the tree hieroglyph, together with this symbol, acquires a deeper meaning of the world tree (Fig. 1d-e).
A slightly complicated solar symbol, in which a broken line was drawn instead of a circle, according to B. A. Rybakov, acquired the meaning of a “thunder wheel,” a sign of the thunder god Perun (Fig. 2g). Apparently, the Slavs believed that thunder comes from the roar produced by a chariot with such “thunder wheels”, on which Perun rides across the sky.
Knot entry from "Prologue".
Let's try to decipher more complex knotted letters. For example, in the 1400 manuscript “Prologue” a drawing is preserved, the origin of which is obviously more ancient, pagan (Fig. Za).
But until now this design was mistaken for an ordinary ornament. The style of such drawings by the famous scientist of the last century F.I. Buslaev was called teratological (from the Greek word teras - monster). Drawings of this kind depicted intertwined snakes, monsters, and people. Teratological ornaments were compared with the design of initial letters in Byzantine manuscripts, and attempts were made to interpret their symbolism in different ways. The historian N.K. Goleizovsky [in the book “Ancient Novgorod” (M., 1983, p. 197)] found something in common between the drawings from the “Prologue” and the image of the world tree.
It seems to me more likely to look for the origins of the composition of the drawing (but not the semantic meaning of individual nodes) not in Byzantium, but in the West. Let's compare the drawing from the Novgorod manuscript of the "Prologue" and the image on the rune stones of the ancient Vikings of the 9th-10th centuries (Fig. Zv). The runic inscription on this stone itself does not matter; it is an ordinary tombstone inscription. But under a similar similar stone there is buried a certain “good warrior Smid”, whose brother (apparently a famous person at that time, since he was mentioned in the tombstone) - Halfind “lives in Gardarik”, i.e. in Rus'. As is known, a large number of immigrants from the western lands lived in Novgorod: descendants of the Obodrites, as well as descendants of the Viking Normans. Was it not a descendant of the Viking Halfind who subsequently painted the Prologue title card?
However, the ancient Novgorodians could have borrowed the composition of the drawing from the “Prologue” not from the Normans. Images of intertwined snakes, people, and animals can be found, for example, in the headpieces of ancient Irish manuscripts (Fig. 3g). Perhaps all these ornaments have a much more ancient origin. Were they borrowed from the Celts, to whose culture the culture of many northern European peoples goes back, or were similar images known earlier, during the Indo-European unity? We don't know this.
Western influence in Novgorod ornaments is obvious. But since they were created on Slavic soil, they may have preserved traces of ancient Slavic knotted writing. Let us analyze the ornaments from this point of view.
What do we see in the picture? Firstly, the main thread (indicated by an arrow), on which hieroglyphic knots seem to be hung. Secondly, a certain character who grabbed two snakes or dragons by the neck. Above it and on its sides are three complex knots. Simple figure-eight knots are also distinguished between complex knots, which can be interpreted as hieroglyph separators.
The easiest to read is the top hieroglyph node, located between the two figure-of-eight separators. If you remove the snake fighter from the drawing, then the top node should simply hang in its place. Apparently, the meaning of this knot is identical to the snake-fighting god depicted underneath it.
What god does the picture represent? The one who fought with snakes. Well-known scientists V.V. Ivanov and V.N. Toporov [authors of the book “Research in the Field of Slavic Antiquities” (M., 1974)] showed that Perun, like his “relatives” the thunder gods Zeus and Indra, was a snake fighter. The image of Dazhbog, according to B. A. Rybakov, is close to the image of the snake fighter Apollo. And the image of Svarozhich Fire is obviously close to the image of the Indian god who conquered rakshasas and snakes - the personification of fire Agni. Other Slavic gods apparently do not have “relatives” who are snake fighters. Consequently, the choice should be made between Perun, Dazhbog and Svarozhich Fire.
But we do not see in the figure either the thunder sign we have already considered, or the solar symbol (which means that neither Perun nor Dazhbog are suitable). But we see symbolically depicted tridents in the corners of the frame. This sign resembles the well-known tribal sign of the Russian Rurik princes (Fig. 3b). As research by archaeologists and historians has shown, the trident is a stylized image of the falcon Rarog, folded its wings. Even the name of the legendary founder of the dynasty of Russian princes, Rurik, comes from the name of the totem bird of the Western Slavs, Rarog. The origin of the Rurikovich coat of arms is described in detail in the article by A. Nikitin. The Rarog bird in the legends of the Western Slavs appears as a fiery bird. In essence, this bird is the personification of flame, the trident is a symbol of Rarog-Fire, and therefore of the god of fire - Svarozhich.
So, with a high degree of confidence we can assume that the screensaver from the “Prologue” depicts symbols of fire and the god of fire Svarozhich himself - the son of the heavenly god Svarog, who was a mediator between people and gods. People trusted Svarozhich with their requests during fire sacrifices. Svarozhich was the personification of Fire and, of course, fought with water snakes, like the Indian god of fire Agni. The Vedic god Agni is related to Svarozhich Fire, since the source of the beliefs of the ancient Indian-Aryans and Slavs is the same.
The upper node-hieroglyph means fire, as well as the god of fire Svarozhich (Fig. 1e).
The groups of nodes to the right and left of Svarozhich are deciphered only approximately. The left hieroglyph resembles the Rod symbol tied on the left, and the right one resembles the Rod symbol tied on the right (Fig. 1 g - i). The changes could have been caused by inaccurate rendering of the initial image. These nodes are almost symmetrical. It is quite possible that the hieroglyphs of the earth and sky were previously depicted this way. After all, Svarozhich is a mediator between the earth - people, and the gods - heaven.
Knot-hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Slavs, apparently, was very complex. We have considered only the simplest examples of hieroglyphs-knots. In the past, it was accessible only to a select few: priests and high nobility - it was a sacred letter. The bulk of the people remained illiterate. This explains the oblivion of knotted writing as Christianity spread and paganism faded. Along with the pagan priests, the knowledge accumulated over millennia, written down - “tied” - in knotted writing, also perished. The knotted writing of that era could not compete with the simpler writing system based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
Cyril and Methodius - the official version of the creation of the alphabet.
In official sources where Slavic writing is mentioned, Cyril and Methodius are presented as its only creators. The lessons of Cyril and Methodius were aimed not only at creating the alphabet, as such, but also at a deeper understanding of Christianity by the Slavic peoples, because if the service is read in their native language, it is understood much better. In the works of Chernorizets Khrabra it is noted that after the baptism of the Slavs, before After the Slavic alphabet of Cyril and Methodius was created, people wrote down Slavic speech in Latin or Greek letters, but this did not give a complete reflection of the language, since Greek does not have many sounds that are present in Slavic languages. Services in the Slavic countries that accepted baptism were held in Latin, which led to increased influence of German priests, and the Byzantine Church was interested in reducing this influence. When an embassy from Moravia headed by Prince Rostislav arrived in Byzantium in 860, the Byzantine Emperor Michael III decided that Cyril and Methodius should create Slavic letters with which sacred texts would be written. If Slavic writing is created, Cyril and Methodius will help the Slavic states gain independence from German church authority. In addition, this will bring them closer to Byzantium.
Constantine (consecrated Cyril) and Methodius (his secular name is unknown) are two brothers who stood at the origins of the Slavic alphabet. They came from the Greek city of Thessaloniki (its modern name is Thessaloniki) in northern Greece. The southern Slavs lived in the neighborhood, and for the inhabitants of Thessalonica, the Slavic language apparently became the second language of communication.
The brothers received world fame and gratitude from their descendants for the creation of the Slavic alphabet and translations of sacred books into Slavic. A huge work that played an epoch-making role in the formation of Slavic peoples.
However, many researchers believe that work began on the creation of a Slavic script in Byzantium, long before the arrival of the Moravian embassy. Creating an alphabet that accurately reflects the sound composition of the Slavic language, and translating the Gospel into the Slavic language - a complex, multi-layered, internally rhythmic literary work - is a colossal work. To complete this work, even Constantine the Philosopher and his brother Methodius “with his henchmen” would have taken more than one year. Therefore, it is natural to assume that it was precisely this work that the brothers performed back in the 50s of the 9th century in a monastery on Olympus (in Asia Minor on the coast of the Sea of Marmara), where, as the Life of Constantine reports, they constantly prayed to God, “practicing only books."
Already in 864, Constantine and Methodius were received with great honors in Moravia. They brought the Slavic alphabet and the Gospel translated into Slavic. Students were assigned to help the brothers and teach them. “And soon (Constantine) translated the entire church rite and taught them matins, and the hours, and mass, and vespers, and compline, and secret prayer.” The brothers stayed in Moravia for more than three years. The philosopher, already suffering from a serious illness, 50 days before his death, “put on the holy monastic image and... gave himself the name Cyril...”. He died and was buried in Rome in 869.
The eldest of the brothers, Methodius, continued the work he had begun. As “The Life of Methodius” reports, “...having appointed cursive writers from his two priests as disciples, he translated incredibly quickly (in six or eight months) and completely all the books (biblical), except the Maccabees, from Greek into Slavic.” Methodius died in 885.
The appearance of sacred books in the Slavic language had a powerful resonance. All known medieval sources that responded to this event report how “certain people began to blaspheme Slavic books,” arguing that “no people should have their own alphabet, except the Jews, Greeks and Latins.” Even the Pope intervened in the dispute, grateful to the brothers who brought the relics of St. Clement to Rome. Although the translation into the uncanonized Slavic language was contrary to the principles of the Latin Church, the pope nevertheless condemned the detractors, allegedly saying, quoting Scripture, this way: “Let all nations praise God.”
Not one Slavic alphabet has survived to this day, but two: Glagolitic and Cyrillic. Both existed in the 9th-10th centuries. In them, to convey sounds reflecting the features of the Slavic language, special characters were introduced, and not combinations of two or three main ones, as was practiced in the alphabets of Western European peoples. Glagolitic and Cyrillic almost have the same letters. The order of the letters is also almost the same.
As in the very first such alphabet - the Phoenician, and then in Greek, Slavic letters were also given names. And they are the same in Glagolitic and Cyrillic. According to the first two letters of the alphabet, as is known, the name “alphabet” was compiled. Literally it is the same as the Greek “alphabeta”, that is, “alphabet”.
The third letter is “B” - lead (from “to know”, “to know”). It seems that the author chose the names for the letters in the alphabet with meaning: if you read the first three letters of “az-buki-vedi” in a row, it turns out: “I know the letters.” In both alphabets, letters also had numerical values assigned to them.
The letters in the Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabet had completely different shapes. Cyrillic letters are geometrically simple and easy to write. The 24 letters of this alphabet are borrowed from the Byzantine charter letter. Letters were added to them, conveying the sound features of Slavic speech. The added letters were constructed in such a way as to maintain the general style of the alphabet. For the Russian language, it was the Cyrillic alphabet that was used, transformed many times and now established in accordance with the requirements of our time. The oldest record made in Cyrillic was found on Russian monuments dating back to the 10th century.
But the Glagolitic letters are incredibly intricate, with curls and loops. There are more ancient texts written in the Glagolitic alphabet among the Western and Southern Slavs. Oddly enough, sometimes both alphabets were used on the same monument. On the ruins of the Simeon Church in Preslav (Bulgaria) an inscription dating back to approximately 893 was found. In it, the top line is in Glagolitic alphabet, and the two lower lines are in Cyrillic alphabet. The inevitable question is: which of the two alphabets did Constantine create? Unfortunately, it was not possible to definitively answer it.
1. Glagolitic (X-XI centuries)
We can only judge tentatively about the oldest form of the Glagolitic alphabet, because the monuments of the Glagolitic alphabet that have reached us are no older than the end of the 10th century. Peering at the Glagolitic alphabet, we notice that the shapes of its letters are very intricate. Signs are often built from two parts, located as if on top of each other. This phenomenon is also noticeable in the more decorative design of the Cyrillic alphabet. There are almost no simple round shapes. They are all connected by straight lines. Only single letters correspond to the modern form (w, y, m, h, e). Based on the shape of the letters, two types of Glagolitic alphabet can be noted. In the first of them, the so-called Bulgarian Glagolitic, the letters are rounded, and in the Croatian, also called Illyrian or Dalmatian Glagolitic, the shape of the letters is angular. Neither type of Glagolitic alphabet has sharply defined boundaries of distribution. In its later development, the Glagolitic alphabet adopted many characters from the Cyrillic alphabet. The Glagolitic alphabet of the Western Slavs (Czechs, Poles and others) lasted relatively short-lived and was replaced by the Latin script, and the rest of the Slavs later switched to a Cyrillic-type script. But the Glagolitic alphabet has not completely disappeared to this day. Thus, it was used before the start of the Second World War in the Croatian settlements of Italy. Even newspapers were printed in this font.
2. Charter (Cyrillic 11th century)
The origin of the Cyrillic alphabet is also not completely clear. There are 43 letters in the Cyrillic alphabet. Of these, 24 were borrowed from the Byzantine charter letter, the remaining 19 were reinvented, but in graphic design they are similar to the Byzantine ones. Not all borrowed letters retained the designation of the same sound as in the Greek language; some received new meanings in accordance with the peculiarities of Slavic phonetics. Of the Slavic peoples, the Bulgarians preserved the Cyrillic alphabet the longest, but at present their writing, like the writing of the Serbs, is similar to Russian, with the exception of some signs intended to indicate phonetic features. The oldest form of the Cyrillic alphabet is called ustav. A distinctive feature of the charter is the sufficient clarity and straightforwardness of the outline. Most of the letters are angular, broad and heavy in nature. Exceptions are narrow rounded letters with almond-shaped curves (O, S, E, R, etc.), among other letters they seem to be compressed. This letter is characterized by thin lower extensions of some letters (P, U, 3). We see these extensions in other types of Cyrillic. They act as light decorative elements in the overall picture of the letter. Diacritics are not yet known. The letters of the charter are large in size and stand separately from each other. The old charter does not know spaces between words.
Ustav - the main liturgical font - clear, straight, harmonious, is the basis of all Slavic writing. These are the epithets with which V.N. describes the charter letter. Shchepkin: “The Slavic charter, like its source - the Byzantine charter, is a slow and solemn letter; it aims at beauty, correctness, church splendor.” It is difficult to add anything to such a capacious and poetic definition. The statutory letter was formed during the period of liturgical writing, when rewriting a book was a godly, unhurried task, taking place mainly behind the monastery walls, far from the bustle of the world.
The greatest discovery of the 20th century - Novgorod birch bark letters indicate that writing in Cyrillic was a common element of Russian medieval life and was owned by various segments of the population: from princely-boyars and church circles to simple artisans. The amazing property of the Novgorod soil helped preserve birch bark and texts that were not written with ink, but were scratched with a special “writing” - a pointed rod made of bone, metal or wood. Such tools in large quantities were found even earlier during excavations in Kyiv, Pskov, Chernigov, Smolensk, Ryazan and at many ancient settlements. The famous researcher B. A. Rybakov wrote: “A significant difference between Russian culture and the culture of most countries of the East and West is the use of the native language. The Arabic language for many non-Arab countries and the Latin language for a number of Western European countries were alien languages, the monopoly of which led to the fact that the popular language of the states of that era is almost unknown to us. The Russian literary language was used everywhere - in office work, diplomatic correspondence, private letters, in fiction and scientific literature. The unity of the national and state languages was a great cultural advantage of Rus' over the Slavic and Germanic countries, in which the Latin state language dominated. Such widespread literacy was impossible there, since to be literate meant knowing Latin. For Russian townspeople, it was enough to know the alphabet in order to immediately express their thoughts in writing; This explains the widespread use in Rus' of writing on birch bark and on “boards” (obviously waxed).”
3. Half-statut (XIV century)
Starting from the 14th century, a second type of writing developed - semi-ustav, which subsequently replaced the charter. This type of writing is lighter and more rounded than the charter, the letters are smaller, there are a lot of superscripts, and a whole system of punctuation marks has been developed. The letters are more mobile and sweeping than in the statutory letter, and with many lower and upper extensions. The technique of writing with a broad-nib pen, which was strongly evident when writing with the rules, is noticeable much less. The contrast of strokes is less, the pen is sharpened sharper. They use exclusively goose feathers (previously they used mainly reed feathers). Under the influence of the stabilized position of the pen, the rhythm of the lines improved. The letter takes on a noticeable slant, each letter seems to help the overall rhythmic direction to the right. Serifs are rare; the end elements of a number of letters are decorated with strokes equal in thickness to the main ones. The semi-statut existed as long as the handwritten book lived. It also served as the basis for the fonts of early printed books. Poluustav was used in the 14th-18th centuries along with other types of writing, mainly cursive and ligature. It was much easier to write half-tired. The feudal fragmentation of the country caused in remote areas the development of their own language and their own semi-rut style. The main place in the manuscripts is occupied by the genres of military stories and chronicles, which best reflected the events experienced by the Russian people in that era.
The emergence of semi-usta was predetermined mainly by three main trends in the development of writing:
The first of them is the emergence of a need for non-liturgical writing, and as a consequence the emergence of scribes working to order and for sale. The writing process becomes faster and easier. The master is more guided by the principle of convenience rather than beauty. V.N. Shchepkin describes the semi-ustav as follows: “... smaller and simpler than the charter and has significantly more abbreviations;... it can be inclined - towards the beginning or end of the line, ... straight lines allow some curvature, rounded ones do not represent a regular arc.” The process of dissemination and improvement of the semi-ustav leads to the fact that the ustav is gradually being replaced even from liturgical monuments by the calligraphic semi-ustav, which is nothing more than a semi-ustav written more accurately and with fewer abbreviations. The second reason is the need of monasteries for inexpensive manuscripts. Delicately and modestly decorated, usually written on paper, they contained mainly ascetic and monastic writings. The third reason is the appearance during this period of voluminous collections, a kind of “encyclopedia about everything.” They were quite thick in volume, sometimes sewn and assembled from various notebooks. Chroniclers, chronographs, walks, polemical works against the Latins, articles on secular and canon law, side by side with notes on geography, astronomy, medicine, zoology, mathematics. Collections of this kind were written quickly, not very carefully, and by different scribes.
Cursive writing (XV-XVII centuries)
In the 15th century, under the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III, when the unification of Russian lands ended and the national Russian state was created with a new, autocratic political system, Moscow turned not only into the political, but also the cultural center of the country. The previously regional culture of Moscow begins to acquire the character of an all-Russian one. Along with the increasing demands of everyday life, the need arose for a new, simplified, more convenient writing style. Cursive writing became it. Cursive writing roughly corresponds to the concept of Latin italic. The ancient Greeks used cursive writing in wide use at the early stage of the development of writing, and it was also partially used by the southwestern Slavs. In Russia, cursive writing as an independent type of writing arose in the 15th century. Cursive letters, partially related to each other, differ from letters of other types of writing in their light style. But since the letters were equipped with many different symbols, hooks and additions, it was quite difficult to read what was written. Although the cursive writing of the 15th century still reflects the character of the semi-ustav and there are few strokes connecting the letters, but in comparison with the semi-ustav this letter is more fluent. Cursive letters were largely made with extensions. At first, the signs were composed mainly of straight lines, as is typical for the charter and semi-charter. In the second half of the 16th century, and especially at the beginning of the 17th century, semicircular strokes became the main lines of writing, and in the overall picture of writing we see some elements of Greek italics. In the second half of the 17th century, when many different writing options spread, cursive writing showed features characteristic of that time - less ligature and more roundness.
If semi-ustav in the 15th-18th centuries was mainly used only in book writing, then cursive writing penetrates into all areas. It turned out to be one of the most flexible types of Cyrillic writing. In the 17th century, cursive writing, distinguished by its special calligraphy and elegance, turned into an independent type of writing with its inherent features: the roundness of the letters, the smoothness of their outline, and most importantly, the ability for further development.
Already at the end of the 17th century, such forms of letters “a, b, c, e, z, i, t, o, s” were formed, which subsequently underwent almost no changes.
At the end of the century, the round outlines of the letters became even more smooth and decorative. The cursive writing of that time is gradually freed from the elements of Greek italics and moves away from the forms of semi-character. In the later period, straight and curved lines acquired balance, and letters became more symmetrical and rounded. At the time when the half-rut is transformed into a civil letter, cursive writing also follows a corresponding path of development, as a result of which it can later be called civil cursive writing. The development of cursive writing in the 17th century predetermined Peter's alphabet reform.
Elm.
One of the most interesting directions in the decorative use of the Slavic charter is ligature. According to the definition of V.N. Shchepkina: “Elm is the name given to Kirill’s decorative script, which aims to link a line into a continuous and uniform pattern. This goal is achieved by various kinds of abbreviations and embellishments.” The script writing system was borrowed by the southern Slavs from Byzantium, but much later than the emergence of Slavic writing and therefore it is not found in early monuments. The first precisely dated monuments of South Slavic origin date back to the first half of the 13th century, and among the Russians - to the end of the 14th century. And it was on Russian soil that the art of ligature reached such a flourishing that it can rightfully be considered a unique contribution of Russian art to world culture.
Two circumstances contributed to this phenomenon:
1. The main technical method of ligature is the so-called mast ligature. That is, two vertical lines of two adjacent letters are connected into one. And if the Greek alphabet has 24 characters, of which only 12 have masts, which in practice allows no more than 40 two-digit combinations, then the Cyrillic alphabet has 26 characters with masts, of which about 450 commonly used combinations were made.
2. The spread of ligature coincided with the period when weak semivowels: ъ and ь began to disappear from Slavic languages. This led to the contact of a variety of consonants, which were very conveniently combined with mast ligatures.
3. Due to its decorative appeal, ligature has become widespread. It was used to decorate frescoes, icons, bells, metal utensils, and was used in sewing, on tombstones, etc.
In parallel with the change in the form of the statutory letter, another form of font is developing - drop cap (initial). The technique of highlighting the initial letters of particularly important text fragments, borrowed from Byzantium, underwent significant changes among the southern Slavs.
The initial letter - in a handwritten book, accentuated the beginning of a chapter, and then a paragraph. By the nature of the decorative appearance of the initial letter, we can determine the time and style. There are four main periods in the ornamentation of headpieces and capital letters of Russian manuscripts. The early period (XI-XII centuries) is characterized by the predominance of the Byzantine style. In the 13th-14th centuries, the so-called teratological, or “animal” style was observed, the ornament of which consists of figures of monsters, snakes, birds, animals intertwined with belts, tails and knots. The 15th century is characterized by South Slavic influence, the ornament becomes geometric and consists of circles and lattices. Influenced by the European style of the Renaissance, in the ornaments of the 16th-17th centuries we see writhing leaves intertwined with large flower buds. Given the strict canon of the statutory letter, it was the initial letter that gave the artist the opportunity to express his imagination, humor, and mystical symbolism. An initial letter in a handwritten book is a mandatory decoration on the initial page of the book.
The Slavic manner of drawing initials and headpieces - the teratological style (from the Greek teras - monster and logos - teaching; monstrous style - a variant of the animal style, - the image of fantastic and real stylized animals in ornaments and on decorative items) - originally developed among the Bulgarians in the XII - XIII century, and from the beginning of the XIII century began to move to Russia. “A typical teratological initial represents a bird or animal (quadruped) throwing out leaves from its mouth and entangled in a web emanating from its tail (or in a bird, also from its wing).” In addition to the unusually expressive graphic design, the initials had a rich color scheme. But polychrome, which is a characteristic feature of the book-written ornament of the 14th century, in addition to its artistic significance, also had practical significance. Often the complex design of a hand-drawn letter with its numerous purely decorative elements obscured the main outline of the written sign. And to quickly recognize it in the text, color highlighting was required. Moreover, by the color of the highlight, you can approximately determine the place of creation of the manuscript. Thus, the Novgorodians preferred a blue background, and the Pskov masters preferred a green one. A light green background was also used in Moscow, but sometimes with the addition of blue tones.
Another element of decoration for a handwritten and subsequently printed book is the headpiece - nothing more than two teratological initials, located symmetrically opposite each other, framed by a frame, with wicker knots at the corners.
Thus, in the hands of Russian masters, ordinary letters of the Cyrillic alphabet were transformed into a wide variety of decorative elements, introducing an individual creative spirit and national flavor into the books. In the 17th century, semi-statut, having passed from church books to office work, was transformed into civil writing, and its italic version - cursive - into civil cursive.
At this time, books of writing samples appeared - “The ABC of the Slavic Language...” (1653), primers by Karion Istomin (1694-1696) with magnificent samples of letters of various styles: from luxurious initials to simple cursive letters. By the beginning of the 18th century, Russian writing was already very different from previous types of writing. The reform of the alphabet and typeface carried out by Peter I at the beginning of the 18th century contributed to the spread of literacy and enlightenment. All secular literature, scientific and government publications began to be printed in the new civil font. In shape, proportions and style, the civil font was close to the ancient serif. The identical proportions of most letters gave the font a calm character. Its readability has improved significantly. The shapes of the letters - B, U, L, Ъ, "YAT", which were larger in height than other capital letters, are a characteristic feature of the Peter the Great font. The Latin forms “S” and “i” began to be used.
Subsequently, the development process was aimed at improving the alphabet and font. In the middle of the 18th century, the letters “zelo”, “xi”, “psi” were abolished, and the letter “e” was introduced instead of “i o”. New font designs with greater contrast of strokes appeared, the so-called transitional type (fonts from the printing houses of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and Moscow University). The end of the 18th - first half of the 19th century was marked by the appearance of classicist type fonts (Bodoni, Didot, printing houses of Selivanovsky, Semyon, Revillon).
Starting from the 19th century, the graphics of Russian fonts developed in parallel with Latin ones, absorbing everything new that arose in both writing systems. In the field of ordinary writing, Russian letters received the form of Latin calligraphy. Designed in “copybooks” with a pointed pen, Russian calligraphic writing of the 19th century was a true masterpiece of handwritten art. The letters of calligraphy were significantly differentiated, simplified, acquired beautiful proportions, and a rhythmic structure natural to the pen. Among the hand-drawn and typographic fonts, Russian modifications of grotesque (chopped), Egyptian (slab) and decorative fonts appeared. Along with Latin, Russian font at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries also experienced a decadent period - the Art Nouveau style.
Literature:
1. Florya B.N. Tales about the beginning of Slavic writing. St. Petersburg, 2000.
2. V.P. Gribkovsky, article “Did the Slavs have writing before Cyril and Methodius?”
3. “The Tale of Writings”, translation into modern Russian by Viktor Deryagin, 1989.
4. Grinevich G. “How many thousands of years are Slavic writing?”, 1993.
5. Grinevich G. “Proto-Slavic writing. Decryption results", 1993, 1999.
6. Platov A., Taranov N. “Runes of the Slavs and the Glagolitic alphabet.”
7. Ivanova V.F. Modern Russian language. Graphics and spelling, 2nd edition, 1986.
8. I.V. Yagich Question about runes among the Slavs // Encyclopedia of Slavic Philology. Publication of the Department of Russian Language and Literature. Imp. Academician Sci. Issue 3: Graphics among the Slavs. St. Petersburg, 1911.
9. A.V.Platov. Cult images from the temple in Retra // Myths and magic of the Indo-Europeans, issue 2, 1996.
10. A. G. Masch. Die Gottesdienstlichen Alferfhnmer der Obotriten, aus dem Tempel zu Rhetra. Berlin, 1771.
11. For more details see: A.V.Platov. Monuments of the runic art of the Slavs // Myths and magic of the Indo-Europeans, issue 6, 1997.
§ 3. “Characters and cuts” of the most ancient Russians
One of the most important questions related to the ancient period of the history of our distant ancestors is the question of the existence of writing among the Slavs during the pagan period. Without his final decision, our knowledge of ancient Rus' will remain incomplete.
Already V.N. Tatishchev was deeply convinced that “the Slavs long before Christ and the Slavic-Russians actually had a letter before Vladimir.” Of the Soviet scientists, L.V. was the first to address this problem. Cherepnin, who came to the conclusion that the Eastern Slavs, long before the adoption of Christianity, “used some kind of written signs.” P.Ya. Chernykh, summarizing the facts accumulated by science by the middle of the twentieth century, formulated a fundamentally important conclusion: “Thus, we can assume that the Eastern Slavs knew how to write from ancient times. We can talk about a continuous (since prehistoric era) written tradition on the territory of ancient Rus'.” The Bulgarian scientist E. Georgiev drew attention to the fact that such words as “letter”, “write”, “read”, “book” and some similar ones are common to all Slavic languages, which indicates their antiquity and confirms the ability of the Slavs to read and write “a very long time ago, even before living an independent life in the newly created Slavic powers.”
On the vast territory that once belonged to ancient Rus', and far beyond its borders, scientists and simple lovers of antiquity have discovered a number of objects for various purposes with inscriptions on them, about which we can almost say with complete confidence that they belong to the Slavs and are written in Slavic However, reading them causes very serious difficulties, since the written characters of these inscriptions do not belong to either the Cyrillic or Glagolitic alphabet, but to some completely different, original script. In addition, as scientists suggest, the Slavs, long before the advent of the alphabets and unified writing system known to us, already had several writing systems independent of each other. So far, few monuments of each of them have been found; no attempts have been made to collect them and publish them in a single publication, which makes their study extremely difficult. The scientific literature has long held the opinion that, due to their fragmentation and belonging to different systems, these inscriptions cannot be deciphered. And only in the late 90s did St. Petersburg scientist M.L. Seryakov published the results of his reading of monuments of primordial Russian writing, which the author calls “princely”. In his opinion, this writing was used by the Slavs for a very long time: at least from the 8th to the 14th centuries. The scientist notes its extraordinary similarity and, therefore, kinship with the ancient Indian Brahmi writing and puts forward a hypothesis about the origin of Brahmi and the original Russian writing from a single source. In accordance with this assumption, the roots of Russian writing should go back at least to the 2nd millennium BC. e., and even in more distant times. If the hypothesis of M.L. Seryakova turns out to be correct, this will allow scientists to look into the very depths of pan-Indo-European history and will help give answers to many questions related to the origin of the Indo-Europeans in general and the Russian people in particular.
A few years earlier, the publishing house of the Russian Physical Society “Public Benefit” in the series “Encyclopedia of Russian Thought” published the results of deciphering the “proto-Slavic writing” obtained by G.S. Grinevich. According to the latter, the oldest written monuments known to science were written in this script, including the Terterian inscriptions of the 5th millennium BC. e., Proto-Indian (XXV–XVIII centuries BC), Cretan (XX–XIII centuries BC), Etruscan (VIII–II centuries BC), as well as inscriptions found on the territory of modern settlement of the Slavs and written in the so-called “devil and cut” type of writing. The book received a negative assessment from experts. Thus, the famous paleographer L.P. Zhukovskaya noted that “in his transcripts, G. Grinevich makes mistakes and reveals ignorance of the history of the Slavs and the comparative historical grammar of the Slavic languages.” However, attacks were mainly caused by the work done by the author to decipher the inscriptions of the famous Phaistos disk, which he read in Slavic. While completely agreeing in this part with the opinion of both Zhukovskaya and other specialists, at the same time one cannot but admit that the method of reading Slavic writing of the “devils and cuts” type, developed by Grinevich, deserves attention.
We learn that the Slavs used this letter from the legend of the monk Khrabra “On Writings,” dating back to the 9th – early 10th centuries: “Before the Slavs I had no books, well, with the devils and cuts of the devil and gatahu, the real trash.” Apparently, Abul-Faraj Muhammad Ibn-Abi-Yakub, the second Arabic author, told us about the same kind of written signs.
half of the 10th century, better known under the nickname el-Nedim (or Ibn-an-Nadim), in his “Book of Painting Sciences”: “One told me, on the veracity of which I rely, that one of the kings of Mount Kabk (Caucasus. - Yu.A.) sent him to the king of the Rus; he claimed that they had writing carved into wood. He showed me a piece of white wood on which there were images; I don’t know whether they were words or individual letters like this.” El-Nedim attached to his message a redrawing of this record, which became known to Russian scientists in 1836 and since then has been repeatedly reproduced in various publications and has been studied.
Analyzing the most ancient written signs of the Slavs, G.S. Grinevich came to the conclusion that the “devils and cuts” type of writing belongs to syllabic writing. Having examined 25 inscriptions found on the territory of settlement of the Eastern and Western Slavs, he counted 240 signs, of which 116 were different signs, excluding dividing and restrictive signs, as well as weight signs and hieroglyphs (picture signs). This number of written characters is too large for phonetic writing and not enough for verbal-syllabic writing, but is quite consistent with syllabic writing. This conclusion of the scientist is supported by an oblique stroke found in a number of inscriptions, usually located at the bottom of the line to the right of the written sign and very reminiscent of the “viram” icon from the Indian syllabary, which was placed at the last sign of the word (or syllable), indicating that it ends in consonant, not a vowel sound. The use of this icon only makes sense in syllabic writing. In addition, the presence of “viram” allowed the scientist to assume that only open syllables like SG(consonant plus vowel) and G(vowel), and its location to the right of the written sign indicated the direction of the letter - from left to right. The last circumstance is very important, since there are known attempts to read such a letter in reverse - from right to left.
It is interesting to note that each of the mentioned authors, M.L. Seryakov and G.S. Grinevich, did the difficult work of deciphering the inscription of el-Nedim, which was discussed above, and came to completely different results. The first, considering the “princely letter” to be phonetic, used the Brahmi alphabet to read the inscription, and then, replacing the Brahmi letters with Cyrillic ones, received the phrase: “GIVE GOOD LUCK TO T?” RATNYI B?G" (“Give good luck to you, military God”) - a wish for good luck in the fight against enemies. The second one read the same text “syllable by syllable”, and in its deciphering the inscription took the following form: “RAVII AND IVES [or IVER] BROTHERS,” that is, “RAVII AND IVES [or IVER] are allies [brothers].” In both cases, the Nedimov inscription is considered as a kind of embassy document.
Both options are worth considering. However, it should be noted that attempts to read the oldest Russian inscriptions phonetically and, in particular, using the Brahmi alphabet, are not always successful, while the system developed by Grinevich opens up wider opportunities for deciphering the writing of the ancient Russians. In particular, she allowed the author of this manual to read the inscription on the so-called Pnevischinsky stone.
The history of the Pnevishchinsky stone is outlined in the collection “Polotsk-Vitebsk Antiquity” for 1916 and is briefly summarized as follows. In 1873, a stone church was built in the town of Romanov, Goretsky district, Mogilev province. Stones for this purpose were brought from other areas. And then, in a pile of stones brought from the village of Pnevischi, there turned out to be one granite boulder of a pyramidal shape, with strongly rounded edges, slightly flattened on top, with incomprehensible signs carved on it on both sides with some kind of iron tool. It was about one meter long, two-thirds of a meter wide and high, and weighed about 500 kg. Prince A.M., a lover of antiquities, became interested in the stone. Dondukov-Korsakov, who acquired it and transported it to his estate in Smolensk. On his instructions, the area from where this stone was delivered was carefully examined, and it turned out that in the vicinity of the village, not a single stone could be found in the fields, and those that were brought by the peasants, weighing a total of about 33 tons, lay in one heap , covered with earth and bushes. The conclusion suggests itself that these stones were brought here in very ancient times specifically for the construction of a stone mound (core), on the top of which a boulder with an inscription was installed (ill. 22 and 23).
Ill. 22. Plan of the area near Pnevishchi
Prince Dondukov-Korsakov made a drawing of this boulder (ill. 24) and showed it to scientists who gathered in Kyiv in 1874 for the 3rd archaeological congress. The inscription on the stone aroused the interest of a scientist from Moravia, Dr. G. Wankel, who specially came to Smolensk, to the prince’s estate, examined the stone and made his own copy of the inscription (ill. 25). Unfortunately, literally an hour after his departure, a fire broke out on the estate; the carriage house in which the stone stood burned down, and the granite boulder itself crumbled into small pieces. So this mysterious ancient monument disappeared, from which only drawings made by two different people remained.
Ill. 23. Pnevischinsky mound
Soon, A. Müller, a librarian from the Moravian town of Olmütz, began deciphering the inscription. In the Pnevischinsky stone he saw traces of the presence of... Phoenicians near Smolensk, and considered the inscription to be made in “Semitic writing” and read part of it as follows: “Monument of Baal. Here we hollowed him out (carved him).”
Ill. 24. Pnevischinsky stone according to the drawing by A.M. Dondukova-Korsakova
Such a reading did not inspire support from anyone. Indeed, it is impossible to explain how an ordinary stone reminded Muller of one of the main Phoenician gods, why the “monument to Baal” ended up on Slavic territory, why this librarian decided to read Russian “traits and cuts” in Hebrew, and, finally, why did it take such labor-intensive work to carve into stone the phrase “Here we hollowed it out,” devoid of any information content? All these questions have no answers, therefore, Mr. Muller’s “reading” must be recognized as absolute nonsense. As for the inscription on the reverse side, it was not decipherable at all.
Ill. 25. Pnevischinsky stone according to a drawing by G. Wankel
Since the stone was not preserved, and the description made by Dondukov-Korsakov was published in a local, little-known collection, the inscription was forgotten for many years. And only M.L. Seryakov, in the book already mentioned above, published it again and described in detail his method of deciphering the inscription. The author believes that this inscription was carved in the 6th–7th centuries. and is a unique monument of original Russian (princely) writing. Using the Brahmi alphabet, he read the text on one side of the Pnevischinsky stone as follows:
“And Odari’s outfit now rules the city
Rod Cheka, who/o/ could protect/the/ company a//”; on the other side: “Here is the prince’s speech yes/l/.” He interprets this inscription as a princely covenant to his fellow tribesmen: “[When I die -?], keep order for the city [option: device].
[God -?] now bestow the clan of Shchek, who could defend justice [option: oath] and... So he gave a speech to the prince.”
Such an interpretation looks too free and far-fetched. In addition, an entire line consisting of six characters was completely unreadable. The sign resembling a fish turned out to be misunderstood. Having mistakenly read the name Shchek in the inscription and following his lead, the author also mistakenly dated this monument of original Russian writing to the 6th–7th centuries. Although the very idea of the existence of a “princely” (originally Russian) writing in Rus', in general, deserves attention and support. In particular, international treaties were written on it, inscriptions were made on coins (legends); in the “Tale of Bygone Years” it is called “Ivan’s writing”: “On the confirmation and nepo d visions will be between you, Christians, and Rous(y) who once created the world m Ivanov writing[emphasis mine. – Yu. A.] in two ways, c(a)r? yours and with your hand, presented to the Honest Cre(es)t(o)m and with(v)that Consubstantial Trinity the one truth G (o) B (o)ha is ours G (o) let us know and give our m ambassador m ».
V.A. made an attempt to read the inscription on the Pnevischinsky stone. Chudinov, who is sure that this inscription “talks about the theft of stored fish, apparently dried.” They read the text as follows: “In summer there is a night of dialogue. At night! At night you go to the creek and cut its fish, take it, carry it and eat it! But it is highly doubtful that two petty night thieves would choose such an original (and, again, incredibly time-consuming) method to exchange secret information.
A.A. Bychkov is generally inclined to think that the Pnevischina inscription is written in Scandinavian runes, which have been erased over time, and therefore the possibility of reading it is reduced to a minimum.
But, nevertheless, the inscription on the Pnevischinsky stone lends itself to reading and a completely meaningful historical and linguistic commentary, if we proceed from the fact that it is made with strokes and cuts, that is, in Russian pre-Cyrillic writing - moreover, in syllabic writing (and not phonetic, as the above authors mistakenly thought). All the signs of this inscription can be found in the “Summary table of signs of Proto-Slavic writing”, published by G.S. Grinevich (see illustration 27-a, b, c, d and 28).
You should start reading from the side that M.L. Seryakov, in our opinion, erroneously defined it as posterior. To do this, we will arrange sequentially all the signs present in the drawings of A.M. Dondukov-Korsakov and G. Wankel (ill. 26).
Ill. 26. Signs in the drawings of A.M. Dondukov-Korsakov and G. Wankel
It can be seen that the inscription was not very legible: time, wind and moisture, frost and sun have done their work, some have been erased, and here and there cracks have formed that are difficult to distinguish from signs made by a human hand. Therefore, in both figures they are not always the same, and in the first there are even two fewer of them than in the second.
First sign in both figures it resembles a “unit” and in Grinevich’s table it is read as a syllable BY. Horizontal dashes second digit Dondukov-Korsakov’s can be mistaken for cracks, since Wankel did not pay attention to them; then it can be read as L'A(la). Third sign Wankel fully corresponds to the syllable NH, fourth(especially in the first author’s drawing) is very similar to the syllable CHI or CI. Thus, the word “polyanchi” is read. This version of the name of the glades (with the ending - chi) is quite acceptable if we remember that the stone was found in the Mogilev province, where in ancient times there lived tribes whose names also ended in - chi: Radimichi, Dregovichi, and their settlement area was adjacent to the Polyanskaya land. The inscription probably referred to those glades (polyanichs) who lived among the Radimichi and Dregovichi. Fifth sign is almost identical in both figures and is easily read as a syllable BUT.
Ill. 27-a. Summary table of signs of Proto-Slavic writing (according to G.S. Grinevich)
Ill. 27-b (continued)
Ill. 27-v (continued)
Ill. 27-g (continued)
Ill. 28. Linear signs like “damn” and “rez”
There is some difficulty sixth sign. Apparently, cracks had accumulated on it, so Dondukov-Korsakov redrew it very conditionally, limiting himself to two curved lines, and Wankel, in turn, significantly complicated it. Grinevich does not have such a sign. But, if we take the lower half of the left vertical line and the small oblique line on the right as cracks formed on the stone, then two signs are easily recognizable in it: m ( SI) And + (T?), connected into a ligature - a technique that will be used much later, in Russian Cyrillic writing (in semi-ustav, in Slavic ligature).
Seventh sign- a simple, almost vertical line - is present in Wankel, but is absent in the first author; most likely, this is a crack formed over time, so it can not be considered. Eighth sign again more accurately drawn by Wankel and very similar to two of several variants of the syllable RY, given by Grinevich. Ninth sign drawn exactly the same in both drawings and looks like a syllable BA pivot table and even more - on B(-) tables “Linear signs of the type” of lines and cuts” “(see Fig. 28, No. 5). Sign ten is also drawn absolutely identically by both authors and corresponds to the fifth character, which is read as a syllable BUT. We get two more words: “wear fishy.” “Wear” is the second person plural imperative form of the verb “to wear.” “Rybno” is the nominal form of a substantivized neuter singular adjective in the accusative case. Such formations are most likely the result of “differentiation of an initially undifferentiated name in the process of syntactic specialization of names of objects and features.” In this case we mean fish products.
Perhaps the strangest sign on this side of the stone is the last one, eleventh. Dondukov-Korsakov does not have it. Why? Maybe he also considered it for the cracks that had formed on the stone and did not consider it necessary to redraw them?
But then why did Wankel depict it so carefully in his drawing? And if it is a written sign, what kind? Grinevich does not have anything similar in any table. The only solution to reading this sign is to recognize the horizontal line at the top as the title - a superscript indicating an abbreviated word, and the main character, that is, the lower part - as the first syllable S adverbial adverb “here” (which, as a result of the phonetic laws of falling reduced vowels and voicing of consonants, will later take the form “here”). The entire phrase of the first side of the Pnevischinsky stone reads like this: “Polyanchi, bring fish here,” that is, the glades living in this territory were supposed to bring fish and fish products here to this place during polyudye.
The main written characters on the reverse side of the stone in the drawings of both authors are almost identical. They can be divided into four groups. First group are made up of signs located on the left side:
Following Grinevich’s summary table, they can be read as: “I-NO RA-BI” (“other – slaves”), that is, for slaves the requirements are somewhat different. Above this line there are two more vertical curved lines, but these are probably cracks that should not be taken into account (by the way, Seryakov did not consider them either). What was required of the slaves? The answer to this is given in the second and third groups of signs.
Signs second group arranged in three lines. First line:
Seryakov, following, in our opinion, the wrong path, tried to read it as “Rerek” and identify it with the name of the famous Rurik, but refused and as a result received a set of “raeraerok” sounds, devoid of any meaning; in the end he was forced to state: “The top line ... does not lend itself to a satisfactory interpretation, at least at the present time.” However, let's try to read it too. In this line the first, third and fifth characters are read as AND(or Y), the second and fourth - as IN(or BO) and the sixth - as N b. In second line there are only two signs:
The first of them undoubtedly denotes the syllable AND. In the second sign, most likely, the connection below has been erased and remained unnoticed, and if it is restored, it will turn out
What corresponds to a syllable DE. Third line in Dondukov-Korsakov it is absent altogether, and in Wankel it is represented by one sign
The lines on the left should not be taken into account - these are probably cracks or scratches (which is why Dondukov-Korsakov ignored them). Then these three lines read as follows: “BOTH THE BATTLEWAYS AND THE CHILDREN.” “Voi” are, of course, warriors (for example, in the Laurentian Chronicle it is written: “Volodimer gathered many warriors... and went against Rogvolod”). What is “boin” (or “slaughterhouse”)? In the academic “Dictionary of the Russian language of the 11th–17th centuries.” one of the meanings of the word “fight” is explained as “weapon, armament”; therefore, the word "boini" must be understood as "armed", which in the genitive plural gives the form "boin". The phrase “and warriors of battles” reflects a grammatical phenomenon associated with the category of person, which consists in the coincidence in some cases of the forms of the accusative and genitive cases (as in the above example from the Laurentian Chronicle: “collections of warriors”). The above dictionary defines the word “children” as “young servants, warriors.”
Third group of signs located on the right side of the stone. The first sign in this group is a drawing of a fish, which appears in Grinevich as one of the variants of the syllable RY. Above the picture there is an icon resembling a title, so it (the picture) can be mistaken for the abbreviated word “fish” (or “fish”). Are there signs behind it, one below the other? (syllable GA) And? (syllable Pb), after them there is a sign
Denoting syllable B? (? denoted a nasal sound ABOUT, which later became U). The next almost vertical line means the letter AND, followed by the sign
Clearly reminiscent of a syllable DI, sign
Which most likely means soft Sh', followed by a “viram” icon, indicating that the syllable ends in a consonant (i.e., makes an open syllable closed). Consequently, in the third sign group it is written: “PICKLE FISH AND DISCH.”
The word “garba” requires explanation. Most likely, this is the local name for some kind of fish, borrowed from Finnish languages (for example, Finnish harri, as well as Vepsian ha?d'uz or ha?g'us means grayling, Russian Pomors call grayling garviz, in the Orenburg province this was the name for pestle, trout, salmon). In the word “dishch” (game) we encounter the phenomenon of loss of opposition, known in historical grammar, with the differential sign of fricativeness ~ affricacy (sh’~ch’), dating back to the early Old Russian period.
Fourth group The signs consist of small icons randomly located in the lower part of the stone on the right. These are some unclear marks that may have had digital values. In addition, there are more cracks in the lower part of the stone. Both the number of icons redrawn by Dondukov-Korsakov and Wankel and their appearance in this part do not coincide very much.
Thus, the Pnevischina inscription reads as follows: “Polyanchi, wear fish here. Ino slave: both wars in the slaughterhouse, and children, fish and meat.” That is, the glades were instructed to bring fish (fish products) here, to this place, to the core, during polyudye. And the slaves, in addition, had to supply the prince with armed soldiers and young servants, as well as garviz fish and game.
As you can see, the clearings are placed in a special, much easier position; the inscription addressed to them is carved on one side, and the inscription regulating the duties of the “slaves” is carved on the other. The Polans are not included in the concept of “rabbis,” and this is understandable: they were representatives of the dominant tribe, although living “in the diaspora.” Who are called slaves here? To answer this question we must turn to history.
It is known that in the fall the Russian princes went with their warriors to the subordinate tribes in Polyudye. Princess Olga also established lessons - duties that had to be completed by a certain deadline, “whether it would be the payment of a certain amount of money, a certain amount of some things, or some kind of work.” The tribute was delivered to a specific place: “She [Olga] left all over the Earth. – Yu.A.] her traces, the graveyards established by her could be seen everywhere.” Apparently, one of these places was located near the village of Pnevischi on the land of the Radimichi, whom Prince Oleg imposed tribute on. However, some distant tribes eventually stopped paying tribute. For example, the Vyatichi, who became dependent on the Kyiv prince under Svyatoslav, took advantage of the latter’s departure to Bulgaria and the princely civil strife that followed his death, and stopped paying tribute to Kyiv. Apparently, some of the Radimichi did the same. In 981, Prince Vladimir, as the chronicler reports, organized a campaign into the land of the Vyatichi, defeated them “and laid tribute on them.”<…>, as well as? (te)ts imash”, that is, he imposed on them the same tribute that his father Svyatoslav took. The following year the Vyatichi rebelled, and again Vladimir went against them and defeated them a second time. And in 984 he went against the Radimichi, sending ahead of him his governor, nicknamed Wolf Tail, and he met the Radimichi on the Pishchan (Sandy) River and defeated them. “Thm and Rus',” writes the chronicler, “reproach the Radimichi, saying: “The Pishchantsi are running away from the wolf’s tail,” that is, since then in Rus' they have been reproaching the Radimichi for the Pishantsi running away from the wolf’s tail.
Pishchano, Pishchanino,
Walked along the birch...
Ishov vovk past divok,
Having taken off our hats for all the wonders...
During Kostomarov’s time, the original meaning of the legend about the conquest of the Radimichi was already lost, but the wolf (“Vovk”) and the name of the small river Pishchan, flowing near the modern city of Slavgorod (Belarus) and flowing into the Sozh River, remained. This once again confirms the idea that in folklore, including myth-making, very much is an echo of real historical events.
The Radimichi were settled over a very vast territory, and it is unthinkable to assume that they all refused to pay tribute to the Kyiv prince. If the Radimichi living along the Dnieper had done this, they would have immediately been punished and brought to obedience. Obviously, this could be done by those who lived in the outback, far from the main waterway. In this case, the punitive campaign undertaken by the great Kyiv prince Vladimir pursued an important political goal: to prove to these Radimichi that they should be dependent on Kyiv and submit to the princely power. And it is them that the Pnevischinsky stone calls slaves. By the way, Dondukov-Korsakov reports that ten miles from the village of Pnevischi there is a village called Gorodets (that is, fortified), which may indicate the presence of a Russian army in this place, since in all the conquered lands the princes left a detachment that was entrusted with keeping order in that area and collect tribute. And one verst from Pnevischi stood the village of Pesochnaya, which is identical to the name Peschanaya (Pishchana). It can be assumed that it once formed the center of the “pischans” about which the chronicle was written. If this is really the case, then Voivode Wolf Tail erected a monument from stones near the very center of the rebellious Radimichi, whom the Grand Duke of Kiev called his slaves, and, so that they would not be forgotten in the future, he ordered a reminder of their duties towards the Grand Duke of Kyiv to be carved on the stone and erected him onto a stone embankment.
The dating of the inscription on the Pnevischinsky stone to the end of the 10th century is also confirmed by data from historical grammar. The fact is that the inscription reflects the beginning of the process of the decline of reduced vowels. For example, in the word “fish” there has already been a loss of the reduced ъ, since the sign, according to Grinevich, means B without ъ(see illustration 28, no. 5). At the same time, in the word “here” the first consonant has not yet been voiced due to the still preserved reduced b, although it was precisely in such positions (absolutely weak, that is, where weak reduced ones never alternated with strong ones) that they stopped sounding first. This fact shows that the noted process had just begun and was far from complete. And the history of the loss of reduced as independent vowel phonemes in living East Slavic speech begins at the end of the 10th - beginning of the 11th centuries.
Thus, deciphering the inscription made at the end of the 10th century on the Pnevischinsky stone made it possible to illustrate some pages not only of our national history, but also of the history of the Russian language and Russian writing. And most importantly, it demonstrated not only the amazing vitality of the original Russian written language (“the devil and the cuts” - in the words of the monk Khrabra), but also its deep antiquity. After all, if this writing has its roots going back thousands of years, this means that its creator, the Russian people, has even more ancient roots.
Incompleteness of the most ancient lists But it is unlikely that this critical legibility alone can explain the noticeable incompleteness of the code: in the later lists of the Primary Chronicle we encounter a number of news that did not find a place in the ancient lists, although in themselves they are nothing
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"Characters and cuts"
“Before, I had no books in Slovenia, but choke and cuts of chetekh and gataakhu, the real trash. Having been baptized, Roman and Greek writings needed [write Slovenian] speech without structure... sent the name of St. Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, a wise and true man, and create in his name 30 writings and os, therefore, according to the order of Greek writings, ova in Slovenian speech..."
This brief description of the emergence of Slavic writing belongs to a Bulgarian monk who lived at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries. His name is Chernorizets Brave. But in this case, we are interested in that part of the message where it is said that before the adoption of Christianity, the Slavs counted and told fortunes with the help of some “traits and cuts.” What are these “lines and cuts” if they are not similar to the alphabet created by Cyril and Methodius? Most scholars believe that this is a primitive script that the Slavs used during the pagan period.
However, the Slavs demonstrated their writing skills not only to Chernorizets the Brave. There is other evidence. The Arab writer El Massoudi, who died in the middle of the 10th century, insisted that during a trip to Rus' in one of the pagan temples he saw a prophecy inscribed on a stone.
In 1897, archaeologist V. Gorodtsov conducted excavations near the village of Alekanovo near Ryazan. Here he discovered a vessel containing 14 incomprehensible signs. “The vessel turned out to be very lightly burned... it was made hastily... the production... local, home, and therefore the signs on the vessel were made by their local or home scribe, that is, a Slav,” the archaeologist later wrote. “We can only assume that the signs represent letters of an unknown script.” Well, that's quite reasonable.
A year later, in the same place, near the village of Alekanovo, V. Gorodtsov again found similar ones on fragments of clay vessels! signs. They are also found on other objects. So, there are several links in the chain, but the links, unfortunately, are still unclear.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the ethnicity of the population who left the marks on the vessels is still not clear. It is quite possible that one of the examples of “features and cuts” is represented on the Alekanovo vessels, but V. Sizov’s assumption that the mysterious signs are family marks is no less probable.
Researchers have paid considerable attention to the Alekan signs. Of course, they were used immediately before the appearance of the Slavic alphabet, before the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet. Therefore, these writing systems may be related to each other. Some tried to prove the closeness of Alekan characters to the Glagolitic alphabet, but were based only on external similarity.
The researcher of inscriptions, I. Figurovsky, also followed the comparison of ancient Slavic characters with the Glagolitic alphabet. One of his decipherments is associated with the discovery during excavations of Staraya Ladoga of a fragment of an ancient bow with a carved inscription.
“Groove the forge along the lodiyah. Domoji catching Vrevo-rusu. Pelegol is eating." (“Guard the forged items on the boats. Help the hunter Vrevorus. Take care.”) This is how I. Figurovsky “translated” this inscription, having previously decided that the ancient Russian “features and cuts” were carved on the bow. However, this decoding did not become a sensation, because further research showed that Scandinavian runes were carved on the bow, the authenticity of which has now been sufficiently confirmed.
Disputes are disputes, but the facts force us to admit that writing existed among the Slavs in the pre-Christian period. This is evidenced by ancient written sources, archaeological finds, and general historical patterns of development of Slavic tribes. Indeed, in the second half of the first millennium AD, the ancient Russian state took shape - Kievan Rus.
But what could the nature of pre-Christian writing be like? By that time, humanity already knew ideographic, syllabic, and alphabetic writing. However, according to the Soviet scientist V. Istrin, ideographic writing could not take root among the Slavs, since Slavic languages have many grammatical forms that require changing words. Syllabic writing was also unsuitable for Slavic languages - they had too many syllables.
Alphabetic writing could be suitable for transmitting Slavic speech. The ancient Slavs could well have used the letters of some alphabets randomly, unsystematically, and, perhaps, in different areas they compiled very different sets of signs (“lines and cuts”?), which were used for fortune telling, counting, marking dates, etc. Later they could acquire a letter-sound meaning, such as the Scandinavian runes. Apparently, Greek and Latin letters (“Proto-Cyril letter”?) or letters of other alphabets were also used for writing.
One thing is clear: before the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet - a stable, orderly use of letters well adapted for conveying Slavic speech - some kind of writing was, of course, used by the Slavs. We can only regret that so little evidence has reached us about the first writings of the Slavic tribes that inhabited the territory of our Motherland in ancient times. After all, writing materials such as wood and birch bark, which ancient writers reported, are, alas, short-lived. And they are preserved only under certain conditions. But where these conditions exist, “features and cuts” have not yet been found.
True, in 1954, a message appeared in the United States about a monument of ancient Russian writing, supposedly dating back to the end of the 9th century. Moreover, the monument itself has not been preserved; only copies have been published. His story is like this. In 1919, A. Isenbek discovered a bunch of tablets with unknown writings in a landowner’s estate near Orel. At the end of the civil war, A. Izenbek took the tablets with writings abroad, where Yu. Mirolyubov made copies of them. But the original, the tablets, disappeared after the death of A. Isenbek in 1941.
According to eyewitnesses' descriptions, the monument consisted of 35 birch planks measuring 22 by 38 centimeters. At the top they were apparently tied together with a strap pulled through the holes. With some sharp object, writing was scratched on the tablets, similar in style to the Cyrillic alphabet.
The contents of the “wooden book” turned out to be sensational. Created by ancient Russian pagan priests, this unique chronicle began with events that took place long before our era, and was brought up to the time of Prince Askold (IX century). The tablets contain a story about the movement of Slavic tribes from the depths of Central Asia to the banks of the Danube, about the forefathers of the Slavs Bogumir and Ors, about battles with the Goths, Huns, Avars, about the origin of the clans of the Drevlyans, Krivichi, Polans, Northerners, and Rus. The text mentions the name of the god of cattle Vles, which is why the book was called “Vlesova”.
“OH TOI SHAS BY BOGUMR HUSBAND SLVOI A NAME THREE DAUGHTER A DVINA SOINI TOIE BO VIDASHA SKUFE TO THE WALLS AND THERE LIVE ABOUT THE HERBS FROM GETTING AND BOYANI BOZE LISTEN TO A REASON0I... VKHITSNE AND TAKO A TU MATE IEH IZHE R SLAVONI ABOUT OVA CREATIVELY I WILL CONSUME AND RISCH IN TO BOGUMIR STE SEVEN DAY MOI A IMAN DSHYERE SVA OVDATE A GRANCHA ZRYANTEI...”
“At that time there was Bogumir, a glorious man, and had three daughters and two sons, they grazed cattle (?) in the steppes and lived there on the grass, listening to their fathers (?) and fearing God with their ears and minds... (not clear) and then their mother, who was called Slavuna, made a sacrifice about this (?) and said to Bogumir: we have become old in days and we have to give our daughters away and see our grandchildren...” - says one of the translations of the cited fragment of the “Vlesovaya Book”.
“Having said this,” we read further in the same translation, “he harnessed the cart and drove off (it is not clear), and came to an oak tree standing in the field, and stopped for the night with his fire (?), and in the evening he saw three men on horses, striving for him. They said: be healthy, but what are you looking for? Bogumir told them his worries, and they answered that they themselves were on a campaign to get wives... Bogumir returned to his steppes, leading three husbands to his daughters... from this three clans arose and were glorious... the Drevlyans and Krivichi came from there and the glade, since the first Daughter of Bogumir had the name Dreva, and the other Skrsva and the third Poleva, the sons of Bogumir had their names Seva and the younger Rus, from there the northerners and Rus come... there were three husbands (it is not clear) in the morning, in noon and evening... those clans were created by the seven rivers, and settled (?) overseas, in the green land and where from ancient times (?) they drove cattle from the east to the Carpenter Mountain... that was one thousand three hundred years before Germanrich.”
In 1959, the Vlesova Book was subjected to examination at the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was found that, in addition to Cyrillic letters, the text contains Greek, Latin and signs from unknown scripts. As Soviet researcher L. Zhukovskaya notes, the graphics of the tablets do not accurately convey the sounds of Slavic speech and, in a number of ways, are close to other ancient alphabets. The outline of the letters, although it raises doubts about the authenticity of the text, still does not directly indicate a forgery, since we are talking about it, a letter unknown to us.
The final conclusions were made on the basis of linguistic analysis, which is most convincing that the monument is a fake. The text, however, was written in signs that can be dated back to the 10th century, but its language, although it contains archaisms characteristic of Slavic languages before the 10th century, also carries features that appeared in Slavic languages in the later period, when the Slavs widely used Cyrillic.
Many signs - the content, language and writing of the tablets - lead to the idea that this “monument” belongs to the products of the famous antiquities forger A. Sulukadzev at the beginning of the 19th century, who at one time owned a rare collection of antiquities and a library. However, some of the “antiquities” were the fruit of the collector’s imagination. He “made” his fakes out of a desire to embellish antiquity.
Falsification activities were generally characteristic of the era of pan-European romanticism, which poeticized antiquity. Thus, in the West it gave rise to falsifications that were a resounding success. For example, the “discovery” of the poems of Ossian, a Scottish poet of the 3rd century, which were composed by the Englishman D. Macpherson in the 18th century.
At first, with the help of postscripts, A. Sulukadzev sought to confirm his pseudoscientific works or supplied genuine manuscripts with “precise” dating, trying to make them as ancient as possible. Gradually, he moved from postscripts to complete fakes, “inventing” in general! non-existent monuments.
So, there are still almost no completely reliable monuments of pre-Cyrillic writing. But scientists believe that they will definitely be found and more than one new page in the history of Ancient Rus' will be revealed.
"Characters and cuts"
“Before, I had no books in Slovenia, but choke and cuts of chetekh and gataakhu, the real trash. Having been baptized, Roman and Greek writings needed [write Slovenian] speech without structure... sent the name of St. Constantine the Philosopher, called Cyril, a wise and true man, and create in his name 30 writings and os, therefore, according to the order of Greek writings, ova in Slovenian speech..."
This brief description of the emergence of Slavic writing belongs to a Bulgarian monk who lived at the turn of the 9th-10th centuries. His name is Chernorizets Brave. But in this case, we are interested in that part of the message where it is said that before the adoption of Christianity, the Slavs counted and told fortunes with the help of some “traits and cuts.” What are these “lines and cuts” if they are not similar to the alphabet created by Cyril and Methodius? Most scholars believe that this is a primitive script that the Slavs used during the pagan period.
However, the Slavs demonstrated their writing skills not only to Chernorizets the Brave. There is other evidence. The Arab writer El Massoudi, who died in the middle of the 10th century, insisted that during a trip to Rus' in one of the pagan temples he saw a prophecy inscribed on a stone.
In 1897, archaeologist V. Gorodtsov conducted excavations near the village of Alekanovo near Ryazan. Here he discovered a vessel containing 14 incomprehensible signs. “The vessel turned out to be very lightly burned... it was made hastily... the production... local, home, and therefore the signs on the vessel were made by their local or home scribe, that is, a Slav,” the archaeologist later wrote. “We can only assume that the signs represent letters of an unknown script.” Well, that's quite reasonable.
A year later, in the same place, near the village of Alekanovo, V. Gorodtsov again found similar ones on fragments of clay vessels! signs. They are also found on other objects. So, there are several links in the chain, but the links, unfortunately, are still unclear.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the ethnicity of the population who left the marks on the vessels is still not clear. It is quite possible that one of the examples of “features and cuts” is represented on the Alekanovo vessels, but V. Sizov’s assumption that the mysterious signs are family marks is no less probable.
Researchers have paid considerable attention to the Alekan signs. Of course, they were used immediately before the appearance of the Slavic alphabet, before the Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet. Therefore, these writing systems may be related to each other. Some tried to prove the closeness of Alekan characters to the Glagolitic alphabet, but were based only on external similarity.
The researcher of inscriptions, I. Figurovsky, also followed the comparison of ancient Slavic characters with the Glagolitic alphabet. One of his decipherments is associated with the discovery during excavations of Staraya Ladoga of a fragment of an ancient bow with a carved inscription.
“Groove the forge along the lodiyah. Domoji catching Vrevo-rusu. Pelegol is eating." (“Guard the forged items on the boats. Help the hunter Vrevorus. Take care.”) This is how I. Figurovsky “translated” this inscription, having previously decided that the ancient Russian “features and cuts” were carved on the bow. However, this decoding did not become a sensation, because further research showed that Scandinavian runes were carved on the bow, the authenticity of which has now been sufficiently confirmed.
Disputes are disputes, but the facts force us to admit that writing existed among the Slavs in the pre-Christian period. This is evidenced by ancient written sources, archaeological finds, and general historical patterns of development of Slavic tribes. Indeed, in the second half of the first millennium AD, the ancient Russian state took shape - Kievan Rus.
But what could the nature of pre-Christian writing be like? By that time, humanity already knew ideographic, syllabic, and alphabetic writing. However, according to the Soviet scientist V. Istrin, ideographic writing could not take root among the Slavs, since Slavic languages have many grammatical forms that require changing words. Syllabic writing was also unsuitable for Slavic languages - they had too many syllables.
Alphabetic writing could be suitable for transmitting Slavic speech. The ancient Slavs could well have used the letters of some alphabets randomly, unsystematically, and, perhaps, in different areas they compiled very different sets of signs (“lines and cuts”?), which were used for fortune telling, counting, marking dates, etc. Later they could acquire a letter-sound meaning, such as the Scandinavian runes. Apparently, Greek and Latin letters (“Proto-Cyril letter”?) or letters of other alphabets were also used for writing.
One thing is clear: before the introduction of the Cyrillic alphabet - a stable, orderly use of letters well adapted for conveying Slavic speech - some kind of writing was, of course, used by the Slavs. We can only regret that so little evidence has reached us about the first writings of the Slavic tribes that inhabited the territory of our Motherland in ancient times. After all, writing materials such as wood and birch bark, which ancient writers reported, are, alas, short-lived. And they are preserved only under certain conditions. But where these conditions exist, “features and cuts” have not yet been found.
True, in 1954, a message appeared in the United States about a monument of ancient Russian writing, supposedly dating back to the end of the 9th century. Moreover, the monument itself has not been preserved; only copies have been published. His story is like this. In 1919, A. Isenbek discovered a bunch of tablets with unknown writings in a landowner’s estate near Orel. At the end of the civil war, A. Izenbek took the tablets with writings abroad, where Yu. Mirolyubov made copies of them. But the original, the tablets, disappeared after the death of A. Isenbek in 1941.
According to eyewitnesses' descriptions, the monument consisted of 35 birch planks measuring 22 by 38 centimeters. At the top they were apparently tied together with a strap pulled through the holes. With some sharp object, writing was scratched on the tablets, similar in style to the Cyrillic alphabet.
The contents of the “wooden book” turned out to be sensational. Created by ancient Russian pagan priests, this unique chronicle began with events that took place long before our era, and was brought up to the time of Prince Askold (IX century). The tablets contain a story about the movement of Slavic tribes from the depths of Central Asia to the banks of the Danube, about the forefathers of the Slavs Bogumir and Ors, about battles with the Goths, Huns, Avars, about the origin of the clans of the Drevlyans, Krivichi, Polans, Northerners, and Rus. The text mentions the name of the god of cattle Vles, which is why the book was called “Vlesova”.
“OH TOI SHAS BY BOGUMR HUSBAND SLVOI A NAME THREE DAUGHTER A DVINA SOINI TOIE BO VIDASHA SKUFE TO THE WALLS AND THERE LIVE ABOUT THE HERBS FROM GETTING AND BOYANI BOZE LISTEN TO A REASON0I... VKHITSNE AND TAKO A TU MATE IEH IZHE R SLAVONI ABOUT OVA CREATIVELY I WILL CONSUME AND RISCH IN TO BOGUMIR STE SEVEN DAY MOI A IMAN DSHYERE SVA OVDATE A GRANCHA ZRYANTEI...”
“At that time there was Bogumir, a glorious man, and had three daughters and two sons, they grazed cattle (?) in the steppes and lived there on the grass, listening to their fathers (?) and fearing God with their ears and minds... (not clear) and then their mother, who was called Slavuna, made a sacrifice about this (?) and said to Bogumir: we have become old in days and we have to give our daughters away and see our grandchildren...” - says one of the translations of the cited fragment of the “Vlesovaya Book”.
“Having said this,” we read further in the same translation, “he harnessed the cart and drove off (it is not clear), and came to an oak tree standing in the field, and stopped for the night with his fire (?), and in the evening he saw three men on horses, striving for him. They said: be healthy, but what are you looking for? Bogumir told them his worries, and they answered that they themselves were on a campaign to get wives... Bogumir returned to his steppes, leading three husbands to his daughters... from this three clans arose and were glorious... the Drevlyans and Krivichi came from there and the glade, since the first Daughter of Bogumir had the name Dreva, and the other Skrsva and the third Poleva, the sons of Bogumir had their names Seva and the younger Rus, from there the northerners and Rus come... there were three husbands (it is not clear) in the morning, in noon and evening... those clans were created by the seven rivers, and settled (?) overseas, in the green land and where from ancient times (?) they drove cattle from the east to the Carpenter Mountain... that was one thousand three hundred years before Germanrich.”
In 1959, the Vlesova Book was subjected to examination at the USSR Academy of Sciences. It was found that, in addition to Cyrillic letters, the text contains Greek, Latin and signs from unknown scripts. As Soviet researcher L. Zhukovskaya notes, the graphics of the tablets do not accurately convey the sounds of Slavic speech and, in a number of ways, are close to other ancient alphabets. The outline of the letters, although it raises doubts about the authenticity of the text, still does not directly indicate a forgery, since we are talking about it, a letter unknown to us.
The final conclusions were made on the basis of linguistic analysis, which is most convincing that the monument is a fake. The text, however, was written in signs that can be dated back to the 10th century, but its language, although it contains archaisms characteristic of Slavic languages before the 10th century, also carries features that appeared in Slavic languages in the later period, when the Slavs widely used Cyrillic.
Many signs - the content, language and writing of the tablets - lead to the idea that this “monument” belongs to the products of the famous antiquities forger A. Sulukadzev at the beginning of the 19th century, who at one time owned a rare collection of antiquities and a library. However, some of the “antiquities” were the fruit of the collector’s imagination. He “made” his fakes out of a desire to embellish antiquity.
Falsification activities were generally characteristic of the era of pan-European romanticism, which poeticized antiquity. Thus, in the West it gave rise to falsifications that were a resounding success. For example, the “discovery” of the poems of Ossian, a Scottish poet of the 3rd century, which were composed by the Englishman D. Macpherson in the 18th century.
At first, with the help of postscripts, A. Sulukadzev sought to confirm his pseudoscientific works or supplied genuine manuscripts with “precise” dating, trying to make them as ancient as possible. Gradually, he moved from postscripts to complete fakes, “inventing” in general! non-existent monuments.
So, there are still almost no completely reliable monuments of pre-Cyrillic writing. But scientists believe that they will definitely be found and more than one new page in the history of Ancient Rus' will be revealed.