Book of Veles
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The Book of Veles (Veles Book, Vles book, Vlesbook, Isenbeck's Planks, Велесова книга, Влес книга, Влескнига, Книга Велеса, Дощечки Изенбека, Дощьки Изенбека) is claimed to be a text of ancient Slavic religion and history.
The only remaining photograph of a plank; the book is named after this plank, as it begins with "To Veles this book we devote..."
Somewhat similar to the Old Testament, it contains religious passages and account of history interspersed with religious morals. The earliest events in the book could be dated around 7th century BC and the latest happened in 9th century AD.
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Authenticity
There exist divided opinions about the authenticity of the book. Serious scholars are unanimous in their conviction that the book is a forgery, but there is no agreement as to who created it or when it was done. History of the book can be reliably traced only as far as mid-1950s, when the transcribed book and the photograph of one of the planks first surfaced in a San Francisco-based Russian emigrant newspaper. Some scholars believe that the entire book was a product of collaboration of the editors of this newspaper and one Yuriy Mirolyubov, who later claimed to have found the book. Others believe that either the entire book, or the only plank that ever existed, was forged in early 1800s by a Russian collector and forger Alexander Sulakadzev. Finally, it's not entirely impossible that Mirolyubov had found the authentic page of the Book of Veles and falsified the rest of the text to fit his theories about early Slavs.
One of the reasons the authenticity of this book is doubted is the rather implausible content of the book, telling, among other things, about a far-fetched East Slavic participation in the Trojan war. Moreover, the "authentic" text of the book (not just its interpretation) keeps changing from edition to edition.
The book is written in a language that is very similar to ancient East Slavic language. Consequently, a lot of the book's text (once transcribed into a modern alphabet) is readable even by Slavs of today. However, professional historians, particularly the specialists in ancient Slavic, are concerned by some features of its language—uses of words, spellings, etc. These features seem to indicate that the text was artificially "aged" by someone with imperfect knowledge of ancient Slavic. On the other hand, problems with language are minor and could be attributed to local dialect variations (if the book was written or compiled from accounts of multiple people, as it is claimed by its supporters). Alphabet of the book is also a hot topic. Book is written using pre-Cyrillic runes, whereas the very existence of written language among Slavs prior to their introduction to Cyrillic in 10th century is still otherwise disputed. It uses a peculiar combination of Greek, German and even Devanagari symbols. No other documents written using this or similar alphabet have ever been found.
Those who believe in authenticity of the Book of Veles claim that all of the criticism can be successfully countered, for example, that language errors could occur in transcribing the text, and that a genius in the fields of history and linguistics would be needed for a forgery of such "authenticity", which Mirolyubov was not and Izenbek even less, and that there was no personal gain for them in forging the book.
All in all, as long as the planks are lost, there will probably never be a consensus about the book's authenticity. There is hope that future discoveries of artifacts from pre-Christian era of Slavic lands will either support or contradict the facts from the Book of Veles, thus either confirming or disproving its authenticity.
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The rest of this article is written from the point of view that the book is authentic.
The planks
Indo-European languages have a common word about writing (English "book", German "Buch", as the Germanic runes were designed to be carved on beech wood). In Russian the word bukva—"letter" is thought to be connected to "beech" as well. This logic is used by the supporters of the Book of Veles to explain its material and authenticity: the above etymology suggests that texts were indeed sometimes written on beech planks. Another indirect confirmation of this theory is the existence of birch bark writings of Novgorod (see Old Novgorod dialect).
The planks were 38 centimeters wide, 22cm tall and about 0.5cm thick. The edges and surfaces of the planks are uneven and near the top there are two holes for joining the planks. The text is carved into the planks and later covered with some coloring. (More or less) straight lines are going from left to right across the planks; unlike now, the text is written under the lines. The sizes and shapes of the letters are different, suggesting that more than one person wrote the text. Some planks are partially or mostly rotten.
Most Slavic Neopagans use this book as their sacred text.
History of the book's discovery
In 1919, a Lieutenant of the White Russian Army, Fedor (Theodor) Arturovich Izenbek found a bunch of wooden planks written in strange script in a looted mansion of Kurakins near Kharkov. After defeat, Isenbeck emigrated to Belgrade where in 1923 he unsuccessfully tried to sell the planks to the Belgrade library and museum. In 1925 he settled in Brussels where he gave the planks to Yuriy P. Mirolyubov, who was the first to seriously study them. Izenbek treated the planks very carefully, did not allow them to be taken out of his home and refused a suggestion by a professor of University of Brussels to hand them over for studying; later this refusal to permit others to study these texts led people to suspect they were forgeries.
For fifteen years Mirolyubov restored, photographed, transcribed (as photographs proved to be unreadable) and finally translated the text. He managed to transcribe most of the planks.
In August of 1941 Germans occupied Brussels, Izenbek died and the planks were lost. Some think that the Germans took the planks to their archive (Ahnenerbe), after which in 1945 they were moved to England and remain in storage near Aldershot or Crookham to this day. Much of the Ahnenerbe archive seems to have been captured by Soviet forces, in which case the planks would likely have ended up in secret KGB archives. Others believe that the planks were burned in a fire.
Mirolyubov emigrated to the United States and handed his material to the Russian museum in San Francisco. The materials were found in 1953 by professor A. A. Kurenkov (Kur) who then published them in the magazine Zhar-Ptica from March 1957 to May 1959. Later the text was studied by S. Paramonov (Lesnoi).
Excerpts
Plank 2/B
We were forced to retreat to woods and live as hunters and fishermen. So we could
get away from danger. We survived one darkness and started to build cities
and houses everywhere. After the second darkness there was great frost and we moved
to south for many places there were grassy ... and then Romei were taking our cattle
at a good price and were true to their word. We went
to southern ... greengrassland and had a lot of cattle ...
From Plank 7/A
Enemies are not as numerous as we are, for we are Russians and they are not.
Plank 11/A
We pray and bow to the first Triglav and to him we sing a great glory.
We praise Svarog, grandfather of gods who is to whole gods' kin forefather
and creator of everything living, eternal spring that flows in the summer
and everywhere and in winter and never it freezes. And with that living wather he nourishes
and life gives to us until we reach the blessed fields of paradise. And to god Perun, the thunderer, god of battle and fight we say:
"You hold us in life by neverending turning of the circle and lead to path
of Prav through battles to Great Trizn". And all who got killed in the battle -
may they live forever in the Perun's regiment. To god Svetovid glory we
are exalting for he is the god of Prav and Jav and to him we sing the song for he is the light
with which we see the world. We are looking and in Jav we are, and he from Nav
guards us and therefore praise we sing him. We sing and dance to him and call
god of ours to Earth, Sun and stars constantly in light keeps.
And glory all to Svetovid, god of ours that
hearts ours opens for us to admit bad deeds ours
and to good we turn. May he hug us like children for this has been said:
what is created with half of the mind could not be seen,
for it is a great secret how can Svarog be at the same time both Perun and Svetovid.
Two beings in skies Belobog and Crnobog are
And both of them Svarog holds and commands them.
After them come Horos, Veles and Stribog and then Visenj, Lelj and Letic.
From Plank 26/B
...As time passes, we come to the blue river as time ours
is not endless. There we meet
forefathers our and mothers that in Svarga herds are grazing and trusses
fastening. Their life is just as ours, only there are no Huns nor
Greeks...
Readings
See the article in the Russian Wikipedia (http://ru.wikipedia.org) for a list of further readings (in Russian).
External links
- A. Asov: The book of Veles (http://members.cox.net/veles)
- Translation to Russian by A. Asov in the book of S. Lesnoy (http://lib.ru/HISTORY/RUSSIA/veles.txt)
- Translation to Russian (http://www.kirsoft.com.ru/freedom/KSNews_424.htm) by N. V. Slatina
- Translation to Ukrainian (http://www.kolos.com/readroom/veles-print.html) by B. I. Yacenko