Changing The Past: Anatoly Fomenko

Have you ever heard of Anatoly Fomenko? I only discovered him last year through a late night, bleary-eyed Wikipedia marathon. In such dazes I am usually attracted to topics that defy casual sanity; the fringe of human thinking. Basically the weird things that makes for a good bedtime story but is otherwise without sound footing. Conspiracy theories and anything with 'pseudo-' or 'crypto-' as prefixes. Always a laugh. Fomenko is certainly a stalwart of the genre. A fascinating character who produces works of such meticulous and detailed absurdity that it has to be admired.

Anatoly Fomenko

While being a respected mathematician and a professor at Moscow State University, Fomenko has in his private hours devoted endless amounts of time to the study of history. Well, I say study; more of the complete destruction of academic consensus, replacing it with his own amateur theories. He is a proponent of what he calls 'The New Chronology', a claim that the whole of conventional history is in fact an illusion constructed in the last few centuries.

One of the core arguments of Fomenko is that of historical parallels being, in fact, reports of the same events with the names of people and locations involved simply being replaced by localised names and variants. He argues that rather than history repeating itself, parallels are actually different accounts of the same occurrences. Using his own discretion, logic and methods, Fomenko rigorously found such cloning of accounts in the historical record and condensed such parallels into what he believes to be the truth behind these repetitions. The cutting of vast amounts of history, such as whole lines of kings; wars; the existence of whole nations, peoples and countries vastly reduces the time such events in which such events could have happened. As such Fomenko argues that the majority of history as we know it occurring between AD1000-1500 with all events before the 16th century being rehashes of the same grander truth. He believes that there are hardly any accounts of events between AD800-1000 and absolutely no recorded history before that. I told you he was a character.

Fomenko's views are also rather euro-centric and essentially dismiss all of Chinese and Arab history as the creation of 17th and 18th century Jesuits, with all of the achievements of these cultures being attributed to Europeans. As a Russian, he also writes extensively on the history of his own country, with rather nationalistic tone. Fomenko makes claims of a vast Slav-Turk empire that existed before the 17th century, on which the historical accounts of many ethnic and national groups are merely reflecting. He claims that accounts of the Mongols, the Huns, the Goths, the Bulgars and others are actually corrupted accounts of true Russian history. Fomenko further claims that accepted Russian history is actually a forgery by German scholars to legitimise a usurping Romanov dynasty.

He also claims that the historic cities of Rome, Jerusalem and Troy were one and the same, duplicates in the accounts, with the Crusades and the Trojan Wars being cloned accounts. Other claims include relocating many of the biblical accounts to the Byzantine Empire, as well as conflating Byzantine and English history and claiming that the forgery of the ancient past being part of a Medici family conspiracy.

As with most fringe thinkers, Fomenko is as compelling as he is absurd. The seeming ridiculousness of his claims, coupled with his over-enthusiastic compilation of apparent evidence produces rather enjoyable reading. As with other things such as conspiracy theories and stories of the elusive, suspending disbelief and momentarily falling into their world can provide excitement, awe and incredible tangents of though. I would say it is my favourite extreme sport. As long as you remember, in the end, to be sceptical and logical with these matters, slipping into such fantasies is the type of escapism I enjoy most. Fantasy in reality. As much as I do not believe in what Fomenko claims; as much as I see the flaws in his arguments and the overwhelming evidence against him, it is hard not to hold a soft spot for him. As I said earlier, I have to admire the absurdity. It is pure entertainment, ultimately harmless and just based in enough of reality to be incredibly compelling. It is certainly more entertaining than most fantasy fiction.