Shot from the movie Caligula. His life is also историяHowever, at school it is not possible to introduce anyone to her. So then the feeling arises that history is kutsaya, and historians are “not saying anything”. And how do you finish it - fifth graders?
Historical science against pseudoscience. Not so long ago, a discussion on pseudo-historical topics flared up again in the pages of VO, and accusations were again heard that mischievous historians had conspired with and hidden from the poor Russian citizens certain "secrets and mysteries" of history that were extremely important to them. That, well, they say, that's why we don’t know her. Although, in fact, the reason is different, namely the inability to learn and intellectual laziness.
The latter, however, is not so much fault as the misfortune of many of our citizens. Probably, many of those who visit the VO traveled in reserved seats. Pay attention to what people are doing on the trip. They eat, look at mobile phones and even read. But how? Many people still have their lips moving, that is, they pronounce the readable text to themselves. Such reading allows you to learn only 20% of the text! It happens that the lips themselves are motionless, but the larynx moves. This “laryngophonic reading” is 50 to 50. And only when the text is scanned by the eyes (“quick reading”), the text is absorbed by 80-90%. But in our schools they do not teach speed reading, especially in classes where there are many people from the "southern countries", it’s hard for them to read anyway. Advertisers are well aware that a layman forgets 90% of what they read in 90 days. Hence the formula “90 + 1” - and everything can start from the beginning. As a rule, only a trademark remains in the mind, except perhaps the name of the person they are talking about. That's why there is no advertising better than a scandal!
That is, it is clear that people with a poor vocabulary and primitive reading technology may be interested only in something completely sensational: the Egyptians who invented a helicopter and a light bulb, the Maya Indians flying on jet planes, the Russian-Tartarian nuclear war, which went from 1780 to 1816. Here you can strain the gray matter of your brain, even remember something, and then “tell the peasants” so that they, these very peasants, then tell someone else. Read dozens of volumes of PSRL "bad dumb", and it is clear that they are all faked ...
That is, it’s difficult to interest people in this story, but it’s easy to do all sorts of nonsense. There is one more reason. The reason is how we teach history at school.
Recall that the history of the Ancient World is taught to us in the 5th grade. And she ... scumbag. And therefore not very interesting. But the other, she simply CAN’T BE. Do you know why? Because at this age, children, our Russian children in the first place, are simply not ready to learn all that is the same ancient culture and history.
God Atum. The lady Nestarut is brought to him by the god Thoth. The louvre museum
Well, for example, when in the fifth grade we studied the history of Ancient Egypt, we were told about some beast-headed gods and the first myths about the creation of the world. But they didn’t tell us, and this is not even in the textbook, that among the Egyptian gods there was such a god - Atum. This god was bisexual and held his “female part” in his hand. He created the world by pouring his seed into his own mouth, and then spitting out the cat goddess Tefnut and her husband Shu. According to the Egyptians, this is how the Universe appeared.
Tomb of Horemheb. Gods Atum, Osiris and Ptah. Dynasty XVIII, reign. Saqqara, Egypt
Or, for example, the story of the goddess Aphrodite. It seems that everyone knows that she was born from sea foam, right? In fact, the story of Aphrodite begins with the moment when her father Uranus was sprinkled by his own son Kronos for the fact that only Cyclops monsters were born from Uranus from Uranus. Kronos threw his father’s genitals into the sea, and when the genital organ of Uranus fell into the depths of the sea, the “white foam” just formed, and from it the goddess of love Aphrodite was born.
Saracen stone (foreground) and Aphrodite's stone (background). View of the birthplace of Aphrodite from a hill - Aphrodite's Bay in Paphos. Cyprus, distant boulders
But, of course, the strangest myth comes all from the same Egypt. And it’s clear why fifth graders don’t talk about him, and you won’t find him in textbooks. The fact is that after the son of Osiris Gore took the throne, the evil Set did not accept his defeat and decided to regain power. But the Egyptians believed that anyone who, so to speak, was "used as a woman," cannot be a god. So Seth, having conceived the evil, came to the Mountain at night, and in order to make his claim to the throne baseless, reclined with him as with a woman. Izida, learning what happened with her son, asked her to fill the pot with her sperm and poured it into Seth's salad. Without suspecting anything, he ate the salad and became pregnant. So Horus managed to save his throne. Very funny story, right? Now imagine that the teacher tells all this to five-year-old children, and your daughter got to write an essay on the battle of Horus and Seth in all its details! ..
Seth and Horus crown Ramses II. Small Temple in Abu Simbel
But you can tell them about how the Romans worshiped the winged phallus (by the way, many children then learn what it is, otherwise they know the other names of this thing, but this is not!), And how Scandinavian the god Loki was to laugh at the daughter of the giant Skadi, and did this by tying a rope on his testicles, and tying it to the goat with the other end, which he also whipped with a twig. About how the penis of the same Osiris was eaten by fish, and Isis, his wife, fashioned a new one for him from clay, and, having become pregnant from him, gave birth to a son Horus.
A fragment of the figure, perhaps mourning the husband of Isis. XVIII dynasty. The louvre museum
The fact that Emperor Caligula opened a brothel, in which you can get one of his three sisters for 30 thousand sisters, and Emperor Heliogabal, speaking on the stage, "did this and that," and besides, he also " did, ”it’s also hardly worth telling in the fifth grade, as well as in the sixth ... But after reaching 18 years it seems to be possible, but the Ancient World at this age no longer passes, and if they pass, then only at universities on special historical departments.
And he looked like a very decent young man, this Heliogabal ...
But let alone disgrace and turn to the military theme. Wasn’t we informed just recently, moreover, in a textbook for 4th grade that the knights drowned in the Battle of the Ice? But the fact that their water is a "flood" is reported in the text of the annals, which is older than the earliest reports about it by as much as 100 years. What, new eyewitnesses during this time appeared, as well as the "seer" who saw there "God's regiment in the air"?
But this is a variation of Osiris in Roman: the god Priapus. Pompeii, House of Vettias
Read on. Textbook 7th grade. "The knights moved in a" pig ", in the middle there was a heavily armed infantry in iron shells and with axes ...". Where did this nonsense come from and how did it get into the school textbook? Where, in what annals did these authors “dig up” these axes? The miracle was there in the allies of the knight brothers. Alright! "People from the forest" for whom such weapon, like a knife and a knife, were the ultimate dream. Just don’t have to think about how 99% of our citizens think about it, that stag beetle is a wooden double-toothed fork for tedding hay. No, this spear is such, with an iron tip and a crossbeam behind it, so that it does not penetrate far into the flesh.
Let us recall the explanation found again in textbooks, because because Bobrok Volynets did not enter the battle on Kulikovo Field, because ... he was waiting for the south wind. And the south wind blew, carried the dust into the eyes of the Tatars, and then he led them into the attack. But how could this even happen, because it was the Tatars in the south, and the Russians in the north! How many teachers asked, no one could explain. And all because, although the teacher must learn all his life, really our teachers do not want to do this. That is, they did not read Danilevsky I. N., and therefore do not know how this is explained to him. And it is explained logically.
Boleslav the Brave and Svyatopolk at the Golden Gate of Kiev (painting by Jan Matejko)
Or here is another good example of what literally in history, including the annals, cannot be perceived and considerable intelligence is needed to understand many sources correctly. So, “The Tale of Bygone Years” reports that Prince Svyatopolk the Cursed “died between Poles and Chakhs”, in the desert ... And there were historians who even began to search for this place. But philologists pointed out that “between the Poles and the Chakhs” at that time it made sense “not know where,” but not at all a specific place on the Czech-Polish border. And now, not knowing many such trifles, one can make many completely unbelievable “discoveries”, including finding the place of his death!
Loki. Sculpture by Malcolm Lidbury for the LGBT project "History and Art 2016". Cornwall, UK
And you always need to remember that there were and will always be more than three graduate students who graduated from higher educational institutions than excellent students and good students. And where are they all, these three-year-olds from the "pedyushnikov", gone? From my 1977 issue, for example, did everyone go where? To school! And all the excellent students went to work where? To university! One wants to exclaim: “Poor school!”, But so far it has not been possible to do otherwise. Threes went to work in school and in the USSR, and now they go there. There were exceptions (oh, yes!), Of course, there were, and in the USSR, and today they also exist, but they are few. As always, everything fits into the standard scheme: 80 and 20. 80% of mediocrity go to work in school, and 20 ... also go there often, but then leave from there.
Fragment of the Book of the Dead by Hunfer, depicting the court of Osiris. OK. 1310 BC e. British museum. Beautiful picture, right? And maybe one of our school teachers will even say that this is the “Court of Osiris”. But that’s all. Because he never saw her live, since he hadn’t been to the British Museum
In a word, this is a long-standing problem, from the time when it was somehow decided that people without university diplomas were quite capable of creating a better society than that run by the graduates of Oxford and Yale. And something even they did. But only later, however, they still outplayed these “comrades”. But the conviction that deep knowledge in the humanitarian fields, by and large, is not so necessary, remains. And this is not true! If you, even if you have no special education, are interested in something in the same historical field, then you need to start with the simplest thing, that is, take and simply sequentially accumulate information. To begin self-education not from reading “revealing books” in bright covers, but from the historiography of any issue. From the source. That is, lay a certain foundation of knowledge. And then, standing on it, move somewhere in breadth and inland. And only then make statements that historians are not saying anything there. Threesomes do not say anything because they themselves do not know. But there are also good specialists, and it is necessary to look at them and their published works, moreover, printed in reputable publications and always with reviews by the RAS or relevant institutes. Theses, master's and doctoral, are also a great source of information, moreover, all of them are posted on the Internet today.