How Karamzin distorted Russian history
"Portrait of N. M. Karamzin." Hood. V. Tropinin
Writer and historiographer of Russia
Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin (1766–1826) was born into a noble family and served in the Preobrazhensky Regiment. He retired with the rank of lieutenant, preferring the social life and literary career. His first literary experiments date back to his military service. Karamzin was the editor of the Moscow Journal, the Vestnik Evropy magazine and the Aglaya almanac, in which he published, among other things, his works: poems and stories.
After traveling through Europe in 1789-1790. Nikolai Karamzin wrote “Letters of a Russian Traveler,” the publication of which immediately made him a popular writer. Karamzin was the leader of Russian sentimentalism. He wrote a story on historical theme - “Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novagorod” (published in 1803).
By decree of Emperor Alexander I on October 31 (November 12), 1803, Nikolai Karamzin, at his own request, was officially appointed “Russian historiographer,” which gave him the right
“to read the ancient manuscripts preserved both in monasteries and in other libraries, depending on the Holy Synod, concerning Russian antiquities.”
An annual salary of 2 thousand rubles was then added to the rank.
Since 1804, Karamzin stopped all literary work, “took his hair as a historian” and began to create the greatest work of his life - “History of the Russian State.” The first 8 volumes of “History”, with a huge circulation for that time (3 thousand copies), were published in February 1818 and were instantly sold out. In subsequent years, three more volumes of the History were published, and a number of its translations into major European languages appeared.
In 1811, Karamzin wrote “A Note on Ancient and New Russia in its Political and Civil Relations,” which reflected the views of conservatives dissatisfied with the tsar’s liberal reforms. His goal was to prove that there was no need to carry out any special transformations in the country. Coverage of the Russian historical process brought Karamzin closer to the court and the tsar, who settled him near him in Tsarskoe Selo. Karamzin's political views evolved gradually, and by the end of his life, a Westerner and a Freemason, he became a staunch supporter of autocracy. The unfinished 12th volume of “History” was published after the death of the author. The writer brought the story to the period of Troubles.
It is worth noting that at this time Russian secular society, mainly of noble origin, knew better the history of Ancient Rome and Greece, Western Europe than Russia. For many nobles, French was the main language.
“Everyone, even secular women, rushed to read the history of their fatherland, hitherto unknown to them. She was a new discovery for them. Ancient Russia seemed to have been discovered by Karamzin, just as America was discovered by Columbus. They didn’t talk about anything else for a while.”
- Pushkin later recalled.
And the poet and critic Vyazemsky said:
“... He saved Russia from the invasion of oblivion, called it to life, showed us that we have a fatherland.”
N. M. Karamzin at the Monument “1000th Anniversary of Russia” in Veliky Novgorod
Distortion of the true history of Russia
The picture of Russian history drawn by Karamzin has actually become canonical and classical. However, from the very beginning, many critics drew attention to the fact that in his work Karamzin acted more as a writer than a historian - when describing historical facts, he cared about the beauty of the language. This is more literature than true history.
The writer quickly became a supporter of the authorities. Pushkin’s epigram to Karamzin is well known:
In his "History" elegance, simplicity
They prove to us without any bias
The need for autocracy
And the charm of a whip.
They prove to us without any bias
The need for autocracy
And the charm of a whip.
But the main thing is that Karamzin wrote the history of Russia in the interests of the House of Romanov, closely connected with the German world and Western Europe as a whole. Accordingly, the freemason Karamzin wrote a story that became part of the Western historical myth, created for the dominance of “historical peoples” - Germans, English, French, Italians, Greeks, etc. Russians and Slavs in general in this myth were “young peoples” , on the periphery of the cultural and historical life of European civilization.
Karamzin canonized the myth of the calling of the Norman-Germans, which was introduced into scientific circulation by the German scientists Schlözer, Miller and Bayer. Allegedly, Russian statehood was founded by the Vikings (The Rus of the North and the Lies of Norman Theory), gave the “unreasonable and wild” Slavs a ruling dynasty and the foundations of the state. This is how the Norman theory about the civilizing mission of the Scandinavian-Germans in Russia was founded. Karamzin, with his authority, gave this hypothesis the character of an immutable truth. The West happily accepted this theory. Westerners rightly pointed out: look, the most famous Russian historiographer - and he admitted that the state of the Eastern Slavs was founded by the Germans and Swedes.
Karamzin identifies the Mongols and Tatars of medieval sources. This identification dates back to the XNUMXth century, to the book of the papal legate Plano Carpini, “History of the Mongals, called Tatars.” The papal intelligence officer-diplomat made a mission to the Great Khan. Then in Rome they created the “myth of the Tatar-Mongols” (“The myth of “Mongols from Mongolia in Rus'” is the most grandiose and monstrous provocation of the Vatican against Russia). But the empty term “Mongol-Tatars” was introduced into scientific circulation only in the 1817th century. It was voiced in 1845 by the German historian H. Kruse, whose Atlas of the History of European Nations was published in Russian only in XNUMX.
Karamzin uses the name not Mongols, but Mughals, after the name of the ruler of India in the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries. Muslim dynasty. It is still unknown: either the dynasty identified itself with the descendants of Genghis Khan, or they were already ranked among the Mongols by the Europeans who discovered India.
But the most important thing is that since the time of Karamzin, any attempts to understand this terminology and reveal who is hiding in history under the name of the “Mongols” of Carpini, the “Mughals” of later European historians and the “Tatars” of the “filthy” ancient Russian chronicles and contemporary European chronicles, are here they denigrate them in every possible way. “Mongols from Mongolia”, despite all the facts that this simply cannot be (The myth of the Tatar-Mongol yoke), and period. The presentation of Karamzin and his followers became dogma.
Denigration of Ivan the Terrible
Karamzin’s description of the reign of Ivan IV Vasilyevich is divided into two parts. Until about 1560, he was a wise and kind, most Christian sovereign. In 1560-1564. Grozny allegedly begins to suffer from mental damage, which was expressed in outbursts of rage and unjustified executions. From the end of 1564, the king completely lost his mind and became a “crazy, bloody tyrant” (How Grozny was turned into "the most terrible Russian tyrant").
The Russian writer turned Ivan IV into a fallen sinner, the main anti-hero of Russian history. As sources, Karamzin used the slander of the fugitive emigrant prince and the first Russian dissident Andrei Kurbsky (“The Story of the Great Prince of Moscow Affairs”). The work was written in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth during the war against Russia and was an instrument of the Western information war against the Orthodox Tsar. The prince himself hated Ivan the Terrible and wrote for the Polish gentry. Kurbsky, for Karamzin and other Russian Westerners, was a colorful figure: a fugitive from the “tyrant”, a fighter for “freedom”, an exposer of the “immoral despot”, etc.
Another "truthful" source for Karamzin was the "testimony" of foreigners. The History of the Russian State by Nikolai Karamzin contains numerous references to the works of P. Oderborn, A. Gvagnini, T. Bredenbach, I. Taube, E. Kruse, J. Fletcher, P. Petrey, M. Stryjkovsky, Daniel Prinz, I. Kobenzl , R. Heydenstein, A. Possevino and other foreigners. Karamzin also took as sources later Western compilations based on the retelling of various rumors, myths and anecdotes. The information in them was very far from objective: from dirty gossip and rumors to deliberate information aggression against Russians, Russia and Ivan the Terrible. Foreign authors were opposed to the "Russian tyrant". The texts were written in countries with which the Russian kingdom fought or was in a state of cultural and religious confrontation.
After Karamzin, this myth became one of the fundamental ones in Russian history. It was picked up by liberal and pro-Western historians, writers and publicists. Criticism and protests were ignored and hushed up. As a result, through collective efforts, such a collective opinion was created that when the epoch-making monument “Millennium of Rus'” was created in Novgorod in 1862, the figure of the greatest Russian Tsar did not appear on it! And there is a figure of Karamzin, who slandered the great sovereign!
Russian historical myth
History is one of the main methods of management. And long-term. An excellent example is Ukraine and the “Ukrainian people”. At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, they came up with “Ukrainians,” “the history of Ukraine,” cutting out the history of Southern and Southwestern Rus' from all-Russian history. By isolating the southern part of the Russian super-ethnos into a separate ethnic group of “Ukrainians”. In the USSR, Ukrainian statehood was created - the Ukrainian SSR, the “history of Ukraine”, and the “Ukrainian people” (Russians and Ukrainians are one people; "Ukrainians" are the same Russians). Since 1991, new generations of “Ukrainians” have been brainwashed on the theme of “heroes - Mazeppians, Petliurites, Bandera, etc.
Only a century has passed (for history this is a moment), and we received a fratricidal massacre in the Russian Ukraine, Great Russians against Little Russians. The huge Russian region - the former Kiev, Galician, Seversk Rus, Little Russia and Novorossiya - became a battlefield.
Therefore, one cannot allow one’s history to be written in the interests of the West, internal Vlasovites or Banderaites. Everything will end very badly.
The historical, chronological priority of management is second in importance, after the understanding of good and evil (methodology). Why does Russia live from crisis to crisis, from disaster to disaster, from turmoil to turmoil? The answer is that we have been lied to about our history. They lied about the history of mankind. True knowledge about the past and present is hidden from people. And even more so about methods of governing countries and peoples.
Some are told the version of history from the standpoint of Christianity (biblical history), others - from the standpoint of Islam, others - the “classical” version, in the interests of “historical peoples”, etc. Divide and conquer.
“He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
- wrote George Orwell in the dystopia “1984”.
That's why Russians are constantly having their history cut short. Thus, in the life of one generation, the History of the Second World War was rewritten. No one in the world, except specialists, knows about our Great Victory. For the European or American average person, the USA and England won the war. Stalin and Hitler are bloody dictators, the Germans and Russians are occupiers.
Christian Rus'! Cyril and Methodius created writing for the “wild Russians who prayed to tree stumps.” Byzantium gave Rus' culture. However, writing existed in Rus' even before the Greek missionaries. It had its own high spiritual and material culture, while in Western Europe there were “dark ages”, and there were no Germans, no French, no English, no Italians. And Rus' was a “country of cities.” There were already Russians, they had writing, and they had many cities.
The millennia-long history of pre-Christian Rus' was “cut off” in the interests of our enemies. Therefore, study the works of those giants and titans who went against the “general line of the party” and created the true history of Russia: Lomonosov, Tatishchev, Volansky, Klassen, Chertkov, Shishkov, Lukashevich, Grinevich, Rybakov, Petukhov and many others.
It is clear that there are many controversial issues; one cannot stoop to the level of “Ukrainian historians” who are looking for the roots of “Ukrainians” in space, who record Moses and Jesus as “ancient Ukrainians”. However, one cannot help but see that the Scythians and Wends-Vandals are our direct ancestors. Accordingly, the Russians are one of the oldest peoples on the planet.
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