"Prince's Joke"
About the book "Ommer de Gell, letters and notes", which was published by the publishing house "Academy" in 1933. These are unknown documentary materials of a French traveler, in which she describes her journey through Russia in late XIX century. The sensational content of the book lies in a number of "new" biographical facts of the classics of Russian literature. For example, secret romance and French poetry by Mikhail Lermontov. The most prominent researchers and literary critics took at face value this hoax, which was created back in the 19th century by Prince Pavel Petrovich Vyazemsky.
"Beloved son"
According to the position of the most prestigious Goncourt literary prize, it cannot be obtained twice. But in history there is a case when a writer circumvented this law, however, thanks to a scandalous hoax. This is the son of a Russian emigrant who has become a classic French literature- Romain Gary. But the main hoaxer in the writer's family was not him, but his mother.
"The Evil Sonnets of Guillaume du Ventre"
Sonnets French poet XVI century by Guillaume du Ventre were published in the original language with translation in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in 1946. The real authors of this book were two prisoners who spent almost their entire lives in Stalin's camps. About amazing life and the work of these people who resisted the vicissitudes of fate - a story in the program.
"Botanical Hoaxes"
At a literary evening in Paris, Vladislav Khodasevich made a report in which he spoke about the unknown poet of Derzhavin's circle, Vasily Travnikov. The story about the difficult fate of Travnikov and the analysis of his poems, which Khodasevich discovered by a lucky chance, evoked an enthusiastic reaction from critics, especially from Georgy Adamovich. A few years later, Vladimir Nabokov publishes poetry and a story about meeting his contemporary, Vasily Shishkov. And again, Adamovich became in the forefront of those deceived by the hoax. This brilliant critic, who constantly made claims about the work of Khodasevich and Nabokov, was carried out by them both times, under botanical pseudonyms.
The history of world literature, knowing about the falsification of many of its monuments, tries to forget about it. There is hardly at least one researcher who would argue that the classics of Greece and Rome that have come down to us are not mutilated by scribes.
Erasmus bitterly complained as early as the 16th century that there was not a single text of the "fathers of the church" (i.e., the first four centuries of Christianity) that could be unconditionally recognized as authentic. The fate of literary monuments is perhaps just as unenviable. In the very late XVII centuries, the Jesuit scholar Arduin argued that ancient world belong only to Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, Pliny, Horace's "Satyrs" and Virgil's "Georgics". As for the rest of the works of antiquity ... they were all created in the XIII century AD.
It is enough to raise this question about the authenticity of the manuscripts of the classics in order to recognize the complete impossibility of establishing where in the past the “genuine” classic ends and the falsified one begins. In essence, the true Sophocles and Titus Livius are unknown... The most subtle and strict criticism of the texts is powerless to detect later distortions of the classics. The traces that would lead to the original texts are cut off.
It is also worth adding that historians are extremely reluctant to part even with works whose apocryphal nature has been proven by themselves. They number them according to the category of the so-called pseudo-epigraphic literature (pseudo-Clement, pseudo-Justus, etc.) and do not hesitate to use them. This position is absolutely understandable and is only logical development general attitude to the "ancient" monuments: there are so few of them that it is a pity to exclude even the dubious ones from circulation.
No sooner had the first printing press been made in Italy in 1465 than a few years later the history of literature registered a forgery of Latin authors.
In 1519, the French scholar de Boulogne forged two books by V. Flaccus, and in 1583 one of the remarkable humanist scholars Sigonius published passages from Cicero unknown to him before. This simulation was done with such skill that it was discovered only two centuries later, and even then by chance: a letter was found by Sigonius, in which he confessed to falsification.
In the same century, one of the first German humanists who introduced Germany to the Roman classics, Prolucius wrote the seventh book of Ovid's Calendar Mythology. This hoax was partly caused by a scholarly dispute about how many books this work of Ovid was divided into; despite indications on behalf of the author that he had six books, some Renaissance scholars, based on compositional features, insisted that there should be twelve books.
At the end of the 16th century, the question of the spread of Christianity in Spain was little covered. To fill the unfortunate gap, the Spanish monk Higera after a big and hard work wrote the chronicle on behalf of the never-existing Roman historian Flavius Dexter.
In the 18th century, the Dutch scholar Hirkens published a tragedy under the name of Lucius Varus, supposedly a tragic poet of the Augustan era. Quite by accident, it was possible to establish that the Venetian Corrario published it in the 16th century on his own behalf, without trying to mislead anyone.
The Spaniard Marhena in 1800 had fun writing in Latin pornographic discourse. Of these, he fabricated a whole story and connected it with the text of the XXII chapter of Petroniev's Satyricon. It is impossible to tell where Petronius ends and Markhena begins. He published his passage with the Petronian text, indicating in the preface the imaginary place of the find.
This is not the only forgery of Petronius' satires. A century before Marchen, the French officer Nodo published the “complete” Satyricon, allegedly “based on a thousand-year-old manuscript that he bought during the siege of Belgrade from a Greek,” but no one has seen either this or the older manuscripts of Petronius.
Catullus was also reprinted, forged in the 18th century by the Venetian poet Corradino, who allegedly found a copy of Catullus in Rome.
19th-century German student Wagenfeld allegedly translated from Greek into german history Phoenicia, written by the Phoenician historian Sanchoniaton and translated into Greek by Philo of Byblos. The find made a huge impression, one of the professors gave a preface to the book, after which it was published, and when Wagenfeld was asked for a Greek manuscript, he refused to submit it.
In 1498, in Rome, Eusebius Silber published on behalf of Berosus, "a Babylonian priest who lived 250 years before the birth of Christ", but "who wrote in Greek", an essay in Latin "Five books of antiquities with comments by John Anni". The book withstood several editions, and then turned out to be a fake of the Dominican monk Giovanni Nanni from Viterboro. However, despite this, the legend of the existence of Beroz did not disappear, and in 1825 Richter in Leipzig published the book “The Chaldean stories of Beroz that have come down to us”, allegedly compiled from “mentions” to Beroz in the works of other authors. It is surprising that, for example, Acad. Turaev has no doubts about the existence of Beroz and believes that his work "is highly valuable to us."
In the twenties of our century, the German Sheinis sold several fragments from classical texts to the Leipzig Library. Among the others was a page from the writings of Plautus, written in purple ink, the curators of the Cabinet of Manuscripts of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, quite confident in the authenticity of their purchase, praised it: “The fine handwriting bears all the features characteristic of a very old period. It can be seen that this is a fragment of a luxurious book; the use of purple ink indicates that the book was in the library of a wealthy Roman, perhaps in the imperial library. We are sure that our fragment is part of a book created in Rome itself.” However, two years later, a scandalous exposure of all the manuscripts submitted by Sheinis followed.
Scientists of the Renaissance (and later times) were not content with the “finds” of manuscripts of writers already known to them, they informed each other about the “discoveries” by them and new, hitherto unknown authors, as Murea did in the 16th century, who sent Scaliger his own poems under the name of the forgotten Latin poets Attius and Trobeus. Even the historian J. Balzac created a fictional Latin poet. He included in an edition of Latin poems published in 1665 one that praised Nero and allegedly found by him on half-decayed parchment and attributed to an unknown contemporary of Nero. This poem was even included in the anthologies of Latin poets until a fake was discovered.
In 1729 Montesquieu published in a French translation Greek poem in the spirit of Sappho, saying in the preface that these seven songs were written by an unknown poet who lived after Sappho, and found by him in the library of a Greek bishop. Montesquieu later confessed to the hoax.
In 1826, the Italian poet Leopardi forged two Greek odes in the style of Anacreon, written by hitherto unknown poets. He also published his second forgery - a translation of the Latin retelling of the Greek chronicle dedicated to the history of the Church Fathers and the description of Mount Sinai.
The famous forgery of the ancient classics is the hoax of Pierre Louis, who invented the poetess Bilitis. He published her songs in Mercure de France, and in 1894 he released them separate edition. In the preface, Louis outlined the circumstances of his "discovery" of the songs of an unknown Greek poetess of the 6th century BC. and reported that a certain Dr. Heim even sought out her grave. Two German scientists - Ernst and Willowitz-Mullendorf - immediately devoted articles to the newly discovered poetess, and her name was included in the "Dictionary of Writers" by Lolier and Zhidel. In the next edition of the Songs, Louis placed her portrait, for which the sculptor Laurent copied one of the terracottas of the Louvre. The success was huge. Back in 1908, not everyone was aware of the hoax, since that year he received a letter from an Athenian professor asking him to indicate where the original songs of Bilitis were kept.
Let us note that almost all the exposed hoaxes of this kind belong to the new time. This is understandable, because it is almost impossible to catch the hand of a Renaissance humanist who invented a new author. By all accounts, therefore, it must be expected that at least some of the "ancient" authors were invented by humanists.
Fakes of the new time
Closer to modern times, not only ancient authors were inventing. One of the most famous falsifications of this kind are the Ossian poems composed by MacPherson (1736-1796) and the poems of Rowley Chatterton, although these forgeries were rather quickly exposed, their artistic merit ensures their prominent place in the history of literature.
Forgeries of Lafontaine, letters of Byron, Shelley, Keats, novels by W. Scott, F. Cooper and plays by Shakespeare are known.
A special group among the forgeries of modern times are writings (mostly letters and memoirs) attributed to some celebrity. There are several dozen of them (only the most famous ones).
In the 19th century, fakes "antique" continued, but, as a rule, they were not associated with antiquity. So, at the end of the 19th century, a manuscript “found” by the Jerusalem merchant Shapiro allegedly of the 1st millennium, which tells about the wandering of the Jews in the desert after the Exodus from Egypt, caused a sensation.
In 1817 the philologist Václav Ganka (1791 -1861) in the church small town Kralev Dvor on the Elbe allegedly found a parchment on which old letters epic poems and lyric songs of the 13th-14th centuries were written. Subsequently, he "discovered" many other texts, for example, an old translation of the Gospel. In 1819 he became the curator of the literary collections, and from 1823 he was the librarian of the National Czech Museum in Prague. There was not a single manuscript left in the library that Ganka did not put his hand to. He changed the text, inserted words, pasted sheets, crossed out paragraphs. He came up with a whole "school" of ancient artists, whose names he entered into the original old manuscripts that fell into his hands. The exposure of this incredible falsification was accompanied by a deafening scandal.
The famous Winckelmann, the founder of modern archeology, was the victim of a hoax by the artist Casanova (brother of the famous adventurer), who illustrated his book " ancient monuments”(But Winckelman was an archaeologist - a professional!).
Casanova supplied Winckelmann with three "ancient" paintings, which, he assured, were taken directly from the walls in Pompeii. Two paintings (with dancers) were made by Casanova himself, and the painting, which depicted Jupiter and Ganymede, was made by the painter Raphael Menges. For persuasiveness, Kazakova composed an absolutely incredible romantic story about a certain officer who supposedly stole these paintings from the excavations secretly at night. Winckelmann believed not only in the authenticity of the "relics", but also in all of Casanova's fables and described these paintings in his book, noting that "Jupiter's favorite is undoubtedly one of the most striking figures that we have inherited from the art of antiquity ...".
Kazakova's falsification has the character of mischief, caused by the desire to play a trick on Winckelmann.
It has a similar character famous hoax Merimee, who conceived, being carried away by the Slavs, to go to the East to describe them. But this required money. “And I thought,” he himself admits, “first to describe our journey, sell the book, and then spend the fee to check how right I am in my description.” And so, in 1827, he released a collection of songs called "Gusli" under the guise of translations from the Balkan languages. The book was a great success, in particular, Pushkin in 1835 made a pseudo-reverse translation of the book into Russian, turning out to be more gullible than Goethe, who immediately felt the hoax. Mérimée prefaced the second edition with an ironic preface, mentioning those whom he managed to fool. Pushkin later wrote: "The poet Mickiewicz, a sharp-sighted and subtle connoisseur of Slavic poetry, did not doubt the authenticity of these songs, and some German wrote a lengthy dissertation about them." In the latter, Pushkin is absolutely right: greatest success these ballads were owned by specialists who had no doubts about their authenticity.
Other falsifications
Examples of fakes, hoaxes, apocrypha, etc. etc. can be multiplied indefinitely. We have only mentioned the most famous ones. Let's look at a few more disparate examples.
In the history of the development of Kabbalah, the book "Zohar" ("Radiance"), attributed to Tanai Simon ben Yochai, whose life is shrouded in a thick fog of legend, is well known. M.S. Belenky writes: “However, it has been established that the mystic Moses de Leon (1250-1305) was its author. About him, the historian Gren said: “One can only doubt whether he was a selfish or pious deceiver ...” Moses de Leon wrote several works of a Kabbalistic nature, but they did not bring either fame or money. Then the unlucky writer came up with the right means for wide disclosure of hearts and wallets. He set about writing under a false but authoritative name. A clever forger passed off his Zohar as the work of Simon ben Jochai... The forgery of Moses de Leon was successful and produced strong impression on believers. The Zohar has been deified for centuries by the defenders of mysticism as a heavenly revelation.
One of the most famous Hebraists of modern times is L. Goldschmidt, who spent more than twenty years on the critical publication of the first complete translation into Russian. German Babylonian Talmud. In 1896 (when he was 25 years old) Goldschmidt published an allegedly newly discovered Talmudic work in Aramaic, The Book of Peace. However, almost immediately it was proved that this book is a translation of Goldschmidt's Ethiopian work "Hexameron" pseudo-Epiphanius.
Voltaire found a manuscript commenting on the Vedas in the Paris National Library. He had no doubt that the manuscript was written by the Brahmins before Alexander the Great went to India. The authority of Voltaire helped to publish in 1778 a French translation of this work. However, it soon became clear that Voltaire fell victim to a hoax.
In India, in the library of missionaries, forged commentaries of the same religious and political nature were found on other parts of the Vedas, also attributed to the Brahmins. By a similar forgery, the English Sanskrit scholar Joyce was misled, who translated the verses he discovered from the Purana, outlining the story of Noah and written by some Hindu in the form of an old Sanskrit manuscript.
A great sensation was caused at the time by the discovery of the Italian antiquary Curzio. In 1637, he published Fragments of Etruscan Antiquity, allegedly based on manuscripts he found buried in the ground. The forgery was quickly exposed: Curzio himself buried the parchment he had written to give it an old look.
In 1762, the chaplain of the Order of Malta Vella, escorting to Palermo Arab Ambassador, decided to "help" the historians of Sicily find materials to cover its Arab period. After the ambassador's departure, Vella spread the rumor that this diplomat had given him an ancient Arabic manuscript containing correspondence between the Arabian authorities and the Arab governors of Sicily. In 1789 an Italian "translation" of this manuscript was published.
Three Indias. In 1165, a Letter from Prester John to Emperor Emmanuel Comnenus appeared in Europe (according to Gumilyov, this happened in 1145). The letter was allegedly written in Arabic and then translated into Latin. The letter made such an impression that in 1177 Pope Alexander III sent his envoy to the presbyter, who was lost somewhere in the vastness of the east. The letter described the kingdom of Nestorian Christians somewhere in India, its miracles and untold riches. During the second crusade, serious hopes were placed on the military assistance of this kingdom of Christians; no one thought to doubt the existence of such a powerful ally.
Soon the letter was forgotten, several times they returned to the search for a magical kingdom (In the 15th century, they were looking for it in Ethiopia, then in China). So it was only in the 19th century that scientists came up with the idea to deal with this fake.
However, to understand that this is a fake - it is not necessary to be a specialist. The letter is full of details typical of European medieval fantasy. Here is a list of animals found in the Three Indies:
“Elephants, dromedaries, camels, Meta collinarum (?), Cametennus (?), Tinserete (?), panthers, forest donkeys, white and red lions, polar bears, white whiting (?), cicadas, eagle griffins, ... horned people , one-eyed, people with eyes in front and behind, centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies, giants, cyclops, a phoenix bird and almost all breeds of animals living on earth ... "
(cited by Gumilyov, “In Search of a Fictional Kingdom)
Modern content analysis has shown that the letter was composed in the second quarter of the 12th century in Languedoc or Northern Italy.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion. "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" - a collection of texts that appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and became widely distributed in the world, presented by publishers as documents of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Some of them claimed that these were the protocols of the reports of the participants of the Zionist congress held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. The texts outlined plans for the conquest of world domination by the Jews, penetration into the structures of state government, taking non-Jews under control, eradication of other religions. Although it has long been proven that the Protocols are anti-Semitic hoaxes, there are still many supporters of their authenticity. This point of view is especially widespread in the Islamic world. In some countries, the study of the "Protocols" is even included in the school curriculum.
The document that split the church.
For 600 years, the leaders of the Roman Church used the Donation of Constantine (Constitutum Constantinini) to maintain their authority as stewards of Christendom.
Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor (306-337) to convert to Christianity. He was said to have donated half of his empire in 315 CE. e. in gratitude for getting new faith And miraculous healing from leprosy. The deed of gift - a document in which the fact of donation was certified - gave the Roman diocese spiritual authority over all churches and temporary authority over Rome, all of Italy and the West. Those who try to prevent this, it is written in the Donation, "will burn in hell and perish with the devil and all the wicked."
The donation, 3000 words long, first appeared in the 9th century and became powerful weapon in a dispute between the Eastern and Western churches. The dispute culminated in the split of the church in 1054 into the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Church.
Ten popes quoted the document, and its authenticity was not in doubt until the 15th century, when Nicola of Cuza (1401-1464), the greatest theologian of his time, pointed out that the Bishop of Eusebia, a contemporary and biographer of Constantine, does not even mention this gift .
The document is now virtually universally recognized as a forgery, most likely fabricated by Rome around 760. Moreover, the falsification was not well thought out. For example, the document gives the Roman diocese power over Constantinople - a city that as such did not yet exist!
No wonder that French philosopher Voltaire called it "the most shameless and amazing falsification that has dominated the world for many centuries."
The hoaxer and prankster Leo Taxil
In 1895, Taxil's essay "The Secrets of Gehenna, or Miss Diana Vaughan*, her exposure of Freemasonry, the cult and the manifestations of the devil" caused a particularly great stir. Taxil, under the fictitious surname of Germanus, reported that Diana Vaughan, the daughter of the supreme devil Bitra, was engaged for ten years to the commander of 14 demonic regiments, voluptuous Asmodeus, committed with him Honeymoon to Mars. Dr. Hux soon demonstrated Diana Vaughan to a large clerical audience.
Having repented of her "delusion" and returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church, Vaughan's "wife of the devil" corresponded with major church leaders, received letters from Cardinal Parocha, who gave her the blessing of the pope.
On September 25, 1896, in the Italian city of Triente, on the initiative of Taxil, an international congress of the anti-Masonic union, created by Leo XIII, was held. There were 36 bishops and 61 journalists at the congress. The portrait of Taxil hung on the podium among the images of the saints. Diana Vaughan spoke at the convention as living proof Masonic Lucifernism.
However, articles have already appeared in the press ridiculing the "wife of the devil." In July 1896, Margiotti broke off relations with his comrades, threatening to expose them.
A few months later, an article by Hux, who turned out to be the author of the anti-religious essay The Gesture, appeared in German and French newspapers, in which it was reported that "all exposures of Freemasonry were pure blackmail." “When the papal message came out against the Freemasons as allies of the devil,” Hux wrote, “I thought it would help extort money from the gullible. I consulted with Leo Taxil and a few friends, and together we conceived the Devil of the 19th century.
"When I thought incredible stories, for example, about the devil, who in the morning turned into a young lady who dreamed of marrying a freemason, and in the evening turned into a crocodile playing the piano, my employees, laughing to tears, said: “You are going too far! You'll blow the whole joke!" I answered them: “It will do!”. And it really did." Hux ended the article by stating that he was now ceasing all myth-making about Satan and Freemasons, and with the proceeds from the spread of anti-Masonic fables, he was opening a restaurant in Paris where he would feed sausages and sausages as plentifully as he fed the gullible public with his fairy tales.
A few days later, Margiotti appeared in print and announced that his entire book, The Cult of Satan, was part of a hoax conceived by Taxil. On April 14, 1897, in the huge hall of the Paris Geographical Society, Taxil spoke about the fact that his anti-Masonic writings are the greatest hoax of modern times, which aimed to ridicule the gullible clergy. "The Devil's Wife" Diana Vaughan turned out to be Taxil's secretary.
The scandal was huge. Pope Leo XIII anathematized Taxil. In the same 1897, Taxil published a satire on the Old Testament - "The Funny Bible" (Russian translation: M., 1962), and soon its continuation - "The Funny Gospel" (Russian translation: M., 1963).
Reasons for fraud
The reasons for falsifications are as diverse as life itself.
Little is documented about the urge to forge in the Middle Ages. Therefore, we are forced to analyze this issue on the basis of the materials of modern times. However, there is no reason why the general conclusions drawn from this material are not applicable to more distant times.
1. An extensive class of fakes is made up of purely literary hoaxes and stylizations. As a rule, if a hoax was successful, its authors quickly and proudly revealed their deception ( a prime example is Merimee's hoax, and also Luis's hoax).
The passages from Cicero apparently falsified by Sigonius belong to the same class.
If such a hoax is done skillfully, and for some reason the author has not confessed to it, it is very difficult to reveal it.
It is terrible to think how many such hoaxes were made during the Renaissance (on a bet, for fun, to test one's abilities, etc.), which were subsequently taken seriously. However, one might think that such "ancient" writings belonged only to "small-format" genres (poems, passages, letters, etc.).
2. Close to them are falsifications in which a young author tries to establish his "I" or test his strength in a genre that guarantees him protection in case of failure. To this class clearly belong, say, the forgeries of McPherson and Chatterton (in the latter case, a rare pathology of complete identification with adored ancient authors manifested itself). In response to the theater's inattention to his plays, Colonne responded with a forgery of Molière, and so on.
Note that, as a rule, the most famous falsifiers of this type were not distinguished in any way in the future. Ireland, who forged Shakespeare, became a mediocre writer.
3. Even more malicious are the falsifications made by a young philologist in order to quickly become famous (for example, Wagenfeld). More mature men of science falsified in order to prove this or that position (Prolucius) or to fill gaps in our knowledge (Higera).
4. "Filling" falsifications also include biographies of fantastic personalities like "Saint Veronica", etc.
5. Many falsifiers were motivated (in combination with other motives) by considerations of a political or ideological nature (Gank).
6. The monastic falsifications of the “fathers of the church”, the decrees of the popes, etc., must be considered a special case of the latest falsifications.
7. Very often a book was apocryphal in antiquity because of its accusatory, anti-clerical or free-thinking character, when its publication was under own name was fraught with dire consequences.
8. Finally, last but not least is the factor of elementary profit. There are so many examples that it is impossible to list them.
Exposure of falsifications
If the falsification is done skillfully, then its exposure presents enormous difficulties and, as a rule (if the falsifier himself does not confess), it happens purely by chance (an example is Sigonius). Since history tends to forget its falsifications, with the removal of time, it becomes more and more difficult to expose falsifications (an example is Tacitus). Therefore, there is no doubt that a lot of falsifications (especially humanistic ones) still remain unrevealed.
In this regard, information about the circumstances of the finds of certain manuscripts is of particular interest. As we have seen in the case of Tacitus and will see later in the case of many other works "discovered" in the Renaissance, this information is very scarce and contradictory. There are almost no names in it, and only “nameless monks” are reported, who brought “somewhere from the north” priceless manuscripts that had lain “in oblivion” for many centuries. Therefore, it is impossible to judge the authenticity of the manuscripts on its basis. On the contrary, the very inconsistency of this information leads (as in the case of Tacitus) to serious doubts.
It is very strange that, as a rule, there is no information about the circumstances of the finds of manuscripts even in the 19th century! Either unverifiable data is reported about them: “I bought it at the oriental bazaar”, “I found it in the basement of the monastery secretly (!) From the monks”, or they are generally silent. We will return to this more than once, but for now we will only quote the famous scientist Prof. Zelinsky:
“The past year 1891 will long remain memorable in the history of classical philology; he brought us, not to mention minor novelties, two large and precious gifts - Aristotle's book on the Athenian state and everyday scenes of Herodes. To what a happy accident we owe these two finds - this is observed by those who should know, stubborn and significant silence: only the very fact of an accident remains undoubted, and with the establishment of this fact, any need to ask oneself a question is eliminated ... ".
Ah, hey, it wouldn't hurt to ask "those who need to know" where they got these manuscripts from. After all, as examples show, neither high academic titles, nor universally recognized honesty in everyday life guarantee against fakes. However, as Engels noted, there are no people more gullible than scientists.
It should be noted that the above is only very brief an excursion into the history of fakes (besides, only literary ones, and there are also epigraphic, archaeological, anthropological and many, many others - further posts will be devoted to several of them), in which only some of them are presented. In reality, their much more and that's just the famous ones. And how many fakes have not yet been disclosed - no one knows. One thing is certain - many, very many.
From aliases to friendly prank among Russian writers it turned out to be very close. At first, such pranks did not have the character of a game and were simple “attempts” to present their works under a false name. Here it is useful to recall the classic "Tales of Belkin", which belonged to Pushkin, and "Sensations and remarks of Mrs. Kurdyukova" by Myatlev. However, the real creators in these cases did not plan to “hide” from readers and put their real names on the covers. However, further, real games and hoaxes began among domestic writers.
So, it is known that in the middle of the 19th century, the publication of the poem “Woman’s Advocacy” appeared, signed by a certain Evgenia Sarafanova. The Pantheon publishing house publishes this poem, and then receives a letter from the "author", in which the woman, happy with the release of the work, thanks the publisher and asks for some money, since she is actually a "poor girl." "Pantheon" sends the fee, and then the real author is announced - G.P. Danilevsky. Later, in order to debunk speculation about the authorship of this poem, he includes it in his collected works.
However, although Mr. Danilevsky was not the only hoaxer of this kind (indeed, there were many such hoaxes at that time), we will focus only on the two largest hoax events, the scale of which exceeded all previously known attempts at hoaxes.
Kozma Prutkov - we play seriously!
This draw was held according to all the rules of a well-thought-out production and in accordance with the genre of urban folklore. This hoax was attended by - authors, directors, actors, moreover, united among themselves by "blood relationship". All of them were the Tolstoy brothers: Alexei Konstantinovich ( famous writer) and his three cousins - Alexander, Vladimir and Alexei (Mikhailovich Zhemchuzhnikovs), who chose one collective pseudonym - Kozma Prutkov.
True, at first Kozma, of course, was Kuzma. And it appeared for the first time as a creative experience of 4 authors in the supplement of Sovremennik - Literary Jumble.
Literary critics, who later analyzed this phenomenon, came to the conclusion that Kozma Prutkov had not only a “collective” parent, but also a “collective” prototype, since in the prototype of the hero of this hoax, the researchers saw both the lyric poet of that time V.V. Benediktov and Fet , and Polonsky, and Khomyakov ...
Prutkov, observing all the requirements and conventions of his presence in literature, had his own biography and social status.
So, this "writer" was born in 1803, on April 11. He served in his youth in the hussars, then resignation and civil career - service in the Assay Office, where he reached the rank of state councilor and the position of director. Prutkov appears in print in 1850, and departs to another world in 1863 on January 13. That is, his literary activity is limited to only 13 years, but, nevertheless, Prutkov's popularity is great.
The first "sprouts" of exposure were already found in the biography, since although the Assay Office itself really existed, there was no position of director in it. In fact, the institution, called so, belonged to the department of the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs under the Ministry of Finance, where there were both the Moscow and St. Petersburg chambers that were engaged in testing and hallmarking silver and gold. The Assay Office of the Northern capital, of course, also had its own legal address - the Ekaterininsky Canal Embankment, 51. Moreover, this institution existed there until 1980. However, the urban folklore of St. Petersburg has retained this name to our times - this is also the name of the Institute of Metrology, which is located on Moskovsky Prospekt, 19. Previously, it was the Chamber of Weights and Measures, and the corresponding samples were indeed taken there.
In addition to the invented "official data", the writer Kozma Prutkov was endowed with real features by his "parents", who at that time were already poets (mainly known to A.K. Tolstoy), belonged to the "golden youth" of the capital, were known as "jugs" and wits. Behind these pranksters there really were amazing tricks that excited and amused the capital.
For example, once Alexander Zhemchuzhnikov made a commotion when, dressed in an adjutant's wing, he traveled all over the night to all the major architects of the capital and gave them an order to come to the palace, because
He came to work in a perfect suit, patent leather boots and a starched collar. Among the bohemians, he was known as the "arbiter of proper taste" and even ordered his employees to come to the service in tailcoats. Such exquisite aesthetics and pretentious elegance could even claim to be almost the norm in the culture of those years.
After listening to the nondescript lame, Makovsky rejects her poems ...
Of course, in his ideas, the modern poetess had to be correlated with the image of an inaccessible and demonic lady, socialite and beauties.
It would seem that the plot is over? Elizabeth is denied access to literature forever. But here fate intervenes in the form of another poet - Maximilian Voloshin. He was very talented and extraordinary person. For some time, Voloshin also collaborated with Apollo, although he did not have much sympathy with his editor-in-chief personally. Voloshin was from Kyivian, part of his life he worked in Moscow, part in Koktebel. With St. Petersburg, this poet did not have an understanding, he did not like this capital. Here Voloshin seemed to be a stranger. On the contrary, in his house in Koktebel, he arranged a completely different life - with practical jokes, jokes, cartoons and very sensitive meetings for his friends. However, Maximilian Voloshin is worthy of a separate and detailed story.
So it was Voloshin who came up with the idea to punish Makovsky for snobbery and excessive aestheticism and thus protect Dmitrieva (by the way, the legend says that the poet himself was not indifferent to this “ugly girl”). So in the capital, the genre of literary hoax, already forgotten since the time of Prutkov, was “resurrected”.
Together with Dmitrieva, Voloshin creates the image of a fatal beauty, necessary and “desired” for bohemia, who, moreover, has hereditary roots in South America! The name is made up of the name of the heroine (Garta-Cherubina) of one American writer and one of the names evil spirits- Gabriak. A beautiful romantic pseudonym came out - Cherubina de Gabriak.
The poems signed by this lady were set out on beautiful and expensive paper, sealed with sealing wax with the inscription on the seal - "Vae vintis!" or "Woe to the vanquished."
Voloshin hoped a little that this inscription would "open the eyes" of Makovsky. The purpose of the hoaxers was the publication of Dmitrieva's poems, and it was achieved! The fatal lady has become literary sensation capital Cities. As expected, all the writers were immediately fascinated and in love with a mysterious stranger. And even Makovsky sent luxurious bouquets to the poetess. Everyone knew her poems, everyone talked about her, but no one saw her.
As usual, the hoax was not without love "adventures" and even a duel. We wrote about this romantic story in the rubric of literary duels. It was because of Cherubina that Voloshin and Gumilyov agreed then on the Black River. The first defended the honor of the lady, the second was eager for satisfaction for the slap he received from Max. In the prehistory of this duel, Gumilyov's invitation to marry him, to which Cherubina refused, after receiving which Gumilyov publicly speaks about the mysterious stranger in insulting and frank terms.
The duel was bloodless, but with the consequences of exposure. It is believed that Elizabeth Ivanovna began to be tormented by her conscience, and she decided to stop the hoax, confessing everything to Makovsky.
Cherubina confesses, Makovsky is stunned, but pretends that he was aware of the adventure.
Game over…
Interestingly, the life of a teacher primary school with a modest salary in the future, too, remained a mystery. So, no one knows for sure anything about her life, the place of burial. As if she died either in 1925, or in 1931, or in Turkmenistan, or in Solovki. It is known that in marriage she is Vasilyeva, and allegedly with her husband she was sent into exile on the “Academic Case”. However, in our time, another collection of her poems was published already under real name And they turned out to be completely untalented ...
Famous writers who were not
Text: Mikhail Wiesel/Year of Literature.RF
Photo: Rene Magritte "Son of Man"
Traditionally April 1 It is customary to give comic news about events that did not happen and invented sensations. We decided to remind you of the five most famous Russian writers who actually never existed.
1. Ivan Petrovich Belkin
The first and most significant Russian "virtual author", which arose in the autumn of 1830 under the pen of Pushkin. It's not just an alias; writing Belkin's Tales, Pushkin tried to get away from himself, the famous lyric poet and minion of secular salons, who, moreover, was under the personal censorship of the tsar himself. And write strictly realistic stories on behalf of a modest provincial debutant, a retired army lieutenant - for whom he came up with a biography and even completed it, declaring poor Ivan Petrovich dead. However, he himself did not keep a very strict secret. On the contrary, he instructed Pletnev, who was engaged in publishing stories, how to deal with booksellers: “Smirdin whisper my name so that he whispers to buyers.”
2. Kozma Prutkov
If Ivan Petrovich Belkin is the most “weighty” of the Russian virtual authors, then the “director of the Assay Chamber” is the most famous author. And perhaps the most prolific. Which is not surprising, given that “on his behalf” in the 50s and 60s XIX years centuries, not one, but four people wrote - Count Alexei Konstantinovich Tolstoy and his cousins, the three Zhemchuzhnikov brothers. “Wise thoughts” by Kozma Prutkov dispersed into sayings: “You can’t grasp the immensity”, “If you read the inscription on an elephant’s cage: buffalo, don’t believe your eyes”, and we often forget that they were composed as a mockery, speaking in a modern way - banter . It is no coincidence that Kozma Prutkov, like another “piit” like him, Captain Lebyadkin from Dostoevsky’s “Demons”, is considered the forerunner of the poetry of the absurd and conceptualism.
3. Cherubina De Gabriac
The most romantic of virtual authors. It arose in the summer of 1909 as a result of close communication (in Koktebel, freeing from conventions) of the 22-year-old philologist-anthroposophist Elizaveta Dmitrieva and the then-famous poet and literary figure Maximilian Voloshin. It was he who suggested that the enthusiastic young lady, who studied medieval poetry at the Sorbonne, write poetry not on her own behalf (it must be admitted - quite ordinary, like Lisa's appearance), but on behalf of a certain Russian Catholic with French roots. And then he actively "promoted" the poems of the mysterious Cherubina in the editorial offices of aesthetic metropolitan magazines, with whose employees the poetess herself spoke exclusively by phone - thereby driving them crazy. The hoax ended quickly - when Nikolai Gumilyov, who met Lisa in Paris a year earlier than Voloshin, considered that he had "stole" her from him, and challenged his "rival" to a duel. The famous "second duel on the Black River", fortunately, ended with minimal damage - Voloshin lost his galosh in the snow, after which Sasha Cherny called him "Vaks Kaloshin" in one of his poems. For Dmitrieva herself, the brief history of Cherubina ended in a long creative and personal crisis - in 1911 she married a man who had nothing to do with poetry, and left with him for Central Asia.
4.
Soviet times were not very conducive to full-fledged literary hoaxes. Literature was a matter of state importance, and no jokes are inappropriate here. (It is necessary, however, to put in brackets the difficult question of full-sounding Russian versions of the epics of the peoples of the USSR, created by disgraced metropolitan intellectuals.) But since the beginning of the 90s, “virtual authors” have densely filled book pages. For the most part - purely commercial and disposable. But of them "hatched" and the one that has become a well-known brand to us. Now it is strange to remember, but back in 2000 he carefully kept the secret of his authorship, because he was embarrassed by this activity, writing entertaining retrodetectives, in front of his intellectual friends.
5. Nathan Dubovitsky
The author of the action-packed novel “Near Zero”, which made a lot of noise in 2009, whose true face has not yet been officially disclosed - although indirect “evidence” quite eloquently points to a high-ranking representative of the Russian political establishment. But he is in no hurry to confirm his authorship - we will not rush either. More fun with virtual authors. And not only April 1.
04.08.2017 Under a False Name: Pseudonyms and Literary Hoaxes - Exhibition in the New BuildingOn August 3, in the New building of the Russian National Library (Moskovsky pr., 165), the exhibition "Under a false name: Pseudonyms and literary hoaxes" began its work.
The exhibition presents the work of famous domestic and foreign writers who worked under pseudonyms or deliberately attributed authorship to a real person or who presented their works as folk art.
During the Renaissance, interest in ancient authors and their texts was so high that, together with previously unknown original works ancient authors began to appear numerous fakes, the so-called imaginary translations. Many researchers call the Homeric poems the first literary hoax. The personality of Homer was, in their opinion, invented, and the works attributed to him were the fruit of collective labor. Today it is difficult to find out which of the ancient works are real and which are a hoax of the Renaissance.
The most famous master of passing off his texts as someone else's was English writer and publicist Daniel Defoe. Of the 500 books he wrote, only 4 came out under his real name, while the rest were attributed to historical and invented personalities. Defoe himself acted only as a publisher. So, for example, three volumes of "The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe" were written by a "sailor from York", "History of the Wars of Charles XII, King of Sweden" - "by a Scottish officer in Swedish service", "Notes of a Cavalier" were issued by him for the memoirs of a nobleman, who lived in the 17th century, during the Great Mutiny, and "The Narrative of all the robberies, escapes and other affairs of John Sheppard" - for suicide notes, written in prison by the real-life famous robber John Sheppard. The exhibition presents Daniel Defoe's richly illustrated two-volume Robinson Crusoe and his interesting adventures described by himself" (with 200 drawings engraved on stone, 1870).
The literary hoax "Ossian's Song", created by the most talented English poet and literary critic George Macpherson, who wrote in 1760-1763 on behalf of the Scottish bard Ossian, who allegedly lived in the 3rd century, also went down in history.
Among the popular hoaxers, it is worth mentioning Prosper Merimee, who secretly published a collection of plays "Gusli" ("Guzla") with notes and a portrait of the "author", a collector of folklore, a fictitious gusliar named Iakinf Maglanovich. The hoax turned out to be successful: for the real Slavic folklore"Gusli" was accepted by both Adam Mickiewicz and Alexander Pushkin, who transcribed 11 ballads into Russian for his collection "Songs Western Slavs". Pushkin, by the way, himself was no stranger to hoaxes, publishing the famous Belkin Tales, the poet himself acted only as a publisher.
In Russia, over the past two hundred years, literary hoaxes and hoaxers have been encountered in abundance. The fictional Kozma Prutkov, created by Alexei Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers, was endowed with his own biography, personal qualities and literary landmarks and was a parody of a literary official.
The book "To leave the world unsolved ..." (2009) will acquaint guests of the exhibition with the biography of the Russian poetess Elizaveta Vasilyeva (Dmitrieva) and the image mysterious beauty Cherubina de Gabriac, created by her and Maximilian Voloshin and which became the loudest hoax of the Silver Age.
Visitors will also learn about other literary hoaxers, including American Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Frenchman Emile Azhar (Roman Leibovich Katsev), compatriots Andrei Bely (Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev), Sasha Cherny (Alexander Mikhailovich Glikberg) and Boris Akunin (Grigory Shalvovich Chkhartishvili) ... What made these and many other writers, undoubtedly talented and brilliant, hide their faces behind someone else's mask, waiving the rights to own works? Visitors to the exposition will learn about the causes and consequences of such phenomena in world literature from such publications as "The History of Literary Hoaxes: From Homer to the Internet" by Vitaly Wolf and Serafima Chebotar (2003), as well as from the book "Disguised Literature" by Valentin Dmitriev (1973). Among the publications that also deserve special attention is the book "The illustrated Mark Twain" (2000). The literary mask, often completely replacing the personality of the writer, is a necessary element of mystification, the authors explain. According to the researchers. , the game, as an unconditional condition for any creativity, acquires exaggerated dimensions for hoaxers.The creator of a hoax can often create only in a mask invented by him, creating his own own world and the only inhabitant in it. The mask helps to move away from the imposed restrictions - class, stylistic, historical ... and the author, as it were, is born again.
Today a virtual reality, which has settled on the Internet, provides unlimited opportunities for various kinds of hoaxes, putting existing people and fictional characters on an equal footing. Both those and others have only email address and the ability to generate text...
Materials for the exhibition were provided by the Russian Book and Russian Journal Funds, the Foreign Book and Foreign Journal Funds, as well as the Central Reference Library, the Department of Prints and the Microforms Fund.
Entrance with a library card.
