The history of the discovery of the Book of Veles is mysterious and controversial. In 1919, Colonel Ali Izenbek, who fought on the side of General Denikin in the Civil War, found 72 wooden tablets with text carved on them in a ransacked manor house of Velyky Burluk in Kharkiv oblast. The manor had belonged to the Donets-Zakharzhevsky princely family, among whom there were several Izium and Kharkiv colonels. The oak tablets were 22-38 centimeters long, 1 cm thick, and stringed on a leather strap.
Izenbek took the mysterious tablets to Belgium, where he emigrated, and they happened to be seen by another ОmigrО, Yuri Miroliubov, an antiquarian. It is Miroliubov who found that the old tablets, dating from about the fifth to ninth centuries AD, bear the description of Eastern Slav mythology and a two century period in the ancient pre- Christian Slavic language.
The book was translated by, in addition to Miroliubov, S. Lesnoy, O. Kur (General Kurenkov), and M. Skrypnyk. In March 1957, a San Francisco-based Russian-language journal Zhar-ptitsa (Firebird) began to print fragments of the texts. Unfortunately, the tablets themselves were confiscated and eventually disappeared during the Nazi occupation of Belgium. What remained at the disposal of translators and historians were notes, sketches, and one photo taken by Miroliubov.
The publication of these texts, called the Book of Veles, caused an uproar among historians. While Western Slavicists were divided into opponents and supporters of the book, their Soviet counterparts passed an unequivocal verdict that it was a fake. It was opposed by well- known academicians Boris Rybakov and Dmitry Likhachov, but it is O. Tvorogov who made a special effort to play down the old texts. The Book of Veles was banned from print, and customs officers confiscated it at border checkpoints like anti-Soviet literature. The book’s unabridged text was printed for the first time in the USSR in 1990 with a press run of 3,000 copies.
Why did Soviet historians show such a categorically negative attitude toward the book? What were they afraid of? The point is that precisely in the late fifties Soviet historiography, based on the principles of Karamzin and Pogodin, put forward a theory of the common origin of three fraternal East Slavic peoples — the Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians. By contrast, the Book of Veles texts not only discredited this theory but also called into question many other postulates of the history of Old Rus’ expounded by Orthodox-oriented researchers: the texts asserted the right of Ruthenian-Ukrainians to a history of their own.
For a more detailed proof of the authenticity of the Book of Veles, see the fundamental studies of Borys Yatsenko and Oleksandr Asov.
The analysis of the texts showed the Book of Veles was written approximately in the ninth century AD in Great Novgorod, when princes Bravlin and Riurik ruled. Perhaps some older texts also made it into the book. The chronologically latest tablet dates approximately to the year 864 because it contains a call to overthrow the Varangian Riurikides and reinstate the Slavic dynasty. As is known from history, the Novgorod uprising was put down savagely, and its leader, Vadim the Brave, was killed.
In the times of Prince (St.) Volodymyr the Great, who opted for Eastern Christianity as the official religion of Rus’, the new faith was often imposed by force. Volodymyr’s uncle Dobrynia and voyevoda (military commander) Putiata baptized Novgorod dwellers with fire and sword in 991.
As in other countries, the newly converted Christians, incited by the Greek clergy, razed pagan shrines and priests. The apologists of Christianity were especially intolerant of ancient books, which they systematically destroyed. Many centuries later, historians did not even know that the Eastern Slavs had had an older script of their own long before Cyrillic was introduced. All that glorified the previous religion or dynasty was subject to destruction. Medieval chroniclers referred to the daughter of Drevlianian Prince Mal, a rival of Kyiv’s Riurikide dynasty rulers, as a slave.
Under Moscow’s rule in Ukraine, the destruction of pre- Christian books became official governmental policy. In 1718, Peter I’s agents set fire to the repository of Old Rus’ chronicles at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra Monastery of the Caves. Any translation or reprinting of ancient books was forbidden in Russia for as long as two centuries. Even in modern times, in 1964, KGB agent Pohruzhalsky set ablaze the Ukrainica section of the Ukrainian SSR Academy of Sciences library by putting phosphorus between the books.
How did the Book of Veles manage to survive in this whirlwind of events? In the opinion of Asov, the last priest of Novgorod, Bogomil, handed the book over to the Greek Ioachim, later bishop of Novgorod. This hypothesis finds confirmation in the fact that Ioachim’s chronicle includes quotations from the Book of Veles. In more recent times, the book must have become known for the first time in the nineteenth century part of Aleksandr Sulakadzev’s collection. It will be recalled this was the time when translation of any ancient books was under a strict ban, so it required rare civic courage even to keep the Book of Veles. Most manuscripts from Sulakadzev’s collection were lost. From him the book might have come into the possession of the Nekliudov family. Princess Donets-Zakharzhevska, killed in 1919 during the Red Army pogrom of the Velyky Burluk manor, had borne the maiden name of Nekliudova.
The Book of Veles sets forth the history of Slavs from the early first millennium BC to the ninth century AD, but some texts describe even more ancient events of the second millennium BC. According to the book’s text, the primordial Slavic tribes, Aryans or Orians, came from the Seven Rivers Area which some historians interpret as the lands near Lake Balkhash and others as modern Punjab. Then comes a detailed description of the proto- Slavs’ migration to the Dnipro basin, relationships with other tribes, religion, wars against the Goths, Huns, Greeks, and Romans. Moreover, it is illustrated with specific names of prominent chieftains, quite specific geographic references, and is in conformity with ancient Greek, Byzantine, Persian, and Indian sources.
The book also mentions brothers Kyi, Shchek, and Khoriv, the sons of Aria, who in fact brought the Slavs to the Dnipro. If this is true, the time of the foundation of our capital Kyiv should be pushed back many centuries. The authenticity of the Book of Veles is further confirmed by the fact that some of its information became known to European historians as recently as in the 1970s. But what finally proved authenticity of the Book of Veles was the paleogeographic and philological research begun by L. Zhukovskaya and continued by Yatsenko.
What strikes this writer most is that the Book of Veles mentions the Slavic goddess Mother Slava (Glory).
“...Mother Sva beats herself on both sides with her wings, shining as if she were aflame...”
“And the same bird speaks, breathing out a hot fire onto us and sing her crested head.” “And Perun, seeing her, gave a clap of thunder in Yasuni-Svarha.”
“See to it that you have this bird on your brow, and let her take you to victory, shining brightly before you, her sons. Follow her and receive her here, when she brings the world to us.”
These lines confirm the version that the trident, an old pagan sign and our national emblem, is the symbol of the ancient Slavic goddess of victory Mother Slava, the attacking firebird who sounds the calls to victory in battle, the symbol of a Slavic mother into whom the souls of the dead heroes reincarnate. The very name, Slavs, was derived in the times of matriarchy from the then main goddess, Mother Slava. Hence Slavic warriors — Cossacks, Sichovi striltsi, and UPA guerrillas — went to war, exclaiming, Slava! This battle cry has lived for over two thousand years.
Many Slavic names are also connected with this goddess, such as Sviatoslav, Yaroslav, Vyacheslav, Mstyslav, Horyslav, etc. Later on, male gods — Perun, Svaroh, Dazhdboh, Stryboh, and Veles — came to the fore. But the people also continued to honor Mother Slava, the goddess of victory, the mother of all Slavs, as the old text shows.
Thus the Book of Veles is an outstanding relic of the old Slavic script, a source of information about the history of the Slavs, and the only holy book in Europe that came to us from the pre-Christian times. Yet, it would be interesting to hear in this debate the opinion of those who think the Book of Veles is a forgery of genius.
