In 1924–1932, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Morozov (1854–1946), a well-known scientist and revolutioneer, a member of the People's Will Executive Committee, an honorary academician, published a multivolume study "Christ" (the original title was "The history of mankind in natural science coverage") in which traditional ideas about the ancient history of mankind have been radically revised.

The provisions of Morozov were completely rejected by historians, in fact, without any analysis, and in general, it is understandable why. The impressions, perceptions and opinions that people get at some point in their very early childhood - the so-called "imprinting" - are absorbed very firmly and are very difficult to change. This is the case, for example, with religious ideas, but essentially the same thing happens when professors teach their students: in the first year students are given some facts that are placed in a very deep memory. The student uses them and at the same time he never thinks about whether they are true or not. He simply took these facts in the first year, and he took them without any criticism. All this was told to him by the professor and therefore the student needs to pass exams and not start criticizing anything. He never returns to this matter later on.

Everything that has been memorized through imprinting is very difficult to uproot. We know this from religion. As soon as the basic principles of faith were communicated to a person once in his early childhood, then even after becoming an adult he still remains a believer, although he no longer thinks rationally about this faith and does not accept atheistic criticism. And if he does begin to think, then as a rule he loses his faith. This also explains the fury that people show when they fight dissidents. They burn them at the stake or kill them in religious wars. These are manifestations of the same psychological mechanism. We are simply afraid to change the imprinted ideas and therefore we try to fight against it as much as we can. This also explains why science is so conservative. The ideas and results that have already been obtained once are very difficult to change afterwards. Science does not tolerate new ideas, it fights them. New ideas are accepted only when they are expressed or supported by an authoritative scientist, and the more radical the idea, the more significant should be the authority of the scientist. It takes a lot of effort and a long time for new ideas to win and become generally accepted.

I learned about Morozov's book around 1965, but my attempts to discuss his ideas with professional historians have failed. All this has always led to more or less obscene swearing and statements like "this cannot be because it can never be!". Goomilyov reacted in the most polite way, stating: "We historians do not meddle in mathematics and therefore we ask you mathematicians not to meddle in history!" By and large, he is right - science should be developed by specialists and only specialists, but at the same time these very specialists must clearly and convincingly answer the perplexed questions of the laymen and explain to them what they are wrong about. And that's what I could not get from expert historians.

I had to sort out what was going on on my own and gradually I came to the conclusion that Morozov was right in many respects and it's not Morozov who is mistaken here, but a whole science, History, which at some point in the 16th century turned the wrong way as a result of the work of Scaliger and Petavius.

My reading of the literature on History revealed an amazing phenomenon: in almost every paragraph of any essay on the History of Antiquity, Morozov's scrupulous gaze notices the adjustments and logical leaps completely invisible to the "orthodox" reader (see, for example, § 8, Ch. 1 and § 6, Ch. 2). This convinced me of the justice of the Morozov's point of view more than anything else.

At this time, Fomenko, having heard about Morozov, turned to me with a request to present Morozov's theory systematically. For a long time I did not succumb to his persuasion, but in the end I gave up and gave a series of lectures in which I presented Morozov's theory in my interpretation. After that, at the Faculty of Mechanics and Mechanics at Moscow State University, Fomenko and Mishchenko organized a special seminar about Morozov. Based on my lectures and materials from this seminar, Fomenko and Mishchenko composed a certain text. I definitely did not like it, and for this reason I subjected it to a radical overhaul, mainly with the aim of presenting Morozov's initial ideas in more detail (even those that I don't fully support). However, Fomenko and Mishchenko did not accept my amendments and therefore the final processing was carried out by me alone. Subsequently, I also significantly expanded this text by adding another, third volume.

In 1977 this manuscript was printed at INION (a total of 20 copies were made) in order to discuss it at the History Department of the Academy of Sciences. But as one would expect, this discussion turned out to be a dialogue between two deaf people and ended with almost nothing.

Over the next 20 years, I didn't return to all this anymore, since for myself I understood everything. As for the further development of this topic, I considered (and I still think so) this is the work of professional historians. Certainly, sooner or later they will have to abandon the current purely negative attitude and will have to figure out all of this substantively.

A completely different approach was taken by Fomenko, who began his energetic activities and recently published a number of books in which he, in his revision of ancient and medieval history, went much further than even Morozov himself. Among other things, this activity again revived universal interest in the initial ideas of Morozov, and therefore the publisher "Kraft" invited me to publish my 1977 manuscript. In the process of preparing the manuscript for publication, I did not add anything new (although I could) and instead I just deleted the chapters containing the thoughts of Fomenko and Mishchenko. The influence of the original Fomenko's manuscript remained mainly only in the selection of quotes confirming Morozov's point of view.

Although I believe that this essay contains an account of all the basic ideas of Morozov, this does not mean that I support them all. This happens for many reasons, but we need to start with the fact that I'm not at all able to reasonably judge some of Morozov's considerations whether they are true or not. Nevertheless, they are still presented here so that the reader can form his own opinion. However, of course, I made a certain selection, so it is quite possible that Morozov himself could accuse me of distorting his ideas. Thus, in the end, I still bear all the responsibility for this text.

Recent years are characterized by the appearance of a large number of works on the so-called "parascience". In the field of history, this is "atlantology", that is, the idea of the existence of the most cultural civilizations in the distant past (so distant that it almost overlaps with the Tertiary Period) as well as the conviction that space aliens visit the Earth, etc. Without discussing these issues here in essence, we still cannot fail to note that the adherents of parascience are distinguished by their incredible credulity expressed in their appeal to the unverifiable testimony of certain "eyewitnesses" who are usually described very vaguely ("one pilot", "one tourist" etc.). Checking the references of these adepts to "material evidence" (say the notorious "Salzburg Paralelepiped") either reveals that these evidence simply do not exist or that they were supposedly "destroyed" or "disappeared" under some unclear and unspecifiable circumstances. In this regard, it becomes especially interesting that so-called "The Ancient History" (in contrast to, say, The New History) has all the characteristic features of modern para-science. The identification of this remarkable fact (although of course described in other terms) is precisely one of Morozov's main achievements. The first part of this book is devoted to a detailed discussion of this issue, and the epilogue of the book also describes the basic principles and methods of our research.

Many completely wrong opinions about Morozov's work exist in literature. For example, it is claimed that the core of his theory allegedly consists in an "astral" interpretation of biblical myths. In fact, this astral interpretation is so inconsequential that here it was possible to postpone its consideration until the last chapter of Volume II, which is just a kind of commentary on the previous chapters.

Moreover, although the study of the Bible (not at all in the astral interpretation) plays a very significant role in Morozov's work, the main assertions of Morozov can still be discussed and justified without any mention of biblical motives. This is evident even from the fact that the Bible is not mentioned anywhere in Volume I of this essay.

It is also widely believed that Morozov's main instrument was astronomy (they say that he made an "astronomical revolution in historical science"). This is also not entirely true: astronomical considerations play for Morozov an important but still auxiliary role. And in recent years - especially in connection with the publications of Fomenko - they also began to talk about "a mathematical revolution in historical science." This is also incorrect: although Morozov's mathematical and statistical observations developed and deepened by Fomenko are often striking, they still do not have independent evidentiary power because any application of mathematics is always based - albeit implicitly but still - on a preliminary meaningful interpretation. Moreover, the statistical effects on which Fomenko's work is based - but not Morozov's work! - as far as I can judge on the basis of the opinions of my colleagues (I myself am not an expert in the field of Statistics) they can be refuted from their very foundations, that is, from a purely mathematical point of view.

In the general case, no natural-scientific considerations (astronomical, mathematically-statistical, geological) can play a decisive role in historical research. They should always be interpreted within the framework of the basic paradigm, and without it they simply hang in the air, as they say.

Confidence in Morozov's theory comes from its synthetic nature i.e. from its combination (often in a bizarre and almost always an unexpected form) of various general theoretical, mathematical, astronomical, linguistic, geological and other considerations. In contrast to the supporters of parascience, Morozov, in presenting his main critical statements, usually relies on the most fundamental facts of history that can be found in any monographs, textbooks, and popular science literature. And to emphasize this fact, elementary textbooks and popular books are abundantly cited in this text. And since almost any book was suitable for this, the quoted works were not selected purposefully, but on the contrary, the first ones that came to hand were taken. And although it is possible that because of this, not the best and not the most authoritative sources were used, it must be said that the very randomness of their choice was intended to once again emphasize the comprehensiveness of the information used by Morozov.

In order to help the reader navigate in the book, each chapter ends with a "Summary" and each paragraph ends with a "Conclusion" which briefly summarizes the contents of the chapter (or paragraph). Together, these "Summaries" and "Conclusions" constitute a kind of brief summary of this book.

All selections in quotes (usually in italics) belong to me.

M.M. Postnikov

August 1997

P.S. In recent years, Fomenko and his colleagues have published a number of books that continue and develop Morozov's ideas. They reconstruct the history of the Middle Ages in a completely different way. The very possibility of this once again emphasizes how shaky and uncertain our knowledge of the past is.

The reconstruction of Fomenko caused a lively discussion. Apparently his opponents are largely right, but the problem is that they usually only in passing discuss the central issue of the reliability of generally accepted opinions about the past.

It may well be that Fomenko's reconstruction is false in many of its details, but remember that this does not refute the falsity of standard historical views, either.

For a number of more or less obvious reasons, a reliable reconstruction of the distant past is apparently impossible even in its most rude terms. One way or another, but this is a task for professional historians and not for amateurs, even if they are mathematicians and academicians. But unfortunately, historians are clearly not ready to solve it yet.

The history of the Medes is dark and incomprehensible

Presumably spoken by Ilovaisky