Literary hoaxes. Five of the most famous hoaxes of Russian literature

"The Prince's Joke"
About the book "Ommer de Gell, letters and notes", which was published by the Academy publishing house in 1933. These are unknown documentary materials of a French traveler, in which she describes her voyage across Russia at the end of the 19th century. The sensational content of the book lies in a number of “new” facts from the biography of the classics of Russian literature. For example, a secret romance and French poems by Mikhail Lermontov. The most prominent researchers and literary scholars accepted this hoax, which was created back in the 19th century by Prince Pavel Petrovich Vyazemsky, at face value.

"Beloved son"
According to the position of the most prestigious Goncourt literary prize, it cannot be obtained twice. But there is a case in history when a writer circumvented this law, however, thanks to a scandalous hoax. This is the son of a Russian emigrant, who became a classic of French literature - Romain Gary. But the main hoaxer in the writer’s family was not he, but his mother.

"The Evil Sonnets of Guillaume du Ventre"
Sonnets French poet XVI century 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 creativity of these people who resisted the vicissitudes of fate - a story in the program.

"Botanical Hoaxes"
On literary evening In Paris, Vladislav Khodasevich gave 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, discovered by a happy accident by Khodasevich, evoked an enthusiastic reaction from critics, especially from Georgy Adamovich. A few years later, Vladimir Nabokov published poems and a story about meeting his contemporary, Vasily Shishkov. And again Adamovich was in the forefront of those deceived by the hoax. This brilliant critic, who constantly made claims to the work of Khodasevich and Nabokov, was conducted by them both times, under botanical pseudonyms.

. . .

Mystification has always been, to one degree or another, characteristic of literature. Actually, what is literary work, if not an attempt to convince someone - a reader, a critic, oneself - of the existence of a reality invented by the writer? Therefore, it is not surprising that not only worlds invented by someone have appeared, but also fake works and invented writers.

Many researchers call Homer's poems the first literary hoax - the personality of Homer was, in their opinion, invented, and the works attributed to him were the fruit collective work, which may have lasted for more than a decade. It is certainly a hoax - the parody epic "Batrachomyomachy", or "The War of Mice and Frogs", attributed in turn to Homer, the ancient Greek philosopher Pigret and a number of other, less notable poets.

In the Middle Ages, the appearance of hoaxers was “facilitated” by the attitude of the people of that time towards literature: the text was sacred, and God directly transmitted it to man, who, thus, was not the author, but only a “conductor” of the Divine will. Other people's texts could be borrowed, altered and modified quite easily. It is not surprising that almost all the works that were popular at that time - both secular and ecclesiastical in nature - were completed and supplemented by copyists. During the Renaissance, when interest in ancient authors and their texts was especially high, along with previously unknown authentic works Numerous forgeries began to appear of ancient authors. They added historians - Xenophon and Plutarch. The lost poems of Catullus, the speeches of Cicero, and the satires of Juvenal were “found.” They “looked for” the writings of the church fathers and scrolls with biblical texts. Such forgeries were often arranged very inventively: manuscripts were made, which were given an “antique” appearance, and then under mysterious circumstances they were “discovered” in old monasteries, castle ruins, excavated crypts and similar places. Many of these forgeries were only exposed several centuries later.

A real explosion of literary hoaxes occurred in the second half of the 18th century. The so-called imaginary translations were especially popular. In 1729, Charles Montesquieu published a “translation from Greek” of the poem “The Temple of Cnidus”; in 1764, the English writer Horace Walpole passed off his novel “The Castle of Otranto” - by the way, the first “Gothic” novel - as a translation of an Italian manuscript. For greater authenticity, Walpole also invented the author - a certain Onofrio Muralto. Daniel Defoe was a true master of passing off his texts as someone else's - out of the five hundred books he wrote, only four were published under his real name, and the rest were attributed to various historical and fictional figures. 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”, “The History of the Wars of Charles XII, King of Sweden” - by a certain “Scottish officer in Swedish service”, “Notes of a Cavalier” were given to him as the memoirs of a nobleman , who lived in the 17th century, during the Great Rebellion, and the "Narrative of all the Robberies, Escapes, and Other Affairs of John Sheppard" - for suicide notes the real-life famous robber John Sheppard, written by him in prison.

But the most famous literary hoax of that time was, of course, “The Songs of Ossian,” created by the talented English poet and literary critic George Macpherson in 1760-1763 on behalf of the Scottish bard Ossian, who supposedly lived in the 3rd century. Ossian's works were a huge success among the public, were translated into many languages ​​and, before their exposure, managed to leave a deep mark in world literature.

Macpherson published Ossian at a time when the Scots and Irish, united by common historical roots and equally secondary position in relation to the British, they began to actively revive their culture, language, historical identity. In this situation, pro-Gaelic critics were ready to defend the authenticity of the poems even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary, and even after Macpherson's final exposure and admission of falsification, they assigned him a prominent place in the pantheon of figures of the Gaelic Renaissance. The Czech philologist Vaclav Hanka found himself in a similar situation. In 1819, he published the Kralovedvor Manuscript, which he allegedly found in the church of the city of Kralev Dvor. The manuscript was recognized as a monument from the 13th century, proving the antiquity of Czech literature, which actually did not exist at the beginning of the 19th century. A few years later, Ganka published another manuscript - “Zelenogorsk”, called “The Court of Libushe”, dating back to the 9th century - to those times when the rest of the Slavs did not have not only literature, but even writing. The falsity of the manuscripts was finally proven only in 1886, but even after that the name of Vaclav Hanka enjoys great respect - as a patriot who has done a lot to raise the prestige of Czech literature.

Unfortunately, not all hoaxers survived exposure so successfully. Known tragic fate brilliant English poet Thomas Chatterton. In addition to those published under his own name satirical works, Chatterton created a number of poems that he attributed to the 15th-century monk Thomas Rowley and some of his contemporaries. Moreover, Chatterton, who from an early age was distinguished by his love for old books, approached his deception with all seriousness: he fabricated manuscripts on genuine parchment of that time, written in Old English in an ancient, difficult-to-read handwriting. Chatterton sent some of his “finds” to the already mentioned Horace Walpole - he, in Chatterton’s opinion, should have responded favorably to the fictitious work of a medieval monk. At first everything was like this, but then Walpole realized it was a fake. In 1770, Chatterton committed suicide - he was not yet eighteen years old. English literary scholars call him one of the most brilliant poets in Great Britain. Unfortunately, having played with someone else's fictional life, Thomas Chatterton lost his...

Among the most famous hoaxers, Prosper Merimee should also be mentioned. First, he published a collection of plays under the name of the fictitious Spanish actress Clara Gazul, then a collection of peculiar prose ballads “Guzla”, attributed to the equally unrealistic Serbian storyteller Iakinfu Maglanovic. Although Merimee was not particularly hiding - in the collection of plays there was even a portrait of Gazul printed, which was a portrait of Merimee himself in women's dress: Anyone who knew the writer by sight would easily recognize him. However, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin himself succumbed to the hoax, translating 11 songs from “Guzla” for his collection “Songs of the Western Slavs.”

Pushkin, by the way, was no stranger to hoaxes: when publishing the famous “Belkin’s Tales,” the poet himself acted only as a publisher. And in 1837, Pushkin published the article “The Last of the Relatives of Joan of Arc,” where he quoted Voltaire’s letters, written by the poet himself. He also resorted to “imaginary translations” - for censorship reasons, many of his “free-thinking” poems were accompanied by postscripts: “from Latin”, “from Andrei Chenier”, “from French”... Lermontov, Nekrasov, and other authors did the same. There were many outright fakes: fake novels by Walter Scott, Anna Radcliffe and Balzac, plays by Moliere and even Shakespeare. Let us modestly put aside the question of whether Shakespeare himself was not the greatest literary hoax.

In Russia over the last two hundred yearsliterary hoaxes and there were a lot of hoaxes. For example, Kozma Prutkov is a smug graphomaniac whose literary activity occurred in the 50s and 60s of the 19th century. Only after some time it became clear that Prutkov was created by the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers and A.K. Tolstoy. The image of Prutkov was so overgrown with flesh and blood that it was published full meeting his works, his portrait was painted, and his relatives began to appear in literature - for example, in 1913, the non-existent publishing house "Green Island" published a collection of the first poems of his "niece" Angelika Safyanova - a literary hoax of the writer L.V. Nikulina.

Another similar case- beautiful and sad story Cherubins de Gabriac. The image created by Maximilian Voloshin and Elizaveta Dmitrieva (in Vasilyeva’s marriage) struck the imagination of contemporaries with its tragic beauty, and the exposure of the deception led to a duel between Voloshin and Gumilev and Vasilyeva’s almost complete departure from literature. Only many years later she released another poetry collection, “The House Under the Pear Tree” - again under someone else’s name, this time the Chinese poet Li Xiangzi.

The most famous hoax of the twentieth century was the image of the novelist Emile Azhar, brought to life by the famous French writer Romain Gary, laureate of the Goncourt Prize. Tired of his established literary reputation, Gary published Azhar's first novel, Fat Man, in 1974, which immediately won love and recognition. Azhar's very next novel was awarded the Prix Goncourt - thus Romain Gary (or rather, Roman Katsev - the writer's real name) became the only two-time winner in the world of this award, which is never awarded twice. Azhar, however, refused the prize - and as it turned out, Paul Pavlovich, Gary’s nephew, who later ended up in psychiatric clinic. And it soon became known that Pavlovich only played, at his uncle’s request, the role of Azhar, which he wrote about in his book “The Man Who Was Believed.” In 1980, Romain Gary - and at the same time Emile Azhar - committed suicide.

What made all these - and many other - people, undoubtedly talented, often even brilliant, hide their faces behind someone else's mask, giving up the rights to their own works? Apart from the obvious cases where the reason was the thirst for profit or other, much more noble, but also completely understandable reasons (as, for example, in the story of Vaclav Hanka), the motives for such behavior, which often leads to the most tragic consequences, are unclear. For example, many of Chatterton’s acquaintances were perplexed: if he had published his works under his own name, he would have won universal recognition. But Chatterton felt much more confident in the role of “Rowley” than when he was himself. Macpherson did the same - while remaining himself, he wrote much weaker than when he transformed into Ossian. Such a “mask,” which often completely replaces the face, is a necessary element of the hoax. Play, an unconditional condition for any creativity, takes on exaggerated proportions among hoaxers. The creator of a hoax can often create only by dissolving his true self in a mask he has invented, creating not only his own own world, but also the demiurge and the only inhabitant of this world. An invented mask helps the writer move away from the restrictions imposed on him (or by himself) - class, stylistic, historical... He gets the opportunity, by rejecting his own “I,” to gain creative freedom in return - and thus build himself anew. Since the era of modernism, the idea of ​​the game, the split personality, the “hidden” author has dominated literature itself. Authors build themselves, their biography, according to the laws of the texts they write - the text, thus, is much more real than its author. The boundaries between literature and life are shifting: the figure of the author becomes an element of the artistic structure of the text, and the result is a unique complex work consisting of the text (or texts) itself and the constructed author.

From this point of view, virtual reality, which has settled on the Internet, provides simply unlimited opportunities for various kinds of hoaxes, placing initially equal conditions existing people and fictional characters. Both those and others only have email address and the ability to generate text. All the dangers that beset their predecessors have now disappeared: there is no need to present manuscripts, appear in person at various events, monitor linguistic features, or track allusions and borrowings in their own and others' works. Anyone who enters the vastness of the World Wide Web with his literary - or creative work claiming to be so - becomes real at the moment of his appearance, and it should be taken into account that if he leaves the virtual space, his existence will have to be proven again. Because what was generated by the Internet must live in it.

In the end, famous phrase“The whole world is a stage, and the people in it are actors” applies to any world, regardless of its reality.

From pseudonyms to friendly pranks among others Russian writers it turned out to be very close. At first, such pranks did not have the nature of a game and were simple “attempts” to present their works under someone else’s name. Here it is worth recalling the classic “Belkin’s Tales”, which belonged to Pushkin, and “Sensations and Remarks of Mrs. Kurdyukova” written 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, then real games and hoaxes began among domestic writers.

Thus, it is known that in the mid-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 publication of the work, thanks the publishing house and asks for some money, since she is in fact 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 similar hoaxes during that period), 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 carried out according to all the rules of a well-thought-out production and in accordance with the genre of urban folklore. This hoax included authors, directors, actors, who were also united by “blood relationship.” They were all Tolstoy brothers: Alexey Konstantinovich ( famous writer) and his three cousins ​​- Alexander, Vladimir and Alexey (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 Sovremennik supplement - “Literary Jumble”.

Literary scholars who subsequently 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 lyrical poet of that time V.V. Benediktov and Fet , and Polonsky, and Khomyakov...

Prutkov, observing all the requirements and conventions of presence in literature, had both his own biography and social status.

So, this “writer” was born in 1803, on April 11. He served in his youth in a hussar regiment, then retired and entered the civilian field - service in the Assay Office, where he reached the rank of state councilor and the position of director. Prutkov appeared in print in 1850, and departed into 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 “germs” of the revelation were already discovered in the biography, since although the Assay Chamber itself really existed, there was no position of director in it. In fact, the institution so called 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, which were engaged in testing and marking silver and gold. At the Assay Office Northern capital, of course, it also had its own legal address - 51 Catherine Canal Embankment. Moreover, this establishment existed there until 1980. However, the urban folklore of St. Petersburg has retained this name to this day - 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 actually set there.

In addition to the invented “official data”, the writer Kozma Prutkov was endowed with the real traits of his “parents”, who at that time were already poets (mostly known to A.K. Tolstoy), belonged to the “golden youth” of the capital, and were known as “snarlers” and wits. These pampered people really had amazing tricks behind them that excited and amused the capital.

For example, one day Alexander Zhemchuzhnikov caused a stir when, dressed in an adjutant wing uniform, he visited all the major architects of the capital overnight and gave them orders to appear at the palace, because

He showed up to work in a perfect suit, patent leather boots and a starched collar. Among bohemians, he was known as the “arbiter of proper taste” and even ordered his employees to come to work in tailcoats. Such refined aesthetics and pretentious elegance could almost claim to be the norm in the culture of those years.

After listening to the homely lame woman, 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, a socialite and a beauty.

It would seem that the plot is exhausted? 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 his editor-in-chief did not particularly like him personally. Voloshin was a resident of Kyivian, he worked part of his life in Moscow, part in Koktebel. This poet did not have an understanding with St. Petersburg; he did not like this capital. It was as if Voloshin was a stranger here. On the contrary, in his house in Koktebel he organized a completely different life - with pranks, jokes, caricatures and very sensitive meetings for his friends. However, Maximilian Voloshin deserves a separate and detailed story.

So it was Voloshin who came up with the idea to punish Makovsky for his snobbery and excessive aesthetics and thus protect Dmitrieva (by the way, legend says that the poet himself was not indifferent to this “ugly girl”). Thus, the genre of literary hoax, already half-forgotten since the time of Prutkov, was “resurrected” in the capital.

Together with Dmitrieva, Voloshin creates the image of a fatal beauty, necessary and “desired” for bohemia, who also 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 of evil spirits is Gabriak. A beautiful romantic pseudonym came out - Cherubina de Gabriak.

The poems signed by this lady were written on beautiful and expensive paper, sealed with 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 goal of the hoaxers was to publish Dmitrieva’s poems, and it was achieved! The femme fatale became a literary sensation in the capital. As expected, all the writers were immediately fascinated and in love with the mysterious stranger. And even Makovsky sent the poetess luxurious bouquets. 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 section of literary duels. It was because of Cherubina that Voloshin and Gumilev met on the Black River. The first defended the lady's honor, the second longed for satisfaction for the slap he received from Max. The background to this duel includes Gumilev’s invitation to marry him, to which Cherubina refused, after receiving which Gumilev publicly speaks about the mysterious stranger in offensive and frank terms.

The duel was bloodless, but with the consequences of exposure. It is believed that Elizaveta Ivanovna began to be tormented by her conscience, and she decided to stop the hoax by confessing everything to Makovsky.

Cherubina confesses, Makovsky is stunned, but pretends that he was aware of the adventure.

Game over…

It's interesting that the life of a teacher primary classes with a modest salary in the future also remained a secret. So, no one knows for sure anything about her life or burial place. As if she died either in 1925, or in 1931, or in Turkmenistan, or on Solovki. It is known that in her marriage she is Vasilyeva, and allegedly she and her husband were sent into exile on the “Academic Case”. However, already in our time another collection of her poems was published under her real name, and they turned out to be not at all mediocre...

The history of world literature, knowing about the falsification of many of its monuments, tries to forget about it. There is hardly a single researcher who would argue that the classics of Greece and Rome that have come down to us were not mutilated by copyists.

Erasmus complained bitterly back in the 16th century that there was not a single text from the “Church Fathers” (i.e., the first four centuries of Christianity) that could be unconditionally accepted as authentic. The fate of literary monuments is perhaps equally unenviable. At the very end of the 17th century, the learned Jesuit Arduin argued that the ancient world belong only to Homer, Herodotus, Cicero, Pliny, Horace’s “Satires” and Virgil’s “Georgics”. As for the rest of the works of antiquity... they were all created in the 13th 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 the 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 with even works whose apocryphal nature has been proven by themselves. They classify them in the category of so-called pseudepigraphic literature (pseudo-Clement, pseudo-Justus, etc.) and do not hesitate to use them. This position is absolutely clear and is only logical development general attitude towards “ancient” monuments: there are so few of them that it would be a pity to exclude even the dubious ones from circulation.

Before the first printing press was operational in Italy in 1465, a few years later the history of literature registered the forgery of Latin authors.

In 1519, the French scientist de Boulogne forged two books by V. Flaccus, and one of the remarkable humanist scientists, Sigonius, published in 1583 previously unknown passages from Cicero. This simulation was made with such skill that it was discovered only two centuries later, and even then by accident: a letter from Sigonius was found in which he confessed to the falsification.

In the same century, one of the first German humanists to introduce Germany to the Roman classics, Prolucius wrote the seventh book of Ovid's Calendar Mythology. This hoax was partly caused by a scientific dispute about how many books this work of Ovid was divided into; despite indications on behalf of the author that he has six books, some Renaissance scholars, based on compositional features, insisted that there should be twelve books.

At the end of the 16th century, the issue of the spread of Christianity in Spain was poorly addressed. To fill the annoying gap, the Spanish monk Higuera after the big and difficult work wrote the chronicle on behalf of the never-existent Roman historian Flavius ​​Dexter.

In the 18th century, the Dutch scholar Hirkens published a tragedy under the name of Lucius Varus, supposedly the tragic poet of the Augustan era. Quite by accident, we managed to establish that the Venetian Corrario published it in the 16th century on his own behalf, without trying to mislead anyone.

The Spaniard Marchena in 1800 amused himself by composing on Latin arguments of a pornographic nature. From them he fabricated a whole story and connected it with the text of Chapter XXII of Petroniev’s Satyricon. It is impossible to distinguish where Petronius ends and Marchena begins. He published his excerpt with Petronian text, indicating in the preface the imaginary location of the find.

This is not the only forgery of Petronius' satires. A century before Marchen, the French officer Nodo published the “complete” Satyricon, supposedly “based on a thousand-year-old manuscript he bought from a Greek during the siege of Belgrade,” but no one had seen either this or the more ancient manuscripts of Petronius.

Also republished was Catullus, forged in the 18th century by the Venetian poet Corradino, who allegedly found Catullus's list in Rome.

The 19th century German student Wagenfeld allegedly translated from Greek to german history Phenicia, written by the Phoenician historian Sanchoniaton and translated into Greek language 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 the Greek manuscript, he refused to submit it.

In 1498, Eusebius Zilber published in Rome on behalf of Berosus, “a Babylonian priest who lived 250 years before Christ,” but “wrote in Greek,” an essay in Latin, “Five Books of Antiquities with Commentaries by John Anni.” The book went through several editions, and then turned out to be a forgery of the Dominican monk Giovanni Nanni from Viterboro. However, despite this, the legend of the existence of Berosus did not disappear, and in 1825 Richter in Leipzig published the book “The Extant Chaldean Stories of Berosus,” allegedly compiled from “mentions” about Berosus in the works of other authors. It is surprising that, for example, academician. Turaev has no doubts about the existence of Beroz and believes that his work “is for us in high degree valuable."

In the twenties of our century, the German Sheinis sold several fragments from classical texts to the Leipzig library. Among others was a leaf from the works of Plautus, written in purple ink; the curators of the manuscript cabinet of the Berlin Academy of Sciences, completely confident in the authenticity of their purchase, praised it: “The beautiful handwriting bears all the features characteristic of a very long period. It is clear 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 imperial library. We are confident that our fragment is part of a book created in Rome itself.” However, two years later there followed a scandalous revelation of all the manuscripts presented by Sheinis.

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 their “discoveries” of new, hitherto unknown authors, as Murea did in the 16th century when he 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 in praise of Nero, allegedly found by him on half-decayed parchment and attributed to an unknown contemporary of Nero. This poem was even included in anthologies of Latin poets until the forgery was discovered.

In 1729, Montesquieu published a French translation of a 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 he found them in the library of a Greek bishop. Montesquieu later admitted to the hoax.

In 1826 Italian poet Leopardi forged two Greek odes in the style of Anacreon, allegedly written by hitherto unknown poets. He also published his second forgery - a translation of the Latin retelling of the Greek chronicle, dedicated to history church fathers and the description of Mount Sinai.

A famous forgery of 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 publication. In the preface, Louis outlined the circumstances of his “discovery” of songs by an unknown Greek poetess of the 6th century BC. and reported that a certain Dr. Heim even found her grave. Two German scientists - Ernst and Willamowitz-Müllendorff - immediately dedicated articles to the newly discovered poetess, and her name was included in the “Dictionary of Writers” by Laulier and Gidel. 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 enormous. Back in 1908, not everyone knew about the hoax, since that year he received a letter from an Athenian professor asking him to indicate where the originals of Bilitis' songs were kept.

Let us note that almost all exposed hoaxes of this kind belong to modern times. This is understandable, because it is almost impossible to catch the hand of a Renaissance humanist who invented a new author. By all accounts, we should therefore expect that at least some of the “ancient” authors were invented by humanists.

Fakes of the new era

Closer to modern times, not only ancient authors were invented. One of the most famous falsifications of this kind are the poems of Ossian, composed by Macpherson (1736-1796), and the poems of Rowley Chatterton, although these forgeries were quickly exposed, but they artistic merit provide them with a prominent place in the history of literature.

There are known forgeries of La Fontaine, letters of Byron, Shelley, Keats, novels by W. Scott, F. Cooper and plays by Shakespeare.

A special group among modern forgeries consists of writings (mainly letters and memoirs) attributed to some celebrity. There are several dozen of them known (only the most famous).

In the 19th century, “antique” forgeries continued, but, as a rule, they were no longer associated with antiquity. Thus, at the end of the 19th century, a manuscript “found” by the Jerusalem merchant Shapiro, allegedly from the 1st millennium, telling about the wandering of the Jews in the desert after the exodus from Egypt, caused a sensation.

In 1817, philologist Vaclav Hanka (1791 -1861) in the church small town The Royal Court on the Elbe allegedly found a parchment on which were written in ancient letters epic poems and lyrical songs of the XIII-XIV centuries. Subsequently, he “discovered” many other texts, for example, an ancient translation of the Gospel. In 1819 he became the custodian of literary collections, and from 1823 - librarian of the National Czech Museum in Prague. There is not a single manuscript left in the library to which Ganka did not have a hand. He changed the text, inserted words, pasted in sheets of paper, crossed out paragraphs. He came up with a whole “school” of ancient artists, whose names he wrote down in the original ancient manuscripts that fell into his hands. The exposure of this incredible scale of falsification was accompanied by a deafening scandal.

The famous Winckelmann, founder modern archeology, became a victim of a hoax by the artist Casanova (brother of the famous adventurer), who illustrated his book “Ancient Monuments” (and Winckelmann was a professional archaeologist!).

Casanova supplied Winckelmann with three “ancient” paintings, which, according to him, were taken directly from the walls in Pompeii. Two paintings (with dancers) were made by Casanova himself, and the painting depicting Jupiter and Ganymede was by the painter Raphael Menges. To be convincing, Kazakova composed an absolutely incredible romantic story about a certain officer who allegedly secretly stole these paintings from excavations 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 inherited from the art of antiquity...”.

Kazakova's falsification has the character of mischief, caused by the desire to play a trick on Winckelmann.

The well-known hoax of Merimee, who, fascinated by the Slavs, decided to go to the East to describe them, has a similar character. But this required money. “And I decided,” he himself admits, “to first describe our journey, sell the book, and then spend the fee on checking 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 Balkan languages. The book was a great success, in particular, Pushkin in 1835 made a pseudo-back translation of the book into Russian, proving to be more gullible than Goethe, who immediately sensed the hoax. Mérimée introduced the second edition with an ironic preface, mentioning those whom he managed to deceive. Pushkin later wrote: “The poet Mitskevich, a keen-sighted and subtle connoisseur 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 among specialists who had no doubt about their authenticity.

Other falsifications

Examples of forgeries, hoaxes, apocrypha, etc. etc. can be multiplied indefinitely. We talked only about the most famous ones. Let's give a few more scattered examples.

In the history of the development of Kabbalah, the book “Zohar” (“Radiance”) is well known, attributed to Tanai Simon ben Yochai, whose life is shrouded in the thick fog of legend. M.S. Belenky writes: “However, it has been established that its author was the mystic Moses de Leon (1250-1305). The historian Gren said about him: “One can only doubt whether he was selfish or a pious deceiver...” Moses de Leon wrote several works of a Kabbalistic nature, but they brought neither fame nor money. Then the unlucky writer came up with the right means to open hearts and wallets wide. He began writing under a false name, but one that enjoyed authority. A clever forger passed off his Zohar as the work of Simon ben Jochai... The forgery of Moses de Leon was a success and made a strong impression on the believers. The Zohar has been deified for centuries by advocates 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 edition of the first full translation on German Babylonian Talmud. In 1896 (when he was 25 years old), Goldschmidt published a supposedly newly discovered Talmudic work in Aramaic, “The Book of Peacemaking.” However, it was almost immediately proven that this book was Goldschmidt’s own translation of the Ethiopian work Hexameron, pseudo-Epiphanius.

Voltaire found in Paris National Library manuscript commenting on the Vedas. He had no doubt that the manuscript was written by Brahmins before Alexander the Great went to India. Voltaire's authority helped publish in 1778 French translation this essay. However, it soon became clear that Voltaire had fallen victim to a hoax.

In India, in the library of missionaries, forged commentaries of the same religious and political nature on other parts of the Vedas, also attributed to the Brahmins, were found. The English Sanskritologist Joyce was misled by a similar forgery, when he translated the verses he discovered from the Purana, outlining the story of Noah and written by some Hindu in the form of an ancient Sanskrit manuscript.

The discovery of the Italian antiquarian Curzio caused a great sensation at the time. 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 antique look.

In 1762, the chaplain of the Order of Malta, Vella, accompanying the Arab ambassador to Palermo, decided to “help” historians of Sicily find materials to cover its Arab period. After the ambassador's departure, Vella spread a rumor that the diplomat had given him an ancient Arabic manuscript containing correspondence between the authorities of Arabia 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 Komnenos 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 dad Alexander III in 1177 he 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, and they returned to the search for the magical kingdom several times (In the 15th century they searched 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, you don’t have to be an expert. The letter is full of details typical of European medieval fantasy. Here is a list of animals living 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, the phoenix bird and almost all breeds of animals living on earth ... "
(quoted from Gumilyov, “In Search of an Imaginary 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. “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a collection of texts that appeared at the beginning of the 20th century in Russia and became widespread throughout the world, presented by the publishers as documents of the world Jewish conspiracy. Some of them claimed that these were minutes of reports of participants in the Zionist Congress, held in Basel, Switzerland in 1897. The texts set out plans for the Jews to gain world domination, penetrate the government structures of states, take non-Jews under control, and eradicate other religions. Although the Protocols have long been proven to be an anti-Semitic hoax, 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 heads of the Roman Church used the Deed of Constantine (Constitutum Constantini) to maintain their authority as stewards of Christendom.

Constantine the Great was the first Roman emperor (306-337) to convert to Christianity. It was claimed that he donated half of his empire in 315 AD. e. in gratitude for the acquisition new faith and miraculous healing from leprosy. The deed of gift, a document in which the fact of the donation was attested, 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 Deed of Dedication, “will burn in hell and perish with the devil and all the wicked.”

The deed of gift, 3,000 words long, first appeared in the 9th century and became powerful weapon in the 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 Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), the greatest theologian of his time, pointed out that the Bishop of Eusebius, a contemporary and biographer of Constantine, did not even mention this gift .

The document is now almost universally accepted as a forgery, most likely fabricated by Rome around 760. Moreover, the falsification was not well thought out. For example, the document transfers power over Constantinople to the Roman diocese - a city that did not yet exist as such!

It is not surprising that the French philosopher Voltaire called it “the most shameless and astonishing falsification that has dominated the world for many centuries.”

Hoaxer and joker Leo Taxil

In 1895, Taxil’s essay “The Secrets of Gehenna, or Miss Diana Vaughan *, her exposure of Freemasonry, the cult and the appearances of the devil” caused a lot of noise. Taxil, under the fictitious name of Hermanus, reported that Diana Vaughan, the daughter of the supreme devil Bitru, was engaged for ten years to the commander of 14 demonic regiments, the voluptuous Asmodeus, and made a honeymoon trip to Mars with him. Soon Dr. Hux demonstrated Diana Vaughan to a large clerical audience.

Having repented of her “error” and returned to the bosom of the Catholic Church, the “devil’s wife” Vaughan corresponded with major church leaders and received letters from Cardinal Parochi, who gave her the blessing of the pope.

September 25, 1896 at Italian city In Triente, on the initiative of Taxil, an international congress of the Anti-Masonic Union, created by Leo XIII, took place. There were 36 bishops and 61 journalists at the congress. Taxil's portrait hung on the podium among the images of saints. Diana Vaughan spoke at the convention as living proof of Masonic Lucifernism.

However, articles ridiculing the “devil’s wife” have already appeared in the press. In July 1896, Margiotti broke relations with his comrades, threatening exposure.

A few months later, an article by Hacks, who turned out to be the author of the anti-religious essay “Gesture,” appeared in German and French newspapers, which reported that “all revelations of Freemasonry were pure blackmail.” “When the papal letter appeared, directed against the Freemasons as allies of the devil,” Hux wrote, “I decided that it would help extort money from the gullible. I consulted with Leo Taxil and several friends and together we conceived “The Devil of the 19th Century.”

"When I was inventing 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 colleagues, laughing until they cried, said: “You are going too far!” You'll ruin the whole joke! I answered them: “This will do!” And it really did." Hux ended the article with the statement that he was now stopping all myth-making about Satan and the Freemasons, and with the money raised 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 said that his anti-Masonic writings were biggest hoax modern times, which aimed to ridicule the gullible clergy. "The Devil's Wife" Diana Vaughan turned out to be Taxil's secretary.

The scandal turned out to be 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 falsification

The reasons for falsification are as diverse as life itself.

Little is documented about the incentives to falsify in the Middle Ages. Therefore, we are forced to analyze this issue using materials from modern times. However, there is no reason why the results obtained from this material general conclusions are not applicable to more distant times.

1. An extensive class of forgeries consists of purely literary hoaxes and stylizations. As a rule, if a hoax was successful, its authors quickly and proudly revealed their deception ( a shining example is Merimee's hoax, as well as Louis's hoax).

The passages from Cicero that Sigonius falsified apparently belong to the same class.

If such a hoax is done skillfully, but the author for some reason did not admit to it, it is very difficult to reveal it.

It’s scary to think how many such hoaxes were made during the Renaissance (as a bet, as a joke, to test one’s abilities, etc.), which were later taken seriously. However, one might think that this kind of “ancient” writings belonged only to “small-format” genres (poems, excerpts, letters, etc.).

2. Close to them lie falsifications, in which a young author tries to assert his “I” or test his strength in a genre that guaranteed him protection in case of failure. The forgeries of Macpherson and Chatterton, say, clearly belong to this class (in the latter case the rare pathology of complete identification with beloved ancient authors manifested itself). In response to the theater's lack of attention to his plays, Colonne responded with a fake of Molière, etc.

Let us note that, as a rule, the most well-known falsifiers of this type did not stand out for anything special 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 (example - Wagenfeld). More mature men of science falsified in order to prove this or that position (Prolucius) or fill gaps in our knowledge (Higuera).

4. “Filling in” falsifications also include biographies of fantastic personalities like “Saint Veronica”, etc.

5. Many falsifiers were driven (in combination with other motives) by political or ideological considerations (Ganka).

6. A special case of the latest falsifications should be considered the monastic falsifications of the “church fathers”, decrees of popes, etc.

7. Very often a book was apocryphal in antiquity because of its accusatory, anti-clerical or freethinking nature, when publishing it under one’s own name was fraught with grave consequences.

8. Finally, last but not least important is the factor of basic profit. There are so many examples that they need not be cited.

Exposing falsifications

If the falsification is done skillfully, then its exposure presents enormous difficulties and, as a rule (if the falsifier himself does not confess), occurs purely by chance (for example, Sigonius). Since history tends to forget about its falsifications, as time passes, exposing the falsification becomes increasingly difficult (for example, Tacitus). Therefore, there is no doubt that many falsifications (especially humanistic ones) still remain unexposed.

In this regard, information about the circumstances of the finds of certain manuscripts is of particular interest. As we saw with the example of Tacitus and will see later with the example of many other works “discovered” during the Renaissance, this information is very scarce and contradictory. It contains almost no names, and only tells about “nameless monks” who brought priceless manuscripts “from somewhere in the north” that lay “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 they report unverifiable information: “bought at an oriental bazaar,” “found in the basement of a monastery secretly (!) from the monks,” or they are completely silent. We will return to this more than once, but for now we will just quote the famous scientist prof. Zelinsky:

“The year 1891 will long remain memorable in the history of classical philology; He brought us, not to mention small novelties, two large and precious gifts - Aristotle’s book on the Athenian state and Herodes’ everyday scenes. To what happy accident we owe these two discoveries - a stubborn and significant silence is observed about this by those who should know: only the very fact of the accident remains undoubted, and with the establishment of this fact, any need to ask oneself the question is eliminated ... "

And, really, it wouldn’t hurt to ask “those who should know” where they got these manuscripts from. After all, as examples show, neither high academic titles nor generally accepted honesty in everyday life guarantee against counterfeiting. However, as Engels noted, there are no more gullible people than scientists.

It is worth noting that the above is only very brief an excursion into the history of forgeries (and only literary ones, but there are also epigraphic, archaeological, anthropological and many, many others - several of them will be devoted to further posts), in which only a few of them are presented. In reality, they much more, and these are just the famous ones. And no one knows how many fakes have still not been revealed. One thing is certain - many, very many.

The problem of literary mystification is one of the most pressing in modern literature. According to the classification proposed by E. Lann, all literary hoaxes are divided into two types: forgeries of works of impersonal creativity; forgeries of copyrighted works attributed to: a) writers, b) historical figures, c) fictitious authors (Lani E. Literary mystification. M.. 1930, P. 67).

A special place among hoaxes is occupied by forgery of folklore texts. The most famous was the “Kraledvor Manuscript”, authored by the Czech philologist V. Hanka (1817). For about 50 years it was considered one of the most valuable sources for reconstruction Slavic mythology. An example of literary mystification of Scottish folklore is “The Songs of Ossian” by J. Macpherson (1760-1763). Of the hoaxers of Russian folklore, I.P. Sakharov (1807-1863) gained the greatest popularity; his “Tales of the Russian People” are still republished and cited by many researchers.

The most striking literary hoaxes of the 19th - early 20th centuries, created by Russian writers and poets, are the following: “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A. Pushkin, “Letters and Notes of Ommer de Gehl” by P. Vyazemsky, “Egyptian Nights” by A. Pushkin, completed by V. Bryusov (included in the collected works of Pushkin in 1919), Kozma Prutkov, and in fact A.K. Tolstoy and the Zhemchuzhnikov brothers, Cherubina de Gabriac, invented by M. Voloshin, poet Vasily Shishkov, “familiar” of V. Nabokov, poetry poet XIX V. V. Travnikov from the archive “found” by Vl. Khodasevich, “The Diary of A. Vyrubova”, created by P. E. Shchegolev and A. N. Tolstoy, N. Nekrasov’s poem “Lights”, “discovered” by E. Vashkov.

A sensation of the 20th century. became a hoax French writer Russian origin Romain Gary (Roman Kaseva). In 1956, he received the Goncourt Prize for his novel The Roots of Heaven. In 1974, Gary published the novel "The Big Weasel" on behalf of the writer Emile Azhar. Azhar's second novel, The Life Ahead, wins the Prix Goncourt. Thus, Gary became the only winner of two Goncourt Prizes (it is not awarded twice).

Postmodernism takes literary mystification to a new level, realizing in literature the statement: “nobody writes books,” since “all books are written by no one” (Max Frei / Svetlana Martynchik). The realization that “can there be literature without mystification” gives rise to literary mystifications proper (the “great Euro-Chinese humanist” Holm van Zaichik / writer Vyacheslav Rybakov and orientalist Igor Alimov) and literary projects based on mystification: Boris Akunin ( individual project Grigory Chkhartishvili), Marina Serova (publishing project carried out by a group of authors).

A hoax in a number of ways coincides with the concept of a pseudonym. The possibilities for using a pseudonym are undoubtedly wider, but it does not have the main specific difference between hoaxes - stylization. Brilliant examples of stylization can be found in the works of Felix Salten, the author of “Bambi the Fawn,” who created memoirs on behalf of the famous Viennese prostitute Josephine Mutzenbacher and Norwegian writer and the philosopher Jostein Gorder, who published a letter from St. Augustine’s beloved Floria Emilia, allegedly discovered by the author in Argentina, in bookstores.