There is every reason to believe that the falsification of history began back in the time of the earliest civilizations. As soon as humanity has become one way or another to save information about its past, immediately there were those who were interested in distorting them. The reasons for this are the most varied, but basically this is the desire, using the examples of past years, to prove to contemporaries the truth of the ideological and religious teachings that existed at that time.
The main methods of historical falsification
Falsification of history is the same fraud, but on an especially large scale, since whole generations of people often become its victims, and the damage they have to do has to be repaired over time. Historical falsifiers, like other professional crooks, have a rich arsenal of tricks. Giving out their own conjectures as information allegedly taken from real-life documents, they, as a rule, either do not indicate the source at all, or refer to something invented by themselves. Often notorious fakes published before are cited as evidence.
But such primitive tricks are characteristic of amateurs. True masters, for whom the falsification of history has become an object of art, are engaged in falsification of primary sources. They own the "sensational archaeological discoveries", the discovery of previously "unknown" and "unpublished" annals, diaries and memoirs.
Their activities, which are reflected in the Criminal Code, of course, include elements of creativity. The impunity of these false historians is based on the fact that exposing them requires serious scientific examination, which in most cases is not carried out, and sometimes it is also falsified.
Fakes of Ancient Egypt
It is easy to see how long the falsification of history is at its core. Examples from ancient times can be a confirmation of this. Vivid evidence is extant monuments of ancient Egyptian writing. In them, the acts of the pharaohs are usually depicted in a clearly hypertrophied form.
For example, an ancient author claims that Ramses II, participating in the battle of Kadesh, personally destroyed a whole horde of enemies, which ensured his army victory. In reality, other sources of that era testify to the very modest results achieved by the Egyptians on the battlefield that day, and to the dubious merits of the pharaoh.
Falsification of the imperial decree
Another obvious historical fake, which is appropriate to recall, is the so-called Constantine gift. According to this “document”, the Roman emperor Constantine, who ruled in the 4th century and made Christianity the official religion of the state, transferred the rights of secular power to the head of the church. And later it was proved that its manufacture dates back to the VIII-IX centuries, that is, the document came into existence at least four hundred years after the death of Constantine himself. For a long period it was the basis for papal claims to supreme power.
Fabrication of materials against disgraced boyars
The falsification of the history of Russia, carried out for political reasons, is clearly demonstrated using one document relating to the reign of Ivan the Terrible. By his order, the famous “Facade Arch” was compiled, including a description of the path traveled by the state from ancient times to the current moment. This multi-volume folio ended with the reign of Ivan himself.
The last volume says that the boyars who fell into royal disfavor were ruthlessly accused of numerous crimes. Since the rebellion of the sovereign close associates, which allegedly occurred in 1533, is not mentioned in any of the documents of that era, there is reason to believe that it is fiction.
Historical fakes of the period of Stalinism
The large-scale falsification of Russian history continued in the Stalin era. Together with the physical reprisals against millions of people, including party leaders, military leaders, as well as representatives of science and art, the practice of removing their names from books, textbooks, encyclopedias and other literature. In parallel, the role of Stalin in the events of 1917 was extolled. The thesis of his leading role in organizing the entire revolutionary movement was steadily introducing itself into the minds of the masses. It was truly a great falsification of history, which left its mark on the development of the country in the coming decades.
One of the main documents that formed among Soviet citizens a false idea of the history of the USSR was the short course in the history of the CPSU (b), edited by Stalin. Among the myths included here that have not lost their strength to this day, absolutely false information about the victories of the "young Red Army" on February 23, 1918 near Pskov and Narva stands out. Despite the most convincing evidence of its unreliability, this legend is still alive.
Other myths from the history of the CPSU (b)
The names of all figures who played a prominent role during the revolution and the Civil War were deliberately excluded from this "course". Their merits were attributed personally to the “leader of the peoples” or to people from his inner circle, as well as to those who died before the beginning of mass repressions. The true role of these people was, as a rule, very insignificant.
As the only revolutionary force, the drafters of this dubious document represented exclusively the Bolshevik party, while denying the role of other political structures of that time. All prominent figures who were not among the Bolshevik leaders were declared traitors and counter-revolutionaries.
It was a direct falsification of history. The examples given above are far from a complete list of deliberate ideological fabrications. It came to the point that the history of Russia of past centuries was rewritten. This affected primarily the reign of Peter I and Ivan the Terrible.
Lies are a tool of Hitler's ideology
The falsification of world history was included in the arsenal of propaganda means of fascist Germany. Here it has acquired a truly comprehensive scale. One of its theorists was the ideologist of Nazism Alfred Rosenberg. In his book Myth of the 20th Century, he argued that the blame for the defeat of Germany in World War I rested entirely on the betrayal of the Social Democrats, who had stabbed their victorious army in the back.
According to him, only this prevented them, having sufficient reserves, from crushing the enemy. In fact, all the materials of those years indicate that by the end of the war Germany had completely exhausted its potential and was in a critical situation. Joining the Entente of America inevitably doomed it to defeat.
During Hitler's reign, falsification of history reached ridiculous forms. For example, on his orders, a group of theologians began to interpret the texts of the Holy Scriptures in order to change the generally accepted idea of the role of Jews in biblical history. These theologians, so to speak, agreed to the point that they began to seriously claim that Jesus Christ was not a Jew at all, but arrived in Bethlehem from the Caucasus.
Blasphemous lie about the war
An extremely regrettable fact is the falsification of the history of the Great Patriotic War. Unfortunately, it took place both in the period when the past of our country was completely controlled by the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU, and in post-communist times, which laid on the shoulders of the people and its ideologists the whole burden of freedom, the ability to use which was destroyed during the long years of the totalitarian regime.
In an atmosphere of new historical realities, public figures appeared who put an equal sign between freedom and permissiveness, especially when it came to achieving certain momentary goals. One of the main tricks of the political PR of those years was the sweeping ooch of the past, which came to the complete denial of its positive aspects. It is no coincidence that even those components of our history that were previously considered sacred were subjected to fierce attacks by leaders of the new era. First of all, it is about such a shameful phenomenon as falsification of the history of war.
Reasons to resort to lies
If during the years of the ideological monopoly of the CPSU, history was distorted with the aim of exalting the role of the party in the victory over the enemy and depicting the readiness of millions of people to die for the leader of Stalin, then in the post-perestroika period there was a tendency to deny the mass heroism of the people in the struggle against the Nazis and to belittle the significance of the Great Victory. These phenomena are two sides of the same coin.
In both cases, deliberate falsehood is at the service of specific political interests. If in the past years the Communists adopted it in order to maintain the authority of their regime, today those who are trying to make their political capital are trying to use it. Both that and others are equally illegible in means.
Historical fraud today
The pernicious tendency to redraw history, noted even in documents that have come down to us from ancient times, has successfully migrated to the enlightened 21st century. Despite all opposition to falsification of history, attempts to deny such gloomy pages of the past as the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide and the Holodomor in Ukraine do not stop. The creators of the so-called alternative theories, not being able to generally deny these events, are trying to raise doubts about their reliability by refuting the insignificant historical evidence.
The relation of art to historical authenticity
The deliberate distortion of history is reflected not only in the works of party ideologists, but also in works of art. This should not be surprising, because it is fully a reflection of real life. However, the situation here is somewhat more complicated. Unlike science, art allows a certain fiction in the depiction of historical events, of course, only if the work of the writer or artist does not claim to be documentary.
It should be noted that in recent years, in addition to the usual science fiction from childhood, a genre called fantasy has been widely used. Both in one case and in another case, the plots of works often develop in the historical canvas, distorted by the author in accordance with his artistic design. A similar artistic phenomenon is distinguished by art historians in an independent subgenre, called alternative history. It cannot be seen as an attempt to falsify real events, but should be taken only as one of the artistic techniques.
The fight against counterfeiters is a universal matter
Among the most effective ways of counteracting attempts to falsify the history of our homeland, we should first of all name the commission created under the President of the Russian Federation, whose task is to combat this harmful phenomenon. Equally important in this direction are the local organizations created on the ground. Only by joint efforts can this evil be screened.