Traces of the Russian Language in the Arctic

Introduction. The Arctic is the birthplace of the Earth’s population: research by scientists

There is a vibrant interest in the Arctic that has been discussed by many researchers. In particular, the famous geographer-researcher V.N. Kalutskov argues that this region acts as one of the most important cultural and symbolic centers of the country: “It is important to develop the study of historical and cultural zones, using linguistic data in parallel with geological and geographical data relating to different historical eras” [1, p. 43], and adds that in recent decades, the massive unrelenting scientific and human interest in the Russian North has assumed the scale of a scientific pilgrimage.

The topic of the origin and spread of the Indo-European (Aryan) civilization deserves special interest. Many scientists and researchers proved the hypothesis that the Aryans lived on the territory of the modern Arctic for more than a dozen millennia, but in the 3rd-2nd centu-

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ries BC, as a result natural or other kinds of cataclysms, crossed to the territory of Iran and Hindustan and carried their rituals and customs. Representatives of different nations, including B.G. Tilak, R. Sankritiyayana, A.V. Bykov, A.G. Vinogradov, O.N. Trubachev, N.R. Gusev and many others in the late 19th – early 20th centuries were able to analyze the ethnic roots of the Slavs, putting forward the theory of the Indo-Aryan community.

Paleontologists, soil scientists, paleoclimatologists came to the conclusion that the settlement of human groups took place during the “Mikulinskiy” interglacial period, characterized by a warm climate (130 thousand – 70 thousand years ago), when the current Arctic regions were not tundra, but were mixed spruce, birch forests with the inclusion of oak and elm. From about the 44th millennium to the 24th millennium, there were very warm climatic conditions, the period of the “Mologo-Sheksna” interglacial, and later, about 20–13 thousand years ago, the stage of a sharp cooling began.

The researchers note that: “In the north-east of Europe, which includes the vast expanses of the Volga and Ural regions, outstanding monuments of the early Paleolithic period have been found in recent years, and there has already been a turning point in the direction of strengthening work on their study. It should be emphasized that from the south to the north of the Russian Plain at the time of the formation and development of the Upper Paleolithic, it was not wandering hunters-pomads, but tribes with a settled way of life, who built permanent dwellings of various types and carried out complex domestic economic activities, based on hunting and gathering. Hunting for herds of horses and reindeer required the improvement of throwing weapons and probably led already to the invention of the bow and arrow at such an early time. At the same period, spiritual culture was also developing and evolving” [2, Velichko A.A., Gerasimov I.P., p. 30].

Jean Sylvain Bailly, French philosopher and astronomer, at the end of the 18th century, in “Letters to Voltaire” agrees with the opinion of Plutarch about the land inhabited by the progenitors of the Greeks: “where in the summer month the sun is hidden behind the horizon for one hour only, and this very short night is illuminated by the twilight” [3, Bailly J.], and specified that this was the homeland of Egyptians.

William F. Warren, rector of Boston University, the successor of Bailly’s views, at the end of the 19th century, published “Paradise Found, the Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole”, where he also proved the idea that the ancestral home of all people is the territory in the region of the North Pole and the Arctic. The scientist draws a conclusion about the collective memory of each people, which contains strikingly similar or coinciding images; paints a picture of the year, consisting of a single long day and a single long night, including a “heavenly mountain” that only gods or enlightened souls can climb. All living beings should aspire to this grace [4, Warren W.]. Thus, he wants to talk about spirituality, about the fact that everyone has to work in the field of his spirituality, enriching himself spiritually.

Having investigated the myths of different peoples, W. Warren made a successful attempt to prove that Sanskrit is much older than three thousand years, in contrast to modern scientists, and the history of Russia is by no means “thousand-year-old”, but has many millennia of its development. And the most interesting proof is that paradise, described in various myths and legends of the peoples of the world, is located in the Subpolar region and at the North Pole. And if one carefully consider the Mercator map of 1595, it is quite possible to find a correspondence regarding the location of Hyperborea and those main four rivers that feed the waters of the Earth.

At the beginning of the 20th century, biologist-researcher Evgenij Jelacić challenged the official versions of the cultural and historical development of the peoples who lived in the territory of the modern Arctic. His analysis of the sacred books allowed him to conclude that the ancient Aryans, by the will of the gods and in search of a new land, moved from north to south.

Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1856–1920) proved that the ancestors of all peoples, defined by scientists as Indo-Europeans, including the ancestors of the Slavs and Aryans, lived on the territory of the present Arctic, on the shelves up to the North Pole. His book “The Arctic Home in the Vedas” was published in 1903 and immediately became a sensation, but it appeared in Russia only a hundred years later. Tilak analyzed the Indian monuments of ancient literature, the horses of the universe: legends, myths, hymns of the Vedas (Rigveda, Yajurveda, Samaveda, Atharvaveda) and made an amazing conclusion that all these sources describe the northern Arctic nature, and the authors of the hymns are Brahmin priests from among the Aryans, who lived in the lands of the Arctic before the glaciation in the 12th millennium BC. The poem “Mahabharata”, which scientists also refer to the Vedas, describes the history of modern mankind twelve millennia old.

Specialists in the field of glaciology (the science of glaciers) confirm the existence of two major stages of glaciation, while specifying that the first one took place in the time interval from 60 to 25 thousand years BC, the second — 18 thousand years BC. In between, warming caused some flooding and lowering of the mainland boundaries. Tilak not only depicted the era of the “Arctic homeland” during the last interglacial period, presenting the history of modern mankind over a twelve thousand-year period, but he managed to prove that the Vedas are older than the date most researchers refer to: not the 2nd millennium BC, but at least the 8th millennium BC, and later there were evidence of 12th millennia BC.

Tilak's description of the events of that time in the Arctic seems to us a cataclysm at the North Pole, the division of people into two camps, since the gods and heroes of some began to be considered enemies for others, the movement of people towards India: some — IndoAryans — along the East European Valley, and others — Irano-Aryans — in Western Siberia, through Arkaim. This movement lasted for millennia, as people led a sedentary lifestyle and lived in their settlements for a long time. People called the surrounding countryside, rivers, and lakes by their customary names of gods and heroes. It turned out that in the Mahabharata, the Yamuna is a tributary of the Gong (Volga); it is no coincidence that the tributaries of the Oka are called Yam, Yamina, Ima, Ilyev. More than two hundred sacred rivers and lakes are known and described in the country of Bharat (Russia), which have retained their names since 3150 BC to the present day (In the Mahabharata — Aksha, in the Oka basin now — Aksha; Apasa — Apaka; Asita — Asata; Vadava — Vad; Vansha — Vansha, etc.). The Aryans continued to speak their ancient language, and influenced other European languages, since other peoples such as the Angles, Saxons, Jutes arrived in this territory much later. It is necessary to refer to the opinion of scientists that during the interglacial period, the territory of Britain and Scandinavia lay under a thick layer of ice, so it is not necessary to talk about the first appeared on the territory of modern Russia. Subsequently, this group of Aryans was a German-Balto-Slavic-Indo-Iranian-Armenian-Greek community.

Tilak's ideas were followed by another representative of the Indian people, Rahul Sankrityayana, who also adhered to the “Arctic” theory. He was the first to introduce the concept of “Indoslavs”, spoke of the blood relationship of the Indians with the ancestors of the Slavs. His many years of experience in teaching Indian languages at Leningrad University allowed him to conclude that Sanskrit and the Russian language are similar, but, in his opinion, old Russian language, which has even more similarities with Sanskrit, has been preserved in the villages of the northern regions of Russia in an even more perfect form. Since there were no “traces” of Indians in the North of Russia, he argued about the originality of the Russian language in relation to Sanskrit.

Archaeological and anthropological artifacts

Currently, there are a sufficient number of artifacts bearing traces of the activity of a highly developed civilization on the territory of Russia: for example, a three-dimensional relief map of Western Siberia, made of stone, which is one hundred and twenty thousand years old, the inscriptions on it are made in Slavic-Aryan runes. Another example of the antiquity of our civilization is the Tisul discovery in the Kemerovo region in 1969 — the found body of a young woman without signs of decomposition; scientists determined her 100% identity with the modern Russian person, but could not identify the technology used to weave her clothes, as her age exceeds one hundred thousand years. Scientists know the sites of ancient settlements: Sungir near Vladimir, Sukhaya Mechetka near Volgograd, Betovo and Khotylevo in the Bryansk Oblast, Mamontova Kurya and Byzovaya on the Usa River — a tributary of the Pechora, several ancient settlements on the Indigirka River, whose archaeological and anthropological findings allow us to look at the history of development humanity in a different way.

Soviet and Russian linguist and philologist Toporov V.N. argued that the role of historians is very important in the study of the development of mankind. “It is necessary to isolate (or

REVIEWS AND REPORTS

Olga P. Matrosova, Olga A. Popova, Svetlana V. Masterskikh. Traces of the Russian… reconstruct) “what was” and what is introduced by the describing the situation in each historical description. Imposing on an alien tradition what was not in it, or what was irrelevant, or what was interpreted differently in it is a common sin of historical descriptions [5, Toporov V.N.].”

Influence of borrowings, similarities and differences in languages

Scholars acknowledge that Britain was conquered by the Roman Empire at the beginning of our era, but then there must be many Latin borrowings in the English of that time. However, this is not observed. Literary written sources, written by Catholic monks in Latin, date back to the 13th–14th centuries of our era, when Latin words were borrowed into English. As for the influence of the Celtic language, scientists give a negative answer due to the small number of Celtic words in the English language. It is known that the Celts came to Europe from the Iberian Peninsula four to three thousand years ago, drove out the Aryans and populated Europe and the British Isles. Thus, we can conclude that the basis for the English language was the Russian language.

It should be noted that the French linguist A. Meie, at the beginning of the 20th century, defined the Slavic languages as the oldest: “Most of the Slavic dialects retain an unusually archaic look”, and Sanskrit “represents Indo-European phonetics and morphology”. In his book “Common Slavonic”, he tried to prove that the Old Slavic language was one of the most ancient in the common Indo-European family [6, Meie A.]. The scientist was sure that the Slavic languages were a continuation of a single dialect, which is “one of the dialects of the common Indo-European language”, and clearly shows the connection of languages in his comparative analysis. Consider a few examples of Meie: Russian language: bratya (brothers); Old Church Slavonic: bratya; Sanskrit: bhratri/bhratar (brother); Bulgarian: bratja; Macedonian: brak'a; Serbian: braja; Slovenian: bratja Czech: bratri. Russian language: vdova (widow); Sanskrit: vidhava; Old Prussian: widdewu; Gothic: widuwo; Latin: vidua; modern English: widow. Russian language: den' (day); Sanskrit: dina; Bulgarian, Macedonian: den; Polish: dzien Czech: den Serbian: dan; Slovenian: dan [7, Meie A., p. 92–100].

The famous Slavic scholar A.I. Sobolevskiy, who made a number of discoveries in the field of Slavic studies, etymology, dialectology, paleography in the late 19th-early 20th centuries, who presented his point of view on historical and cultural events, also assumed that the vast expanses of European Russia, up to the northern regions, are dominated by names, which are based on the Indo-European language, which he called “Scythian” [8, Sobolevskiy A.I.].

The well-known Soviet and Russian Indologist, historian, ethnographer, Sanskritologist, translator of the Indian epic, author of 150 books about India, Natalya Romanovna Guseva, consolidated the evidence of the Arctic theory of the ancestors of mankind, created a dictionary of Russian-Sanskrit convergences. Comparing toponyms, hydronyms, ornaments on clothes, vessels of the northern Russian and Indian peoples, she provides irrefutable evidence of the mental and spiritual influence of the Aryans on the Indo-Europeans. Vivid examples include the custom of the Indians to write marriage contracts on birch bark. Although everyone knows that birch is a symbol of Russia, but in India, birch is very rare, and even it grows only high in the mountains. In India, the cult attitude to the North Star — Dhruva — is still preserved. The newlyweds traditionally perform the ritual of worshiping Dhruva. The scientist pays special attention to the description of the swastika as a symbol of goodness, happiness, protecting from evil. In her opinion, when comparing the Russian language and Sanskrit, one can find a millennial tradition of giving new definitions to members of related unions: “your” — “tva”; “my” — “sva”, and hence svakha (matchmaker), svatya (matchmaker), svat (matchmaker), svekr (fatherin-law), svekrov (mother-in-law), svoyak (brother-in-law), svoyachenitsa (sister-in-law), which have a similar sound in Sanskrit.

In the Indo-European languages, some ancient kinship terms close to Sanskrit have been preserved, the connection of languages is clearly visible: matri (Sanskrit), mater' (Russian), mother (English), Mutter (German); sunu — syn — son — Sohn; bratri — brat — brother — Bruder. Words from everyday speech are also similar: kapala (Sanskrit) — kepka (Russian) — cap (English); sneha — sneg — snow; tri — tri — three; nagna — nagoy — naked; bhu — byt’ — be; ad — est'/poedat' — eat/ate. The translations of the Rigveda also confirm the description of natural northern phenomena, which speaks of some long days of darkness, and then of the days of the never-setting sun (of course, we are talking about polar night and polar day); indicates the sparkle of Mount Meru (a description of the northern lights at the North Pole) and white nights. Natalya Romanovna, as well as the Russian academician B.A. Rybakov, urged to “dive into the archaic”, to look for the origins of modernity there, to study ancient artifacts, as they keep the truth, unlike modern constantly changing postulates.

Opinions of scientists about the primacy of the Russian language

An outstanding Russian ethnologist, professor, art critic, the most famous Russian specialist in the history and culture of the Russian North, Svetlana Vasilyevna Zharnikova (1945– 2015) spoke about the primacy of the Russian language, she was able to prove that many words of the Old Russian language are found in the sacred language — Sanskrit [9, Zharnikova S.V.].

The scientist has investigated national ornaments of northern Russ and inhabitants of Iran, Tibet, India and has confirmed their general basis. Her scientific card indexes, stored in the Vologda Museum-Reserve and other museums, contain non-traditional materials from a wide variety of historical disciplines. S.V. Zharnikova, continuing the research of Guseva N.R., argued that many names of toponyms, hydronyms are not of Finno-Ugric origin, but are related to names in Sanskrit and are easily translated from Sanskrit. The researcher easily explains the names of settlements, rivers, lakes of the northern territories of our country, using, among oth- er things, information from collections describing the settlements of the Vologda province, created by officers of the General Staff of Imperial Russia in the middle of the 19th century. Svetlana Vasilyevna, like other research scientists, proves that the Finno-Ugric interpretation of the toponyms and hydronyms, accepted in our country up to today, has no basis, the translation of the names of the rivers, lakes, places from the Finno-Ugric languages does not mean anything, and on the contrary, the Arya-Slavonic names, mentioned in the Rigveda and Avesta, are very easily translated and explained. One example is the name of the river Pinega. The Finno-Ugric interpretation gives the translation “small”. The rhetorical question is whether it is possible to call the river 800 km long and reaching 2 km in flooding, a small river? But the translation from Sanskrit means “red-brown”, and, indeed, the river flows in red-brown sands. In her book “Ancient Secrets of the Russian North”, Svetlana Zharnikova conducted a comparative analysis of the old names of Russian rivers in the Arkhangelsk and Vologda oblasts and their correspondences in Sanskrit. Let us look at a few examples: riv. Sumera in the Arkhangelsk Oblast — in Sanskrit: sumeru, Sumeru — the mythical mountain of the gods, sumeru-ja — the river generated by this mountain; riv. Kubala in the Velskiy district — in Sanskrit: kubala — forest; riv. Kama — a tributary of the Volga — Sans.: Kam — water, happiness; riv. Lala in the Ustyug region — Sans.: lal — to be free; riv. Sara in Beloozerskiy district — Sans.: sara — water; riv. Sarga — sarga — stream. This is not a complete list of amazing correspondences.

Besides, if the Finno-Ugric peoples influenced the development of our ancestors so much, then why do we not observe common features, similarities in architecture, house construction, rituals, folk art, diet, ornamental codes of the Finno-Ugric peoples and Russians? The ornamental-sign system of the northern Russian peoples, living, among other things, on the Kola Peninsula, in Eastern Europe, where they migrated, is very similar to Indian ornaments, but has little in common with the Finno-Ugric ones, apparently due to the fact that native speakers of the Russian language began to communicate with the speakers of the Finno-Ugric languages much later — not earlier than the first millennium BC.

Another example: the traditional Indian chronology starts the calculation of the worst time, Kaliyuga, from the battle in 3102 BC at Kurukshet (Kursk field). This event is described in the epic Mahabharata. But at that time, people who spoke Sanskrit and other languages were not yet present in the Indian subcontinent. They came there much later. The question arises: where did they fight five thousand years ago? The answer is found in Tilak, who describes the life of the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians near the Arctic Circle, showing how the Milky (White) Sea froze, blistavits (northern lights) sparkled above it, and constellations circled around the Polar Star, snow melted in spring, and the summer sun was not setting.

After the discovery of the northern culture of Hyperborea and the clarification of the dating of the Voronezh Kostenki culture by several tens of millennia, the researcher Zharnikova, with her statements back in 1988, which Professor Chudinov V.A., who supports this point of view, called unheard scientific hooliganism, forced modern scientists to look at civilization in Russia in a different way. Svetlana Vasilyevna describes the life of the Aryans in great detail: huge houses with several hearths, gable roofs, grain pits; proves the fact that the Aryans collected wild cereals and grew rye, wheat, oats, barley, flax, peas, and also processed cereals — silicon and quartz slabs were found, on which grain was ground; she gives examples of the same ornaments used in embroidery in Northern Russia and India. The vocabulary of the population in the villages of the Arkhangelsk and Vologda oblasts is similar to the sacred language of the priests of ancient India: “gayat”, clean, work well, in Saskrit “gaya” — house, household; “karta” — a woven pattern on a rug, “karta” — spin, cut off. A separate topic is the connection of ritual songs, mythological legends in the North of Russia, European countries and India.

Russian-Indian hydronyms from the time of Hyperborea are especially surprising with their consonance. The root “ind”, dedicated to the supreme god in Indian mythology, can be found in a huge number of names of rivers, lakes, settlements: in the neighboring Sverdlovsk Oblast, there is Lake Bolshaya Indra; in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug — riv. Indigirka; Inda, Indik — in the Kirov Oblast; lake Indeevo — in the Pskov Oblast, lake Indychiy — in the Voronezh Oblast. No less popular is the root “nar”, meaning the ancient Aryan deity who rules over the water element: riv. Nara and the city of Narofominsk in the Moscow Oblast; riv. Narva in the Baltics; riv. Narew — a tributary of the Vistula; lake Naroch in Belarus; riv. Naryn in Kyrgyzstan; the city of Narvik in Norway; Naryn in the Ob; Naryan-Mar on Pechera; Norilsk.

In Mahabharata, Rigveda, Avesta, the inhabitants of Bharata are called “rasa”, “raseyane”, “rusa”. In Sanskrit, Rusa means “bright”. All these examples confirm the close relationship between the Russian language and Sanskrit.

Unfortunately, Russian people, our contemporaries, do not always correctly understand the meaning of various names, and the answers can be found in the ancient Indian language. A striking example is the Kupala holiday. For many people, Kupala is associated with bathing, in fact, V. Dal gives this word the definition of “kupa”, “bonfire”, and a bathing suit is a fire in the field. In the Belarusian language, “kupali” is a sheaf of straw tied at the top of a Kupala fire, which is associated with fire, not water. In India, in the same way, the days of the solstice are marked by rituals of kindling fire, “kup” in Sanskrit means “shine”.

Our contemporary Boris Novitskiy is very convincing in his proofs of the proto—Russian roots in the English language. In his book “When Britain Didn't Know English”, published in 2019, there are a huge number of examples that confirm the ideas of the above authors. In Russian, lyuli means to lull; in Sanskrit — lolati (move back and forth); in Middle Dutch, lollen (to babble); in Middle Swedish, lulla (sing a lullaby); in German — lullen (to rock to sleep); in modern English — lull (lull, lull), lullaby (lullaby); in Old English — lullen (calm down, lull). It becomes obvious that the mothers of our ancestors could not borrow this word from the English. Let us take another example: the Russian word “vyakat'”, meaning “talk”, “mumble”; Sanskrit

— vakti (to speak); Persian — vac (to speak); Latin — vocare (call), vox (voice, language); Old Prussian — wackis (shout); in Old English: at least twenty words passed into English from the root “vyak”, voice, vocabulary, vocal, vocative, advocate, and others. The Russian word “beremenet'” became the basis for the English “bear”, in Sanskrit — bharati, in Old English — beran. “Dremat'” is very similar to the English “dream”; “goni, gnat', idti” — “go”; “tolkovat'” — “talk”. And who would have thought that the Russian “Az esm” is “I am” in modern English [10, Novitskiy B.B.].

When getting acquainted with the Russian initial letter, specialists dealing with the English language have a reasonable question about the reasons for the similarity of some initial letters and transcription marks. Currently, various scholars are arguing about the primacy of a particular language. The most common conclusion is that it is impossible to indicate the primacy of any language. Along with the most ancient languages, such as Hebrew, Persian, Sumerian, Akkadian, Greek, Chinese, Tamil, the author would like to pay special attention to Sanskrit, which, according to many researchers, originated from the Russian language.

This article presents a hypothesis that the modern Russian language was the progenitor of many languages, in particular, the English language. We believe that we have already given most of the evidence on this topic, let us try to figure it out with a few more examples.

A generally accepted fact in the field of history is that writing appeared in the ancient Russian state in the 11th century on the basis of the Byzantine writing system, and Cyril and Methodius are called the authors of the Old Slavonic alphabet. Is it really so?

Undoubtedly, the modern Russian language is a truncated version of the initial letter, which was reduced in volume for more than a thousand years, starting with Cyril and Methodius, and ending with the reform of Russian spelling in 1918: Cyril and Methodius removed five letters, Yaroslav the Wise removed one more, Peter I — nine more letters, Nicholas II also took part in the reduction, A.V. Lunacharskiy — removed four letters, adding two — й, ё, while destroying the images (for example, B-gods — many gods, divine, superior, another example is the decoding of the name Andrey: A — god; N — known to our ancestors; D — develops; P — energy; E — five elements of life; Y — true, — speech became non-decoded), introduced phonemes, while the alphabet became alphabetic. As a result, thirty-three initial letter icons remained out of forty-nine. One version of the reduction of the initial letter is the desire to increase the speed of transferred information.

The information about the ancient Slavic alphabet is widely spread, e.g. on TV channel Slavic World where presenter Andrey Ivashko talks about the ancient treasure of Slavic people and compares it to the organism. Each letter carries an image that affects the spiritual development of a person. Let us consider what the initial letters mean, which a number of experts call unnecessary, and therefore discarded.

The image of Fita encapsulates the ability to merge with the natural world into a single whole. The image of Izha represents the knowledge of temporal elements and the ability to work with time. Acquaintance with these initial letters allowed us to conclude that they have “passed” into the transcription of the English language; not for nothing there are 44 sounds for 26 letters in English. Perhaps the British borrowed other Russian initial letters, for example: s (dz — zelo), z (z — zemlya), i (и; й), h (ge, ha — gerv), k (k — kako), n (n — nash), o (long o), t (te), u (y), w (om, ot), v (y, u, yu, i, v, n — izhitsa).

The effect of immersion in the initial letter can be the realization that time is losing its usual course. A person, who knows how to decode the alphabet, perceives the nature as a living organism, it is easier for him to understand people around him. Russian fairy tales have come down to us, albeit distorted to some extent, describing the worldview, the universe, carrying sacredness, educating spirituality. Fairy tales hid the reality of the world, the attitude to publishing fairy tales was so serious that there was a need for special permission from the monarch. The Russian fairy tale “Kolobok” is one of the examples. Since childhood, we have been accustomed to believing that this tale is about a cunning fox, that one should not be gullible. In fact, this fairy tale taught children to understand the world around them, this is a story about what happens to the moon: the full moon, then each animal “takes a bite” a little — the moon gradually turned into a thin month. Thus, fairy tales were not a way of entertainment, but a way of developing a child, his spiritual world.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is necessary to conclude that the world of Paleolithic man was much more complex and spiritually richer than we imagined it; this is also evidenced by the highly developed processing of mammoth tusks and the manufacture of spears, jewelry in Sungiri burials, musical instruments and figurines Mezin and much more. The exceptional development and perfection of the forms of ornaments, sculpture, reliefs dating back to this time convince us that their roots should be sought in the more ancient Mousterian era, in that period of the Mikulinskiy interglacial (130–70 thousand years ago). We consider it very important to continue research in the field of the Arctic itself, the Arctic theory and its impact on humanity. There is hope that scientists will continue their research, and we will learn a lot of amazing information about the development of our culture, history, traditions, and way of life.

The well-known researcher of the Russian North A. Zhuravskiy wrote in 1911: “Russia, less than any other nation, can know itself without the help of ignorance of its roots, its past, and, without knowing itself, it is impossible to know others, without correcting itself, it is impossible to correct others. Let us study the experiences of the gray-haired past. This is by no means only “interesting” or “curious”, but vital, necessary” [11, Zhuravsky A.V., p. 14]. Any civilization is improved from century to century. Unfortunately, it can just as quickly destroy itself if it does not remember its history, its achievements. The restoration of the historical memory of peoples, the study of the facts that laid the foundation for our civilization, the dissemination of information — this is what should become a new national idea that unites the peoples of Russia.