Tatishchev was not a loner in the study of the oldest roots of the Russian tribe. No less scrupulous and panoramic this problem was analyzed by V. K. Trediakovsky in an extensive historical work entitled: “Three arguments about the three most important antiquities of Russia…". In this undeservedly forgotten treatise, at least two dozen pages are devoted only to the question of Mosokh (Mosca) – the forefather of the Muscovites.
Trediakovsky, like no one else, had the right to a thoughtful historical-linguistic and etymological analysis of the above problems. A comprehensively educated scientist and writer, who studied at the universities of the Netherlands and the Paris Sorbonne, was fluent in many ancient and new languages and approved by an academician in Latin and Russian eloquence, an outstanding Russian enlightener stood together with Lomonosov at the origins of Russian grammar and versification and was a worthy successor to Tatishchev in areas of Russian history. In addition to enviable erudition, Trediakovsky possessed a rare gift inherent in him as a poet – a sense of language and an intuitive understanding of the deep meaning of words, which is unknown to the pedant scientist. So, he strongly supported and developed the opinion about the Russian basis of the Hellenic name “Scythians”.
In accordance with the norms of Greek phonetics, this word is pronounced like skete: the second syllable in its spelling begins with “theta” – q; in Russian dubbing, it is pronounced both as “f” and as “t”. Before the reform of the Russian alphabet, it included (as the penultimate one) the letter “fita” – q, intended to convey borrowed words including the letter “theta”. And the word Scythians in pre-revolutionary editions was written through phyto. In reality, “skyt” (the monastery) is a purely Russian root, forming a lexical nest with words like “skytatisia, skytanie” (wandering). Consequently, Scythian-skitian literally means: “skytalci” (nomads). A successful lexical equivalent was found for the name of the Scythian country: the Russian archaeologist D. Ya. Samokvasov named it “Scytania” (Wandering).
So, for the second time as a later borrowing from the Greek language, where it served as the name of the desert, the common root base “skit” again entered the Russian usage in the sense of: a remote monastic refuge or an Old Believer (old faith) monastery.
Lomonosov on the question: Are it possible to call Mosokh the ancestor of the Slavic tribe in general and the Russian people in particular, spoken flexibly and diplomatically. The Great Russian did not accept irrevocably, but he did not categorically reject the possibility of a positive answer, leaving “everyone has their own opinion”. As for the Herodotov’s “History” itself, Lomonosov considered its authority to uncover the genetic roots of the Russian tribe unquestioned.
In a concentrated form, the same understanding was later formulated by another prominent Russian historian, I. E. Zabelin: “No denying and doubting… criticism can rob the Russian history of its true treasure, its first chronicler, who is the father of history – Herodotus.” Now the position of Tatishchev – Lomonosov – Zabelin (later this line was continued by D.I. Ilovaysky, A.D. Nechvolodov, G.V. Vernadsky) can be significantly strengthened by arguments borrowed from historical linguistics, mythology and folklore.
But these are Scythians – some 70 generations from the present day (if you count according to the demographic canon – three generations per century): it would seem, at hand! What happened before?
The most thorough and well-reasoned answer to this question was answered by the outstanding Indian scientist and public figure B. Tilak in the capital work “The Polar Homeland in the Vedas”. Based on a rigorous analysis of ancient texts, he proved that they describe the location of stars and the movement of celestial bodies, characteristic of the circumpolar and polar regions, and not for the southern latitudes.
For example, the words of the sacred Vedic hymn: “To the best of the Gods see the Sun rising only once a year” should be interpreted in the sense of the onset of the polar day. And there are dozens and hundreds of such passages in the Vedas.
In the same spirit, one should also understand some of the “dark” passages of the Bible, such as the statement from the unsaved Book of the Righteous: “The sun stood in the sky and did not rush to the west for almost the whole day.”
Consequently, Tilak reasoned, once the Aryans, their ancestors, lived in the northern latitudes, from where they were forced to migrate to the South.
The concept of a single origin of the world’s languages is not new. In the same Bible, sometimes summarizing ancient knowledge in allegorical form, it is said: “On the whole earth there was one language and one dialect” (Genesis: 2, 1).
And this is not a metaphor, but an indisputable fact, as evidenced by at least common to all living and dead languages, the root substrates of index words and pronouns – the oldest lexical layer.
More recently, another verbal-semantic array of more than 200 languages of the world related to the process of childbearing, breastfeeding, etc., was subjected to computer processing. And again an unequivocal answer was received: all languages have a common primary principle – a single parent language.
How a glacier fettled history
The conclusion naturally came up: not only was the language single, but also the people who spoke it. It remained to determine where he lived – in the North or in the South?
But the “Northern Concept” was not seriously considered, since the prevailing and still “glacial theory” and its conclusion were considered that the North Eurasia, right up to the Carpathians and Dnieper, was completely covered with continental ice, and no life here was basically impossible. For over a hundred years, this whole dogma has been driven by this whole world history: its reckoning for Europe, Asia and North America begins somewhere from the 12th-10th millennium BC, when, after the gradual retreat (melting) of the glacier, the ancient man supposedly move slowly from South to North. Essentially, the glacier fettered the story itself!
Meanwhile, a lot of facts and arguments have been accumulated that testify far from in favor of an absolutized glacial concept. The saddest thing is that dogmatic theorists do not want to reckon with them, but prefer to use means that are far from science.
It got to the point that the supporters of the “glacial theory” found a second fossil soil in the pits, and according to their installations there should be only one, the “excess” was simply bombarded, and the expedition was declared “not the former”.
Likewise, non-glacial processes of formation of boulder deposits are hushed up: from the point of view of the “glaciers”, the appearance of boulders is explained by the “ironing” of ice: with its weight, it rolled and polished huge stones like pebbles in the seas and oceans. So, the abundance of boulders on the Valdai Upland is considered almost the main evidence that this territory was covered in the distant past with a powerful glacier.
Supporters of absolutized dogmas are ignored by the opinion of the founder of paleoclimatology A.I. Voeikov, who considered the existence of extensive European glaciation unlikely and allowed only his presence only in the north of Eurasia and America. As for the middle zone of Russia, here Voeikov was more than categorical: in accordance with his calculations, a glacial carapace at the latitude of Russian black earths would automatically entail the transformation of the earth’s atmosphere above this territory into a solid block of ice. This, of ourse, was not, and therefore there was not that picture of glaciations, which is usually drawn on the pages of textbooks. Therefore, it is necessary to more than carefully compare the “glacial hypothesis” with the well-known historical realities. Moreover, there are many facts that do not fit in the Procrustean bed of dominant dogmas.
Among them is the absence of a creeping ice crust in the modern harsh climate of Siberia and the Far North.
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