Archive:Conspiracy of Historians

«New Chronology» puts forward an untrue claim that modern chronology was largely established in the 17th century by Joseph Scaliger (pictured) and Dionysius Petavius and has not undergone serious verification since

"Conspiracy of Historians" is a conspiracy theory according to which historians, serving the interests of political elites, conceal information, distort it, or destroy historical sourcesin order to hide an "unwanted reality"Template:Sfn; within the framework of this conspiracy theory, it is claimed that political elites keep the masses in ignorance in order to exploit them, prevent the people from realizing the "greatness of their own history", and through this, from coming to an understanding of their "true interests", realizing their "potential" and "historical mission"Template:Sfn. The event-based or cultural past "hidden" by the conspirators is understood by proponents of the conspiracy theory exclusively as "glorious", as a source of symbolic capital capable of raising the status and legitimacy of the political demands of the group that claims rights to this past; it is claimed that the past itself, the "shadows of forgotten ancestors", rather than this group, dictates demands and obliges one to "demand justice"Template:Sfn. Anti-scientific views developed on the basis of philosophical concepts of postmodernism, which deny the existence of objective truth and view the results of science as the product of collusion among scientists. Within pseudoscientific and conspiratorial frameworks, it is asserted that the "official scientific paradigm" is obsolete, an era of new knowledge is coming where "dogmatic science" will have no placeTemplate:Sfn. "Official science" is depicted as an instrument of global evil, which negatively affects public perception of scienceTemplate:Sfn. It is claimed that "official scientists" ignore or conceal findings inconvenient to them to prevent doubts about the correctness of their paradigmTemplate:Sfn. Pseudohistory is often linked to conspiracy theoriesTemplate:Sfn. Philosopher Robert Todd Carroll noted that proponents of pseudohistorical ideas often claim the existence of a conspiracy to suppress the authors of (pseudohistorical) works, motivated by racism, atheism, ethnocentrism, or opposition to their political or religious agendaTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn. Historian Joseph Ellis attributes to the general characteristics of pseudohistory the forging of arbitrary connections between disparate events to create a pattern; this construction usually then develops into a conspiracy theory postulating the existence of hidden actors responsible for creating and maintaining the patternTemplate:Sfn. Among proponents of pseudoarchaeology, the idea that professional archaeologists conceal evidence of "true history" is typicalTemplate:Sfn. In some more extreme cases, pseudoarchaeologists accuse scientists of participating in a large-scale conspiracy to hide the truth about authentic history from the publicTemplate:Sfn. When scientists criticize the work of pseudoarchaeologists, the latter see it as evidence of the correctness of their ideas, claiming that the participants of this "academic conspiracy" are thus trying to hide the truthTemplate:Sfn. British journalist and pseudoarchaeologist Graham Hancock, author of several books on the search for the lost civilization of Atlantis, claimed that archaeology is a small group of narrow-minded, like-minded people controlling knowledge about the past that should belong to everyoneTemplate:Sfn. In post-Soviet national republics, a perception formed of a historiographical trauma of the Soviet period, a theory of a "historians' conspiracy"Template:Sfn, according to which a particular ethnic group was deliberately deprived of a glorious historical past and culture to appease Soviet internationalist policyTemplate:Sfn. The "historians' conspiracy" theory is popular in modern RussiaTemplate:Sfn. As of 2018, according to mentions of popular conspiracy theories in modern Russian media, the most popular conspiratorial theory was the "historians' conspiracy against Russia." Proponents of this conspiracy believe that unscrupulous historians intentionally distort and falsify facts to "belittle the greatness of Russia"Template:Sfn. In Russia and other post-Soviet countries, the idea of a "Normanist conspiracy" exists as part of the "historians' conspiracy"Template:Sfn. In 2009, anti-Normanist historian A. N. Sakharov, director of the Institute of Russian History, corresponding member of the RAS and an active member of the Presidential Commission of the Russian Federation to Counter Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia's Interests, stated in an interview with a Russian TV channel that among modern falsifications, one of the most dangerous medieval fabrications is Normanism, which "today is raising its head again." He believed that a new wind of Normanism was blowing in Russia, inspired by foreign organizations and institutions funding the "destructive activities" of certain Russian scientists and research centersTemplate:Sfn. The idea of a "historians' conspiracy" is incorporated into the "New Chronology" of A. T. Fomenko, which features the notion of fact-tampering by historians who cannot tell the truth because they continuously carry out various social orders. A follower of the "New Chronology", sociologist A. A. Zinoviev, in an article for Knizhnoye Obozreniye (1999) claimed that historians of all times and nations take part in a "global falsification of history"Template:Sfn. According to historian A. E. Petrov, despite the fact that falsification of historical sources does occur to some extent, the constant exploitation of this thesis gives the "New Chronology" the features of a conspiracy theoryTemplate:Sfn. Proponents of the Slavic version of the Aryan myth explain the lack of confirmation for their ideas in historiography through conspiracy theories: since antiquity, the West has sought to conceal the significance of Slavic civilization and hid Slavs under various names: Sumerians, Hittites, Etruscans, Egyptians, etc.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn. It is claimed that the "conspiracy" of "official" Western and local historians and archaeologists fulfills an order from the West, or Western/local secret services. "Official scientists" hush up or conceal from the people the antiquity of the "Aryan-Slav-Russians" and their civilizing roleTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn, hiding or outright destroying "facts", in which they follow the example of Christian missionaries. Historians are depicted as "Russophobes" and "Anti-Zionists"; Russophobia is understood as a "conspiracy against the Russian people", displaying the people in an "unsightly" light by imposing narratives such as the Calling of the Varangians, the Khazar and Tatar-Mongol yoke, and denying the antiquity of the people and their glorious "Aryan" past. The "true" world history together with authentic historical sources is supposedly hidden in the "highest Judeo-Masonic circles" striving for "world domination"Template:Sfn.

References

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