History – Tillaux's Thoughts

It’s all Greek to me…

Today, I read E. D. A. Morshead’s translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon. Although my copy is a Harvard Classics from 1982, the first printing was in 1902, and the translation itself dates from the 1880s (as per this mostly positive review in The Saturday Review). Still, I was surprised by the number of words I had to look up. And it’s not just my poor vocabulary at work, Wikipedia corroborates that Morshead’s “language is often archaic.”After my second time having to log into the OED just to find a definition, I decided to compile a list of the more obscure words (found at the end of the post).

I found the word choice often got in the way of actually enjoying the play from both dramatic and literary standpoints. For example, the only line I knew from the play was RFK’s misquote of Edith Hamilton’s translation – delivered during an impromptu speech in Indianapolis in the wake of MLK’s assassination.

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
Robert F. Kennedy

The original translation was actually “Even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.” In this context as a noun, despite means “contempt, malice, or spite.” Remarkably close though- and as one Reddit comment put it: “who the hell has Aeschylus in their back pocket?” Morshead’s translation in verse is a little less evocative, with “A boon, I wot…” just sounding silly.

In visions of the night, like dropping rain,

Descend the many memories of pain

Before the spirit’s sight: through tears and dole

comes wisdom o’er the unwilling soul –

A boon, I wot of all Divinity,

that holds its sacred throne in strength, above the sky!

bale-fire – bonfire
soothliest – truthfully. Even sooth as a noun “was in common use down to the first half of the 17th cent.; after this apparently obsolete (except perhaps in sense 4c) until revived as a literary archaism, chiefly by Scott and contemporary writers.”
doughty – courageous, determined, bold, brave
oarage – “they wheel with the oarage of their wings” – movement of limbs [or wings] etc. in a manner resembling that of oars
eyas – a young hawk taken from the nest for the purpose of training, or whose training is incomplete
rapine – seizing the property of others
spilth – spilled
unmeet – unfit
twy-coloured – this one gave me trouble. The “twy-” parasynthetic combination with a noun + ED is a less popular variant of the “twi-” combination; both of these mean “having two.”
minished – diminished
wot – know
refluent – flowing back or flowing again
welter – confusion, upheaval, turmoil
recreant – a person who has been defeated… (hence) cowardly, faint-hearted, craven, afraid
well-a-day – alas! (as an interjection)
fore-sorrow – As in “foreknowledge is fore-sorrow.” Definitely a neologism, even the OED doesn’t have an entry for fore-sorrow.
stripling – a young man
trammel – a long narrow fishing net
wight – epithet applied to supernatural beings. (I knew this word, but once, unfortunately, confused it with “waif” in conversation).
pinion – wings of a bird in flight, terminal segment of a bird’s wing that bears the primary flight feathers
meed – reward for labor or service
guerdon – reward
horrent – “A curse that clung to our sodden garb/ and hair as horrent as a wild beast’s fell.” In this sense, horrent means bristling (as in standing up as bristles).
fell – Covering of hair/wool.
leal – loyal, honest, true
coppice – shrubbed area
fulsome – excessively complimentary
obtrude – “How nor a fulsome praise obtrude, nor stint the meed of gratitude?” – become noticeable in an unpleasant way
trace-horse – “A trusty trace-horse bound upon my car…” A horse which draws in traces, as distinct from a shaft-horse. A trace is the pair of ropes by which the collar of a draught-animal is connected with the splinter-bar or swingletree. A swingletree is a crossbar used to balance the pull of the horse.
haply – maybe, perhaps
gauds – “such footclothes and all gauds aside…” In this sense probably meaning a piece of finery or gewgaw. It can also mean a trick or prank, as well as an ornamental bead placed between the ‘aves’ in a rosary.
fain – “I fain would fare unvexed by fear.” Wish, desire.
appanage – the provision made for the maintenance of younger children of royalty
lustral – pertaining to purificatory sacrifice
hies – hastens
rede – advice or counsel
plash – sound produced by liquid striking something, splash
plight – “I plighted troth, then foiled the god.” To pledge solemnly, to be engaged to be married.
glozes – makes excuses for
charnel – associated with death. As part of the phrase “charnel house” – a vault where corpses are piled or a place associated with violent death
nard – spikenard, a costly aromatic ointment
laver – “[The body of Agamemnon lies, muffled in a long robe, within a silver-sided laver]”. A basin or container used for washing oneself
reck – pay heed to something
requital- something given in return or compensation
aver – state or assert
lorn – lonely, abandoned, forlorn
caparisoned – a horse decked out in rich decorative coverings
losel – worthless person
quittance – release or discharge from debt or obligation
exeunt – stage direction in a printed play to indicate a group of characters leave the stage

And finally, an apt summary of the whole sordid tale of the House of Atreus…

Lo! sin by sin and sorrow dogg’d by sorrow –

And who the end can know?

The slayer of today shall die tomorrow –

The wage of wrong is woe

References

Eliot, Charles & Morshead, E. D. A. (1982). The Harvard Classics: Nine Greek Dramas. Grolier Enterprises Corp.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858016626214&view=1up&seq=140
http://morec.com/rfk.htm
https://www.oed.com/

Greek surnames: suffixes and places of origin

During a recent visit to Crete, a local student told me that last name suffixes in Greek often reflected a person’s ancestral origin. For example, the diminutive “-akis” (-άκης) was common for Cretans, the patronymic “-opoulos” (-όπουλος) for those from the Peloponnese, “-as” (-ᾶς) from Epirus and Macedonia, and the patronymic “-oglou” (-όγλου) for those originally from Anatolia.*

Distribution of the **Mitsotakis** surname, using a website that visualizes the frequency of phone number registrations with given surnames. Outside of Athens (the big red cluster in Attica), the surname is relatively common in Crete.

For some specific examples:

The current prime minister of Greece (as of May 2022), Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was born in Athens. However, his father (and former PM), Konstantinos Mitsotakis, was born in Chania, Crete.
The former PM, Alexis Tsipras, was also born in Athens; however, his father hailed from Epirus.
The dictator and Nazi collaborator, Georgios Papadopoulos, was born in a small village in the Peloponnese.
Nikitaras Stamatelopoulos, a revolutionary in the Greek War of Independence, was similarly born in the Peloponnese. Even today, the last name Stamatelopoulos is most commonly found in the Peloponnese.

Distribution of the Stamatelopoulos surname, as gleaned from phone number registrations. Note the numerous clusters across the Peloponnese.

However, the correspondence between surname and place is far from perfect, even long before today’s globalized and hypermobile world. Before the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, some 2 million Greeks lived in modern-day Turkey. During the aftermath of the war, Greek and Turkey agreed to a “compulsory exchange” of populations, in which over a million surviving Greek Orthodox from Asia Minor and almost half a million Muslims from Greece were forcibly denaturalized and moved. The map below captures the most common surnames of Greek Orthodox refugees from this exchange. It clearly shows that Papadopoulos (yellow) was a very common name throughout the Greek-speaking world, far beyond what the “-opoulos” (Peloponnese) would suggest. However, were still a fair number of last names more typical of Asia Minor, such as Panagiotoglou, Terezoglou, and Papazoglou.

Map of the most common surnames by region of refugees from the Greek-Turkish population exchange of 1923. Yellow = Papadopoulos, Red = Ioannidis, Orange = Panagiotoglou, Pink= Terzoglou, Purple = Kypraios, Grey = Hartomantzoglou, Green = Karagiannis, Brown = Papazoglou, Blue = Kazakis. Credit: Alex Sakalis

Although some descendants of the population exchange have kept these more “Turkish” surnames, many others have opted to Hellenise their surnames using the Ancient Greek patronymic “-ides”. For those displaced from Greece to Turkey, even fewer traces remain of ancestral surname suffixes. The Surname Law of 1934 required all Turkish citizens to adopt a Turkish surname. Thus, those with Greek-sounding surnames had to change to more Turkish suffixes such as “-zade”, “oglu”, or “gil.”

*patronymic means a “name derived from that of a father or paternal ancestor, usually by the addition of a suffix or prefix meaning ‘son'”. Familiar examples include Fitzgerald (Fitz [Norman] = fils [modern French] = son of Gerald), MacDonald (son of Donald), and Peterson.

References

How are the Donner Party and Tarsila do Amaral related?

Short answer: Cannibalism. The Donner Party was a group of pioneers who were snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains and had to resort to cannibalism; Tarsila do Amaral was a Brazilian modernist painter instrumental in the formation of the aesthetic movement Antropofagia (cannibalism).

Abaporu by Tarsila do Amaral. Source: MALBA

One of the other residency applicants during my interview today was from Brazil. Separately, my friend sent me the most recent episode of “Great Art Explained” about Dali’s Persistence of Memory. Somehow these two things together reminded me of the magnificent work of Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973).

Tarsila was the scion of coffee plantation owners in São Paulo and studied art in Brazil before leaving for Paris. There she studied with noted Cubists such as Fernand Leger and Andre Lhote- which helped inform her future work. In 1928, she painted Abaporu (oil painting on canvas) as a birthday present for her husband, the Brazilian writer Oswald de Andrade. In the Tupi language (an language formerly spoken by the aboriginal peoples of South and Southeast Brazil), abapor’u means “the man who eats man” from aba (man), poro (people) and u (eat). The painting itself was described by Tarsila as “a monstrous solitary figure, enormous feet, sitting on a green plain, the hand supporting the featherweight minuscule head. In front a cactus exploding in an absurd flower.”

Tupi or not Tupi: that is the question.
Oswald de Andrade in Manifesto Antropofago

When Oswald saw the painting, he was said to have exclaimed “That looks like a cannibal, a man of the earth.” This went on to inspire Oswald to write the Manifesto Antropofago (Anthropophagic [Cannibal] Manifesto”). The manifesto proposes that Brazil “cannibalize” European culture, ridding themselves of direct influences to create their own culture. In the short term, the ideas of the Manifesto were suppressed in the wake of the Brazilian revolution of 1930 and the dictatorship of Getulio Vargas. In the longer term, the Manifesto would help inspire figures in the Tropicalismo movement of the 1960s.

Abaporu was sold in 1999 for $1.5 million to a (gasp) Argentinian collector and sits in the MALBA in Buenos Aires. Today, it is valued at over $100 million. However, as Freakonomics noted in their second podcast on art this week, all value is theoretical until it comes time for auction… The most expensive Brazilian painting to actually sell at auction is Tarsila’s A caipirinha (Brazil’s national cocktail made with cahaca [sugarcane liquor], sugar, and lime). This painting was sold by court order and went for $9.25 million, beating out Alberto de Veiga Guignard’s Vaso de flores.

A Caipirinha - Tarsila do Amaral - WikiArt.org — *A Caparinha* by Tarsila do Amaral. Source: Wikiart

The Donner Party was a group of unfortunate Illinois pioneers that attempted to join the westward migration to California in 1846. Consisting of the families and employees of brothers George and Jacob Donner and local businessman James Reed, the party started off around 30 people strong. Their journey was unremarkable at first, reaching Independence, Missouri in May and Fort Laramie, Wyoming in July. However, their party (along with 50 unfortunate others) split off from the main group in late July, intending to head to California instead of Oregon. Following the advice of the unreliable explorer Lansford Hastings (and later Major in the Confederate States Army – they truly hired the best and the brightest), the party pushed ahead into the Hastings Cutoff. This route was 125 miles longer than the established trail and cut through inhospitable deserts. The group lost valuable time over the next few months breaking new trails, fixing wagons, and searching for dying cattle. By late September, the Donner Party was the final migrant party heading towards California. On October 31st, the group finally reached Donner Pass… and found their route blocked by snow.

10 Things You Should Know About the Donner Party - HISTORY — Hastings Cutoff. Source: History.com

The party then built makeshift cabins around a nearby lake (Donner Lake) and tried to subsist through the winter. Due to the harsh weather and inadequate food supplies, deaths soon occurred; this left the survivors to resort to cannibalism of the dead bodies. For those interested in a more detailed accounting, the Encyclopedia Britannica provides a great summary. Amazingly, the last survivor did not leave the camp until April 21, subsisting on cannibalism for weeks. Although harrowing, the misfortunes of the Donner party did nothing to slow the pace of migration to California. Today, Donner Lake is a gorgeous alternative to Lake Tahoe – I can personally attest it is a great place to boat, hike, and water-ski.

Donner Lake - Wikipedia — Donner Lake. Source

References:

What percentage of elected female world leaders have had their husband or father precede them?

World map indicating elected female world leaders since 1918. Dark green indicates a country with at least one female leader with a male relation who was also a leader. Otherwise, light green indicates a country with at least one female leader. Grey indicates countries without an elected female leader since 1918. Source: My own work created using MapChart

Short answer: 29.2% (19/65)

Medium Answer: I only considered modern leaders (those since 1918). I started from Wikipedia’s list of elected and appointed world leaders, then removed all leaders who were either acting leaders or appointed. I also removed all leaders who did not practically hold executive power (prime minister in presidential systems, president in a parliamentary system, see details below for semi-presidential systems) or were leaders of countries with collective executives (San Marino, Switzerland). This left 65 elected world leaders, of which 19 had either a husband or father precede them as a leader of their country.

Honduras has just elected its first female president, Xiomara Castro de Zelaya, ending 12 years of rule by the National Party. She has long been a representative of the left-wing Libre Party, running for president in the 2013, 2017, and 2021 Honduran general elections. Her defeat of the fabulously corrupt Juan Orlando Hernandez will hopefully help reverse Honduras’ slide into a narco-state that has seen almost 3% of its population try to escape to the United States in 2020 alone. Of interest, Ms. Castro’s husband, Manuel “Mel” Zelaya was formerly the president from 2006-2009 until he was ousted in a coup. This of course has led to (likely overblown) accusations that Ms. Castro will simply be a front for her husband’s even more left-wing policies.

This had me wondering about which percent of elected women leaders had a male relation (either husband or father) precede them. Let me be clear that merely having a relation also be a leader by no means indicates a diminished capacity. As brief examples, consider Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, and Aang Sun Suu Kyi (before her autocratic backslide in recent years).

Indira Gandhi (PM 1966-1977, 1980-1984) surrounded by her ministers. Source

To dig further into this question, I perused Wikipedia’s list of elected women leaders. It quickly became clear that there would be no good way to parse this data, except to make some value judgments by hand. For obvious reasons, this list already excluded other heads of state such as monarchs. I also excluded female members of collective head-of-state bodies (Soviet Union presidiums, other Soviet Republic State Councils, San Marino, and Switzerland) and female viceregal representatives (as there are appointed). I also excluded leaders in acting capacities only and omitted leaders from states that were not widely recognized (Transnistria, Tannu Tuva). I did include states with more widespread recognition (Taiwan, Kosovo).

I then cross-referenced this list with the type of government a country has (parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential). For parliamentary and presidential systems, it was easy to exclude the ceremonial executive. However, there were a few states with semi-presidential systems that were a bit more of a value judgment. For Lithuania, I considered it as leaning more towards a presidential system; I considered its Baltic neighbors of Latvia and Estonia as more parliamentary. I also tried to omit leaders that were appointed – but did make some exceptions for leaders who were both elected and markedly contributed to acquiring their own leadership roles (e.g. Roza Otunbayeva of Kyrgyzstan, who was interim president in the wake of the 2010 April revolution). I also included leaders that were elected in a deputy role, but took the top spot via succession (e.g. Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, who took over after John Magufuli died of COVID-19). Finally, I tried to assess whether a country’s system of governance had changed (e.g. for Sri Lanka, Sirimavo Bandaranaike was Prime Minister when the country was a parliamentary system, even though the country is now a presidential system).

Samia Sulhu Hassan of Tanzania. President from 2021-. Source

Determining whether a leader had a preceding male relative was generally quite straightforward. I did not count cases where a female elected leader had a prominent male relation that was assassinated before they held the top role (e.g. Corazon Aquino). In most cases, the relation was either a husband or a father. Two interesting cases were: the grandfather of Kaja Kallas of Estonia was also PM (but so was her father) and Chandrika Kumaratunga of Sri Lanka had both a mother and father that preceded her as leaders.

South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Latin America seemed to have particularly high rates of elected female leaders with a male relation, whereas Europe had much lower numbers. I think a future project might be to correlate these findings with the propensity of various countries to elect people from political dynasties in general (without regard to gender). Not exactly sure how to do this yet, but would appreciate any reader tips!

Golda Meir. Israeli PM from 1969-1974. Source: Wikipedia

For some notable firsts with regards to elected women leaders:

Khertek Anchimaa-Toka of the defunct and largley unrecognized Tuvan People’s Republic can lay some claim to being the “first elected woman head of state,” chairing her country’s presidium in 1940.
Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka was the first democratically elected world leader. She was elected as prime minister in 1960. Her husband S. W. R .D. Bandaranaike, “The Silver Bell of Asia”, preceded her as prime minister from 1956 until his assassination in 1959.
Golda Meir was the first elected female world leader without a male relation. She was prime minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974.
Angela Merkel is the longest serving elected female world leader. She has been the German Chancellor since 2005. She will be stepping down, likely next week, after holding the top spot for an astounding 16 years.

For those interested in a full list and my rationale for including/excluding each person, please see my table here. Red indicates a world leader that doesn’t count (for reasons explained above), light green indicates a former world leader without a preceding male relation, dark green indicates a former world leader with a preceding male relation, light blue indicates a current world leader without a preceding male relation, and dark blue indicates a current world leader with a preceding male relation. I counted Ms. Castro as a current world leader (although she is technically still president-elect).

Beginning of the spreadsheet with more details.

Final note: Ms. Castro’s initial campaign promises to break ties with Taiwan were worrisome, but it seems she has backed away from the temptation of autocratic money.

References

How are sharing pears, ice fishing, and…breastfeeding a mother-in-law related?

Short answer: Filial piety

When I was a child, I often heard the phrase 孔融讓離 (Kong Rong Rang Li), “Kong Rong yields pears.” As the legend goes, when Kong Rong, a distant descendant of Confucius, was a mere four years old he would only pick out small pears to eat. When asked by his parents about this, he replied that he felt it was his duty to leave the larger, juicier fruits for his older brothers. This anecdote highlighted Kong Rong’s filial piety towards his elder siblings.

Filial piety plays a central role in Confucian role ethics and Chinese society more broadly. Perhaps the most famous text about filial piety is 二十四孝 (Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars) written by 郭居敬 (Guo Jujing). I had always believed the story about Kong Rong and his pears was a part of this collection – but in fact, it is not. However, this short collection is filled with numerous bizarre stories. These include:

Yu Qianlou resigned from his magistrate after ten days and returned home to find his father sick. In order to prognosticate the course of his father’s illness, his doctor said “…one must taste the patient’s dung. If it is bitter, then there is hope.” Qianlou dutifully tasted his father’s feces – finding it sweet, he was very anxious. He kowtowed to the North Star of longevitiy, asking it to let him die in father’s place. Alas, his wish was not granted, and his father died anyways.
Guo Ju was poor and was forced to have his mother share food with his 3-year-old son. Lamenting at his inability to feed his mom, he told his wife he would bury their son. His wife’s response is not recorded (perhaps she was either very filial or knew something about the son that Guo Ju didn’t). In any case, Guo Ju dutifully went out to the yard and began digging a pit. Luckily for his son, he quickly struck a cauldron of gold and was able to feed both his child and mother thereafter.
Wang Xiang of the Jin dynasty had a mother that died early. Unfortunately, his stepmother only had two defining traits – her dislike for Wang Xiang and her love for fresh fish. Despite her animosity, one day when the river froze over, Wang Xiang decided to go fishing in the nearby river for his stepmother. Finding the river frozen over, he removed his clothes and melted the ice with his body heat. He was then able to catch some carp for his stepmother.

Twenty-Four Examples of Filial Piety: Yu Qianlou Tasting His Father's Stool out of Grave Concern for His Health — Yu Qianlou. Perhaps he should have hired a different physician. Source: [3]

Many other stories in this collection are no less strange – there is Cui Nanshan who breastfed her mother-in-law, Wu Meng who let mosquitos bite him to prevent them from biting his parents, and Huang Tingjian who insisted on personally washing his mother’s bedpan. Perhaps it is no surprise that while this collection was the prime folk document on filial piety and widely known throughout China, it was not part of the Confucian canon and attracted scorn from Chinese intellectuals.

When the Chinese Communist Party took over the mainland, it sought to suppress the Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars as part of its campaign against “traditional thinking.” Under Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and 1990s, the CCP relaxed prohibitions against traditional thinking and these examples of filial piety made a comeback. In more recent years, the CCP has even sought to rescue the collection from irrelevance. An updated version in 2012 exhorted children to teach their parents how to surf the Internet, buy health insurance for retired parents, to take their parents on vacation. In 2013, the CCP even passed a law on filial piety – mandating children regularly visit their parents and avoid “neglecting the elderly” (which concomitantly lightens the burden on the state to provide for the elderly).

New "24 Filial Exemplars" – Learn chinese,mandarin language | online & free – Chinese Moment — Some updated examples of filial piety. Source: https://www.chinesemoment.com/chinese-reading/new-quot-24-filial-exemplars-quot/

Despite the updates, representations of the stories in the Twenty-Four Exemplars can still be found in China and places with prominent Chinese diaspora. Earlier in 2021, a statue of Cui Nanshan breastfeeding her mother-in-law was taken from a park in Huzhou, Zhejiang province. In the Haw Par Villa in Singapore, a 24 Filial Exemplars diorama is found adjacent to the “10 Courts of Hell.”

Tour the Ten Courts of Buddhist Hell at Haw Par Villa in Singapore — A scene from Hell at Haw Par Villa. Perhaps this gentleman didn’t wrestle enough tigers for his parents. Source: Atlas Obscura (link below)

On a side note, for all Kong Rong’s filial piety, he still met a sticky end. After insulting Cao Cao (the infamous warlord from the Three Kingdoms period), Kong Rong and his entire extended family were murdered.

References

Phantom time hypothesis … for the glory of Russia?

I was chatting with a friend about the phantom time hypothesis last weekend, and he mentioned that this theory was popular in Russia. Apparently, the hypothesis helped maintain a sense of imperial glory among those disillusioned with Communism and the Russia of Yeltsin/Putin. Only half-remembering the conspiracy, I rewatched the Half as Interesting video on the topic.

In brief, Heribert Illig proposed in 1991 that Holy Roman Emperor Otto III, Pope Sylvester II, and Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII conspired to fabricate a few hundred years of history. This would both help legitimate Otto’s claim to the HRE and place themselves at the special year, 1000AD. Under this hypothesis, the entire history of the Carolingian period from 614-911 was fabricated out of whole cloth.

screen-shot-2016-12-17-at-7-37-28-pm — Timeline detailing the phantom time hypothesis from Hans-Ulrich Niemitz’s article “Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist.” Source: [3]

The “evidence” for this claim is that:

There is scarce archeological evidence that can be reliably dated to 614-911 due to perceived inaccuracies in the radiometric and dendrochronological methods in the 1990s.
- Of course this is much less of an issue today. For a fascinating recent podcast on (radiocarbon) calibration, check out this podcast from Science.
- https://www.science.org/content/podcast/folate-debate-and-rewriting-radiocarbon-curve
Presence of Romanesque architecture in 10th century Western Europe, which naturally suggests the Roman era couldn’t have been that long ago…
- By this same logic, the architecture of the great Dome at MIT clearly indicates the unreality of at least a millenia
Something about the relationship between the Julian calendar, Gregorian calendar, and astronomical solar year.
- Without digging into this claim too much, it is not supported by astronomical events recorded by ancient sources (e.g. solar eclipses reported by Pliny the Elder in 59 AD, Photius in 418 AD, and all observations of the Tang dynasty).

However, there was nothing that suggests this history could glorify Russia, nor did it seem like Heribert Illig or his colleagues would have anything to gain from doing so. It turns out there was a separate, much more involved conspiracy theory promoted by Anatoly Fomenko called “New chronology.” It proposed that the events of Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, and the Roman Empire actually occurred more than 1000 years later than believed. Instead, history prior to 1600 CE had been falsified by powerful interests to obscure a true history of the world centered on “the Russian horde.” Unsurprisingly, this chronology is popular in Russia. Fomenko has sold over 1 million books, and the conspiracy has “the sympathy of up to 30% of the Russian public.”

Of course, the phantom time hypothesis and New chronology are not the only dodgy chronologies in town. For the interested there is also:

Glasgow chronology
Ages in Chaos and all of Immanuel Veilovsky’s work
New Chronology by David Rohl (a separate conspiracy from Fomenko’s)
Short chronology
Middle chronology

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