Thomsen Vilhelm

 (1842-1927)

http://adji.ru

Murad Adji
Europe, Turks, Great Steppe

Wild Field - Great Steppe

One of the first scientists who opened a new chapter in the European linguistics, the Dane Vilhelm Thomsen, his academic works of the last century  became a golden collection of the science. Thomsen almost blew up the Europe - the explosion threatened to cause a big fire in the so harmoniously written history of Old World. 

"What Huns?", "What these barbarians have to do here? " - inquired many, having read the irreproachable work of the outstanding Danish scientist who convincingly proved, that a history of Europe without the history of the Türks is empty.

 Vilhelm Lidvig Peter Thomsen  was born in the mailman family in the small town Randers, here went his childhood, here he began the university career.Theology not attracted the young man, and he engaged in other sciences - philology and botany. Thomsen was lucky, he had outstanding teachers who noted his phenomenal memory and discovered in the young man a gift of a philologist.

He was brought up in the best traditions of the classical European school, with a combination of laboratory and field research. During his travels before the beginning scientist came alive the inimitable world, and in the libraries opened the bygone world. The Arabian, Persian, Japanese, Chinese, Gypsy, Thomsen acquired tens of languages until at last got acquainted with exotic for the Europe Turkic language.

The scientist sensed in it a certain mistery, his heart sensed it as an "ancestral home" of some European languages, their linguistic base, but for a long time his mind opposed the inside voice. Until came a cause.

 In 1887 Thomsen was invited to the position of a professor to the faculty of the comparative linguistics in the Copenhagen university. He gained a global fame during those years for his work about the ties of the Old Russia with Scandinavia, and about the origin of the Russian state. (Specifically Russian, not the Slavic!). It would be fair to say that the research of the Danish professor expressed the view which drastically differed from the version adopted in Russia. In fact, professor Thomsen was one of the first scientists who wrote truthful, without the politics!, history of Russia as it was factually. His work was accepted within the world community, it became classical, it is used to teach students.

Because of the inability neither to deny nor to accept the conclusions of his fundamental research without legends and fictions, the name of the professor Thomsen was made if not outright forbidden then at least not known among the Russian scientists, in Russia his works  are almost unknown: only one small article was translated and published, no others could be found. What a pity! From them the world  learned the truth about the Kievan Rus.

Professor Thomsen visited Russia many times, knew excellently the European (Venedian) roots of the Slavic culture. This outstanding linguist found out what always dodged the focus of the Russian scientists, he revealed the Türkic base of the culture which nowadays is wrongly refered as Russian.

 Maybe not. The respectable professor just scientifically proved what was known for a long time. There is a saying: "Scratch any Russian, you will find a Tatar ". Thomsen just scratched the Rus.

It all began from the written monuments found then in Russia, or more truthfully, in the Southern Siberia, in the ancient native land of the Türks . These monuments were forgotten for more than a thousand years. The study of the history of the "infidel" peoples did not interest the Russian science.

That is why the finds of Daniil Gotlib Messershmidt were left without attention. This scientist from Dantzig was the first among the Europeans who in the 1719 - 1727 traveled to Siberia. Near Nerchinsk, Messershmidt was shown the remains of an ancient cemetery where remained two freakish stones covered with relief images and inscriptions. There is an opinion, that the first was a captured Swedish officer F. Stralenberg, who saw the mysterious rock signs in the 1713 - 1722, while living in Siberia, and he referred to them as runic because of the outward similarity with the German runs.

All was clear with the images: the pictures of hunting and sacrifices, animals, people, ornaments were executed with a big art and harmony. To the German scientist, the written signs  looked familiar, reminding the ancient Germanic runes. But he swept aside this guess: it was too far from Siberia to the Germany.

In the St. Petersburg the Messershmidt's finds were received without delight, like they were known for a long time. The copies made by him from the most unique monuments were not even looked at, not to mention publishing them. The writing was ordered to be classied as Scythian and suggested to archive the copies as worthless.

 Later, with the help of one of the Catherine II ambassadors, these copies secretly were sent to Europe and were published there. Evidently, the thievery and the trade in smuggled antiquities were already practiced in the Russian science. So, the world learned about one of the forgotten pages of the history, though the subject was not the ancient Türkic culture.

The Siberian stelae with strange figures became subject of discussions. It  all looked too mysterious and majestic. Especially after the public discourse of the abate Balia about the Siberian Atlantida and Atlant-Siberians were perished under mysterious circumstances.

Certainly, the Messershmidt publication did not passed unnoticed. From that time for many European scientists the hunting for the antiquities from Siberia became a passion. The rare artifacts of the culture, found generously endowed not only in Siberia, but also in all the Russian steppe, and in its kurgans, were bought up for nothing. During this robbery, we lost uncounted treasuries, and uncounted treasuries they found.

By the beginning of the 19-th century in Southern Siberia were found a few monuments etched with mysterious writing. Clearly appeared traces of the surprising and unknown culture in steppe Russia, which attracted, alas, not the researchers, but the adventurers.

 In Paris, in the world center of the oriental studies, almost every year were discussed the new and new finds brought from steppe Russia. Certainly, the possessors did not advertise many finds to not clash with the law: documents were required for the possession of the gold objects.

At last, the Parisian orientalists believed that enough material was collected  and it is possible to think of decoding the mysterious writing. The first to accept the responsibility were the academicians A.Remjuza (phonetic rendition of the name-Translator's Note) and his eternal opponent in the scientific discussions Julius Klaproth (1783-1835). Both of them, the best authorities on the ancient history, tried to shift the mountain like titans. All in vain. It was not  even possible to determine, to what group of languages belongs the mysterious script. The enigma, covering the finds, only became thicker.

There was not a lack in the hypotheses. The artifacts did not give any rest to the archeologists. Some were inclined to the version of their Scythian roots. Was even invented a people "Chud" ("Wonder, Stranger" in Russian-Translator's Note). However the majority of the researchers converged on a recognition of the new script as ancient Germanic runes, due to their almost full outward similarity. That was done without any substantiation, just to attribute, period.

 As frequently happens in science, the futility, the absence of fresh ideas little by little cooled the interest to mysterious monuments, and they again went into a lethargy, waiting for their hour.

The Interest to the Siberian finds woke up in the 1875, when a Finnish scientist M.Kastren returned from the Minusinsk expedition. He published a work under a name "Yenisei inscriptions". It was, perhaps, the most detailed and complete work. There was everything that an irrepressible soul of the archeologist could wish. The last word was left to the linguists, but they were silent. They had no clue!

 The agitatation of the foreign researchers, it seems, has awaken Russia. In the 8-th Russian congress of the archeologists N.M.Jadrintsev, as they say, "Discovered Amarica": he, having visited Manchuria, found what was studied by the European archeologists for more than a century. The Jadrintsev's report was acknowleged.

And in the meantime, in the spring of the 1890, in a completely deserted area, by the river Orkhon, a Finnish researcher A.Geikel (phonetic rendition of the name-Translator's Note) found two more ancient monuments close to lake Kosho-Tsaidam. There was no limit to the pleasure of the scientist who made his way here with his brother and a wife.

The first monument was a gigantic stone slub that reminded a grave stone. By its position  Geikel guessed, that it was knocked off a pedestal. Evidently, there was a grandiose structure with only ruins remaining... Who, earthquake or people destroyed the monument? Its unknown.

 In the remaining ornaments it was possible to discern dragons, and small pentagonal tablets with inscriptions. But most looked destroyed, erased by ruthless elements. Taking what was possible to get from this monument, Geikel draw a conclusion: this was a Chinese work.

 One little detail was confusing, the Chinese inscription covered one side of the stela. Three others seemed to have inscriptions similar to the ancient Germanic runic alphabet. The same as on the other Siberian finds. Why was it?

Nearby to the slab, surely a knocked down stella, as concluded the scientist, was a big quadrangular altar. Next to it were the remains of a long structure sunk into the ground. Geikel made a plan of the monument. And started to dig. Soon appeared a covered by the dirt wall made of bricks. Working their shovels, the archeologists found seven statues with broken heads. They obviously were not a Chinese work. Looking at them, Geikel understood, that the hypothesis about their Chinese origin must be discarded. The clothing and weapons known from the finds in Don, Danube and in other areas of the forgotten Desht-i-Kipchak, pointed to the Türks.

However this discovery did not add any clarity: What the Türks had to do with this? What connection these savages could have with this high culture being investigated by the archeologist?

In a kilometer from the site Geikel and his team found one more precisely the like monument, only larger. It too was covered with inscriptions, part of which, unfortunately, has obliterated. And again, one side of the monument had the Chinese hieroglyphs, and three others had the already familiar "unknown" inscriptions, probably, Türkic. 

He and his comrades did not suspect yet, that they found a gravestone of prince Kül-Tegina and his brother Bilge-Kagan. They copied the inscriptions and left, and in the 1892 published them in Helsingfors. It looked like the mysterious inscriptions started to have an owner, though everybody knew precisely, that the ancient Türkic writings never existed, these people were too uncivilized. They were barbarians!

The information about the mysterious "Siberian writing", as it was cautiously called, was  already assembled more than enough. Its traces were recorded also and in the finds around Ural, Volga, Don, Dnieper, Danube, all over the steppe. It was necessary only to find a person who will read what was collected for a hundred years by the archeologists.

And fortunately, such a person was found. Truth is, at first nobody appreciated the thinnest (only a few pages!) report which was presented to the Danish Royal scientific organization. The report was signed by a name that spoke nothing to the archeological world, some V.Thomsen, the faculty professor of comparative linguistics in the Copenhagen university. It happened on December, 15, 1893, the date of a rebirth of the Türks!

The copies of the inscriptions with the mysterious "Siberian" writings came to the professor Thomsen completely accidentally. And in a happy minute. At first he established the direction of the writing, to find out how to read the inscription. It turned out the writing went not from left to right, like the Mongolian, but from right to left, similarly to the vertical lines of the Chinese writing.

Next step was to calculate the numbers of the letters. That also did not tire the venerable professor. It allowed to conclude that the here is a unique, previously unknown system of writing in-between the alphabetic and the syllabic script, which are used in the West and in the East.

And then it was absolutely clear to the person who knows three dozens of languages. The first word read by the Danish professor Vilhelm Thomsen, was "Tengri" A Divine omen! It was the first word that came out of the silent stone.

 The scientist did not know, what meant this unknown word, only later from the text he guessed, that the word subject is "Sky", "Heavenly God".

 So this is how it happened. The Great Tengri-khan opened in the 19-th century the ancient Türkic writings which was considered not existing, but which in the 2-nd century left from the Altai to Europe and there was lost together with Kipchaks.

Thomsen read the language belonging to the people whom the Chinese called  "Tu-Kyue". The purest Türkic language, the dialect, much more ancient, than all the Türkic dialects known to that time.

 After his discovery the Dane Thomsen became the outstanding expert on the Türkic dialects, soon he could freely read, write and speak in the language o9f Attila. By the diligence of the professor from Copenhagen the Türkic alphabet was pulled out  from the tenacious paws of oblivion. It became clear: discovered was a unique, almost unknown culture, whose carriers were the "Huns", "barbarians", "Goths" etc. - in a word, the Türks - Kipchaks. Not to notice their culture already became impossible.

Three years passed since that triumphal December evening in the Danish Royal scientific organization where professor V.Thomsen gave the shocking report. Was published the book of the scientist where behind the laconic name "Deciphered Orkhon Inscriptions" lay the key to the perusal of the ancient Türkic texts. The book published not only the full alphabet, but also annotated translation of all known then inscriptions. It as was in fact the first and only textbook in the world of the grammar of the Türkic language, about which the descendants of the Kipchaks in Russia, it looks, never heard.

There were no more doubts (and the later researches have confirmed it): in the territory of Southern Siberia five centuries prior to new era was a majestic empire. It lived its life, leaving written and material traces. And by the first centuries of new era the people were gone. To where? How? Why? Nobody knew.

Running ahead, we shall notice that the feeling of pathbreakers felt, alongside with Messershmidt and his followers, the magnificent Russian archeologist S.I.Rudenko, and his Siberian colleagues led by the academician A.P.Okladnikov. They, but already in the 20-th century, have discovered their Siberia, that bygone empire whose existence was guessed in the 19-th century by the European archeologists.

So, in the 19-th century the world learned what in the stone messages the ancestors sent to  their descendants. Stones started to talk. The silent for centuries true history of Türks started talking.