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The Book of Veles (Veles Book, Vles book, Vlesbook, Isenbeck's Planks, Велесова книга, Влес книга, Влескнига, Книга Велеса, Дощечки Изенбека, Дощьки Изенбека) is claimed to be a text of ancient Slavic religion and history.
 The only remaining photograph of a plank; the book is named after this plank, as it begins with "To Veles this book we devote..."Somewhat similar to the Old Testament, it contains religious passages and account of history interspersed with religious morales. The earliest events in the book could be dated around 7th century BC and the latest happened in 9th century AD. It is written in a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet in no less than three dialects. A lot of the book's text is readable even by Slavs of today.
Authenticity
There exist divided opinions about the authenticity of the book. However, serious scholars are unanimous in their conviction that the book is a fake of the 20th century. One of the reasons is the rather unbelievable content of the book, telling about an East Slavic participation in the Trojan war (!). Moreover, the "authentic" text of the book (not just its interpretation!) keeps changing from edition to edition.
As long as the planks are lost, there will probably never be a consensus about the book's authenticity. Moreover, the most prominent attempt at validating the book concluded that it is a fake because of the inconsistent use of some letters and words. It has consequently been suggested that it is a hoax by Isenbeck and Mirolyubov. In addition, even if the planks really existed, the work can only be attributed with certainty to the transcribers.
Those who believe in its authenticity claim, however, that such errors could occur in transcribing the text, and that a genius in the fields of history and linguistics would be needed for a forgery of such "authenticity", which Mirolyubov was not and Izenbek even less, and that there was no personal gain for them in forging the book.
 The rest of this article is written from the point of view that the book is authenthic.
The planks
Indo-European languages have a common word about writing (English "book", German "Buch", as the Germanic runes were designed to be carved on beech wood). In Russian the word bukva — "letter" is thought to be connected to "beech" as well. So it is concluded that texts were sometimes written on beech planks.
The planks were 38 centimeters wide, 22cm tall and about 0.5cm thick. The edges and surfaces of the planks are uneven and near the top there are two holes for joining the planks. The text is carved into the planks and later covered with some coloring. (More or less) straight lines are going from left to right across the planks; unlike now, the text is written under the lines. The sizes and shapes of the letters are different, suggesting that more than one person wrote the text. Some planks are partially or mostly rotten.
Most Slavic Neopagans use this book as their sacred text.
History of their discovery
In 1919, a Lieutenant of the White Russian Army, Fedor (Theodor) Arturovich Izenbek found a bunch of wooden planks written in strange script in a looted mansion of Kurakins near Kharkov. After defeat, Isenbeck emigrated to Belgrade where in 1923 he unsuccessfully tried to sell the planks to the Belgrade library and museum. In 1925 he settled in Brussels where he gave the planks to Yuriy P. Mirolyubov, who was the first to seriously study them. Izenbek treated the planks very carefully, did not allow them to be taken out of his home and refused a suggestion by a professor of University of Brussels to hand them over for studying; later this refusal to permit others to study these texts led people to suspect they were forgeries.
For fifteen years Mirolyubov restored, photographed, transcribed (as photographs proved to be unreadable) and finally translated the text. He managed to transcribe most of the planks.
In August of 1941 Germans occupied Brussels, Izenbek died and the planks were lost. Some think that the Germans took the planks to their archive (Anheerbe), after which in 1945 they were moved to England and remain in storages near Aldershot or Crookham to this day. Others believe that the planks were burned in a fire.
Mirolyubov emigrated to the United States and handed his material to the Russian museum in San Francisco. The materials were found in 1953 by professor A. A. Kurenkov (Kur) who then published them in the magazine Zhar-Ptica from March 1957 to May 1959. Later the text was studied by S. Paramonov (Lesnoi).
Excerpts
Plank 2/B
- We were forced to retreat to woods and live as hunters and fishermen. So we could
- get away from danger. We survived one darkness and started to build cities
- and houses everywhere. After the second darkness there was great frost and we moved
- to south for many places there were grassy ... and then Romei were taking our cattle
- at a good price and were true to their word. We went
- to southern ... greengrassland and had a lot of cattle ...
From Plank 7/A
- Enemies are not as numerous as we are, for we are Russians and they are not.
Plank 11/A
- We pray and bow to the first Triglav and to him we sing a great glory.
- We praise Svarog, grandfather of gods who is to whole gods' kin forefather
- and creator of everything living, eternal spring that flows in the summer
- and everywhere and in winter and never it freezes. And with that living wather he nourishes
- and life gives to us until we reach the blessed fields of paradise. And to god Perun, the thunderer, god of battle and fight we say
-
- "You hold us in life by neverending turning of the circle and lead to path
- of Prav through battles to Great Trizn". And all who got killed in the battle -
- may they live forever in the Perun's regiment. To god Svetovid glory we
- are exalting for he is the god of Prav and Jav and to him we sing the song for he is the light
- with which we see the world. We are looking and in Jav we are, and he from Nav
- guards us and therefore praise we sing him. We sing and dance to him and call
- god of ours to Earth, Sun and stars constantly in light keeps.
- And glory all to Svetovid, god of ours that
- hearts ours opens for us to admit bad deeds ours
- and to good we turn. May he hug us like children for this has been said
-
- what is created with half of the mind could not be seen,
- for it is a great secret how can Svarog be at the same time both Perun and Svetovid.
- Two beings in skies Belobog and Crnobog are
- And both of them Svarog holds and commands them.
- After them come Horos, Veles and Stribog and then Visenj, Lelj and Letic.
From Plank 26/B
- ...As time passes, we come to the blue river as time ours
- is not endless. There we meet
- forefathers our and mothers that in Svarga herds are grazing and trusses
- fastening. Their life is just as ours, only there are no Huns nor
- Greeks...
Readings
See the article in the Russian Wikipedia (http://ru.wikipedia.org) for a list of further readings (in Russian).
External links
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