"We, heirs to a great history, have no right to be pathetic and pitifully scrape at Europe's doors". This is an annotation translated from Ukrainian for a very curious paper. It's clear that it pretends to be historical. This book is fresh from a Lvov printing company. Its cover alone looks impressive. They don't often write books entitled "Ukraine is the Ancestral Home of Humanity". Judging by the title, it should be an entire encyclopedia consisting of several volumes. It only has a little over 100 pages though. However, it was enough for its author, who is a historian, a priest, and a winner of the Stepan Bandera award to present his main points.
Judging by its summary, which was already posted on the internet, the author proves that the Ukrainians are the most ancient people on the planet. It's them who the ancient sacred texts are about. It's them who invented numbers, the bow, and the arrow. It's them from whom the English language and Sanskrit originated. From that list, it's obvious who conquered Asia, founded Iran, an Amazonian kingdom, and Sumer. The author concludes, "It's about time that we hold our heads high and take back our glorious history." Interestingly, all of his statements are supported by quotes from the greats. Is there a grain of truth?
Vadim Zavodchenkov has the details.
- Good evening, Vadim.
- Good evening.
- Maybe we don't know anything?
- Alexey, it's fantastic! Apparently, we didn't know anything about world history before the book "Ukraine is the Ancestral Home of Humanity" was published.
Of course, the author's personality generates special interest. Igor Tsar, a priest, is 59. He's known to have worked as a fitter and taught himself before he served in the army. He was ordained as a priest of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in 1991. History and literature seem to be his hobby. He's written over 30 books and brochures.
Andrey Marchukov, Ph.D. in history: "It's unnecessary to talk about source studies and say that we need to stick to the facts and know them, that history should be treated in a fair manner when the goal of those people is completely different. They want to create their own history as if from a kingdom of crooked mirrors, where everything is distorted, and convince the millions of people living in Ukraine that this distorted version is the real story".
This diagram depicts not even all of the tribes and ethnicities which, according to Tsar's book, originated from the Ukrainians in one way or another. It turns out that even Amazonians came from the banks of Dnieper.
The same is true for the Scythians and the Greeks. Despite the fact that he belongs to the Greek Catholic Church, the author seems to hold a grudge against the Greeks. How else can we explain his accusations that Peloponnese residents appropriated Heracles, the national hero of Ukraine? The writer refers to the legends about the origin of the Scythians. One of them is about Heracles. When accomplishing his tenth labor after he stole the cattle of Geryon, He found himself in an unknown, cold country. Echidna, who was half-woman and half-serpent, conceived three sons by him there. Leaving her, Heracles gave his bow to her and said that the son who will be able to stretch it will be the king. The youngest of them, Skythes, managed to do it. He became the ancestor of the Scythian kings.
“The Greeks appropriated Heracles from the Ukrainians. All of their gods and heroes originate from our Pelasgians and Leleges. The Greeks came into existence around the second millennium BC. That's why Heracles couldn't be a Greek but only a Ukrainian.”
By the way, bows and arrows were allegedly invented 10,000 years ago in the territory of modern Ukraine. In principle, there are some reasons for those statements. The author recalled the Swiderian culture, Final Palaeolithic cultural complexes. People from time to time come across their settlements and arrowheads in Central and Eastern Europe, including Ukraine. The most ancient stone arrowheads and arrows, which are about 64,000 years, were found in a different place. They were found in the Sibudu Cave, the SAR. The researchers from the University of Johannesburg told about that sensational archaeological discovery in 2010.
Armen Gasparyan, publicist: "To discuss Tsar's book "Ukraine is the Ancestral Home of Humanity" from a historiosophical, or a historical, or any other perspective, one needs to turn to an asylum. There are practicing academics who can say what exactly it is — a superiority complex mixed with a persecution complex, or just an acute schizophrenic episode, or something else".
If one can't boast his real achievements, he has no other option but to make up stories.
