Almost immediately after the publication of the “Words of Igor’s Regiment” in 1800, some people began to express opinions that this work was not created at the end of the 12th century, but is a recent fake under antiquity. Disputes about this since then flashed repeatedly, and not only professional scientists, but also inspired amateurs who energetically defended who were the “Word”, who were his fake, became participants in the polemic. Maxim Russo checked how serious the arguments of both sides are.

Although in the academic world of supporters the version about the late origin of the “Words of Igor’s Regiment” is now few, among the general public it is also popular. It is enough to look into any online publication dedicated to the “Word of Igor’s Regiment”, where user comments are allowed, and Among the commentators There is definitely A supporter of the version of fake. In 2014, the book of Alexander Kostin was published "The word about Igor's regiment" is a fake of the millennium ". German writer Peter Keler in the book “Fake. Funny falsifications in art, science, literature and history " (2015, the Russian translation - 2017) lists the “Word about Igor’s Regiment” on a par with the “protocols of the Zion sages” and Hitler’s diaries, although he admits that falsification has not been proven.

It should be noted that there are many circumstances that contribute to the skeptical view of the authenticity of the “Word of Igor’s Regiment”.

The story was preserved in a single copy in the collection, discovered by the collector of ancient Russian books by Count Alexei Musin-Pushkin. Not a single manuscript could be found with her.
The Library of Musina-Pushkin died in the fire of Moscow in 1812, so the text “Words about Igor’s Regiment” is now available only thanks to the first printed publication, a handwritten copy made for Catherine II, as well as the extracts of historians Alexei Malinovsky and Nikolai Karamzin.
Musin-Pushkin reluctantly reported information about the circumstances of the find of the collection.
“The Word about Igor’s Regiment” was published in the midst of the era of romanticism, when interest in the national roots and ancient literature has aggravated in many countries of Europe, which often contributed to the appearance of falsifications. In the late XVIII - beginning of the XIX century, such famous fakes appeared as Ossian's poems (1760s), Kraledvorsk manuscript (1817), Zelenogorsk manuscript (1818).
In Soviet times, doubt about the authenticity of the “Words of Igor’s Regiment” was regarded as an ideological sabotage, and the doubtful risked to incur the anger of the authorities. An open discussion about the authenticity of the “Word” was impossible. The ideological dictate caused natural opposition, so the version of the fake of the “Word” became psychologically attractive to many people.

If the Musin-Pushkin collection did not die in fire, the answer to the question would be obtained if not in the XIX, it was certainly in the 20th century. The falsifier of the 1790s clearly would not have the necessary technologies and knowledge PaleographyTo make a fake ancient manuscript that would not be exposed by late specialists. But the collection did not reach us, therefore, both skeptics and supporters of the authenticity of the “Words of Igor’s Regiment” are forced to look for arguments in the existing text and related circumstances.

I must say that the arguments on both sides were often unconvincing. Skeptics, according to Petra Kalaidovich, “They could not assure themselves that this poem belongs to the XII century, when the then barbarism and ignorance were compared with those high thoughts, with those exalted feelings and eloquent expressions that distinguish it from Russian annals, simple and unpainted.” Supporters of authenticity are the same “eloquent expressions”, that is, the high literary virtues of the “words” were considered an argument in their favor. The situation was also with other arguments. The parallels between the “word” and folklore texts considered the proof of authenticity, others said that the falsifier simply used folklore quotes. Skeptics pointed to dark places in the text as evidence that the author of the XVIII century did not cope with the ancient Russian language, but they were replied that a real mystifier would never have allowed such blunders.

A serious argument in favor of the authenticity of the "Word" was the discovery "Zadonshchina" - works of the XIV century, dedicated to the victory in the Battle of Kulikovo (the first publication of one of the lists of Zadonshchina - 1852). In the text of the Zadonshchina there are many quotes and borrowed images from the “Word of Igor’s Regiment”. But the skeptics did not give up and assumpted that the “word” was quoted not in the “Zadonshchina”, but “Zadonshchina” served as a source for the falsifier, which took quotes from it for his work. On the primaryness of the Zadonshchina, the most reputable scientists from the Campais camp insisted: Louis Lege, Andre Mazon and Alexander Zimin.

In the polemic about the authenticity of the “Words of Igor’s Regiment”, linguistic arguments have always played a significant role. However, a key role in this matter was played by the book of the famous specialist in the Old Russian language Andrei Anatolyevich Zaliznyak "The word about Igor's regiment": a linguist's view"(2004). If previously it was usually discussed whether one or another word, the grammatical form or language structure corresponds to the language of the 12th century, then the zliznyak set the task not only to evaluate the presence or absence of errors in the text of the “word”, but also the amount of knowledge that was required by the potential falsifier in order to compose the text that does not contain such errors.

Skeptics sometimes argue that cultural people of the XVIII century, for example, the same Alexei Musin-Pushkin, from childhood knew Church Slavonic and could use it in the manufacture of a false ancient manuscript. But in fact, between the ancient Russian language of the XII century and the Church Slavonic language the differences are quite large, and the fake, written in church-Slavic, would be exposed shortly after publication.

If the “word” is a fake, then its author had to have the deepest knowledge of the Old Russian language. He correctly used four different past times, owned a dual number. A number of words found in the “Word of Igor’s Regiment”, by the 18th century, changed their meanings, but in the text they are accurately used in the meanings that they had in the Old Russian language: “” “”Regiment " ("Campaign"), "greedy" ("Thirsty"), ""cruel" ("Strong", "strong" - about the body), "life" ("Home," wealth "),"fat " ("Wealth", "abundance"), "lust" ("Desire, desire"), "To the court " ("To death"), skinny ("Empty"), etc.

In some cases, it turns out that the potential falsifier had to get ahead of science for two hundred years or even more. In the Old Russian language there was a lot of an enhank - small words that did not have an independent stress. Among them were particles ("the same "", "Lee ", "Bo "), pronouns in the dative or vinological case ("mi ", "TI ", "si","me ", "TE ", "Xia "), forms of the auxiliary verb (""EM ", "Yesi"). The location of the enlikist inside the phrase and the procedure for their following are determined by strict rules. For example, in the Old Russian language we can say: ""retreated by the village of that village "(“I retreated in your favor from that village”), but it cannot be said: “”retreated by the village of that village " or "I had retreated that sat down ". The rules of the Enclitic order were strict, their violation can be compared with violation of the order of morphemes inside the word, as if we were instead of "Id-e-m-te "" They said "Id-te-te-m ". But the native speakers, even competent, did not realize these rules, simply automatically put Enklitics in the right place. The authors of grammatical descriptions did not pay much attention to the Enklitics, a complete description of the rules of the production of which A. A. Zaliznyak in the monograph “Russian Enclitics” (2008) gave. But the possible falsifier of the word was supposed to do the work of the ground at the end of the 18th century, since in his text the Enclitics are in the right places.

In the Old Russian language, at the end of the verbs in the imperfect (one of the past times), sometimes there was a "–", and sometimes it was not: ""Written " or "Writer " ("He wrote"), "Pisahu " or "Pisahut " ("They wrote"), "Khozhasha " or "Sweep " ("He walked"), "Khozhah " or "Khozhahut " ("They walked"). In the Church Slavonic language, unlike the Old Russian, there was no form of the imperfect with "–" (only "Written ", "Pisahu ", "Walking ", "walk "). According to what principle in the Old Russian language appeared and disappeared it “—T.", for a long time remained unclear. “In the 3rd person. and pl. h. Old Russian scribes joined the part to the end of the imperfect "-t",-only one of the best reported this textbooks In historical grammar, first published in 1981. Determine the rules for using forms of type "Written " And "Writer " The Slavist Alen Timberlake from the University of California in Berkeley was able to (in Russian His article She published in 1997 in the "Associations of Linguistics"). As it turned out, the appearance of the “–t” at the end of the verb depends on certain enliktiks, going immediately after it. Timberlake worked on the material of the Lavrentievsky Chronicle, but the use of "–" in the imperfect in the "Word on Igor's Regiment", as it turned out, corresponds to the laws formulated by him.

If the “Word about Igor’s Regiment” was indeed written by someone in the 18th century, then this person had to preliminarily make a huge number of linguistic discoveries in the field of the Old Russian language, but, most amazing, he did not leave mention of his discoveries, which he clearly had to demand many years of hard work for him. Having outlined the entire amount of knowledge that the falsifier of the 18th century had to have a text “Words about Igor’s regiment” and avoid exposure, the stall comes to the conclusion: “Those who want to believe that somewhere in the deepest secret there are scientific geniuses, which are unimaginable by their talents that are excessive in their scientific discoveries all the rest of humanity or two centuries or two years old or two And at the same time, who wished eternal absolute obscurity for themselves and for all their discoveries, they can continue to believe in their romantic idea. It is impossible to refute this idea with mathematical immutability: the likelihood that it is true is not equal to strict zero, it is just a slightly small one. ”

Separately, A. Zaliznyak disassemble the relationship between the “Word of Igor’s Regiment” and “Zadonshchina”. He found that if you compare the parts of the text “Zadonshchina”, which coincide and do not coincide with the text “Words about Igor’s Regiment”, it will turn out that according to several linguistic characteristics (the use of brief and complete forms of adjectives, the position of the pronoun “SY”, the share of union -union proposals), they differ significantly. At the same time, the characteristics of the general texts generally coincide with the characteristics of the entire text of the “Word”. If we assume that the falsifier copied pieces of text from Zadonshchina, we will have to admit that he took them not by content, but by, for example, the share of union -free complex sentences.

In 2014, another mystery of the “Words of Igor’s Regiment”, which attracted the attention of skeptics, was resolved-Musin-Pushkin's evasive answers about the origin of the manuscript. Employee of the Institute of Russian Literature Alexander Bobrov I managed to trace The history of the manuscript according to the documents and prove that Musin-Pushkin took advantage of the official position to illegally attach a rare manuscript to his collection. Recall that, according to Musin-Pushkin, he acquired a manuscript collection containing the “chronograph”, the first Novgorod chronicle, “The Tale of the Indian Kingdom”, “The Tale of Akir Wise”, “The Word of Igor’s Regiment” and “Degenievo Acts”, and the former archimandrite of the Transfiguration Monastery in Yaroslavl Ioilya (Bykovsky). “In recent years, he was a lack of a lack, on this occasion, my commissioner bought all the Russian books from him, including in one, called“ Chronograph ”, in the end, a“ word about Igor’s regiment ”was found,” wrote Musin-Pushkin. For a long time, this version was recognized as modern scientists. In the inventory of the Monastery Library in Yaroslavl, the “chronograph in Date” was even mentioned, which in 1788 was destroyed “behind the dilapidation and cognitiveness” (it was assumed that Ioil officially explained the disappearance of the manuscript sold by him). But in 1992, this same allegedly destroyed or sold “chronograph in Destin” was discovered in the monastery library. “Words about Igor’s regiment”, of course, was not contained in him.

Alexander Bobrov found that the manuscript “Words about Igor's Regiment” came to Musin-Pushkin in the winter of 1791-1792 (the date to establish the earliest mention of the “Word” in the comments of the historian helped to establish the date Ivan Elagin On the fields of their own manuscript "Experience of the narrative of Russia"). The year 1791 is very important, because this year Musin-Pushkin became the chief prosecutor of the Synod, and in August of the same year, Catherine II commands to deliver the ancient manuscripts stored in the monastery, "related to Russian history." The manuscripts sent to the Synod fell into the hands of Musin-Pushkin. Among the books sent from the Cyril-Belozersky monastery was a “chronograph”, which is mentioned in two registers compiled when transmitting books from the monastery from the Novgorod Archbishop and from the Archbishop to Synod (“granograph (chronograph). History of the Tserkovnaya Old Testament and civilian, with frequent fabulous tales adding "). When Musin-Pushkin resigned from the post of chief prosecutor of the Synod in 1797, an official investigation was launched against him about some manuscripts that were “taken by the former Synodal Musyn Musin-Pushkin, but were not returned to the Holy Synod.” Eleven books were counted, two soon discovered, and about the nine other Musin Pushkin replied that he allegedly handed these manuscripts to Catherine II personally. At the time of the trial, Catherine was already dead, and the manuscripts were never found. Among the missing manuscripts was the chronograph sent from the Kirillo-Belozersky monastery with the addition of “fabulous” (that is, mythological) stories. The collector’s passion forced the count to assign several books, including a collection that contained a “word”. After the publication of the study of A. Bobrov, the fog over the history of the “Word” was not only dispelled, but the versions of some skeptics that called the “Word of Archimandrite Joil were completely impossible.

In general, after the publication of the work of Zaliznyak among linguists and specialists in ancient Russian literature, there is no doubt that the “Word about Igor’s Regiment” is a work of the 12th century. Reasoning about his fake They remained the lot representatives of pseudo -scientific theories like a new chronology.