More than 20 years ago, the little-known magazine Zhar-Ptitsa, published in Russian in San Francisco (USA) by rotaprint method, published a series of articles by two Russian emigrants - the writer Yu. P. Mirolyubov and the etymologist-assyrologist A. A. Kur. In a sensational spirit, these authors, who were very far from special studies in Russian history, reported on the discovery of the oldest supposedly source on the history of the Eastern Slavs - the so - called Vlesov Book (it mentions Veles, Vles-the god of cattle and money among the Eastern Slavs). They claimed that the find is an original monument, compiled around 880 by pagan priests who used signs of the pre-Cyrillic alphabet. The book was written, according to Mirolyubov, on plaques (in the amount of about 35). In 1919, during the offensive of the White Guard troops on Moscow, a certain F. A. Izenbek, a colonel in the Volunteer Army, found these plaques in some landowner's estate either in the Kursk or Orel province; the estate belonged to the princes Zadonsky (or Donskoy, Dontsov), or princes Kurakin. The text of the Vlesova Kniga was published in the same emigrant magazine in 1954-1959. This information was already alarming. There was no princely family of Zadonsk (or Donskoy, Dontsov) in Russia. Inquiries made by one of the Kurakins did not confirm the existence of an estate belonging to this family in the specified provinces. Who is Isenbeck, whom Mirolyubiv allegedly saw in 1925 the notorious "tablets" in Belgium, where both of them lived after fleeing from revolutionary Russia? It is noteworthy that neither of them showed them to anyone, including specialists from the University of Brussels. The "tablets" (if they existed) disappeared after Isenbeck's death (August 1941), leaving only the copies (drawings and photographs) taken by Mirolyubiv and forwarded to the Russian Museum - Archive in San Francisco. Despite many dark and unclear moments in the history of the discovery of the "tablets", there wer ... Read more