What If History Is Just A Lie?

 Fomenko's theory suggests the past is fictional.

The spiral staircase symbolizes the attrition of time, with each step representing the gradual wear of life’s journey. Image by stokpic from Pixabay

The essence of historical certainty, they say, is a mirage—something which Fomenko’s New Chronology seeks to unravel entirely. What is history if not an intricate fabrication? According to the Russian mathematician Anatoly Fomenko, everything we think we know about the past before the 11th century is nothing more than an elaborate hoax. Indeed, a hoax so pervasive, so insidious, that it has shaped our entire understanding of human civilization. 

It’s laughable, isn’t it? Or perhaps it should be. The notion that Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ, and Genghis Khan are the same person, just cloaked in the cultural garb of different eras and regions—preposterous, no? But Fomenko’s hypothesis slinks in like a shadow at dusk, subtly challenging the timeline most of us never bother to question. He posits that history is riddled with redundancies, deliberate duplications, and deceptive narratives concocted by chroniclers with questionable motives.

The crux of Fomenko’s theory is startlingly simple, yet profoundly absurd: most of what we call history, specifically prior to the 11th century, is fiction. It’s a cataclysmic claim, one that topples every pillar of historical scholarship. Fomenko points a finger at historical documents and declares them fraudulent, insists that time itself has been manipulated. If you sense the bitter irony here, you’re not alone. History, the supposed bedrock of human knowledge, stands accused of being nothing more than an elaborate game of Chinese whispers, growing ever more distorted with each iteration.

Let us wade through this quagmire of paradoxes and contradictions. The idea that Jesus Christ, Julius Caesar, and Genghis Khan are, in fact, the same person is more than absurd; it’s an affront to reason. Fomenko suggests that our historical figures are nothing but mere shadows of one another, cleverly masked to deceive us into thinking time is linear, when in fact, it spirals in on itself. He uses astronomical data and mathematical models to back his claim, casting doubt on the reliability of ancient calendars and challenging the accuracy of documented solar eclipses, planetary positions, and celestial events. But isn’t that just it? When faced with the overwhelming weight of centuries of academic rigor, Fomenko retorts with the irony of all ironies—math, the very tool of scientific validation, becomes the weapon that dismantles accepted history.

Of course, the implications are staggering. To believe Fomenko is to believe that historical events like the Roman Empire’s dominance, the rise of Christianity, or the Mongol conquests are not separate occurrences on the grand stage of human civilization but are instead reruns of the same show, replayed under different names. The argument is tantalizing in its simplicity: history repeats itself, yes, but in Fomenko’s world, it doesn’t just repeat—it never changes. We are all stuck in an endless loop of recycled personalities and events, forever bound to the same narrative, merely dressed up in different costumes.

The absurdity of it all is almost poetic, though that would imply a certain grace to the madness. And yet, perhaps there is some twisted logic buried within Fomenko’s claims. If history is nothing more than a series of stories told and retold, why wouldn’t those stories blur together over time? Why wouldn’t the heroes of one culture become the villains of another, the saviors of one era become the conquerors of another? After all, isn’t every culture guilty of twisting the facts to fit its own agenda? Julius Caesar, the great general who brought Rome to its knees; Jesus Christ, the spiritual leader who birthed a religion; Genghis Khan, the ruthless warrior who united the Mongol tribes—are they not, in their essence, embodiments of power and influence? Figures that transcend time and space, whose identities are shaped more by myth than by fact?

Still, we must ask, what is to be gained by tearing down the entire edifice of history? If Fomenko is right, then what? Do we rebuild the timeline from scratch, questioning every ancient text, every archaeological discovery, every foundational event in human history? Or do we, in the face of such overwhelming doubt, simply throw up our hands and admit defeat? Perhaps this is Fomenko’s ultimate goal: to drown us in so much uncertainty that we begin to doubt everything—our past, our future, even our present.

But then again, isn’t that the ultimate tragedy of Fomenko’s theory? It’s not just the erasure of history he proposes, but the erasure of meaning itself. If Julius Caesar, Jesus Christ, and Genghis Khan are the same person, then what does that say about us? About humanity? Are we all just repeating the same mistakes, fighting the same battles, worshiping the same gods under different names? Is there nothing new under the sun, as the old saying goes, or is the sun itself just another illusion, one more fiction in a universe full of them?

In the end, Fomenko’s New Chronology is not just a challenge to the past—it’s a challenge to the very concept of truth. He forces us to confront the uncomfortable possibility that everything we think we know is wrong, that history is not a record of human achievement but a carefully constructed lie. And yet, there is a certain inevitability to his argument. As we sift through the ruins of civilizations long gone, trying to piece together a coherent narrative from the fragments left behind, we can never be certain that we’re getting the story right. Maybe Fomenko is simply pointing out what we’ve always known deep down: that history, like all things, is imperfect, incomplete, and ultimately unknowable.

And so, we are left with an unsettling question: if history is fiction, then what is fact? Is there any such thing as objective truth, or are we all just pawns in a grand narrative we can never fully understand?