The new chronology is a pseudohistorical conspiracy theory proposed by Anatoly Fomenko who argues that events of antiquity generally attributed to the ancient civilizations of Rome, Greece and Egypt actually occurred during the Middle Ages, more than a thousand years later.
The conspiracy theory further proposes that world history prior to AD 1600 has been widely falsified to suit the interests of a number of different conspirators including the Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Russian House of Romanov, all working to obscure the "true" history of the world centered around a global empire called the "Russian Horde".
Central concepts
The concepts that constitute the new chronology are largely derived from the work of Russian scholar Nikolai Morozov (1854–1946), although work by the French scholar Jean Hardouin (1646–1729) can be seen as anticipating Morozov. The "new chronology" per se is most commonly associated with Anatoly Fomenko, a Russian mathematician by trade, though he has collaborated extensively (usually with fellow mathematicians) in his writing on the subject. The theory is most fully explained in History: Fiction or Science?, originally published in Russian.
The new chronology features a totally reconstructed timeline, portraying a history that is radically shorter than what is universally accepted, based on a thesis that in effect compresses all of recorded history from the Neolithic to the Early Middle Ages into a period less than a millennium long. According to Fomenko's claims, the practice of written history only emerged , with there being almost no real information about events that occurred between 800 and 1000 AD, and most recorded historical events actually having taken place between 1000 and 1500AD.
The new chronology is universally rejected by the scientific and historiographical communities, being totally inconsistent with the accepted methodology used in the relevant fields, including absolute and relative dating techniques. It is considered to be pseudoarchaeological, pseudohistorical, and pseudoscientific. Interest in the theory from historians and scientists has primarily stemmed from its popularity among laypeople: in addition to formulating refutations of its methods and conclusions, academics have also tried to understand the social forces underlying its resonance: Halperin (2011) estimates that as many as 30% of Russians may have sympathy for the new chronology. However, it is not known what levels of veracity or salience are generally ascribed to new chronology texts by readers, whether the texts are generally regarded as history or as fiction, or what the demographics of their readership tend to be.
The theory emerged alongside numerous other alternate histories and conspiracy-minded literature in a period of heightened nationalism and more lax restrictions on freedom of press following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. While other authors have written on the new chronology theory, such as Russian Gleb Nosovsky and Bulgarian Yordan Tabov (who expanded the theory relating to the Balkans), the theory is mostly understood in terms of Fomenko's writings.
History of new chronology
The idea of chronologies that differ from the conventional chronology can be traced back to at least the second half of the 17th century. Jean Hardouin then suggested that many ancient historical documents were much younger than commonly believed to be. In 1685 he published a version of Pliny the Elder's Natural History in which he claimed that most Greek and Roman texts had been forged by Benedictine monks. When later questioned on these results, Hardouin stated that he would reveal the monks' reasons in a letter to be revealed only after his death. The executors of his estate were unable to find such a document among his posthumous papers. In the 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton, examining the current chronology of Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Near East, expressed discontent with prevailing theories and in The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended proposed one of his own, which, basing its study on Apollonius of Rhodes's Argonautica, changed the traditional dating of the Argonautic Expedition, the Trojan War, and the Founding of Rome.
In 1887, Edwin Johnson expressed the opinion that early Christian history was largely invented or corrupted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
In 1909 Otto Rank made note of duplications in literary history of a variety of cultures: