Tartarian Empire
Tartarian Empire refers to a group of pseudohistorical conspiracy theories, including ideas of a "hidden past" and "mud floods" which originated as pseudoscientific Russian nationalism. Tartary or Tartaria is a historical name for Central Asia and Siberia. Conspiracy theories assert that Tartary or the Tartarian Empire was a lost civilization with advanced technology and culture. This ignores the well-documented history of Asia, which Tartary refers to.[1] In the present day, the Tartary region covers a region spanning from central Afghanistan to northern Kazakhstan, as well as areas in present Mongolia, China and the Russian Far East in "Chinese Tartary".
Background
The theory of Great Tartaria as a suppressed lost land or civilization originated in Russia, with aspects first appearing in Anatoly Fomenko's new chronology in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, and then popularized by the racial occult history of Nikolai Levashov. In Russian pseudoscience, known for its nationalism, Tartaria is presented as the "real" name for Russia, which was maliciously "ignored" in the West.[2][3] The Russian Geographical Society has debunked the conspiracy theory as an extremist fantasy, and far from denying the existence of the term, has used the opportunity to share numerous maps of "Tartary" in its collection.[4] Since about 2016, conspiracy theories about the supposed lost empire of "Tartaria" have gained popularity on the Internet, divorced from its original Russian nationalist frame.[5]
Conspiracy theory
The globalized version of the conspiracy theory is based on an alternative view of
In the conspiracy theory, the idea that a "mud flood" wiped out much of the world via
Zach Mortice, writing for Bloomberg, believes that the theory reflects a cultural discontent with modernism, and a supposition that traditional styles are inherently good and modern styles are bad. He describes the theory as "the QAnon of architecture".[6] Moritz Maurer, a religious scholar, links Tartarian imagery to "giant trees" theory, in which colossal, flat buttes are envisioned as the stumps of primordial "mother trees" cut down at some point in the past by unknown nefarious agents. Maurer attributes the lack of a clear narrative for both conspiracies to the image-based social media on which they are presented, describing it as "meme culture" and also comparing it to QAnon.[7]
See also
References
- Skeptoid. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
- ^ Gorshenina 2014, pp. 462–463.
- ^ Gorshenina 2019, p. 94.
- ^ "Vsya pravda o Tartarii" Вся правда о Тартарии [The whole truth about Tartary]. Русское географическое общество (in Russian). 2020-10-05. Retrieved 2022-05-14.
- ^ a b c Adams, Josie (2022-01-14). "Inside the wild architecture conspiracy theory gaining traction online". The Spinoff. Retrieved 2022-01-22.
- ^ a b c Mortice, Zach (April 2021). "Inside the 'Tartarian Empire,' the QAnon of Architecture". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 2021-09-20.
- ISSN 0048-721X.
Sources
- Gorshenina, Svetlana (2014). L'invention de l'Asie centrale: histoire du concept de la Tartarie à l'Eurasie. Droz. ISSN 2235-1353.
- Gorshenina, Svetlana (2019). Izobreteniye kontsepta Sredney / Tsentral'noy Azii: mezhdu naukoy i geopolitikoy Изобретение концепта Средней / Центральной Азии: между наукой и геополитикой [The invention of the concept of Middle / Central Asia: between science and geopolitics] (PDF) (in Russian). ISBN 978-0-9996214-4-8.