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Гиперборея как предмет научного интереса в Средневековье и Новое время
The article is the first of its kind historiographical and theoretical review of the views of thinkers of the Middle Ages and modern history on the so-called "Hyperborean question", which are analyzed in a broad historical context with an emphasis on the political and ideological aspect of this issue.
The theme of Hyperborea, which was topical throughout most of the era of antiquity, towards the beginning of the Middle Ages almost completely left the fileld of both public consciousness and scientific thought, remaining only as a poetic metaphor that had radically changed it's meaning. Now this concept is associated with the threat from the north-east, coupled with deep contempt for the barbarians. From the 9th to the 16th century the epithet "Hyperboreans" referred mostly to the Russian people. A new discipline - Russian studies - developed in the context of the "hyperborean" issues. With the accumulation of geographical knowledge and the clarification of toponyms, the concept of "Hyperborea" had every chance to remain nothing more than a source of poetic allegories.
However, in the sixteenth century, with the beginning of the era of the formation of nation states, this topic acquired a new sound, becoming one of the instruments of political myth-making, primarily in the Northern European states, including Sweden which was seeking the opportunity to justify not only its exceptional role in world history, but also the claim to the leading position in Europe. The Norman hypothesis imposed on Russia by the West from the beginning of the 18th century, is directly connected with the Hyperborean question. Attempts by the Swedes to usurp the name Hyperborea caused an acute reaction in Russia. Russian writer V. Kopnist proposed an alternative theory, according to which the Hyperboreans were the ancestors of the Russian people, and it is Russia that should be considered the cradle of civilization.
The boundary of the 18th-19th centuries was marked by the skepticism of the European reading public about the attempts to find the direct descendants of the Hyperboreans among the existing peoples. The theme of Hyperborea has lost its relevance for almost a century, revived in the works of the fashionable esoteric thinkers on the one hand, and on the other hand - representatives of classical philology and historians of ancient philosophy, who broadened the range of scientific interests.