An A-Z Guide To The Search For Plato's Atlantis

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    September 2023. Hi Atlantipedes, At present I am in Sardinia for a short visit. Later we move to Sicily and Malta. The trip is purely vacational. Unfortunately, I am writing this in a dreadful apartment, sitting on a bed, with access to just one useable socket and a small Notebook. Consequently, I possibly will not […]Read More »
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    Joining The Dots

    I have now published my new book, Joining The Dots, which offers a fresh look at the Atlantis mystery. I have addressed the critical questions of when, where and who, using Plato’s own words, tempered with some critical thinking and a modicum of common sense.Read More »
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ROIPA

ROIPA

 

ROIPA is an acronym for the original Russian title of the Russian Society for the Study of Problems of Atlantis which is the leading association in the Russian Federation for the study of Atlantology.

It was formally established in 2003 although it has its roots in the early 1990’s. Since then it has organised three congresses of Atlantologists, published papers and books including its recent Cronos almanac. There is also an ongoing programme of lectures.

Alexander Voronin was the president of ROIPA and I had the pleasure of meeting him in Malta in 2011. Sadly, Alexander died November 6th 2012.

Membership of ROIPA is normally confined to Russian citizens, so I was greatly flattered when I was given honorary membership of the organisation in 2011.

In March 2014, I was contacted by the new president of ROIPA, George Nefediev, who informed me that the work of the society was back on track and has already held a conference in December, 2013. They are currently developing a new website(a).

Later in 2014, ROIPA published the second edition of their Cronos ‘almanac’. It has a number of contributions by researchers frequently encountered in the pages of Atlantipedia, such as Emilio Spedicato and R. Cedric Leonard. Although it will be published in Russian, you can view the contents in English(b). As you will see the subjects are wide-ranging and it is regrettable that the volume will not be available in English.

ROIPA is organising its fourth Congress on the 13-14 April 2015. All are welcome and contributions invited

(a) The theme of the Congress is Atlantology in the XXI century – Development Prospects and is seeking to have Atlantology recognised as a legitimate scientific discipline.

See: Russian Atlantology

(a) https://roipa.org

*(b)  See: Archive 3920*

 

Voronin, Alexander

Alexander Voronin (1954- 2012) was arguably the doyen of Russian atlantology at the beginning of the 21st century. He had a background in law and journalism, both useful in his research and his position as Alexander_VoroninPresident (since 2003) of the Russian Society for the Study of the Problems of Atlantis (ROIPA(a)).

He was author of over a hundred papers and a number of books[796][797][798] related to ancient civilisations and Atlantis. Voronin was also the editor of the recent Almanac of the Last of Ancient Civilizations: KRONOS,  which discusses Atlantis, problems, searches, researchers and hypotheses. He sometimes used the noms de plume Alex Bran and Bran Athanasius. Unfortunately, all his work is available in Russian only. A fuller biography is available in Archive 3922.

He believes that Atlantis was located in the North Atlantic with many colonies in the islands of the Atlantic and North West Africa.

Late 2011 saw Voronin and a team of scientists carrying out research on megalithic sites in the Mediterranean working from the luxury sailing ship Running on Waves. I was honoured to meet Alexander while the ship was docked in Malta and to have had subsequent email contact with him and so was greatly saddened to learn of his death on November 6th 2012. Russian Atlantology has suffered a great loss.

(a) https://roipa-atlantida.narod.ru/ (The ROIPA link has been broken since early 2013)

 

Russian Atlantology

Russian Atlantology was quite unknown to the general reader in the West until the fall of communism. This was mainly due to a combination of the strictures of the communist regime and the language barrier. A recent submission to Wikipedia on the subject of Russian Atlantology was rejected but can be read here(i).

It is accepted that Russian Atlantology began in the 18th century with brief references in a number of technical and poetic works. However, it was not until the 19th century that Avraam Norov attempted the first serious scientific attempt to locate Atlantis. Following a study of Greek and Arabic sources, Norov was convinced that Plato’s lost civilisation had been situated in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Later in the same century, a new element was introduced to the subject with the ‘revelations’ of Elena Blavatsky and the creation of Theosophy. To this day her esoteric waffle is quoted and accepted unthinkingly by many otherwise rational beings. The renowned Russian novelist Alexei Tolstoy devoted an episode in his novel Aelita to the subject of Atlantis.

In 1912, Vladimir Bogachev, a noted geologist published a short work on the geology of Atlantis entitled Atlantida. Bogachev lectured at the University of Dorpat in Estonia and is often labelled ‘the father of Russian Atlantology’. A few years later,  the poet and historian, Valery Bryusov, wrote of Atlantis flourishing at the end of the last Ice Age. In 1923 the geographer, Boris Bobrynin, identified the  Guanches of the Canaries as the descendants of the Atlanteans.

The doyen of Russian atlantologists in the latter half of the 20th century was undoubtedly Nikolai Zhirov whose studies over many years were published in English in 1970 and again in 2001[458]. It is a work of great erudition although it is a little dated as most of the material was originally published in Russian in the 1950s. Zhirov uncompromisingly determined to promote the Atlantic as the original location of Atlantis. He wrote a short overview of Russian Atlantology for Egerton SykesAtlantis journal in 1959(j).

More recently Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev published his thesis regarding the location of Atlantis on the Internet(a). He is convinced that it was located on the Celtic Shelf near the Scilly Isles. Vladimir Pakhomov is another supporter of the ‘Atlantis in the Atlantic’ school of thought and also promotes his views on the Internet(b).

In 1994 Vlaceslav Jurikov proposed that Atlantis had been located near the Lipari Islands and its refugees fled to Ukraine resulting in the modern symbol of Ukraine being the trident of Poseidon. Coincidentally, the Ukrainian connection has also received support from non-Russians, the exotic-sounding Flying Eagle and Whispering Wind[138](c) and the Schoppes(d).

The late Alexander Voronin was the president of the Russian Society for Studying the Problem of Atlantis  [ROIPA], which has held three congresses on the subject. At the last congress, Alexander Gorodnitsky, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, spoke controversially of the existence of highly advanced civilisations in the distant past. Voronin was also the chief editor of Atlantis: Problems, Searches, Hypotheses.

Konstantin Dukarev has written a review of scientific Atlantology with particular reference to Russian studies(e).  Although the paper is in Russian it translates well, but without paragraphs, making it more difficult to read.

A hyperdiffusionist view of Russia as the world’s mother culture, employing a level of hyperbole not endured since the days of Stalin, can be now read(f) online for your added enjoyment. 

There are aspects of modern Russian nationalism that seem to employ some of the rhetoric of the Nazi regime as well as their ideas of an Arctic homeland and even more worryingly, anti-Semitism(g). The linkage of Atlantis with this Arctic homeland was highlighted a few years ago on the Pravda website(h).

(a) Viatcheslav Koudriavtsev’s Hypothesis on Plato’s Atlantis (archive.org)

(b) Atlantis. Map of Atlantis (archive.org) *

(c) https://www.atlantis-motherland.com/home.html

(d) https://web.archive.org/web/20190819053842/https://www.black-sea-atlantis.com/schoppe.pdf

(e)  https://www.proza.ru/2012/12/20/355

(f) https://www.facebook.com/notes/739187389451526/ 

(g) See: Archive 2415

(h) https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GUEA_enIE624IE624&q=Mankind+descended+from+civilization+of+Atlanteans+in+the+Arctic

(i) See: Archive 3918

(j) Atlantis Vol.13 No.1 Dec 1959