Cesare G. De Michelis (born 20 April 1944 in Rome) is a scholar and professor of Russian literature at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.
Cesare G. De Michelis (born 20 April 1944 in Rome) is a scholar and professor of Russian literature at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, Italy.
He is also an authority on the notorious plagiarism, hoax, and literary forgery known as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to de Michelis, "twenty-odd editions had appeared in Russia between 1903 and 1912". He gives the text the acronymous name, "PSM", from its Russian title (romanized) Protocoly sionskikh mudretsov (Cyrillic: Протоколы сионских мудрецов). He also informs us that in 1919 PSM entered the "world at large" in "German, Swedish, Polish, English, Hungarian, and French editions." The first edition in Italian appeared in 1921. Arguably this is the most important English language work on the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion since the publication of Norman Cohn's Warrant for Genocide in 1967/1970.
Pages 183-395 are a reconstruction of the original Russian manuscript as it hypothetically existed. The transliterated three-word title of the tract is Protocols [of the] Zionist Elders (the source of the acronym "PSM"). The rest of the book (pages 1–182 and 396-419) is the scholarly textual, philological, and bibliographical study of the antisemitic text. The author claims that he has identified and authenticated nine distinct printings of five editions of this single text, which may be reduced to three redactions.
The full list of printings and editions are as follows.
Michelis was able to get his hands on a rare 1903 edition of the daily newspaper Znamya (Banner). He does not explain where he found this newspaper which does not appear in Russian library catalogs. He writes that the paper published the forgery as an authentic reproduction of a document, under the headline "Programa zavoevanija mira evrejami", which he translates into English as "The Jewish Programme for the Conquest of the World". According to de Michelis, the actual title of the purported authentic document is given to it by the translator. In Russian, the title of the document published by the newspaper is as follows: Protokoly zasedanij "vsemirnogo sojuza franmasonov i sionskix mudrecov." This de Michelis translates into English as "The protocols of the sessions of the 'World Alliance of Freemasons and of the Sages of Zion'".
Michelis' work also may be said to present us with the definitive Russian language edition of the complete restored text. The question remains as to whether or not the alleged original French language edition of the late nineteenth century ever existed. Michelis shows that the "French original" is an extremely shadowy and mysterious document; its existence is supposed by almost everyone, and some claim it is still extant, but very few claim to have actually seen it. Carlo Ginzburg, while acknowledging this, points to extensive circumstantial evidence that there were individuals in France who may have wished to produce such a document and had Joly's source text. [1]
The Morning Post was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by The Daily Telegraph.
Maurice Joly was a French political writer and lawyer known for The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, a political satire of Napoleon III.
Sergei Aleksandrovich Nilus was a Russian religious writer, self-described mystic, and prolific anti-Semite.
Matvei Vasilyevich Golovinski was a Russian-French writer, journalist and political activist. Critics studying The Protocols of the Elders of Zion have argued that he was the author of the work. This claim is reinforced by the writings of modern Russian historian Mikhail Lepekhine, who in 1999 studied previously closed French archives stored in Moscow containing information supporting Golovinski's authorship. Back in the mid-1930s, Russian testimony in the Berne Trial had linked the head of Russian security service in Paris, Pyotr Rachkovsky, to the creation of The Protocols.
Pavel Aleksandrovich Krushevan was a journalist, editor, publisher and an official in Imperial Russia. He was an active Black Hundredist and known for his far-right, ultra-nationalist and openly antisemitic views. He was the first publisher of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu is a political satire written by French attorney Maurice Joly in protest against the regime of Napoleon III, who ruled France from 1848–1870. It was translated into English in 2002. Small portions were translated in 1967 as an appendix to Norman Cohn's Warrant for Genocide, which identifies it as the main source of the later Protocols of the Elders of Zion, though The Dialogue itself makes no mention of Jews.
The Britons was an English anti-Semitic and anti-immigration organisation founded in July 1919 by Henry Hamilton Beamish. The organisation published pamphlets and propaganda under imprint names: Judaic Publishing Co. and later The Britons, and (The) Britons Publishing Society. These entities mainly engaged in disseminating anti-Semitic literature and rhetoric in the United Kingdom and called for greater nationalism, being considered academically among the forefront of British Fascists. Imprints under the first label exist for 1920, 1921, and 1922.
The Berne Trial was a famous court case in Berne, Switzerland which took place between 1933 and 1935. Two organisations, the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities and the Bernese Jewish Community sued the far-right Swiss National Front for distributing anti-Jewish propaganda. The trial focussed on the Front's use of the fraudulent antisemitic text, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Ultimately decided in favour of the plaintiffs, the Front was ordered to pay a symbolic fine and court costs. However, the trial became significant both for the international coverage and also for the extensive evidence presented, demonstrating the falsehoods contained in The Protocols.
Michael Hagemeister is a German historian and Slavist, an authority on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and on Sergei Nilus.
Boris Leo Brasol, lawyer and literary critic, was a White Russian immigrant to the United States.
Britons Publishing Society, founded in 1923, was an offshoot of The Britons. According to scholar Gisela C. Lebzelter, The Britons split because:
... internal disagreements proved paralysing. Seven members were excluded in November 1923, and three executives members, J. H. Clarke, the famous British homeopath, R. T. Cooper and W. A. Peters, seceded to establish 'The Britons Publishing Society'.
Harris Ayres Houghton was a physician and member of the United States military intelligence community during and shortly after World War I. He is notable for having arranged the anonymous translation and publication, from the Russian language into the English language, of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the United States in 1920. The lead title he was responsible for producing was "Praemonitus Praemunitus."
Natalie de Bogory (1887–1939) is primarily known for her work in translating from the Russian language into the English language, and subsequently distributing and participating in having published the first or second American edition in the United States of the document known as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. There were two different editions printed in the United States in 1920. The earlier, entitled The Protocols and World Revolution, associated with Boris Brasol and published by Small, Maynard and Company. The later, entitled Praemonitus Praemunitus associated with Harris A. Houghton and published by the Beckwith Company.
Small, Maynard & Company is a defunct publishing house located in Boston. In its day it was a highly reputable house in literature, and several U.S. authors were published by it, including Walt Whitman.
A Protocol of 1919 is a fabricated text appearing in the appendices of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, purportedly found on 9 December 1919 among the documents of a Jewish Red battalion commander killed in the Estonian War of Independence. The document's supposed authors, the "Israelite International League", gloat over their success at reducing the Russian people to "helpless slaves", and urge their fellow Jews to "excite hatred" and "buy up Government loans and gold", in order to grow in "political and economic power and influence". The text has been cited, as with other antisemitic canards, as evidence for the antisemitic belief that the Jews are conspiring to take over the world.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion or The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion is an antisemitic forgery detailing a supposed Jewish plot for global domination. Largely plagiarized from several earlier sources, it was first published in Russia in 1903, translated into multiple languages, and disseminated internationally in the early part of the 20th century. It played a key part in popularizing belief in an international Jewish conspiracy.
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a fabricated antisemitic text purporting to describe a Jewish plan to achieve global domination. The text was fabricated in the Russian Empire, and was first published in 1903. While there is continued popularity of The Protocols in nations from South America to Asia, since the defeat of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan in World War II, governments or political leaders in most parts of the world have generally avoided claims that The Protocols represent factual evidence of a real Jewish conspiracy. The exception to this is the Middle East, where a large number of Arab and Muslim regimes and leaders have endorsed them as authentic. Past endorsements of The Protocols from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, Iraqi President Arif, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, are echoed by 21st century endorsements from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sa'id Sabri, and Hamas, to the education ministry of Saudi Arabia.
Znamya was a newspaper established by ultra-nationalist Black Hundreds journalist Pavel Krushevan in Petersburg. It is known for publishing of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in August–September 1903.
Albert Sonnichsen was an American journalist, author and adventurer.
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