THE LOST EMPIRE 🗺 OF TARTARIA

⁣As with that other conspiracy mythos, Qanon, that has likely been encouraged every step of the way by Russian disinformation campaigns online, the Tartarian Empire hoax has grown to become a mega-theory as its proponents take a buffet-style approach, incorporating into the myth complex any pet theory or crazy notion they fancy. One can imagine that it’s especially hard to control a conspiracy narrative once it has been fed to the conspiracy nut community. Thus we see claims about the Illuminati come in to explain the worldwide cover-up, or of the Jewish World Conspiracy, which isn’t that surprising considering its connection to Russian claims of Aryan supremacy. To further explain why the existence of Tartaria had to be covered up, conspiracists have incorporated elements of the fantastical claims about Atlantis or hollow earth civilizations: namely that the Tartarians had advanced technology, free wireless energy technology to be more specific, and that the powers that be conspired to hide this from the energy dependent masses. And then, there is the doozy—that Tartaria was actually peopled by giants. Never mind that all the buildings they identify as Tartarian are made for regular size people. They found a few photos of grand, oversized doors, and of course they found statuary and paintings depicting, you guessed it, giants. They link the existence of giants in the lands of Tartary through the tales of Gog and Magog, which have historically been associated with Mongolians, as I discussed in my episode on Prester John. And from there, it just devolved into photoshopped hoaxes of gigantic bones. But the argument against the historical existence of giants deserves to have its own episode and would be too much of a digression here at the end of this one. To conclude, let’s just hope that the fringe nutcases who have taken up the Tartarian standard and run with it online continue to take the idea in such ridiculous and fantastical directions that it becomes ever more laughable, and thus, if we’re lucky, useless as Russian propaganda.

Further Reading

Dharma, Nagato. “Tartary / Tartaria — The Mystery of an Empire Lost in History.” History of Yesterday, 2 July 2020, historyofyesterday.com/tartary-tartaria-the-mystery-of-an-empire-lost-in-history-a99abb5cc9b6.

Elliott, Mark C. “The Limits of Tartary: Manchuria in Imperial and National Geographies.” The Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 59, no. 3, 2000, pp. 603–46, https://doi.org/10.2307/2658945.

Mortice, Zach. “Inside the ‘Tartarian Empire,’ the QAnon of Architecture.” Bloomberg, 27 April 2021, www.bloomberg.com/news/feature....s/2021-04-27/inside-

“National Cultural Development Under Communism.” Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room, 11 Nov. 2016, www.cia.gov/readingroom/docume....nt/cia-rdp78-02771r0

Sheiko, Konstantin. “Lomonosov's bastards: Anatolii Fomenko, pseudo-history and Russia's search for a post-communist identity.” (PhD thesis) School of History and Politics, University of Wollongong, 2004. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/222.

“Tartaria: The Supposed Mega-Empire of Inner Eurasia.” Reddit, uploaded by u/EnclavedMicrostate, www.reddit.com/r/badhistory/co....mments/ieg2k0/tartar

Source: https://www.historicalblindnes....s.com/blogandpodcast