Hagemeister Michael, Protokoły
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//-->TheProtocols of the Elders of Zion:Between History and FictionMichael HagemeisterIn the autumn of 1999 a sensation swept through the international press: “Authorof ‘Zion Protocols’ identified.” Finally—so tell us the French weekliesLe FigaroMagazineandL’express—MikhailLepekhin had discovered who was behindtheProtocols of the Elders of Zion.Afterfive years of research in formerly inac-cessible and secret Russian archives, he named Matvei Golovinskii, a reaction-ary journalist and writer, author of the notorious “document” that pretends todescribe the secret plan of a Jewish conspiracy to achieve world domination.1Golovinskii had, according to Lepekhin, composed theProtocolsat theturn of the twentieth century on the orders of Piotr Rachkovskii, head of theforeign branch of the Russian secret police, the infamous Okhrana, in Paris.The revelation spread like wildfire. Articles appeared in all major newspapersand on the Internet. The Saint Petersburg historian’s “discovery” could justifi-ably be considered a “sensation,” heralded theNeue Zürcher Zeitung,since itsolved, in theWashington Times’words, “the last remaining mystery sur-rounding the ‘Protocols.’”21. Victor Loupan, “L’affaire des ‘Protocoles des sages de Sion’: Le faussaire du siècle démasqué,”Le Figaro Magazine,August 7, 1999, 20–24; Eric Conan, “Les secrets d’une manipulation antisémite:L’auteur desProtocoles des Sages de Sionenfin identifié,”L’express,November 18–24, 1999, 58–63.2. Felix Philipp Ingold, “Fabrikation eines Mythos: Neues zur Entstehung der ‘Protokolle derWeisen von Zion,’”Neue Zürcher Zeitung,December 17, 1999; Patrick Bishop, “Author of ‘ZionProtocols’ Forgery Identified as Russian Propagandist,”Washington Times,November 21, 1999.New German Critique103, Vol. 35, No. 1, Spring 2008DOI 10.1215/0094033X-2007-020 © 2008 by New German Critique, Inc.8384Protocols of the Elders of ZionGolovinskii and his boss Rachkovskii in Paris are seen preparing theforgery in images from the “graphic history”The Plot: The Secret Story ofthe “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,”created by comics legend Will Eisner.This book, published posthumously in New York in 2005, was enormouslysuccessful. The critics loved it, and it has been translated into many languages.The German edition,Das Komplott,has the subtitleDie wahre Geschichteder “Protokolle der Weisen von Zion”(TheTrue Story of the “Protocols of theElders of Zion”).Extensive commentaries followed in all serious Germannewspapers. They repeatedly stressed that this “masterpiece” was a “nonfic-tion work,” a “study,” carefully researched, based on the most recent scholarlyliterature, with ample reference notes and an extensive bibliography (fig. 1).3In another image from Eisner’s book, we meet Sergei Nilus, the mostprominent publisher and commentator of theProtocols.Eisner shows him as agray-haired mystic who is often invited to court, a competitor to Rasputin, aprofessor, and a wildly gesticulating fanatical anti-Semite (fig. 2). We also learnthat Nilus had three wives and also a daughter, whom he used as a medium inséances.4According to Umberto Eco, however, who wrote the introduction toEisner’s book, Nilus was not a professor but an “itinerant monk, . . . halfprophet and half scoundrel.”5Nilus the monk began his wanderings as earlyas 1988, namely, in chapter 92 of Eco’s novelFoucault’s Pendulum,a bookthat can be seen as afictionalized encyclopedia of occult teachings and con-spiracy theories. Eco was probably influenced by the Serbian author DaniloKiš. In Kiš’sBook of Kings and FoolsNilus appears as a “strange hermit,”“for insiders simply father Sergius.” Likewise, Nilus appears in books whosebasis infiction or fact is hard to determine, for example, the occult conspir-acy storyThe Spear of Destiny,by Trevor Ravenscroft, or the internationalbest sellerThe Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.In the latter the publisher oftheProtocolsis described as “a rather contemptible individual known toposterity under the pseudonym of Sergei Nilus.”6In that book, which inspired3. See, e.g., Fritz Göttler, “Schreibtischtäter: ‘Das Komplott,’ Will Eisners beklemmenderComic-Roman über die Weisen von Zion,”Süddeutsche Zeitung,September 12, 2005; and DietmarDath, “Mit der Zeichnerhand die Lüge töten: ‘Das Komplott,’ Will Eisners meisterhafter Comicüber die ‘Protokolle der Weisen von Zion,’”Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,October 8, 2005.4. Will Eisner,The Plot: The Secret Story of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”(New York:Norton, 2005), 134.5. Umberto Eco,Six Walks in the Fictional Woods(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1994), 137; Eco,Serendipities: Language and Lunacy(San Diego: Harcourt, Brace, 1999), 17.6. Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln,The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail,16th ed. (London: Corgi, 1990), 198–99.Figure 1. The “forging” of theProtocols.From Eisner,Plot,59. Copyright 2005 by theEstate of Will Eisner. Reproduced with kind permission of the publisher, W. W. Nortonand Company, Inc.Figure 2. Sergei Nilus, caricatured. From Eisner,Plot,61. Copyright 2005 by the Estate of WillEisner. Reproduced with kind permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.Michael Hagemeister87Dan Brown’s blockbuster novelThe Da Vinci Code,Nilus and theProtocolsare part of the global conspiracy of a secret order, the Prieuré de Sion, whoseprominent members (including Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Claude Debussy)are attempting to bring the Merovingian dynasty—descendants of Jesus andMary Magdalene—back to power.The scholarly literature on theProtocolsconfuses the picture even fur-ther. The enigmatic Nilus turns out to be a surprisingly versatilefigure. Heappears not only as a professor or a monk but also as a priest of the RussianOrthodox Church, an orientalist, a court nobleman, a journalist, a half-crazypseudomystic, a zoologist, a mediocre lawyer, a religious philosopher, anagent of the secret police, an Orthodox theologian, and even a former play-boy. Some believe that Nilus was not his real name; some consider him theactual author of theProtocols.None of this is accurate.In reality, Nilus was neither monk nor professor.7There is not the slight-est evidence that he was ever invited to court. He was also no “competitor toRasputin.” At the time that Rasputin was consorting with the imperial court,from 1906 to 1916, Nilus was far away from Saint Petersburg in the provinces.He had neither three wives nor a daughter, although he did have a son. Niluswas a deeply devout Orthodox Christian and an opponent of spiritism; he neverconducted séances. TheProtocolswasfirst published not in 1905 but in 1903.And therealNilus shortly before he published theProtocolslooked rather dif-ferent (fig. 3).Eisner, the brilliant cartoonist, is not to blame for the gaps in his histori-cal knowledge, for instance, that his czars reside in Moscow, not in SaintPetersburg; or that he presents Konstantin Pobedonostsev, the powerful procu-rator of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, as a stupid, fat chain-smoker, when in fact he was a skinny, highly intelligent ascetic (and “not adoctrinaire antisemite”); or that “the Reichstag Fire plotted by [his] followers”brought Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, when chronologically just theopposite happened.8As theChicago Sun-Timeswrites, “Authenticity is not atissue.”9But it is necessary to criticize Eisner’s advisers, like Stephen E. Bronner,7. For Nilus’s biography see my article inBiographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon,vol.21 (Nordhausen: Bautz, 2003), 1063–67, available at www.bautz.de/bbkl/n/nilus_s_a.shtml. For ashorter version see Michael Hagemeister, “Nilus, Sergei,” inAntisemitism: A Historical Encyclo-pedia of Prejudice and Persecution,ed. Richard E. Levy, vol. 2 (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO,2005), 508–10.8. John Klier, “Pobedonostsev, Konstantin,” in Levy,Antisemitism,551; Eisner,Plot,99.9. Carlo Wolff, “Eisner’s ‘The Plot’ Speaks to History,”Chicago Sun-Times,May 1, 2005,www.suntimes.com/output/books/sho-sunday-eisner01.html (accessed May 25, 2005).
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