Voltaire and Baïus on Atlantis. Letters on Plato's Atlantis and the Ancient History of Asia

For the first time in Russian, the complete text of "Letters on Plato's Atlantis" (1779) by Jean Sylvain Bailly is published - a brilliant astronomer, the first president of the Constituent Assembly and the mayor of Paris during the Great French Revolution. This work is a direct continuation of his famous dispute with Voltaire about the origins of science and civilization. Relying on Plato's dialogues, the testimonies of ancient historians (Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch), Eastern traditions, and the archaeological data of his time, Bailly makes a grand attempt to reconstruct the history of the vanished people of the Atlanteans. Contrary to the common belief that placed Atlantis in the Atlantic Ocean, Bailly gradually unfolds his bold hypothesis in the form of an engaging correspondence with the "wise man from Fermi": the cradle of humanity and the legendary Atlantis were located in the Far North, in the Arctic latitudes. The book is a unique monument of the intellectual history of the 18th century, where the philosophical dialogue of the Enlightenment era intertwines with mythology, linguistics, and bold scientific conjectures.