Boris Porshnev


Boris Fyodorovich Porshnev was a Soviet historian known for his works on popular revolts in Ancien Régime France and a doctor of social sciences working on psychology, prehistory, and neurolinguistics as relating to the origins of man.

Cryptozoology

Porshnev took interest in cryptozoology and has been described with Marie-Jeanne Koffman as the "revered parents of Russian monster-hunting." Porshnev led several Soviet expeditions to the Pamir Mountains and north-western Himalayas to search for the Mongolian "Almas". He was driven by a Marxist ideology to find the "wild man" to confirm materialism and evolutionary human origins. He believed that the almas were a relict population of the Neanderthals who had survived the Ice Age of the Pleistocene epoch. His expeditions were unsuccessful and his career went into decline.
In the late 1960s, Porshnev's idea that relict Neanderthals could explain Asian or Russian bigfoot sightings became known as the "Porshnev theory". The idea influenced cryptozoologists Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. Porshnev co-authored a book in French with Heuvelmans which argued that Neanderthals still exist. It has not been translated into English.

Selected publications

The original edition of LES SOULEVEMENTS POPULAIRES... appeared in Russian as NARODNIE VOSSTANYA VO FRANTSII PERED FRONDOI,1623-1648.