User talk:Vecrumba

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[edit] Odds and ends

[edit] On representing Soviet versus non-Soviet "POV" in Wikipedia

Since my editorial positions have been denounced at times, I feel it is important that I state my position regarding this area of contention in Wikipedia. I have avoided any references to any specific editors so as to insure it is clear that I am explictly referring to editorial positions and explicitly not to the conduct or contentions or motivations of any particular editor. Adapted from an earlier posting.

On disputes regarding Eastern European articles being "based on irreconcilable POV differences". This is an oversimplification and, ultimately, a misrepresentation.
   One side contends the Soviet Union did not occupy the Baltics and Eastern Europe, minimally that "occupation" and "invasion" are "judgemental" terms, that even perfectly sourced articles fairly and accurately representing reputable sources are "cherry-picked" and "tendentiously" edited. Never producing reputable scholarship in support of their personal position (being characterized as an "editorial" one).
   The other side contends that Soviet conduct in the Baltics and Eastern Europe was not not glorious. That 100,000,000 people were left to suffer for half a century under a blanket of brutal Soviet totalitarianism. Always producing sources, and producing even more sources when challenged.
   One side states "occupation" is merely a post-Cold War anti-Soviet (neo-Nazi) political manufacture, aka, "revisionist" history. The other side brings reputable sources to the table with factual accounts of Soviet conduct. Apparently a reputable source can state "invaded" and "occupied", but we as editors are not to repeat those words here with regard to the Baltics and Eastern Europe so as to not offend a dead empire that sent tens of millions to their deaths. Or it is demanded we represent "both sides" equally in order for an article to be "NPOV"—regardless that one side is totally discredited and unsourced (except for declarations with no substantive basis—for example, no one has yet produced a source substantiating the Russian Duma's declaration that Latvia joined the Soviet Union "legally according to international law"), and the other side is voluminously and reputably sourced.
   Everywhere Wikipedia policy states that articles must be written based on reputable sources. Yet in the Baltic and Eastern European sphere, sources are apparently immaterial. Here, "nationalist" is not a term denoting patriotism or love and interest in one's heritage and history, it is a term of derision. Patriotism itself is scorned as an intellectually debased POV affliction. Sources are denounced based merely on the surnames of authors. Here, "NPOV" is demanding that Soviet propaganda be given equal time to reputable scholarship. I myself have been attacked for my "anti-Stalinist" user box (even though it specifically states I dispute Stalinism based on facts).
   Advocacy that the Soviet version of Baltic and Eastern European history must be represented equally and fairly, and the opposition to that advocacy, is not a "content dispute." It is not about "irreconcilable POVs" colliding. It is about permitting a community of motivated and knowledgeable editors to write about their heritage and history, filling a half-century gap of missing history, rectifying half a century of Soviet falsehoods. Or not. Wikipedia stands for editorial integrity or it stands for nothing.

I look forward to the day Russia acknowledges the USSR's illegal occupation of the Baltics
and Stalin's active support of Hitler's invasion of Poland, starting World War II.
Until then,...
You deserve this to balance out Anonimu and Anittas. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  03:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
You deserve this to balance out Anonimu and Anittas. —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  03:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you help

Find sources and address the general points raised here and here? I thought it would be of interest to you, after our discussion of Nazi sources and undercover activities.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 01:43, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I'll see if I can find something on this. —PētersV (talk) 04:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, perhaps you could try to mediate between Polish and Lithuanian editors at Talk:Dubingiai_massacre#Removed_info. I doubt we can find a common language there by ourselves.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 07:43, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brothers' Cemetery

Hi, you said you got something about bringing flame for enternal flame from Leningrad. I also found a note about that in a Soviet published encyclopedia, however so far I haven't found anything about lighting the enternal fire in any other source. Thing is it was lit in 1958, however the altar for the enternal flame was built in 1930s. Does your source say what had happened to fire and what was symbolical meaning behind bringing it from Leningrad ? ~~Xil...sist! 12:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sveiks, Xil! From "Brāļu Kapi" published 1959 by the Latvian State Publishing House (so, I believe a SSR government publication and should therefore be in the public domain...), p. 17-18:
1958. gada 22. jūlija svinīgajā sēru mītiņā, kad dzimtenes smiltājā apbedija no tāliem kauju laukiem pārvestos varoņu pīšlus, LKP CP sekretāram J. Kalnbērziņam Ļeņingradas strādnieks pasniedza lāpu, ar kuru Brāļu kapu altārī iedezināja mūžīgo uguni. Šī lāpa bija aizdedzināte pie mūžīgāš uguns Ļeņingrādā Marsa laukumā [so, St. Petersburg's "Field of Mars"], kur varoņu kapenēs kopā ar citiem cīnītājiem atdusas arī latviešu strēlnieki.
There's a picture of Kalnbērziņš lighting the flame with the torch from Leningrad, along with two others I don't recognize. Also, a picture on the previous page of the event with someone delivering an address, captioned:
Sēru mītiņš Brāļu kapos 1958. g. 22. jūlijā, izvadot us pēdejo dusu Lielajā Tēvijas karā kritušos tautas varoņus.
If we can confirm that as a Soviet government publication it's in the public domain, there are also pictures of proposed models of Brāļu Kapi which would be very useful for an article. —PētersV (talk) 21:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is in public domain - everything in Soviet Union was state owned, copyrights of this publication are governed either by Latvian law, in which case it is not in public domain or by the law which governed copyrights in LSSR at the time - I couldn't find law for that period, but I found out that under 1964 law copyrights of legal persons last forever (this was said in news article on scandal about seling rights on Soviet Latvian movies, the case is somewhat similar as the movies were produced by state owned studio, however maybe this concerns only copyrights on movies). Perhaps you'll make something out if you read [1] and Copyright law of the Soviet Union. My question on War grave concerned interwiki links in lv:Brāļu kapi not the cemetery we are discussing here - I needed an existing English article to link to - military cemetery would be a good choise as war grave refers only to burials made during short period of time, but it dosen't exist, so I linked to war grave. And last, but not least - could you please give me more details on your Soviet book so I can use this quote as source in the article ? (I'd prefer to fill out as much of Template:Cite book as possible) ~~Xil...sist! 09:11, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
War grave is probably find for the interwiki. Interestingly, using Lestene as an example, I turned up the following usages...
  • www.daugavasvanagi.org -Second World War Fallen Latvian Legion Soldiers Brothers Cemetery at Lestene
  • www.mfa.gov.lv - Lestene Brethren Cemetery
  • vip.latnet.lv/lpra - Riga's Brothers Cemetery - but - Lestene War Cemetery
  • www.am.gov.lv - Lestene Warriors Cemetery
The real problem in translation is that there is no English equivalent which encompasses the use of "brother" in all its variations in common Latvian usage, also including folk songs ("brāļu", "brālītis", "bālēliņš",...). Thinking of folks songs, "betrothed" and "brother/brethren" are the closest literal translations but have no feeling as compared to the originals in Latvian. If you compare to a cemetery such as Arlington in the U.S., "Brāļu Kapi" might more appropriately though less literally translate to "National Cemetery" or "National War Cemetery". Not to be solved here... On the other topic, the Brāļu Kapi book does list a number of editors, I'll post that on your talk when I next have a chance. —PētersV (talk) 13:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Nazi propaganda

Since we were discussing this subject, I find the Nazi_propaganda#During_World_War_II section pitifully small and likely missing many, many important examples.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the pointer! I'm doing a bit of work on Dubingiai to try and pull together the multiple versions and conflicting accounts into a narrative that's representative that everyone can live with--that seems an editorial problem of manageable size. I see the Holocaust in Lithuania is going less well lately but I don't have the bandwidth for a major effort there. That will boil down to disparate sources--nowhere in Eastern Europe was the Holocaust inflicted without the direct management of the German Nazis, but the issue of the "Germanless" Holocaust is far bigger than the one article. —PētersV (talk) 17:03, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Popular fronts

Hello. I see you're now doing work on earlier decades, but I thought I'd let you in on what I did recently and hope to see more of. I wrote Popular Front of Moldova and put in a section on the Popular Fronts, but it seems to me that we woefully lack coverage on the Soviet republics' move to independence (say 1987-91). There's some of that for the Baltics, and now I've started Moldova, but more is needed, not to mention Ukraine and the Caucasus republics. The Supreme Soviet elections, the demonstrations, the negotiations, the reactions of the republican Communist Parties, the link to earlier dissident movements, the sense of reawakening, the impact of cultural figures - I could go on and on, but anyway, it's definitely an area for expansion. Biruitorul (talk) 01:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't have it in print, but Google Books offers generous excerpts, which I used for the Moldovan Popular Front article. Oh, and the Latvian link was news to me; I'll look into that. Biruitorul (talk) 01:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Movie of joint Soviet Nazi victory parade available.

I just found out that there is an actual movie of the joined Soviet-Nazi victory parade of 1939. I am downloading it but knowing net it could be deleted. I think you might be interested. [2] --Molobo (talk) 23:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Courland Pocket

Its German two-phase withdrawals--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 04:12, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Pēter, I'm not watching the article anymore, however I came accros an interesting fact - I've got history book which says that Stalin himself had ordered to eliminate the encicled army group until 7 November 1944 (so much for blocking to pass by), I thought you might find that interesting, though judging from the discussion only the original order would be considered source reliable enough ~~Xil * 15:25, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not planing to work on that article either (I'm not interested in military history and I already have some other things to do both in Wikipedia and real life), but such order would clearly show that those who say that Russians didn't realy plan to attack are wrong, so it might be worth to investigate this further, if you are waching the article perhaps you could mention this to people who are currently contributing to the article (t.i. tiem, kas piekrīt mūsu versijai, protams). I have used that history book as reference in few other articles - it's Freibergs J. (1998, 2001) Jaunako laiku vesture 20. gadsimts Zvaigzne ABC ISBN 9984-17-049-7. ~~Xil * 17:28, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Red flag whistle blowing

I do find this section Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising#Nazi_forces absolutely unreferenced and WP:POV.--Lokyz (talk) 23:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, the problem is, that I went for the sources and did not succeed finding any. After some googling attempts I've landed on some Polish forums, where half of the users declared that it is "obvious" and "well known fact", while the others asked for sources and did not get any. What makes me wonder most - is Lithuanian Security Police story. How could it land and what could it have done in Poland at the time?
IMO, it is the same problem as usual - a collection of popular mythoses, without even an attempt to read some research before posting accusations. And after it is posted, we'd get a cats and dogs of forum/tygodniks/"patriotic" literature referencing.--Lokyz (talk) 09:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I did not read Ezergailis book, if it is avaylable online, I'd be glad to read it. If not - I'd be even more eager. And i hope, it is english, because, i have to confess, that despite our "braliukas" languages I'm more skilled in Slavic, Germanic, and English languages (me culpa). From the Lithuanian side there is an international Comission that does publish a lot of books (IMO - precedent-creatig wise action of Lithuanian Government to disestablish any accusaition on Lithuanian nationalism and let historians do their work (please note the partners of the project)). If the trend of prosecution the others will continue, I think I'll scratch my head and go to the nearest book shop or I'll ask my fromer history study fellows to share their libraries. Have a good day.--Lokyz (talk) 13:45, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

The participation of Ukrainian/Russian/Baltic auxiliaries in the Uprisings is mentioned in various sources, we could use more info on that (it was probably a relatively small contribution, but the sources are not very clear). Ex. [3]: "a 337-man battalion of Ukrainian and Lithuanian fascist auxiliaries, called ‘Askaris’ by the German"; [4]: "Sammern-Frankenegg dispatched groups of Lithuanian and Ukrainian SS auxiliaries and Polish police into the ghetto"; [5]: "the remaining fugitives were discovered by SS troops and Lithuanian auxiliaries, who killed them all"; [6]: "From his car Stroop carefully studied the ghetto borders and checked the vigilance of the security forces just outside the ghetto area. They were mostly Ukrainian, Latvian, and Lithuanian Fascists serving under the SS command... known as Askaris." More about the Askari/Askaris: [7], [8], [9], [10], [11]. I wonder if they are just another name for the Hilfspolizei? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Bandwidth is low (coffee break!) but I'll take a look at your searches. Ezergailis has reviewed all the archival materials available and has not found any records of Latvian SD units or personnel being dispatched to Poland--I've heard the story personally, but I don't recall the exact "nickname" used. —PētersV (talk) 18:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Just some quick feedback reading through the refs (your [7] through [11] "more about" refs):
First of all, you will note the confusion in references as to who are the Askaris. They appear to be Russian deserters, not Balts or Ukrainians. (Also, I would have recognized the term if I had heard it before). But it immediately gets far more interesting:
  • 1st ref, Weiner and 2nd ref, Weiner: I believe his reference is incorrect (and he repeats the exact same text!), he is not taking Askaris to be the correct constituency
NOTE: Weiner's source for Askaris being Balts and Ukrainians is, surprise!, the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Contemporary History, so Soviet documentary source; given to the extent the Soviets went to equate the Balts and Ukrainians with Nazis, this source is fatally suspect
  • 3rd ref, Edelheit & Edelheit: I believe are correct, this is the only answer that makes sense without further research (and given the source for Askaris NOT being Russian is Soviet/Russian)
  • 4th ref, Reitlinger: The Germans love (der Spiegel does this regularly) to reprint Nazi propaganda, that is, Hitler's creation of the Germanless Holocaust where the Balts were already slaughtering Jews, where Balts were so "vicious" that appalled German SS "saved" Jews from their grasp, etc. Himmler's statements on savage Balts (et al.) are documented to be pure propaganda. Unreliable reference. Note, Askaris are, however, the Russian deserters, at least that is correct.
  • 5th ref, Grobman: Maintains there was no difference between the Waffen SS and the SD units (incorrect), maintains they were all convicted at Nuremberg (incorrect).
Extraordinary claims (let's stick to Latvians and Lithuanians, which I know better) that Balts were actively engaged in the Holocaust so far from home territory require extraordinary proof, such as orders of stationing. These sources exhibit the following flaws:
  • are wrong on who Askaris is (apparently repeating Soviet misdirection away from Soviet deserters),
  • repeat Nazi propaganda, and
  • equate the Waffen SS with the SD units and indicate all were convicted at Nuremberg.
Despite some of the glowing reviews printed on the covers, not as impressive when it comes to the Holocaust with regard to Baltic participation. —PētersV (talk) 23:24, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVI (April 2008)

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[edit] Request for mediation not accepted

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[edit] Tighina

I think the article Bender, Moldova should be moved to Tighina. See also my last comments in the talk page of the article. It's obviously that the city is mostly called Tighina in Romanian (Moldovan) language. --Olahus (talk) 18:44, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet Encyclopedias reliable?

Perhaps you could comment here.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 17:23, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Military history WikiProject Newsletter : Issue XXVII (May 2008)

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[edit] Using all sources

Thanks Vecrumba, that's actually exactly what we're trying to do. My opinion is that we should not use a specific date (1931, 1937, 1939, 1941) and say that it is the true date which WWII started on; I'd rather present everything (within reason) and let the user decide. As a first step, I'm trying to get recognition that the sources I use which state something other then 1939 are reputable. After that, I'm going to head over to NPOV to get consensus that they do form, at least, a significant minority. Oberiko (talk) 02:47, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dictator FDR?

Can you source that for me? Thanks. Trekphiler (talk) 22:46, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Excellent. No hurry. Trekphiler (talk) 04:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)