Talk:Music of Belarus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is part of the "World music" set of articles nominated for Version 0.7. Discuss this nomination, or see the set nominations page for more details.

	This page is part of Wikipedia:WikiProject World music, an attempt at building a resource on the music of all the peoples and places of the world. Please visit the project's listing to see the article's assessment and to help us improve the article as we push to 1.0.
Start	Music of Belarus has been rated as Start-Class on the assessment scale.

<snipped the below from User talk:Rydel>

1. The statement about "history" belongs to the Belarus history page, if anywhere. Besides, it sounds like an excerpt from some Russian imperial propaganda booklet, and has no relevance on the page Music of Belarus. Have you heard any Belarusan music? Our musical tradition is very different from Russian, and has very little similarity with the Russian one (ever since the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania till modern times). But there is another, though totally different problem. The problem is that current regime in Belarus is kind of pro-Russian, and some of our rock-music is banned or or has no chances for promotion at all. And another even bigger problem is that most of Belarus citizens are exposed to huuuuge amounts of Russian music, rock, pop and what have you. But that's a social-society issue, not a question of music of Belarus and its history. What is interesting though is that even our pro-Russian authocratic ruler Lukashenka ordered that all FM stations put at least 50% of Belarusan music two years ago, and now he ordered to make the rule even tougher - since January 1, 2005 all FM stations are required by law put at least 75% Belarusan music every day.

Your claim that most of Belarus' citizens "are exposed to huuuuge amounts of Russian music, rock, pop and what have you." illustrates precisely why Russia is relevant to the article. All that info about Lukashenko and Belarusan music controls is interesting, and I will put it in the article. Is the new intro more to your liking? Tuf-Kat

1. No. There are relatively few Belarusans living in Russia. And again, that's not relevant at all. How is it relevant to the history of music?

It is important to note that Belarusan music is known outside of Belarus, such as in places where there are Belarusans. A source I found indicates there are a million Belarusans in Russia, which seems likely plenty to me. Tuf-Kat

1. May I dare asking what have you listened? And may I dare asking what have you read about the music of Belarus and its history? --rydel 01:41, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, I have never listened or read anything about Belarusan music aside from what I have learned to put in this article. I suppose the thought of asking what I am attempting to do before reverting and becoming a dick never occurred to you, did it? The thought that I might be attempting to learn about Belarusan music through a genuine desire to know more... Sounds absurd, right? Well, thanks, 100% of the Belarusans I have now interacted with has proven himself an ass, and I now wish to wash my hands of any learning regarding the country and its culture. Tuf-Kat 02:49, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

1. I have never listened or read anything about Belarusan music - Why am I not surprised? This is one of the reasons I'll probably quit Wikipedia. It pains me greatly to see, how people come to an article which they know nothing about and then stubbornly start adding wrong stuff and misinformation and lies, and totally butcher the articles.
2. The thought that I might be attempting to learn about Belarusan music through a genuine desire to know more... - You don't start learning more, by going to an encyclopedia article and adding wrong information. Sorry.
3. Any learning regarding the country and its culture - I'm not here to "advertise" our culture or country. This is not the place. And this is not the objective of Wikipedia. I only contribute the stuff that I really know (unlike some admins). I contribute the facts. Wikipedia is not a place to promote foreign cultures or putting things in a nice light, and making friends with people on talk pages. It's an encyclopedia, which should not contain misinformation, no lies, no POV. I'm surprised I have to explain that to an admin. --rydel 14:23, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It's not meant as a personal attack on you. I just hate it when people change articles that they don't know much (or anything) about. Sorry, though, for being tough on you. I didn't mean to. --rydel 15:05, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If anything I have written is wrong, misinformation, lies or POV, please tell me what. I can and will continue to write articles on subjects I am learning about -- we are all supposed to be using resources to verify information anyway. WRT the article in question, thank you for your recent additions. However, you have removed the statement about Belarusans living abroad. Why? Part of the music of Belarus is the music of Belarusans living outside of Belarus, so it seems relevant to me. Do you dispute that there are Belarusans elsewhere? Tuf-Kat 16:17, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Ok, sorry, perhaps I overreacted. And speaking about that sentence mentioning "Belarusians abroad", if you really insist, I guess it could be put there, but I really don't think it's true. I personally never heard of any significant influence they had on the music in the respective countries to which they immigrated. Yes, they live (or lived) abroad, but I can't think of a single example when they produced something really popular in those countries, perhaps with the exception of some of them moving to Russia and making money there. The two such examples, Boris Moiseev and Lyapis Trubetskoy, are already mentioned in the article. I guess we could also mention [Bi-2] and Leprikonsy (Leprechauns), but you can't call them Russian mega-stars. They are just a part of the crowd. Now that I am thinking about and trying hard to remember others, perhaps the only real case of an immigrant success story in music is Irving Berlin. His parents were Jews from Belarus, and they immigrated to the US when he was about 5 years old. Irving Berlin is famous for writing the song "God Bless America", but on the other hand he has a very marginal relevance to Belarus (if any). One more person who might be worth remembering is Michas (Michal) Zabejda-Sumicki (article in Belarusan Wikipedia - be:Міхась Забэйда-Суміцкі). He sang in Italian La Scala, in Poland, in Czech Republic (lead tenor of the State Opera of Prague for 10 years). And it was forbidden to speak or write about him in Soviet BSSR. But this is perhaps the only case. I can't remember any other cases of immigrants contributing much to the music life of their "second motherland" and thus influencing the music of that culture. --rydel 18:20, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think the first paragraph should be setting up the range of the article. It should establish what Belarus is, and who the Belarusians are, to provide context for the rest of the article. Then, if there's little or nothing interesting to say about Russian or Canadian or American Belarusians, then there won't be much more to say about them in the body of the article. Tuf-Kat 22:27, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)