Potemkin village
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Potemkin villages were, purportedly, fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787. Conventional wisdom has it that Potemkin, who led the Crimean military campaign, had hollow facades of villages constructed along the desolate banks of the Dnieper River in order to impress the monarch and her travel party with the value of her new conquests, thus enhancing his standing in the empress's eyes.
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[edit] Modern view
Modern historians consider this scenario of self-serving deception to be, at best, an exaggeration, and quite possibly simply malicious rumors spread by Potemkin's opponents.[citation needed] Potemkin did mount efforts to develop the Crimea and probably directed peasants to spruce up the riverfront in advance of the party bringing the empress by boat to the Crimea. But the tale of elaborate, fake settlements, the glowing fires of which were designed to comfort the monarch and her entourage as they surveyed the barren territory at night, is largely fiction.[citation needed] Potemkin had in fact directed the building of fortresses, ships of the line, and thriving settlements, and the tour – which saw real and significant accomplishments – solidified his power.
So, while "Potemkin village" has come to mean, especially in a political context, any hollow or false construct, physical or figurative, meant to hide an undesirable or potentially damaging situation; in fact, there appears to have been no such thing.[citation needed]
"Potemkin village" has also frequently been used to describe the attempts of the Soviet government to fool foreign visitors. The government would take such visitors, who were often already sympathetic to socialism or communism, to select villages, factories, schools, stores, or neighborhoods and present them as if they were typical, rather than exceptional. Given the strict limitations on the movement of foreigners in the USSR, it was often impossible for these visitors to see any other examples. [1]
This practice was certainly not confined to the Soviet Union, but rather has been common in "currently socialist countries." "The Big Fish" is a famous story from People's Republic of China which deals with the visit in the early 1970s of foreigners to an urban market Potemkin Village (Chen: 135-150).
[edit] Minutiae
Curiously, the term "Potemkin village" is almost never spelled "Potëmkin village," using the Russian letter called "Yo," nor is it ever pronounced "Potyomkin." Grigori Alexandrovich Potemkin did spell his name with the "Yo." Russian usage of this letter varied.
[edit] Examples of Potemkin villages
- Gijeong-dong, Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea
- Trinwillershagen, East Germany
- During World War II, Helsinki built itself a Potemkin village to deceive Russian bombers. A similar measure was employed by the town of Sheffield during the Battle of Britain.
- Following the Manchurian Incident, and China's referral of the Japanese occupation of Manchuria to the League of Nations in 1931, the League's representative was given a tour of the 'truly Manchurian' parts of the region. It was meant to prove that the area was not under Japanese domination. Whether the farce succeeded or not is moot; Japan withdrew from the League the following year.[1]
- Theresienstadt, Adolf Hitler's "Paradise Ghetto," could be regarded as a Potemkin village. Most of its amenities were illusory; it had a high mortality rate from malnutrition and disease; and residents were frequently sent "East"--to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
[edit] Term used in legal system
The term "Potemkin village" is also often used by judges, especially members of a multiple-judge panel who dissent from the majority's opinion on a particular matter, to describe an inaccurate or tortured interpretation and/or application of a particular legal doctrine to the specific facts at issue. Use of the term is meant to imply that the reasons espoused by the panel's majority in support of its decision are not based on accurate or sound law and their restrictive application is merely a masquerade for the court's desire to avoid a difficult decision. Often, the dissent will attempt to reveal the majority's adherence to the restrictive principle at issue as being an inappropriate function for a court, reasoning that the decision transgresses the limits of traditional adjudication because the resolution of the case will effectively create an important and far-reaching policy decision, which the legislature would be the better equipped and more appropriate entity to address.
For example, in the U.S. Supreme Court abortion case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v Casey, 505 US 833, 966 (1992) Chief Justice Renhquist said that "Roe v Wade stands as a sort of judicial Potemkin Village, which may be pointed out to passers-by as a monument to the importance of adhering to precedent".
[edit] Related terms
Sometimes, instead of the full phrase, just "Potemkin" is used, as an adjective. For example, "Potemkin Court", "Potemkin Security". The meaning of "Potemkin Court" seems distinct from kangaroo court in that the court's reason to exist is being called into question, not its standard of justice. The use of trees to screen a clearcut from a highway has been called a "Potemkin Forest."
[edit] Political example
In Frank Rich's 2006 book, "The Greatest Story Ever Sold," he likens the George W. Bush administration's efforts to create fake favorable news stories about the progress of the Iraq War, both in the United States and in Iraq, as a "Potemkin Village."
[edit] See also
- Urban myths related to Catherine II of Russia
- New Russia, historic area in Southern Ukraine
- Potemkin City Limits, album by Propagandhi
[edit] References
- Chen Jo-hsi. (1978). The Execution of Mayor Yin and Other Stories from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-12475-1
- EircomTribunal, "2003 Potemkin Village Award," EircomTribunal.com, [2]
- Goldberg, Jonah. "Potemkin Village in Cuba: Let's make one of our own", National Review, April 19, 2000. [3]
- Katchanovski, Ivan and Todd La Porte. "Cyberdemocracy or Potemkin E-Villages? Electronic Governments in OECD and Post-Communist Countries," International Journal of Public Administration, Volume 28, Number 7-8, July 2005. [verification needed]
- Ledeen, Michael. "Potemkin WMDs? Really?", National Review, February 2, 2004 [4]
- Love and Conquest: Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Prince Grigory Potemkin ISBN 0-87580-324-5 (edited and translated from the Russian by Douglas Smith)
- Potemkin Court as a description of The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (from the Washington Post)
- Potemkin Parliament as a description of the European Parliament (from the New Statesman, Sept 20 2004)
- Sullivan, Kevin. "Borderline Absurdity", Washington Post, January 11, 1998.
- Buchan, James. "Potemkin democracy" as a description of Russia. "New Statesman", July 17, 2006
