Talk:History of Russia

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Contents

[edit] FA

I wonder how this article managed to satisfy FA criteria with four inline references only.Colchicum 19:15, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

It hasn't. It wouldn't. Not anymore anyway. I suggest a FAR immediately unless about 100 more inline citations appear asap (or begin to appear). Okiefromokla•talk 20:23, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I think there are citations in the forcast for this article's immediate future :). —— Eagle101Need help? 22:49, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WP:SPOTLIGHT

To-do: edit · history · watch · refresh
  • Cite Everything
  • Remove fairly large amounts of POV

[edit] Post

Ok, after all my edits we've gone from 273 to 78 {{fact}} (combined with {{facts}}) templates, but I've had to add 11 Citations missing templates (combined with Unreferenced). While that seems like a lot - the only sections I added them to were ones that were in dire need of them - this article still has a lot of pov and or in it - and keep in mind it's a long article, and the {{fact}} templates were reduced by almost 200--danielfolsom 20:10, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Examining the article, there are still a multitude of tags that seem pretty silly. For instance, you have tagged the sentence: "In April 1949 the United States sponsored the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a mutual defense pact in which most Western nations pledged to treat an armed attack against one nation as an assault on all." as requiring citation. What do you find doubtful about this? Christopher Parham (talk) 21:39, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
Haha - ok so I missed a few- keep in mind I did have to go through the entire article - why don't you be bold and take out what you think should be taken out - given that i've already taken out 200 and my eyes hurt.--danielfolsom 21:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't know why you would expect others to clean up a mess that you are primarily responsible for producing. These tags weren't added in a thoughtful manner, so it's no surprise that they were added inappropriately. The best solution, as I said above, is to wipe the slate clean and do it right. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I appreciate the effort but this is still quite excessive. If you can't cut this down to maybe 10 or 20 I still think removing them all would be preferable. Haukur 22:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
This is a sound assessment of the situation. --Ghirla-трёп- 18:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
Why isn't anyone else willing? How did all the responsibility get on me? You guys know what you don't want - so why don't you remove some, between the three of you you can remove 50 - so about 17 each, meaning even then I'll have removed 183 more than you - seriously, if you want the change be bold and do it- but I'm not your guys' puppet.--danielfolsom 00:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
The reason I'm not willing is that I'm not the one challenging the facts. You added the citation needed tags to the article by reverting to the edit that included them. By adding them you are implying that you doubt the fact, that you have reason to believe it is doubtful, or that it is a quotation or other statement that requires specific citation (that's what the tag means). The fact that you tagged statements you obviously don't doubt (e.g. regarding the existence of NATO or the reality of the Holocaust) exemplifies the fact that this method of adding citation tags is ill-founded.
Now, I was already bold once and made what I view as the best fix in this scenario. You reverted my edit to fix the problem your own way, which is fine with me. But if you don't actually want to follow through on the job, I am happy to be bold again and return to the solution I recommend, with which a couple people above seem to concur. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
"I'm not the one challenging the facts." Sorry, I wasn't aware that you thought that not a single fact in here could be challenged. Well if you don't want to do any of the work then why hang around here? --danielfolsom 19:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

We are not building an esthetic's encyclopedia - the days of pretty, brilliant and unreferenced prose are gone. We are building a well-referenced, as reliable as possible encyclopedia. Citation requests are needed, and if some editors went through the trouble of tagging this article with cn's where needed, the appopriate reply is to provide citations. Removing them "because the article looks bad with them" is not helping. This article, like all others, is a work in progress, and editorial templates should stay until the issues they address are resolved.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree completely. Well put.--danielfolsom 19:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
They didn't add them where needed. They added them everywhere; thus the current citation requests are useless, because they don't mean anything. Analogously, we need to delete some articles but systematically adding a speedy tag to every article in the encyclopedia would not be useful and would be reverted. What was done here was equally unproductive. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:19, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
(note: I spaced your comment out to match). You know - there are what, 78 there now? and you've pointed out maybe two or three that you've found to be unproductive, and somehow that leads you to say "there all unproductive - every last one of them". Which ones do you think are unproductive? Either be involved or don't , but don't just make general statements about the article - that's about as productive as saying, "There is one sentence that uses a certain word too many times. Fix it." --danielfolsom 19:22, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
They are all unproductive, for the reason stated above, and for the same reason that a broken clock is useless even though it tells time twice a day. You claim that some statements in this article require citation, but you haven't identified them. Instead you've sprayed citation tags across the face of the article, apparently at random. You can't then claim that this procedure is acceptable because some of the tags might have accidentally landed in the right place. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:36, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh wow, you think that the article is 100% verifiable- to me it seems you have a problem with the template itself. Well I guess I can get one example - although it's fairly obvious almost if not all of them are needed now. but ...

  1. "Russia's great power status obscured the inefficiency of its government, the isolation of its people, and its economic backwardness.[opinion needs balancing] Following the defeat of Napoleon, Alexander I was willing to discuss constitutional reforms, and though a few were introduced, no thoroughgoing changes were attempted.[citation needed]"
  2. "The latter path was championed by Slavophiles, who heaped scorn on the "decadent" West.[citation needed]"
  3. "The Nihilists questioned all old values and shocked the Russian establishment.[citation needed]" (that statement should probably just be removed altogether - done)
  4. "Ivan competed with his powerful northwestern rival, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, for control over some of the semi-independent Upper Principalities in the upper Dnieper and Oka River basins.[citation needed]"
  5. "Campaigns were carried out against typhus, cholera, and malaria; the number of doctors was increased as rapidly as facilities and training would permit; and infant mortality rates rapidly decreased while life expectancy rapidly increased.[citation needed]"
  6. "10 million Soviet citizens became victims of a repressive policy of Germans and their allies on an occupied territory.[citation needed]"
  7. "Truman charged that Stalin had betrayed the Yalta agreement.[citation needed]"

I'm actually not going to list them all since, as Piotr said you seemed to be focused on how an article looks regardless of whether it has POV or OR, but those are a few.-danielfolsom 20:43, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

And I'm not saying some fell accidentally, I'm saying it's obvious that statements like those and 99% of the other ones need citations, and your saying that none of them need citations and all the templates are trivial, despite providing two or three examples out of 78 templates. Your philosophy is "if one is wrong, they're all wrong" - but that's not how it works.--danielfolsom 20:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd say the only statements that really needed citing on your list are: #5, which makes an unsubstantiated claim; the first part of #6, because we have a statistic (10 million), though the second part is fine (it's hardly controversial to say Soviet citizens were generally treated appallingly by the Germans in WWII). #1 might need a reference, but I don't see why it needs "balancing". I can't for the life of me understand what's wrong with the statement: "The Nihilists questioned all old values and shocked the Russian establishment". That's just common knowledge. There are a few problems with this article, but that's certainly not one of them. --Folantin 10:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

  1. 1 needs balancing because calling something backwards seems rather pov to me - and the cite is needed as to whether reforms were made or even suggested. The reason the last one needs a cite is because I tried finding one and couldn't - and we can't just leave it in without one - it seems to me to be original research, I might just remove that altogether. ACtually, #4 probably doesn't need a cite, However #5 does - it's implying statistics (this this and this increased). #2 could go either way - but that two seems like or.--danielfolsom 11:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, #1 isn't POV and it's now cited. I'm surprised you can't find the references to the Nihilists because they should be in most standard histories, but I'll see what I can do later (I could cite almost all of this article - except a few problem areas - from Riasonovsky if necessary). --Folantin 11:41, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Are you kidding? I would say #1 is obviously POV - I mean since when were we allowed to call something "backwards". That'd be like calling a movie "horrible" - we don't do that, we allow the critics to, and if neccesary, we quote them.--danielfolsom 15:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Read the source I gave: "The key issues to be faced included serfdom and autocracy, together with the general backwardness of the country and the inadequacy and corruption of its administrative status" (Riasonovsky pp.302-3). --Folantin 16:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry - you had said the opinion needs balancing tag wasn't needed before you found the source-I missed the part where you said you actually found one -my bad, although it probably should be a quote--danielfolsom 16:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
There's no need for it to be a quotation. It's common knowledge. --Folantin 16:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Again, on movie pages, even if they're are historically bad, we say "It was rated ... on the top worst 100 movies of all time" or we say "CriticA called the movie "quote"" - we don't just say, it's a pretty crappy movie. Calling a countries government backwards is completely pov - because obviously many did not think the country was backwards seeing as it was one of two superpowers at that time. So no, it's not common knowledge, it's a common opinion.--danielfolsom 16:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
P.S. backwardness is used way too much in this article, it's obviously an opinion, and it definitely shouldn't be in the lead section.--danielfolsom 16:38, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It's common knowledge because although I've never worked on this article before last week, as soon as I saw that statement about Russia's backwardness circa 1800, I knew it could be sourced and managed to find a reference for it with no problems whatsoever. At various points in their history Russians have been quite aware their country was backward which is why you get so many reformist movements and modernising figures (e.g. Peter the Great, Alexander II, the revolutionary currents of the 19th century which led to the Bolsheviks - and why would Stalin feel the need to embark on a course of crash industrialisation if he didn't think the USSR was somehow lagging behind in that department?). On the other hand, you have people like the Raskolniks who vigorously opposed such reforms as a betrayal of the "true Russia". --Folantin 16:57, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes reformist win, sometimes they lose, but saying they're right is picking sides. And if we called every country that ever had refrms or reformist backwards, we'd get into a lot of trouble--danielfolsom 17:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Well our sources use the dreaded "b word", so we can too. --Folantin 17:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
That's flawed logic- again, if someone describes a movie as crappy, we don't say it's crappy, we present their opinion.--danielfolsom 17:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
No, it isn't, because you aren't likely to find a textbook saying Russia in 1800 was right at the cutting-edge of Europe, had the most advanced industrialised economy, its infrastructure was the envy of the world, its government was completely modern and free from corruption and the standard of living and human rights of its serfs was second-to-none (the fact that Russia had serfs in the 19th century should be telling you something). Alexander I didn't believe that and he was the tsar! --Folantin 17:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
So if a country isn't cutting edge they're backwards? So in the 1800s was America backwards - industrialization didn't occur till really the early 1900s. And almost every country has corruption, another American example - even recently - would be the Gonzales fiasco. There isn't a scale whether something is backwards or not, and seriously - what's wrong with putting a quote in?--danielfolsom 17:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
No, it was really backwards (clue: serfdom). To be honest, I don't really see the point in going on with this conversation. You should try reading up on the subject. --Folantin 17:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Actually I have - and I've also read other sides of the story - try to remain civil in an argument - suggest that I don't know anything about the subject is rather out of line. Anyways - you deciding that they're backwards doesn't count, you're making arguments for why they are backwards, but WP isn't a debate - and since I've actually recently given that book away - I'll reccomend you to switch it to a quote or remove it - however I'm perfectly willing to continue debate if you aren't convinced. Essentially the biggest thing is - obviously since the revolt failed people were fighting against the revolt, and we have no right to say they were wrong - it's not a NPOV.--danielfolsom 18:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I've had enough of this nonsense. One minute you say "WP isn't a debate" the next you're saying "leave the tag up until the debate is over". I provide two citations from reliable sources yet you reinstate that tag. I have no idea what you're going on about in your "argument" above. You've asked for citations for the most obvious statements, such as the following: "The tsar was replaced by his younger brother, Nicholas I (1825–1855), who at the onset of his reign was confronted with an uprising." This is an utter waste of time. --Folantin 19:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Wp articles aren't for debates - we're "debating" how the article should be - that's allowed, and if you don't know that then you shouldn't be editing. And no, i'm not asking for a citation, I'm asking that it's put in a quote as it's not npov.--danielfolsom 19:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
To show it's not NPOV you'd have to present the sources that argue a contrary viewpoint, which you haven't done so far as I can see. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:57, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

A general comment: editors who are attacking WP:SPOT helpers should really feel proud that they forced them to discuss their methods on talk, preventing them from contributing to the article. Sigh. Seriously: instead of complaining about citation requests, go find citations for them - or let others work in peace and improve the article.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  12:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Citation requests can be useful. They can also be disruptive

Citations are useful and no one is attacking the need of citations where needed. The question here is where is the line between putting citation requests "where needed" and putting them everywhere. Any article, no matter how comprehensive one, can be tag-trolled with citation requests and saturated with "fact" tags to an extent of making it unreadable. Citations request for the sake of citation requests is nothing but disruption. The facts that Napoleon attacked in 1812 and Hitler in 1941, the fact that the Soviet Union was devastated in the WW2 being tagged with "fact" is merely ridiculous. And even if one disagrees with the last statement, there is no doubt that somewhere there the line exists between the contributive tagging and disruptive tagging. Adding 300 tags to an article is nothing but a disgrace.

No one doubts that the article was undercited and FAR was useful. I did not vote there to keep the FA-status and work on the article's improvement and referencing together with all others who are interested. But I condemn in strongest terms the rabid saturation of good text with "fact" tags senselessly. Where goes the line between the senseless and sensible citation requests is a question to discuss but there is no doubt that the recent events with this article was an example of excessive and disruptive tagging.

That said, I will do my best to fill in the needed citations and further develop the article. While this is going on, the FAR is best to be put on hold. --Irpen 18:30, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some POV and other problems

  • Slightly rosy portrait of Ivan the Terrible (no mention of Oprichnina): "Nevertheless, Ivan was a farsighted statesman who promulgated a new code of laws, and reformed the morals of the clergy". Reforming the morals of the clergy seems an odd way of describing what happened to this man.
  • There's no mention of Chechnya in the post-Soviet section, which is a very odd absence.
  • More later... --Folantin 12:58, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
In the "History of England" I have seen rosy portrait of Henry VIII, executed tens thousand person, and Cromwell, responsible for the bloody bath in Ireland, and also Warren Hastings responsible for the catastrophic famine in Bengal. The article is not a verdict of guilty. I assume, usual readers don't know (or know not a lot), that Ivan IV established the first Russian parliament of the estates (Zemsky Sobor), reformed legal proceedings, introduced local self-management, which electives participated in, and struggled for access of isolated Russia to sea trade and western technologies. But there is no place for this detailed information in the article. Ben-Velvel 18:14, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The cardinal resolve of a problem of inline citations

Many facts refer to the classical academic works of Russian historians, such as "History of Russia from the Earliest Times", (ISBN 5-17-002142-9) by Sergey Solovyov, "History of the Russian State" (ISBN 5-02-009550-8) by Nikolay Karamzin etc . In these cases the multiple inline citations are absurd and the tag "fact" should be removed. (It is possible to spot a article about history of any country, England, Poland or USA, with infinite amount of the tag "fact".) Ben-Velvel 12:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "Controversy" of having trade relations with Nazis

Whatever hypocritical and deplorable the practice to trade with non-human regimes is, in the cynical business of international politics everyone was (and still is) doing this. As every single major country continued to trade with Nazis supplying them with fossil fuels, ore and high-tech (IBM controversy comes to mind), there is nothing notable in Soviet doing what the rest did to single them out. Let's stick to facts that say:

  • Soviets did trade with Nazis
  • Soviets support of anti-fascist movement in Spain was their state policy
  • Soviets were the only major power to oppose the disgraceful Munich deal and offered to intervene militarily.

These are facts. Whether this constitutes the "controversy", should be left to the reader. As for finding some ref whose author says something and including it into the Encyclopedia, we can go far with such approach. As far as interpretations, not facts go, many personal opinions may be "referenced". Please, let's stick to facts. --Irpen 20:22, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

And Soviets signed alliance with the Nazis (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact). Yes, for most 1930s Soviets were notable opponent of the Nazi regime, but then for nearly 3 years they were their best allies. Those are the facts. There is also the Soviet-German cooperation article. Of course, you are right that many countries traded with the Nazis - but in the period 39-41, Soviet trade was an important lifeline of the Nazi regime.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Please distinguish trade and aid. Any trade was an important lifeline of the Nazi regime. So, there is nothing specific about the Soviet trade. Besides, check the dictionary for the difference between trade (exchange of goods) and "aid". --Irpen 21:48, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOR. According to Ericson, Edward E. Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933-1941. New York: Praeger, 1999. ISBN 0275963373 (available via Questia, if you are interested), Soviet economic aid played the crucial role in German successes during World War II. As to controversies, well, literally: There are few unresolved questions concerning the origins of the Second World War that have provoked as much disputation as the issue of Soviet policy toward Nazi Germany. (Haslam, Jonathan (1997). Soviet-German Relations and the Origins of the Second World War: The Jury Is Still Out. The Journal of Modern History 69: 785-797.) Don't open this can of worms. Colchicum 21:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Colchicum, let's be clear here. It is no one's intention to hide anything here. Undisputed facts as well as widely agreed opinions should be represented in WP articles as such, perhaps with the reasonable choice as to what articles are best to use for what information. Now, that someone's opinion that the trade amounted to "aid" and that such aid was "crucial" can be cited, does not necessarily entitles such info to be placed in the articles as undisputed knowledge. Many things may be cited and it is easy to build a compilation of quotes, all referred to the established scholars, that would still produce together quite a lunatic article. That SU-DE trade can be rightfully called a "crucial aid of Soviets to the Nazis" does not become undisputable even if such citation can be found. Also, it matters how we present such ideas. The way you put this in looked like this is a wide scholarly consensus. In fact it is a good-faith opinion of a particular author. It belongs to the Soviet-German relations before 1941 article and in an attributed form. For this article, it is sufficient to say that the trade indeed took place. --Irpen 22:18, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section on international activity of Soviet Union till 1933

Is missing and would be welcomed, right now there is only text about internal issues then it jumps to Second World War. That leaves over a decade of interesting information-the relation to Versailles Treaty, cooperation with Weimar Germany, attempts break diplomatic isolation and attitude towards communist movement in other countries. --Molobo 22:46, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why is data from 1891 used to reference claims about 1772 ?

Why is data from 1891 used to reference claims about 1772-1795 ? To source claims about structure in 1772 we need data from that time period. A over century of changes is to long to consider it reliable time period to make claims about situation in 1772.--Molobo 11:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

This article should use up-to-date reliable sources in the English language (see WP:V). It's not as if there is a shortage of general histories of Russia available in English. References to foreign-language works (especially archaic ones) should be removed and peer-reviewed books should be preferred to websites. --Folantin 12:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Akward sentence

Mainly the territories incorporated into the USSR in 1939-1940 were inhabited by Eastern Slavs who have been reunited with parts of their peoples on the Soviet side. Poles and Romanians made up a minority.

  1. -Seems dubious-we could count all the people, I have a suscipition Balts, Poles and Romanians combined be more numerous.
  2. -Eastern Slavs ? Akward wording, Ukrainians and Belarussians had national identity and such word belongs more to describe events from pre-history
  3. -The sentence sounds like justification or some propaganda piece. I don't think its valuabe to be included. What do you think ?

--Molobo 11:50, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

It is too easy to use related argument to justify of vilify Soviet invasion of Poland. This is discussed in details at FA Soviet_invasion_of_Poland_(1939) and I don't see the need to discuss it further here, at 115kb this article is already too long. It's enough to simply mention that on 17 September 1939, SU invaded Poland. Any further details are too much for this article.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:21, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Cut it right back. It should say something like "In 1939 and 1940, following the secret protocol in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland, the Baltic States and Moldavia. The Soviets also fought a costly campaign against Finland, known as the Winter War". --Folantin 13:31, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Sounds good; with the link to Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) of course. As I said, at 115kb - which is going to grow with more and more refs - we need to scale down the level of detail. That said, whatever we remove should not be deleted but moved to relevant subarticles.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conciseness

A general point: this article badly needs cutting. It's getting seriously out of proportion, with all kinds of strange "bulges" in coverage. On the other hand, Russia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars apparently began in 1812 and the Crimean War is dismissed in one sentence. And there is still no mention of the recent wars in Chechnya.--Folantin 13:56, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Some suggestions how to do this:
  • Stop adding any more information (except a bit about the Chechen Wars and maybe some more about Napoleon).
  • Slash a lot of the recently added stuff.
  • Link to more sub-articles rather than giving lengthy accounts
  • Use more "summary style", especially in the Soviet era sections. Maybe we can put the expansion of the Russian empire in the 19th century into a single para rather than piecemeal. --Folantin 14:16, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] References confused with notes

References should not be confused with notes; currently we have statements that look like they are referenced with inline citation when in fact they only have an unreferenced note. Please see Soviet invasion of Poland (1939) for how notes should be split from citations.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:35, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Conciseness 2

I also support conciseness. Piotrus and Molobo, please stop adding the Poland's grievances to the article about another country. Firstly, about the ethnic composition of the territory of Poland to the West of Curzon line. Giving the total numbers is like giving the average temperature over the hospital room with terminally ill patience some of which are dyeing out of fever and the rest are already dead and cold. If one looks at the total numbers in a greater detail, see Occupation_of_Poland#_note-Gross, one would see the clearer picture. This issue can be healthily discussed elsewhere. Next, the Western powers, who signed the Munich deal did not partition CZ among themselves. The deal allowed the partitioning between DE, PL and HU. We should not cut to the degree of making the text misleading. The Soviet oppression of Poles in Western Ukraine and Belarus belongs to the History of Poland first of all. There are many additional occupation and massacre articles generously created. We also have articles on Ukraine and Belarus too. This article, is a History of Russia.

I trimmed a section somewhat and what I added was mostly wikilinks. Please no more Zaluski librarization of the [{Russian Enlightenment]] (apologies to uninvolved users, the context of this inside joke is here). --Irpen 00:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

They are many inaccurate or false claims connected to Russian involvment with Poland-such as claims of Poles rejecting "liberal constitution" of Congress Poland, when it was its violation by Tsar that led to uprising, claims Galicia was part of Russian Empire(!) and so on.
As to composition of ethnic groups West of Curzon line-there is a lot of propaganda that they were overall Belarussian and Ukrainian, so a simple statement that milions of Poles were left beyond is enough I think.
"The deal allowed the partitioning between DE, PL and HU"
Poland signed the deal ? The deal mentioned Poland ?
"The Soviet oppression of Poles in Western Ukraine and Belarus belongs to the History of Poland first of all"
Those territories weren't part of Soviet territory ? And why Western Belarus and Ukraine ? Is Bialystok or Przemysl Western Ukraine or Belarus ?
"This article, is a History of Russia."
I know you don't like this just as much as I do, but Poland was part of Russia and history of one of the most developed and industrial as well as troublesome Russian province will involve History of Russia. Besides, I don't think any of us added anything on Poland. We simply corrected some info about Poland already existing.
--Molobo 00:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Few points. ToT massacres would be undue weight here indeed, they are too detailed. But if one insists on discussing how Soviet invasion of Poland "united Belarusians and Ukrainians", one should also mention that hundreds thousands Poles were murdered by the Soviets during the same period. Millions of victims of the Soviet regime, worldwide, deserve as much mention as the heroic deaths of Soviet soldiers of the Great Patriot War. Defeating the Nazis cannot be discussed without mentioning how the Soviet Union enslaved many other nations until fall of communism. As for Poland partitioning Czechoslovakia, the miniscule territory Poland took (seen here as "4" and with different colors here and here is too small to even register on this map. So please stop equating German and Polish participation.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  01:46, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

"if one insists on discussing how Soviet invasion of Poland "united Belarusians and Ukrainians", one should also mention that hundreds thousands Poles were murdered by the Soviets during the same period." We shouldn't forget that Ukrainians and Belarusians were also victims of Soviet terror and thousands perished. --Molobo 01:57, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Molobo, we've been through this. This is not the article about Poland. There have been enough of this undue Polonization of Tyutchev, Pushkin, Russo-Japanese War, etc., and even Ded Moroz. Please stop. --Irpen 02:02, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Why should some Russian provinces be ignored in History of Russia ? --Molobo 02:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Irpen here. This is a history of Russia, not Poland. Of course, Poland was arguably Russia's most important conquest and should get some attention. But, for reasons of space, we can't give proper treatment to everybody here (in an article this size it would be crazy to detail when the Nogais or Kalmyks, say, became part of Russia). The Polish events we should mention (briefly) are: the Partitions (this should probably get most attention), the November and January Uprisings, the Polish-Soviet War, the Soviet occupation of 1939-41 (in a sentence mentioning the Baltic States and Moldavia too), the post-war "Eastern Bloc" (along with all the other countries). We should have decent sub-articles on all these topics anyway. Giving details about the exact ethnic composition of the regions the Soviets occupied in 1939 is largely irrelevant to a history of Russia since there were very few Russians in the area. Yes, Russia was the biggest component of the USSR but (at least in theory) the USSR was a union of various republics. This will have to be factored in to things like the number of war dead too, because we can't claim that all the Soviet casualties of WWII were Russian. I would also cut the reference to Poland and Hungary taking small bits of territory from Czechoslovakia. --Folantin 08:04, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with most of your proposal, notice however that we didn't add new knowledge about Poland, but only touched sentences where it was mentioned, and sometimes in controversial way. As to exact ethnic composition-as long as we give some sentence or formulate the sentence in a way that it won't claim or make impression that those territories were devoid of Poles rather then ethnicly mixed, it would be ok. As to war dead-that is an excellent proposition, I will search for publication by Norman Davies where he gives numbers regarding how many Russians died in Soviet war.

--Molobo 08:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why massacres of wedding guests at Moscow

Are removed under name "they are Time of Troubles", but later revenge massacres are quoted ? Decency would suggest full coverage or full cutting back to Time of Troubles.--Molobo 01:23, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. I will remove the second massacre by Polish troops too. I hope you or Piotrus will restore it to Times of Troubles from where he removed it as well some time ago. --Irpen 01:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

It was restored already by Ben-Vel. --Molobo 01:41, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, let's cut down the Time of Troubles section and stop it becoming a list of massacres. This is a highly involved topic and it's inevitable we can only give it the most superficial treatment in an article this size. --Folantin 08:15, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I suggest removing

Detailed information and making a narrow summary of HoR.--Molobo 01:35, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

That's my aim too. We should probably remove some of the excess referencing as well. --Folantin 08:16, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images

What about images? Is one image per section a bad idea (if the good image exists that will significantly illustrate the text)? --Irpen 02:03, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I think that's a great plan - maybe 2 if it's a really long section - but we do have to work on finding the balance that makes it not text heavy but not overloaded with pics.--danielfolsom 02:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, give me about an hour. I am placing tl:inuse on the article. --Irpen 02:19, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article organization

I am still illustrating the article and I can't help notice that the structure needs to be modified. Here are some examples:

  • Rule of Boris Godunov is given within the Times of Troubles section. All things aside, his rule is never considered to belong to the Tot. A separate section is needed to be created and written. His rule was by all means noteworthy to be totally skipped.
  • The WWII. This is really ridiculous that the equal amount of text is allotted to the 1939-1941 events and 1941-1945 events. I don't think we need to explain why.

There are other issues, please add them to this section. I understand the concern about length. But making the article short should not be our goal by itself. The length of the article should be "adequate" rather than "short" and periods and events need to be covered adequately in accordance with their importance and the amount of information we have on them. Obviously it becomes natural that the remote years that are relatively less known receive less space.

The shortness of the article by itself is a poor choice for the primary goal of further editing. The topic is huge, wikipedia is not paper and if the reader is lazy to read a long article, s/he can read the lead and go elsewhere. I am not calling for unlimited expansion but trimming for the sake of trimming is as harmful as the incessant tagging that we have seen in the previous wave.

Please add your thoughts on the section structure changes. --Irpen 05:40, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

he WWII. This is really ridiculous that the equal amount of text is allotted to the 1939-1941 events and 1941-1945 events. I don't think we need to explain why.

Agree-1941-1945 deals mainly with military campaigns, and can be shortened to a couple of brief sentences. The forming of cooperation between Soviets and Nazis as well as policies of Soviet terror in conquered and annexed countries are much more complicated and involve many issues-they should receive extensive coverage. The same can be said about the period 1944-1945 when Soviet Union re-occupied and added territories to its sphere of occupation extending the Stalinist rule over further territories. Also not that the text jums forward by over a decade ignoring 20s and early 30s regarding Soviet presence in foreign relations(rearming together with Germany, Comintern, opposition to Versailles etc) --Molobo 05:52, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Molobo I asked you many times before your wikivacation to please format your entries at the talk pages. That said, I don't even know whether I have to respond to this blasphemous escapade. You want to shorten to "two brief sentences" the event where the country lost half of its net-worth and a little less than a half of the able-bodied male population. Just please cut it. --Irpen 06:59, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

"You want to shorten to "two brief sentences" " Please read what you are responding to. As to losses-if they are to be included, it should be mentioned that conquered people from 1939-1941 who died are counted as them also(Btw-its a good reminder to include number of victims of Tsarist regime and Soviet terror in Russian and Soviet state) Neverthless the process of enforcing Soviet occupation and annexation into Soviet state has many complicated issues, they should be included. I remain unconviced that we should deal with complexities of every single battle. --Molobo 07:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Images POV problem

The images are good, but I am getting worried that the article will be dominated by beautifull paintings, propaganda posters and photos. Some real life pictures and paintings showing reality of Russian life should also be present to present a balanced view-pictures perhaps from famine in Soviet Union, paintings of villagers life in Russian Empire, some photo showing terror of Soviet opression. Right now the pictures are starting to look too much like tourist folder rather then encyclopedia portfolio portaying all aspects of Russian history.--Molobo 06:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Molobo, worry not. The very next image I am uploading now is about peasant life. Please moderate your desires on how you want the articles to look. I mean, in general. --Irpen 06:54, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

They are several photos and paintings I looked at. I will wait for you to finnish then see what could be improved if anything. --Molobo 07:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC) Sigh...As peasents And yet another propagandic proclamation, instead of real life pictures. This article will take the shape of glorification manifesto with all those speeches, monuments, propaganda photos, declarations. Perhaps we have a different vision, that's ok. I just wanted it to be more realistic, I will let you finnish the work, then try to improve it for more realism--Molobo 07:38, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

It's nice people have added a few more pictures, but there are probably too many now. I'd suggest cutting the ones that depict events not referred to in the text (e.g. we have nothing about Peter the Great's suppression of the streltsy and our Napoleonic Wars coverage is too scanty to have an image of Suvorov on his Italian campaign). --Folantin 08:53, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

I've had enough of User:Ben-Velvel and his campaign to whitewash Ivan the Terrible in particular. Judging by his edit summary and other comments he's also blatantly Polonophobic (hey, I'm not even a Pole - so sue me). The fact is no mainstream scholar would accept his version as neutral and there is little chance of this page achieving stability while he's editing here. He also has a predilection for 19th century sources in Russian, which is not exactly the cutting edge of the historiography of this region. Another potentially fixable page goes down the plughole. --Folantin 19:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

You should not tag the whole article which covers a huge topic over a particular issue. You should not accuse other editos in xenophobic views, this is a very strong attack on one's character.
Third, there is a difference between rendering judgments referred to the 19th century sources and referring mere facts to them, facts undisputed elsewhere btw. Modern books refer facts to these very sources too. --Irpen 20:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
  1. OK, then reinstate the tag and place it in the appropriate section. It's obvious where it should go.
  2. It's a bit late for that when I've just been reverted with the edit summary "Stop Polish POVed censorship". The interaction I've already had with this user fully confirms my judgement that he's a nationalist POV-pusher.
  3. No, we have to use modern, peer-reviewed sources, preferably in English. There's no excuse for anyone not to do so on an article about the general history of Russia. If I started sourcing articles on the history of Germany using Treitschke (to take an extreme instance), there would be justifiable complaints. I certainly wouldn't trust an article like this which apparently relied on obsolete sources.
  4. In his latest revision, BV has referred to one incident at the end of the lengthy Livonian War (which has already been mentioned in the text). This fails WP:UNDUE and implies that all the devastation of Muscovy was caused by foreigners and minimises the devastation caused by Ivan's own policies (which have barely been touched for reasons of space). It also misses the obvious fact that Ivan carried out similar devastations abroad. I could quite easily add the example (with references) of what happened after the fall of Polatsk in 1563, where he deliberately singled out Jews, Lithuanians and Catholic priests for slaughter. But that would skew what is supposed to be a summary article somewhat. Please remove the recently added section. --Folantin 20:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE is a valid issue to discuss. This is totally separate from sourcing. As for the rest, you should distinguish passing judgments from the source (even a modern one) and referring facts. If facts are not disputed, it is OK to refer them to where they are given in the greatest detail. Being peer-reviewed is only a small part of what makes the source reliable. Not all reliable sources are Peer-reviewed. Journal and conference papers are peer-reviewed. Books, even modern ones, are mostly not. A book written by a reputable scholar published by a reputable house (eg. university press) is an RS despite it is not peer-reviewed. Peer-reviewed journals is where scholars attain reputation, true enough, but reputable scholars right an publish without review. In fact, the university press publishing someone says a lot about reputability. Same about English. There is an awful lot of stuff not properly covered in English sources. The scholars reliability is the crux, not the language he is writing at. Solovyov and Karamzin scholarly reputation is unquestionable. It does not mean they are neutral. Additionally, older sources had a tendency of passing judgments, 1911 EB is ripe with them. It does not make the sources unusable as far as facts are concerned. Facts may either be true or false. Well, they may also be UNDUE, true enough.

Unfortunate edit summaries should not be an excuse to attack editors accusing them in xenophobic view. Such statements, justified only in few exceptional cases, are extremely grave and either such views or accusations of them are inappropriate in a civilized discussion. --Irpen 21:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No, the policies we have on sourcing back my view, see WP:V (especially [1]) and WP:RS (especially [2]). A lot of the nationalist POV-pushing which afflicts articles like this could be cleared up by adhering to those policies. I would not accept a history of England page sourced from Macaulay, nor a French one sourced from Michelet. The 1911 EB is merely a stopgap and we should replace those articles as soon as possible. It's a question of readers' trust. Ethnic chauvinist and nationalist POV-pushers are the bane of Wikipedia. The best way to combat them is to insist that policies on reliability are adhered to.
Ben-Velvel's edit summary was not "unfortunate", it was entirely characteristic of the behaviour I've seen from him. I make no apology for pointing out the obvious. (My response is hardly unique and Ghirla made a far more forceful comment on his actions here [3]). --Folantin 21:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Since modern sources are freely available, if someone insists on using 19th century sources, especially in articles on topics that may give rise to any kind of controversy, some editors may immediately assume that this is done solely to advance the 19th century POV as current mainstream understanding of the issue. Needeless to say, such actions will be resisted, even if only an innocent fact is being sourced.
Why don't we make it clear that modern sources are preferred and enforce their use, except of course in cases when using a 19th century source is unavoidable because no modern source exists (as may be the case for obscure topics). As should be clear enough to everybody at this point (since this was discussed elsewhere), 19th century sources cause so much bad blood between editors that using them can almost be considered a form of disruption. Maybe some clear Wikipedia guideline should be established to address precisely this point. Balcer 00:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
That's exactly my feeling. I think that's what WP:RS and WP:V say anyway, but maybe we need to emphasise this point a bit more on such policy pages. It wouldn't automatically guarantee totally NPOV articles but it would save a lot of needless controversy and inspire a bit more confidence in readers. There's no excuse for using 19th century, non-anglophone sources on a page like this where there are plenty of modern general histories of Russia available in English. --Folantin 06:52, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology of ToT

Reign of Godunov is not generally considered to be part of the Time of Troubles, like the positioning of this in the article's section suggests.

Maybe Grozny's section can be renamed to smth like "Ivan Grozny, end of Rurikids and dynastic crysis" and Godunov's time moved there. Or a separate section can be started. --Irpen 20:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The audio is so scary...

Sounds like a horror movie. --Sandycx (Talk) 10:43, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Hahaha, you're right, sounds like Jigsaw from Saw. And you can barely make out what is been said.--Miyokan 06:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah... --Taraborn (talk) 08:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Russian History

]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.116.10 (talk) 07:11, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Good point, mr. 88.113 --Taraborn (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Audio file

Has anybody listened to the audio file? Apparently just another user (User:Poobread) and me have checked it and... well... it sounds like if Skeletor was the reader. --Taraborn (talk) 08:40, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Keep it, it fits the nation so well. That coming from a Russian. --217.172.29.4 (talk) 20:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Tsarbomb.jpg

Image:Tsarbomb.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 02:13, 12 February 2008 (UTC)