Talk:Valentin Rasputin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article must adhere to the policy on biographies of living persons. Controversial material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted or if there are other concerns relative to this policy, report it on the living persons biographies noticeboard.

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.	Biography Portal
B	This article has been rated as B-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
	This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.

It is requested that a picture or pictures of this person be included in this article to improve its quality. Note: Wikipedia's non-free content use policy almost never permits the use of non-free images (such as promotional photos, press photos, screenshots, book covers and similar) to merely show what a living person looks like. Efforts should be made to take a free licensed photo during a public appearance, or obtaining a free content release of an existing photo instead.

An appropriate infobox may need to be added to this article, or the current infobox may need to be updated. Please refer to the list of biography infoboxes for further information.

[edit] recent changes to rasputin's writings

I was happy to see someone else expanding this short article too. I knew of a reference for the opposition to the plan to divert the Siberian rivers, but do not know one for the criticism of dam-building (other than those who interpret this to be the meaning of Farewell to Matyora itself) or for the fact that Rasputin's hometown had been similarly cleared for the construction of a dam. References for these would be helpful.

The other changes I made were stylistic and structural--changing a couple verb forms to keep them consistent and moving the references to nonfiction writing (like the letter oppositing the water management projects) from the paragraph on fiction to the discussion of nonfiction. Also, I thought it very important that 'our' be replaced with something indicating the view on moral relativism was Rasputin's--many contemporaries do not share Rasputin's view that modernity and pluralism are equivalent to moral relativism. Suggesting otherwise might be interpreted as a statement of a point of view rather than stating what Rasputin himself said.--Speed jackson (talk) 03:55, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Am mostly offline these days - traveling through rural Australia - but, anyway, thanks for any corrections. As to Rasputin vs. dam-building - he has an entire "Angara" chapter in his Siberia, Siberia (1991), which basically summarizes much of his earlier writing on that. As to much of good lands in Ust-Uda district being flooded by Bratsk Reservoir, and most villages relocated, that comes up in most Russian google searches on the place names involved, or in Rasputin biographies. When back online, I will put in some references in. Vmenkov (talk) 02:13, 25 February 2008 (UTC)