Category talk:White Russians

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Do we really need this category? We have Category:Russian nobility for the nobility and Category:Russian counter-revolution people for the active participants of the White movement.

What is common between a pauper and a friend of Gorky Nina Berberova and the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia? abakharev 12:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand your reservations. The reason I made this category is to show the common connection between people as diverse as a famous French film-maker (Tati) and an acclaimed British actress (Mirren) and the writer of Lolita (Nabokov). When you throw in a Harvard scholar who became a Canadian MP (Ignatieff) and a French prime minister who killed himself (Beregovoy) and finally the biographer of John Maynard Keynes (Skidelsky) - I guess you can understand the curiosity of it all! Until I started researching the modern-day descendants of White Russians, I had no idea about their origins. I did think of giving it a different name, e.g. "People of White Russian emigre origin" or something like that. Perhaps that would be more appropriate? Nonetheless, I feel that the diversity of the people in the category is interesting enough to warrant its existence. Thanks :-) --Peripatetic 20:04, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I still have not get the criteria for the inclusion to the category. Almost everybody (excluding the Bolsheviks themselves) opposed the Bolshevik government. Do they have to actually bear the arms to be included in the list? Can Anarchists be included? Socialist Revolutioners? On the other side, can the Monarchists be included? Members of the Black Hundreds? Do you have to be an ethnical Russian to be included? E.g. is it accidental that Berberova's husband Khodasevich is not included or is it is because he is ethnically Half-Pole-Half-Jew? How about the emigres that returned to the USSR like Aleksei Tolstoy and Kuprin (and Gorky BTW)? If we will include all people who at some stage opposed to Bolsheviks - it would be a really large category indeed. Maybe you wanted something like Category:Russian Liberals? (that would exclude people left to kadets and right to Octyabrists)? Or maybe Category:First wave of Russian emigration? abakharev 06:00, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Erm... I'm not Russian! I have only been studying Russian history for a few months because I'm very interested in it.. I haven't put in lots of names, because I only included those names I'm familiar with. It's difficult for me to answer your questions - mainly because I'm not all that familiar with the subject yet and am still learning! But any omissions are not intentional, merely the result of my ignorance. --Peripatetic 06:23, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

How can Skidelsky and Mirren be so-called White Russians? Both are too young to have opposed the Bolsheviks in the Civil War and Skidelsky was not even born in Russia. He spent the majority of his life; moreover, as a Socialist and was never involved in oppositional activities.