Talk:Igor Smirnov (politician)

message: I have no particular vested interest in Smirnov or the region.  However, out of curiosity I have read several articles and have seen several films / investigative reports about him and the region recently and thus eventually ended up on this wikipedia page.  From my external perspective, the three interesting / important things about Smirnov are 1) his rise to power 2) his activities while in office as leader of the PMR 3) his involvement (supposed or real) with the sort of things that make him newsworthy:  Sheriff, arms-trading, rigged elections.  As I read this article today, 1) is covered decently, 2) very poorly, and 3) basically not at all except for some offhand references to the 2001 election.   While stories about his eyebrows and father's history may be cute, right now they simply highlight the fact that the current wikipedia article is nothing more than an empty hagiography. Furthermore, because it reads so much like a hagiography ("boy from Russia", etc), I suggest that this article be tagged as not meeting encyclopedic standards.  I was actually quite shocked to find out how much discussion there has been on this talk page for such a poor article.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.102.130.86 (talk) 09:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lack of Balance 

message: Hi William (or anyone with relevant information), I recently began to take an interest in this site and I wanted to ask why the claim that Smirnov "served on various local councils during the Soviet era" survived your recent edit of this page (incidentally, I completely agree with the decision to remove the "erstwhile Russian Communist" bit, but for different reasons. Indeed he was a CP member--it would have been difficult to get where he did without membership--he was, however, expelled in 1989).¹ Evidence that I have come across researching a related issue for my dissertation suggests that he never served in Soviet government organs (and certainly never served in the CPSU apparat).² Do you (or anyone else) have evidence to the contrary? If so, I would be interested to see it (if not, I will delete the claim from the article). Thanks for devoting so much time to this great resource! John
¹ See (among others): Viktor Diukarev, Pridnestrov’e'—-proshloe, nastoiashchee, budushchee, za kulisami politiki. (Tiraspol’: Uprpoligrafizdat PMR, 2000), 121.
² See (among others): Efim Bershin, Dikoe pole: Pridnestrovskii razlom (Moscow: Tekst, 2002), 21-22.
: Hi Jamason! No, there is no evidence for the "served on various local councils" part, unless you count the trade union as a council and/or the OSTK (Obedenenie Sovietov Trudovyh Kolektivov); active in Transnistria at the very end of the Soviet era. The statement on the various local councils probably came from someone who saw the oft-repeated misinformation that Smirnov was mayor of Tiraspol (which he never was) and couldn't find evidence for it, but then decided to soften it. If you want to find more about Smirnov, the best resource is a book called "Leader". Olvia Press has a copy of it on its website, here: http://www.olvia.idknet.com/soderjanie.htm - note that it a puff-piece (nothing negative) but it has a lot of well-researched biographical information and all of it checks out. - Mauco 21:29, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: William: Thanks for the _Lider_ link! JM Jamason 22:45, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're welcome. It is actually a good book, despite its title which is straight out of North Korea. Also, some of the writing is very sugary, with no criticism at all. But it has a lot of info and none of it is false. It all stands up to research. The only "misrepresentation" is that the author left out any mention of Smirnov's negatives so if he has any, we are forced to learn about them from other sources. Apparently Smirnov is a coward (says Victor Barsan, Romanian author of a whitepaper on the Ilascu trial) and rude (says Edward Lucas, Eastern Europe correspondent for The Economist). It may be true, or they may have an axe to grind. I wouldn't know. - Mauco 01:15, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Indeed. It is a great example (which I had previously overlooked, so thank you again) of the "internationalist" discourse endemic to the OSTK movement (and moreover very useful to me for the project I mentioned above--I am in the early stages of researching a dissertation on the crafting of this discourse by OSTK activists during the collapse of the Soviet Union). I would probably take the Barsan comment with a grain of salt--it sounds like a cheap shot, although I don't remember the context (I think I missed that comment when I was skimming the book!)     One other thing I should have noted in my last comment: I was taking it for granted that we both considered 1990 "post-Soviet" in some significant sense in this context. In 1990, relatively free and open elections occurred across Moldova¹ and leaders emerged both republic-wide and locally in Pridnestrov'e that were "anti-communist" in significant ways. One of those elected in 1990 was Igor Smirnov--both to the MSSR Supreme Soviet and to the city soviet (gorsovet) of Tiraspol. Hence, although he did become the Tiraspol gorsovet chairman in 1990, I thought it misleading to say that he "served on various local councils during the Soviet era," which to me implies, first, that he was a career politician before his entry into politics during the Soviet collapse (which is untrue) and, second, therefore paints him as a communist functionary (an interpretational fallacy, I believe, though, of course, I do not mean to portray him too positively either). At any rate, sorry for the original lack of clarity. When I finish _Lider_, I will compile some of the information I have picked up on Smirnov during my readings and try to flesh out the 1989-1991 period in the article itself.     Best wishes, as always. And, by the way, can I pick your brain for more source ideas some time in the near future? Thanks! Jamason 08:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, the Barsan comment about Smirnov being a coward should maybe be taken with a grain of salt. It is not in the "Leader"-book, but came from a white-paper which he wrote in the late 1990's to get the Ilascu group freed. But the paper has a lot of other unsubstantiated allegations, too, and is basically an advocacy screed with some of the facts that don't withstand further research. Likewise, the Edward Lucas comment is also not in the book. It was a personal comment. He got upset because the first time that he went to do an interview in PMR, Smirnov commented on Edward Lucas' bad haircut and Lucas thought that this was rude. In return, he (Lucas) called PMR a "tinpot dictatorship" which is, when you think about it, actually kind of rude, too. - Mauco 13:20, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Smirnov before the Soviet collapse 

message: By the way, I found this link which was published last week. Interview with ICDISS, International Council for Democratic Institutions and State Sovereignty. Deep in the article itself (scroll down) it comments on Socor's wildeyed claims and it turns out that the IP thing is quite a stretch of the truth. But what else would you expect from Vlad Socor, that just takes the prize, or the Jamestown Foundation. In fact there are more than 800 sites sharing the same IP and some of them deal with the work that is done in other countries in the region, apart from Transnistria, like support for Maidan square, the "Orange revolution", etc. - Mauco 16:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Socor's arguments do have some flaws, but the whole situation still appears very suspicious. None of the "authors" seem to have added this work to their list of publications, in fact they all denied working on it here though the source is in Romanian, it is a credible oneand I am convinced of the veracity of their investigations. Some of the supposed writers actually did accuse the forgers of plagiarism as some of the text was taken from a report on Karabakh, here Socor was right. Some of the arguments presented in the report appear to be too removed from common notions of international law to fit the style of the renowned experts linked with it. I am convinced to a high degree that the report was a farce. TSO1D 19:12, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yes, it appears suspicious because Socor and his hardline Romanian friends say so. That is their whole point. But who are the supposed writers, according to the NGO? I have the report, and there are no claims to that effect. If Olvia Press made some claims, and they were picked up by Regnum, then you can hardly blame the organization for that (which is what Socor does, even to the point of involving the Kremlin). And be careful when you say that "as some of the text was taken from a report on Karabakh, here Socor was right" because Vladimir Socor is NOT right on that count either. He has NOT shown this text, Ziua hasn't either, in fact no one has. In this is context it is so funny because Socor-the-pot is blaming the kettle for supposedly substandard scholarly research. There is only one report ever written by Williams and Scharf on NKR, available both on the website of New England Center for International Law and Policy and also from the NKR ministry of foreign affairs, so it is fairly easy to compare the two. If you were to do it which I think you can do with software if you don't want to wade through the text of both of them then it would be impossible to afterwards come back to say precisely which portions of the text was taken from where. And if some of the conclusions are the same, then that only tells you that both reports are on track, or equally off track, as the case may be, but this is not what Socor is claiming either. He prefers to use some pretty slimy below the belt arguments instead. - Mauco 19:41, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it was Michael Scharf who stated that the new report seemed to have some parts derived from his and Williams's on NKR. As for their names, I agree that the report itself does not list those names, actually it doesn't list any authors, which is indeed odd. A Google search for the Euro-Atlantic Joint Forum brings up almost nothing which is certainly not proof of anything by itself, but is still pretty strange. ICDISS also appears very rarely for its existing history. Then this "center" also published other studies that seem to suggest that the new Ukr. customs regulations are de facto a blockade and implies that the OSCE and EU disapprove of the measure and that even Moldovans disapprove of them according to a poll. Some of these statements are misleading, others are pure lies. I don't see how any serious Western center would have published such non-sense. TSO1D 20:33, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Maybe we should wait for the final version to come out. That one above is marked draft. I haven't done much scholarly work myself, but what little experience I have in the field tells me that usually non-sense and misleading statements tend to disappear as a result of peer review. If not, then you have my vote, TSO1D, and I second your conclusions. - Mauco 21:25, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: ICDISS

message: Komsorg is not a trade-union organizer anyway. It is Komsomol Organizer. --Planemo 17:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: True. komsomol'skii organizator. I will change it in the article. jamason 22:35, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Komsorg 

message: (...) [previous discussion in user talk pages of Dc76 and RetroS1mone]
"National leader" carries the meaning of head of one of the 193 world nations. Transnistria is a breakaway entity, but even Transnistria does not claim to be a nation. I replaced with :Category:20th-century rulers and :Category:21st-century rulers. About :Category:Ukrainian politicians, normally it includes politicians of Ukraine the country. Otherwise, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be an Austrian politician :):) I believe Smirnov should be removed from this category as well. He does have Russian citizenship, so to some extent one can say he is a "Russian politician" (although this, too, is a bit stretched), but he does not have a Ukrainian citizenship. Also, I sincerely doubt he is a believer, so whoever added that category (Orthodox Christians) should, I would humbly ask, come with a reference. My impression is that he is non-religious. As long as we are not sure, I suggest not to include such categories where he might be listed on a par with a saint. Also, I would like to mention one detail: he is in :Category:Presidents of Transnistria, and if that category is subcategory of another category, he does not have to be both in the subcat and in the cat. In fact it is recommended. Therefore for example he is not in :Category:Politics of Transnistria, b/c Category:Presidents of Transnistria is already subcat there. Dc76\talk 10:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: why is this not mentioned anywhere in the article?
http://www.angelfire.com/or/mctrl/strangelove.htm
i have found it many places online, a supposed newsweek article from Aug. 22, 1994. if this is real, which i don't doubt it is, why is nothing about his work in subliminal technologies mentioned?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.173.252.221 (talk) 00:08, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  CAN SOMEONE PLEASE VERIFY THIS 

message: Re the "Smirnov after the war" section: is there a good reason for providing such detailed information on the election here?Jimjamjak (talk) 13:14, 30 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Election details 

message: There was a tag on this article claiming it needed citations. I added a citation to the body of the article and removed the tag. If there are still concerns about claims made in the article, please specify where they are; citations can probably be found if it's clear what it is that needs a source. jamason (talk) 22:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Citation Needed Tag

message: this is really funny
: It was funny the first time around, like, 5 years ago. Now it's old and tired. --illythr (talk) 12:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: santa clous

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: No offence to the one editor who contributed, but I feel like this picture of him in what appears to resemblance a striped t-shirt is rather odd as a serious world leader. Surely we can find him in better attires. 
Quangsp (talk) 01:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other portrait photo 

message: An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect :Igor Smirnov (politic) and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at  until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.  Joy [shallot] (talk) 16:37, 29 December 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Igor Smirnov (politic)" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]]