Talk:Holodomor/Archive 1

message: It turns out that the propaganda piece was plagiarised. Another testament to the integrity of our friendly neighbourhood propagandists. Shorne 00:33, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I second the concern about the name. But the wider topic of the famine doesn't preclude a specific article about famine in Ukraine. By the way, "holodomor" is simply Ukrainian for "famine", and there is no compelling reason to put it as title. Mikkalai 08:06, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Plagiarism 

message: Some time ago without much thought I  threw some info into Famine article, that had sections by country.  Now I see it will be far better visible and usable as a separate one: Famines in Russia and USSR. Mikkalai 23:38, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famines 

message: Since John Kenney and Mikkalai have both made this edit, let me spell out my objection.  We are writing an encyclopedia article about a thing, not a word.  It should answer the question, “What is the Holodomor?”, and not the question “What is the word ‘Holodomor’?”.  The formula “Word is a term for” is redundant.  That is what a word is.  In this situation, the fact that we state that the Holodomor was the 1932-3 famine in Ukraine indicates that, in our judgement, ‘Holodomor’ is a term for the famine.  The formula, which properly requires quotation marks or italics, would produce such openings as:<BR>
— ‘Franklin Delano Roosevelt’ was the full given name of the thirty-second president<BR>
rather than<BR>
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the thirty-second president<BR>
and<BR>
— ‘China’ is the English word for a country in eastern Asia<BR>
rather than<BR>
— China is a country in eastern Asia<BR>
Persons who read our encyclopedia are already expecting that we are going to tell them what the big, bold word at the top is a term for.  The whole article is our explanation of what the word is a term for, and we do not need to walk them through it.  <BR>— Ford 17:51, 2005 Feb 11 (UTC)
: Good points.  But does the article still recognize or satisfy the concerns of users who feel that: "To treat this subject as a national terror-famine in Holodomor actually minimizes the impact, as opposed to treating it in its proper context in collectivization in the USSR"?  —Michael Z. 2005-02-11 18:23 Z
:Yes, the points are good. But please read the article carefully. It is a about the term, not about the event. Please keep in mind that articles about terms are perfectly legitimate in wikipedia, provided that the artcle is more than a dicdef.
:I am going to write an article about the actual famine, as a continuation of my Famines in Russia and USSR. 
:Also, I find it correct to split the discussion of the event itself and of the politically loaded term (which popped up fairly recently, AFAIK (I am speaking about the usage of the word worldwide)). Mikkalai 19:46, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The case of Rooselevt is not exactly applicable. Here is an example from my recent wikiwork. Bro: The common colloquial word bro, short for 'brother', describes a close friend, comrade, or pal. The article is about a word and its usage, just like "holodomor". Mikkalai 19:55, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Terms versus things

message: I always assumed the word came from "holodo-", pertaining to famine, and "mor", from the French or Latin "mort", death. Anyone know if that's correct?  —Michael Z. 2005-02-11 19:51 Z
:Mor is an old East Slavic word to describe (1) massive nonviolent deaths, like in epidemy and also (2) (seemingly nonviolent) actions that cause such deaths. Of direct relevance to the "holodomor" word is the cliche "morit' golodom", i.e., make someone to die by depriving them of food, i.e., "holodomor" is actually a correctly constructed noun for this verb phrase. Mikkalai 19:59, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As for the origin of the word "mor", since it concerns the very basic issue of death, I would guess, it is of common Indo-European roots, but I may be wrong. Mikkalai 20:10, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, it is. (alhough I am not Ukrainian). And BTW, after some thinking I decided to bury my  hatchet, although I still disagree with you. Mikkalai 20:29, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymology 

message: "The Ukraine as a German territory
At Hitler’s side in the German leadership was Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, the man in charge of inculcating the Nazi dream into the German people. This was a dream of a racially pure people living in a Greater Germany, a country with broad lebensraum, a wide space in which to live. One part of this lebensraum, an area to the east of Germany which was, indeed, far larger than Germany itself, had yet to be conquered and incorporated into the German nation. In 1925, in Mein Kampf, Hitler had already pointed to the Ukraine as an essential part of this German living space. The Ukraine and other regions of Eastern Europe needed to belong to the German nation so that they could be utilised in a ‘proper’ manner. According to Nazi propaganda, the Nazi sword would liberate this territory in order to make space forthe German race. With German technology and German enterprise, the Ukraine would be transformed into an area producing cereals for Germany. But first the Germans had to liberate the Ukraine of its population of ‘inferior beings’ who, according to Nazi propaganda, would be put to work as a slave labour force in German homes, factories and fields - anywhere they were needed by the German economy.
The conquest of the Ukraine and other areas of the Soviet Union would necessitate war against the Soviet Union, and this war had to be prepared well in advance. To this end the Nazi propaganda ministry, headed by Goebbels, began a campaign around a supposed genocide committed by the Bolsheviks in the Ukraine, a dreadful period of catastrophic famine deliberately provoked by Stalin in order to force the peasantry to accept socialist policy. The purpose of the Nazi campaign was to prepare world public opinion for the ‘liberation’ of the Ukraine by German troops. Despite huge efforts and in spite of the fact that some of the German propaganda texts were published in the English press, the Nazi campaign around the supposed ‘genocide’ in the Ukraine was not very successful at the world level. It was clear that Hitler and Goebbels needed help in spreading their libellous rumours about the Soviet Union. That help they found in the USA."1
To whoever wrote the last two paragraphs, this is socialist lying at its very best.  The Holodomor in Ukraine (note the lack of 'the' before the name - another socialist trick to minimize an ethnic group) has been well documented around the world, including by the Soviets.  Walter Duranty reported that no such famine had/was occured/occuring and received a Pulitzer prize for his lies.  The New York Times has since seen the error of their ways and admitted that his work was based on Soviet propaganda.  They have even affixed a plaque to this effect under his picture in their headquarters.  Duranty even admitted he lied to his friends!  This discussion page is not supposed to be for holocaust deniers. --JulianM 19:09, 10 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Nazi propaganda war against the Soviet Union 

message: Using the word "totalitrian" in the sentence "Stalin's totalitarian regime against the Ukrainian nation." has a very sharp bias towards the Soviet Union. Some people would argue that the USSR was infact not totalitarian. Such as Anna Louise Strong. Also removed Joseph Stalin's Regime and replaced it with Soviet Government.
Well, Ernst Zundel does not think the Nazis were a dictatorship. So what? Some morally questionable supporter of Stalin's totalitarianism thinks the word should not be used. What Zundel or Strong or other supporters of totalitarians think really should not matter when describing totalitarian regimes. There are folks out there who think North Korea really IS a democracy. So what???
--80.228.155.166 18:51, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removed "Totalitarian"

message: I am actually quite ticked off that the Tottle book is given so much prominence in that article. Imagine the Shoa was not a very promiment topic these days, and you look it up on wikipedia. Further imagine that you would find, say, the book "Did six million really die" in the intro, and it would be introduced as so-and-so says there actually was no deliberate mass killing of Jews - sure, many died, but to say that was deliberate is a zionist fiction. Well, this is pretty much what that article does. Tottle should be taken out of there, because he has no credibility whatsoever. It's like saying that while Raul Hilberg says this and this, Arthur Butz says this. Those two are not just not in the same league, they are hardly playing the same sport. 
If there is no objection, I am going to remove the section, and I will rewrite the article (providing proper references, however, by which I mean academic article, not web-pages)
--Dietwald 08:02, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Tottle stuff should remain, I think he has a good deal of credibility. So count that as an objection (and an objection to your proposed re-write as well). Everyking 08:23, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

text: Until provided with evidence to the contrary, I remain that Tottle has no credibility. HOWEVER, I am going to leave the paragraph that refers to him, though I am going to edit it to reflect the status of Tottle's ideas. 
If you do not agree with that change in his paragraph, please edit it, but do not revert the whole article. I have, after all, significantly expanded it as well, and have tried to retain NPOV throughout. 
I will also leave in a reference to Tottle's book. It disgusts me to do so, but I respect your objection. 
--Dietwald 15:24, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Remove Tottle - his book, or he, has no credibility

message: This section is too long: it should be divided in two - one describing the Causes, the other the Outcomes; I think someone (who's probably spending too much time on the Discussion page) needs to sit down and take out the scalpel. Recognising that it's a touchy and tricky subject (see some of the odd talk on this page about Nazis and Jews), I've taken the liberty of revising some of the syntax in section 3, concerning genocide - this is only for the purpose of clarification on behalf of readers, and I take no part in the debate. I wish everyone well, but now I'm out of here.--shtove 00:12, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Causes and Outcomes: needs to be divided 

message: I am not very happy with the changes made to the causes and outcome section. There is far too much criticism on Conquest in there, and while there may have been heavy criticism of his work at the time of the publishing, I am of the opinion that the current additions to the text have an almost apologist flavour - they make it seem as if Conquest's description was wrong, and hence the description of the holodomor is wrong. If there are no objections, I am going to take some of the stuff out.
Dietwald 09:48, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent Changes - Conquest 

message: While it was part of the larger famine in the Soviet Union, which also affected Kazakhstan, the German-inhabited middle Volga region, and especially the Don and Kuban Cossack territories of the Rostov and Krasnodar areas --Shadypalm88 19:58, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonsensical sentence in first paragraph 

message: I think this is an important fact for people to mention. My wife is from Rovno and I lived there for five years. As Rovno was then in Poland and was also the closest to Ukraine proper, it did not come under the famine, but the climatic conditions must have been very similar. I think that this is important to take note of, and maybe put that as one of the cotributing factors to the famine. All of what is said next was told to me by locals, yet I am sure that records exist (probably in Warsaw) that will confirm these details.
The winter of 1931-32 was very cold and long, the late thaw put off the crop by a whole month and a half, the year itself was very wet and colder than normal. So even though the crop yield was sufficient the quality of it left more to be desired. The winter of 1932-33 on the other hand was much warmer and the thaw was earlier than normal, but the summer itself was very dry and insufficient moisture from rainfall caused a very poor crop yield (lowest in a decade as one old woman told me). The crop of 1934 on the other hand was magnificent. 
So what do people make of this? Kuban kazak 20:52, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What I make out of this is that your anecdotal evidence supports the notion that the famine was not unavoidable, but in fact the result of deliberate policies (though not necessarily targetted at genocide). Dietwald 21:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well you made it out wrong. The crop was not bad enough to starve people, it was simply lower than normal. In reference to causes, all I am saying that if the years were say 1934 and 35 (when crop yield was excellent), the SCALE of the catastrophe would not have been so large. I am saying that the climatic effects (anectodical as it may seem) contributed to the effect (of course they were not the dominant contribution which was the USSR's abuse of agriculture) but they had their part. Again I am sure there is evidence to confirm this. Kuban kazak 21:13, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Volyn Crop

message: Columbia Encyclopedia is grossly mistaken here. Just as Turkey and Iran do not count to "Transcaucasia", so Stavropol Krai and Krasnodar Krai are not in North Caucasus. They do include parts of North Caucasus, but most of them is known as Forecaucasus. It is only from the opposite side of the globe everything seem in one point. Sea of Azov in North Caucasus... Ridiculous. mikka (t) 02:38, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well its wrong. The Prikavkazye yes, but North Caucusus is determined by the non-steppe territory of the Large Caucasian ridge, the ridge begins roughly around Sochi and continues into the Kaspia. The only Kuban part of the North Caucusus is Karachaevo-Cherkessia and Adygeya, but then those people are not Ukranians.Kuban kazak 14:33, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The North Caucasus article is mistaken in that it confuses North Caucasus and North Caucasus Economical Region. It is like to say that Moscow Oblast and Moscow are the same. mikka (t) 16:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Not just "economical region", According to my reference above from Russia, Rostov-on-Don is the center of the North Caucasus district of Russia.--Andrew Alexander 07:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Geography 

message: Dear Kazache, Huculs from Karpaty believe that Jesus was also a Hucul. I’m sure they can prove it using a couple of publications from “reputable” newspapers or by organizing voting in the region. Your favorite article or its  original and this type of citations of results of Kuban census: “in 2002 the Russian census finally allowed the Cossacks to be declared as a separate group, with an ability to specify it as ethnicity. The "Ukrainian" box received 0.0% ticks.” that you readily insert in all appropriate and not appropriate places all over WP have equal credibility. I do not want to analyze the “article” from professional point of view (though I am of appropriate qualification to make such analysis). I will just cite most “notable” phrases from the above named source that do not require special training to understand (Sorry, it will be in the original language):
“…с точки зрения повышения производительности труда выгоднее размещать тонкие высокотехнологичные сборочные производства на юге России, где пальцы населения наиболее приспособлены для сборки микропроцессоров, а горячие и не требующие тонкой моторики кистей рук производства (сталелитейные и подобного типа) -- на севере.” Till now I was convinced that microprocessors are assembled by robots.
:Didn't you ever hear a joke that "... And our Party proudly declares that Soviet microchip are the largest in the world :-)". Anyway, you will be surprized how much manual labor is involved in assembly of electronic goods. That's why Sony, Philips, etc., have their plants all over Brazil, China, etc. But of course the quotation is bullshit. mikka (t) 02:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, French have several very distint genotypes, so no big wonder the "average French" was not very French. The same is with many larger nations. But the remark is silly, indeed. mikka (t) 02:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Sorry, I probably missed something: what "kubanization" is spoken about? You are free to joke inside the text, but the beginning and the end must be clear what exactly you are proposing. This is not a chat room. We are working on improvement of articles. I guess you want to remove "kubanization". Define, please. I don't see significant "kubanization" of this article whatever it may mean. mikka (t) 02:40, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyway, speaking on the topic, is there an article 2002 census in Russia Russian 2002 census,Russia 2002 census, or even simply Russian Census like there are United States 2000 Census and U.S. Census? Maybe in ru:wikipedia? mikka (t) 02:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was working on the Russian census series.  Considering the pace, it will be ready in the nearest 10-20 years, especially considering the fact that most of my work went the way of the dodo after the HDD crash :(  So far, I have neither time nor inspiration to start over.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 02:53, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  Hi Mikka, I do not mean only this article. You seems to have solved that knot here after long struggle. I mean that Kazak inserts his "5 Kuban cents" everywhere in the WP. Usually it looks similar to this (from Kuban Cossacks at the moment): An intersting point is that the Kuban Cossacks never agreed to identify themselves of Russian or Ukrainian descent but more of a separate Rus'ian subgroup. When in 1926 a census was passed to determine wether Cossacks were Russian or Ukrainian absoloutely everyone of Cossack descent refused to aknowledge belonging to one ethnic group or another (in the end the census had to split them half and half). Since then they have found themselves occasionaly used as a political chesspiece in the Russian-Ukrainian relations. Nevertheless in 2002 the Russian census finally allowed the Cossacks to be declared as a separate group, with an ability to specify it as ethnicity. The "Ukrainian" box under the Cossack heading recieved 0.0% ticks. In 2005 a genetic study was published and revealed even more astonishing details that the Kuban territories' gene pool was by far the purest of all the Russian samples.
After I gave him these numbers from 2002 Russian census (from his own link ): 
Republic           	Total  	Cossaks      	Ukrainians    	Ukrainians (rural)
Adygea             	447109 	470 (0.11%)  	9091 (2.03%)  	3512 (0.79%)
Kabardino-Balkaria 	901494 	307 (0.03%)  	7592 (0.84%)  	1410 (0.15%)
Karachay-Cherkessia	439470 	2501 (0.57%) 	3331 (0.77%)  	1191 (0.27%)
Krasnodar Krai     	5125221	17542 (0.34%)	131774 (2.57%)	55754 (1.09%)
TOTAL in Kuban     	6913294	20820 (0.3%) 	151788 (2.2%) 	61867 (0.9%)
he keeps reverting to the above paragraph. It has nothing to do with Holodomor at the moment, so forget about it. BTW, did anybody see data on 1926 Census online?
--Bryndza 14:31, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

text:  The subject is mentioned in the article and was an object of hot dispute. I leave these data here in case if these questions arise again. The article is being edited yet. It would be good idea to collect such factual data in some place to have them handy for argumentations.--Bryndza 21:35, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  On "Kubanization" by Kuban Kazak 

message: So, what's this stupid, stupid, stupid Kuban discussion in here???????? Mention it, stop this ethnicity bull, ok? It's beginning to be really, really idiotic. Ethnicity, shmethnicity. Is this carrying out of petty ethnic squabbles really relevant to the discussion??????Dietwald 14:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I feel the same way about this silly discussion, however on all four times that I archived the converstation it was reverted. Feel free to archive it.-- Kuban kazak 15:30, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Holodomor is about Ukraine, no?

message: the rapid changes over recent days have made the article a holy mess. I think we should try to clean up the grammar and style very soon... 
Dietwald 14:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Quality

message: Pleae stop writing out of nowhere and edition war. Please read articles and works at the end of :uk:Голодомор (especially by Kulchitskiy) (in Ukrainian).  By the way tomorrow :uk:Голодомор will become featured article of the week, although I was against. The article is not so good, but however I've copied something from Kulchitskiy to make it not so non-sense. Ilya K 16:12, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not read Ukrainian version yet, but I will try to do so soon, but the your edit is by far the most neutral we had, so well done. Don't blame an international encyclopedia for this though, lets keep the lid on the kettle. А то тут некоторые (не будем пальцами показывать) так закипитяться.... Kuban kazak 16:27, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have read it (well scanned it) and I must say excellent piece of work.Kuban kazak 16:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia sucks!!!! 

message: :I never knew that my fellow countrymen were such bickering little schoolgirls (not omitting international presence of course) In reference to your latest comment Kuban' Kaza4ok, the accents of Odessa and Volgograd vary greatly to someone brought up there. theres no need to get so worked up about it. Anyway i wanted to ask about the url for this page; it says holodomor, but uh holod means cold, not hunger. in translite it would be golodomor would it not? after all, in both ukranian and russian its written as Голодомор, indicating a hard Г, which sounds similar to the 'g' in good.
::Well I am sorry I never new that we had such countrymen as well, and who might you be? The president? Have you ever been in Rostov or Odessa? Have a listen to how people pronounce Gs there my little nurserygirl. Kuban kazak 09:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Plus, "Of direct relevance to the "holodomor" word is the cliche "morit' golodom", i.e., make someone to die by depriving them of food, i.e., "holodomor" is actually a correctly constructed noun for this verb phrase. Mikkalai 19:59, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: *My guess is Romanization of Ukrainian, see scholarly romanization–Gnomz007(?) 03:52, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *Mikkalai wrote in Russian: "morit' golodom". You may continue to laugh. Good for your health. mikka (t) 06:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: title

message: And this is exactly what I tried to avoid by putting actual references in the intro -- silly revert wars. The article hasn't even been started being cleaned up from the mess of personal opinions and unproven statements. To "rely" on that article, especially with a few editors tending to change its text right under your feet without a single reference, it extremely hard. I was trying to "peg" more or less each "controversial" (or claimed to be) statement with references. This way we can rely on something stable instead of being jerked around by reverts and deletions. Why is it so hard to get something that should be natural in any encyclopedia writing -- stable and gradual improvement of the relied upon sources? Is that because people simply don't want any reasonable and agreeable text here?--Andrew Alexander 22:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: To be fair quotes do not belong in lead paragraphs, especially third party quotes, although I agree that the edit wars are rediculously silly, I still think that its better to have a neutral third person opinion rather than direct number-links "polluting" the article. It may not be the rules, but no sensible encyclopedias do that, put third-party quotes into historical articles. I mean at the end of the day it has to sound professional as well. Check the Ukrainian version. Well done to those people. They have managed to sort out all their problems and avoid direct references in the lead. -- Kuban kazak 23:27, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

text: What's wrong with you, man? Your U.S. commission citation is in full in the text! I am pointing this to you here for the third time! Cool down. Also it is "our" including "you"; sorry, English language does not have this exact pronoun. "Our" meaning "wikipedia's", not Ukr Gov nor US Gov nor Encyclopedia Britannica.  mikka (t) 00:41, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Hey I have as of the way things stand currentely have no objections to constructive, informative additions. I would like the named users to explain their actions as well. Kuban kazak 23:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "This is a summary of our article"