Talk:Alexandru Nicolschi
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An entry from Alexandru Nicolschi appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on January 2, 2007. |  |
I like Marius Oprea and all (btw, we should have an article on him in the future), but a link titled "Let's piss on their graves" has a major problem, no matter how preciously detailed and impartial its content actually is. I'm afraid we'll have to compensate by tapping into other resources. Dahn 03:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I'm not sure who he is, but I found his article quite informative. And, yes, it took me a while to understand what the title meant (the diacritics were mangled) -- I shied away from translating it. On the other hand, what he's talking about can elicit strong reactions (yes?). Actually, this reminds me of the tile of a novel, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes, by Boris Vian... Turgidson 04:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I found an article where all the information on his biography is backed, although not in as many details. Don't get me wrong, Oprea's is informative, but we can avoid the entire potential debate by simply not linking it (it did bring Vian to my mind as well...); I'm guessing that, in case Oprea were a witness to the events or a victim, the title would not pose as much problems. Btw, I'll b removing the reference to his book in the process, as we should not reference what we have not consulted. Dahn 04:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- (I propose dropping references to alternative or original names of persons other than Nicolski himself in the article, as they would be clarified in the respective articles - despite the fact that a large number of sources still mention "Pintilie" by his original name, we shpuld stick with what he chose for himself; this also spares us the potential trouble of whether to transliterate it from Ukrainian or from Russian, which is a big deal for similar cases on wikipedia... don't ask...) Dahn 04:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I agree, Oprea's online article is not up to standards -- if nothing else, the typography is atrocious. But the facts appear to be rather coherently presented, and most likely true, especially when most were backed up by other sources. (In the meantime, I also looked at the Tismaneanu report, and it all gibes). My hunch is that Oprea's article is a (rather poorly executed) cut-and-paste from his book. But unfortunately, as you guessed, I could not access his book, so I only mentioned it as an external source (the book was mentioned in other places, too.) At any rate, good point -- better to leave it out till someone can actually check it. As for the transliterations, I wasn't aware of the potential trouble (it's also done on the Securitate page). The main reason I wanted to have the alternate names was to make it possible to quote Corvin Lupu, who only mentions the names those people had at birth. This issue will keep posing a problem, looks like, but not insurmountable. Turgidson 05:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I believe we should have an article under "Pintilie", and redirect all versions to there,which should leave us with a neutral result. Of course, all of this is in the future - I have a limit of one torturer per day, as I actually want to avoid having nightmares about them :). I admit I have not looked into the Securitate article,
but I'm betting it is full of errors and POVs(IMO, refrencing the "foreign names" ad nauseam is a side effect of the xenophobia that has sadly triumphed on Romanian wikipedia... it really serves no academic purpose). Dahn 05:32, 29 December 2006 (UTC) - (For direct quotes with ambiguous potential, might I suggest turning "blah blah blah Pantelimon Bodnarenko blah blah" into "blah blah blah [Gheorghe Pintilie] blah blah"?) Dahn 05:34, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Again, wow! Article looks very thorough and researched to me (I wish I had all those books to consult, too -- sigh...). As for the plan with the naming conventions, sounds good to me. Generally speaking, one refers to public figures (including writers, actors, whatever) by their professional/adopted names, not by the names they carried at birth, as long as the chosen names are well-established. One little thing: I put the Lupu reference since I did not have many sources available (eg, to confirm Nicholschi's birth name). But now with all the other detailed sources you quoted, it may not be necessary to include this article? I still found it rather informative as general background on some aspects of the era, maybe it can be put to better use as a reference in another article? Turgidson 13:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks. I'm afraid I hadn't looked through the article in question, and, having done so, I find it to be below the quality expected from a source. It is also spurious. Yes, I will remove it, and, hopefully, we will not be debating whether to source it on other pages. I see, for example that it is branded as negationist by Lupu's peers, and I fully agree with the assessment. Dahn 14:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Allright. Sorry for not reading the article more carefully before referring to it. I was in a bit of hurry to get the Nicholschi article off the ground, and it's not so easy to wade through the mass of data from the internet, a lot of which is ob dubious quality or reliability. Turgidson 15:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- I see. No problem. Dahn 15:50, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Allright. Sorry for not reading the article more carefully before referring to it. I was in a bit of hurry to get the Nicholschi article off the ground, and it's not so easy to wade through the mass of data from the internet, a lot of which is ob dubious quality or reliability. Turgidson 15:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks. I'm afraid I hadn't looked through the article in question, and, having done so, I find it to be below the quality expected from a source. It is also spurious. Yes, I will remove it, and, hopefully, we will not be debating whether to source it on other pages. I see, for example that it is branded as negationist by Lupu's peers, and I fully agree with the assessment. Dahn 14:55, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
- Again, wow! Article looks very thorough and researched to me (I wish I had all those books to consult, too -- sigh...). As for the plan with the naming conventions, sounds good to me. Generally speaking, one refers to public figures (including writers, actors, whatever) by their professional/adopted names, not by the names they carried at birth, as long as the chosen names are well-established. One little thing: I put the Lupu reference since I did not have many sources available (eg, to confirm Nicholschi's birth name). But now with all the other detailed sources you quoted, it may not be necessary to include this article? I still found it rather informative as general background on some aspects of the era, maybe it can be put to better use as a reference in another article? Turgidson 13:49, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
- I believe we should have an article under "Pintilie", and redirect all versions to there,which should leave us with a neutral result. Of course, all of this is in the future - I have a limit of one torturer per day, as I actually want to avoid having nightmares about them :). I admit I have not looked into the Securitate article,
- I agree, Oprea's online article is not up to standards -- if nothing else, the typography is atrocious. But the facts appear to be rather coherently presented, and most likely true, especially when most were backed up by other sources. (In the meantime, I also looked at the Tismaneanu report, and it all gibes). My hunch is that Oprea's article is a (rather poorly executed) cut-and-paste from his book. But unfortunately, as you guessed, I could not access his book, so I only mentioned it as an external source (the book was mentioned in other places, too.) At any rate, good point -- better to leave it out till someone can actually check it. As for the transliterations, I wasn't aware of the potential trouble (it's also done on the Securitate page). The main reason I wanted to have the alternate names was to make it possible to quote Corvin Lupu, who only mentions the names those people had at birth. This issue will keep posing a problem, looks like, but not insurmountable. Turgidson 05:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Ion Antonescu's Romania?
Now that AdrianTM has brought it up, this formulation does sound kind of odd, and perhaps even demeaning to the country and its people: Did Romania really belong to Ion Antonescu in May, 1941? He was indeed the dictator at the time, but that, in and of itself, did not make the country belong to him. So, while I agree it may be relevant to indicate who was in power at the time, I'd be in favor of a more factual (and neutral) way to say it. (I, for one, would never use an expression like, say, "Ceauşescu's Romania", but rather, "Romania during Ceauşescu's time", or some such construct). And, by the way, Antonescu was appointed Prime-Minister by King Carol II on September 6, 1940, a date that precedes Nicholschi's becoming a Soviet citizen, and starting training as an NKVD agent (in December, 1940). Thus, if one wants to emphasize who was in power in Romania at that time (though I'm not quite sure to what degree, if any, that would explain Nicholschi's actions in 1941), perhaps mention of Antonescu's rise to power should be made earlier? Turgidson 01:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- I agree, I think that's demeaning and POVish in a sense that can be used as an excuse "he didn't spy Romania, he spied Antonescu's Romania". "Romania during the Antonescu regime" could be use instead of demeaning "Antonescu's Romania" that would still sound a little POVish, but at least is not demeaning. -- AdrianTM 01:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Yes, that was my concern, too. I'm sure this is not the intention of the current formulation, but I'm concerned that others may construe it that way, and I would find that unfortunate. "Romania during the Antonescu regime" is a perfectly neutral formulation in my opinion (as long as it's put in the right place, with the right balance and emphasis). By the way, I've seen discussions on other talk pages about whether the word "regime" itself is neutral -- and, while my personal opinion is that it's not quite, though again it depends on context -- in the context of Romania during World War II I think it is well-established, and appropiate, if used judiciously. Turgidson 01:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I will answer to Turgidson's concerns, I will not answer to AdrianTM's (since his interpretation is solely based on the speculation that, given he could read a "hidden intent" in a text, the text had a hidden intent). I would first like to ask Turgidson to include in his assessment the fact that the sentence does not in fact directly involve Antonescu or Nicolschi, and that I used it merely as a necessary instrument in editing an article to serve the casual reader. This is not a question of "neutrality", and I'm rather surprised that we are discussing the matter from this perspective.
There are several reasons for this. For one, I think good editing should include all links that set the scene for events described. Secondly, it is always preferable for a reader to link to a regime, and not to a country (French Directory and First French Empire instead of France; Nazi Germany instead of Germany; etc.). Note, please, that there is no such article for Antonescu's regime, and there cannot be one (creating one for the sake of it would simply be forking content from the Antonescu page, would be redundant to the overview of WWII in Romania, and would not be legitimized by scholarly usage). Yes, I too would have preferred using something like "Romania during x's time", but you tell me if the phrase it was encapsulated in would be intelligible if I were to use that. I simply went with an alternative that seemed to be perfectly reasonable (I still think it is).
Furthermore, formulations such as "Winston Churchill's Britain" are widespread for similar concepts; to make an "academic" point, I would like to stress that, if the latter is used without fear of it being understood that "x owned y", then it could clearly work for Romania (in whatever scheme, Antonescu "owned" Romania more than Churchill did England). With this in mind, "in Antonescu's time" could mean, using the same arguments ad absurdum, that Antonescu owned time itself... Dahn 02:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- There are several arguments within arguments in here (like Matryoshka dolls), but let me just address one narrow issue -- I'll need to think more about the rest. Perhaps it's just me, but I never heard the expression "Winston Churchill's Britain" -- though I'm a great fan of Sir Winston. To my ears (and, I suspect, to the ears of many other readers from the U.S., at least those born more than 35-40 years ago), the instinctive association would rather be with Senator Ted Kennedy's speech on the floor of the Senate in 1987, in opposition to Ronald Reagan's nomination of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court: "Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of government." (There is now a word in American English for such an ad-hominem attack: to bork, or borking.) So, it's not just a matter of misunderstanding whether a country belonged to a person (though that's one of the reasons); the formulation clearly has, at least in my mind, a negative connotation, most often for both the country and the person, when used in such a way. It all depends on the context, of course -- take for example Elizabethan England. Now, that was an interesting time. Speaking of which, how about the following for a neutral formulation: "the Antonescu era"? The term "era" is used in both positive and negative contexts just about equally, and it avoids the possesive from "in Antonescu's time", which, I agree, has its own internal logical problems (though not as marked as "Ion Antonescu's Romania", I'd say). Turgidson 02:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- You know, I could be mean and say "yes, it's just you" ;). I find "era" to be a rather odd phrasing (especially for such a short era - thank God for that), but I could go for it. In fact, if you want to change phrasing in any way to include the words "time" or "regime" or "era", feel free to so. Btw, I'm allergic to people linking the word Hitler instead of Adolf Hitler, so I would use something that features (and links upon first mention) the man's full name. My main concerns were that a POV was deduced where there was none, that there was nothing inherently wrong with my phrasing, and that the practical concerns I had tried to deal with in the process (legibility, wikipedia conventions, flow, not fragmenting the reference) were not being noticed. Granted, I also think that the term "x's y" are rather rare in comparison with their synonyms, and that the latter are usually better suited. However, I do not think that there was that much room for interpretation (and especially for the "it was ok to spy" argument, which was arguably a projection).
- Hey, I just very much amused that the Securitate article (which I have avoided looking into up until just now) uses something called "Ceauşescu's reign". And if "Antonescu's Romania" was problematic... Dahn 03:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- That seems equally stupid. (actually more, "reign" is not the best word to be used in case of dictatorship) however I didn't notice that... should I be considered guilty because I didn't notice that and I noticed this? -- AdrianTM 03:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- "Stupid"?... My, my. Dahn 03:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Changed that to "Ceauşescu's dictatorship" also it's worth to mention that the expression "end of Ceauşescu's dictatorship" or "end of Ceauşescu's reign" is not equivalent with the "Antonescu's Romania" expression, I hope you see the difference: the dictatorship (or reign) is something that belongs grammatically and logically to Ceauşescu, Romania didn't belong to Antonescu. -- AdrianTM 03:51, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but I do not answer to pure projections: you seem convinced that this is the intended or traditional or obvious meaning of the wording, and I argue it was not. Obviously, whatever I argue in return is falling on deaf years. Dahn 03:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- You accuse me of pure projection but this is what you actually do here, notice that in this paragraph I wasn't talking about how that can be interpreted I was merely talking about the expression as it present itself, I would protest against "Basescu's Romania" just as strongly, while I would consider "end of Basescu's presidency" a normal sentence. Please stop projecting yourself before you accuse people of "pure projections". Thanks. I can't say that talking to you it has been a pleasure, I will try to avoid it in the future lest I'll be accused again of pure projection and Völkischism (as you seem to regularly accuse people who don't agree with you). -- AdrianTM 05:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Again, I cannot be held responsible for what you chose to conclude about my behavior, especially when it's based on various stuff you take out of its immediate context. In fact, I can hardly be expected to read it. Have a good day. Dahn 12:12, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- You accuse me of pure projection but this is what you actually do here, notice that in this paragraph I wasn't talking about how that can be interpreted I was merely talking about the expression as it present itself, I would protest against "Basescu's Romania" just as strongly, while I would consider "end of Basescu's presidency" a normal sentence. Please stop projecting yourself before you accuse people of "pure projections". Thanks. I can't say that talking to you it has been a pleasure, I will try to avoid it in the future lest I'll be accused again of pure projection and Völkischism (as you seem to regularly accuse people who don't agree with you). -- AdrianTM 05:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but I do not answer to pure projections: you seem convinced that this is the intended or traditional or obvious meaning of the wording, and I argue it was not. Obviously, whatever I argue in return is falling on deaf years. Dahn 03:59, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- That seems equally stupid. (actually more, "reign" is not the best word to be used in case of dictatorship) however I didn't notice that... should I be considered guilty because I didn't notice that and I noticed this? -- AdrianTM 03:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Winston Churchill's Britain: OK, I buy the existence proof, but let's agree to disagree on how widely it is used. Era: I think in modern American English, at least, the term has lost much of its original Latin meaning (which is retained though by the Greek word eon), and can refer to relatively short periods of time, certainly something like 4 to 5 years as was the case with Antonescu's regime. For example, the Vietnam Era refers to a period of about a decade, whereas the Camelot Era refers to the presidency of John F. Kennedy (Jan. 1961- Nov. 1963). Hitler vs Adolf Hitler: agreed. (I've been busily changing Stalin to Joseph Stalin, Lenin to Vladimir Lenin, etc, in many pages.) "Ceauşescu's reign": I personally would use "the Ceauşescu era". (One needs to be consistent!) Turgidson 04:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Well, ok then. The only thing I cannot understand though is how one would fit "[Ion] Antonescu's era" into that phrase, so, Turgidson, I urge you again to operate all changes that you see fit (I would assume that you would have to rephrase more than that bit). Dahn 04:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Winston Churchill's Britain: OK, I buy the existence proof, but let's agree to disagree on how widely it is used. Era: I think in modern American English, at least, the term has lost much of its original Latin meaning (which is retained though by the Greek word eon), and can refer to relatively short periods of time, certainly something like 4 to 5 years as was the case with Antonescu's regime. For example, the Vietnam Era refers to a period of about a decade, whereas the Camelot Era refers to the presidency of John F. Kennedy (Jan. 1961- Nov. 1963). Hitler vs Adolf Hitler: agreed. (I've been busily changing Stalin to Joseph Stalin, Lenin to Vladimir Lenin, etc, in many pages.) "Ceauşescu's reign": I personally would use "the Ceauşescu era". (One needs to be consistent!) Turgidson 04:01, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- I gave it a shot. While at it, I replaced "in the wake of" by "in preparation for": Nicholski was caught in Romania (I guess right after crossing the Dniester), 4 weeks before the launch of Operation Barbarossa, not after. I avoided the whole discussion of Antonescu's Romania/regime/era/whatever by simply saying that he was then in charge of the Romanian Army, to which the sentence and the context refers, after all. Turgidson 04:45, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Thanks for edits this looks much better, one comment: if he crossed only Dniester he would still have been in the Soviet Union, I guess you meant the Prut river. -- AdrianTM 05:10, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
- Oops, I guess I'm getting tired -- I better take a break if I can't keep the Dniester and the Prut straight anymore! Turgidson 05:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
User Dahn is becoming a pest
There is this one user called Dahn who systematically removes all my contributions. He gives no explanation for this. I feel persecuted like poor political prisoners must have felt under Nikolski. Still, I would like all other users who notice this behavior to report it so that momentum grows against this disruptive user. (Icar 13:52, 20 February 2007 (UTC))
- This post and your last edit summary show that, despite my repeated calls for you to stop, you continue to mudsling. You have moved beyond uncivilized behavior, and are currently irreconcilable with basic rules regarding human interaction. As I have said, I will call for intervention later today, and I hope you'll finally be moved into the pen where they keep trolls like you. Dahn 14:03, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Please abstain from throwing insults: calling Dahn a pest is inacceptable just as is calling Icar a troll. Icar and Dahn, please calm down ! --Vintila Barbu 14:13, 20 February 2007 (UTC)