Talk:Anti-Katyn

Sources

The original Russian source of the news is Inessa Yashborovska. Anyone can check her article in an academic Russian journal. I have quoted a blog (?) to help the reader, if you prefer visit your library instead.

If Katyń crime is notable the same Soviet/Russian relativization of the crime is, which instrumentally uses Soviet prizoners. Please read A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes describing mortality among Red Army soldiers of that time. Xx236 (talk) 11:36, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

restoring my contributions

I've restored the majority of my additions which were made with the intention of expanding this important article (once sadly nominated to be merged back into "Katyn massacre") beyond a stub. Anti-Katyn is such an abstract concept that it benefits from more background and explanation IMO; I cannot think of any analogous political concept. I'm planning to extend it further. The reason why there are so many red links on the page is because these are all additional articles that need to be written, and I'm going to try my best to create them.

Obviously this is a sensitive issue, so let me go over the following edits I have an issue with one by one:

• Removal of the very vital information in the lede that anti-Katyn is about bringing up the deaths of the POWs from 1919-1921. That part is the heart and soul of anti-Katyn; that IS the definition of anti-Katyn! Here is the first sentence from the Polish article, "Anty-Katyń" for reference:

"Anti-Katyn (or counter-Katyn) - a term used by historians to describe Soviet and Russian propaganda aiming to relativize the Katyn massacre by associating it with a high mortality rate among Soviet prisoners of war in Polish captivity from 1919-1921, allegedly caused by crimes committed against the prisoners."

• Re-inserting the introductory statement that anti-Katyn "was a Soviet propaganda strategy, continued in Russia..." I don't feel this is really accurate, and it's definitely not WP:NPOV to state it as a qualified fact. I don't want the intro to sound "weasley" but it does have to be neutral. First, "Soviet propaganda" carries a very specific state-endorsed connotation. Anti-Katyn emerged around the time the Soviet Union ceased to exist; it really didn't exist during the Soviet era, so it's really more of a Russian concept in origin. But I don't really think of it qualifies as propaganda either, exactly. Of course Poland sees it as Soviet/Russian propaganda, but NPOV... I have not seen anything to support it was an organized "strategy."
• Removing the "according to the Polish government" in this reference summarizing anti-Katyn: "The early Soviet deaths became the subject of, according to the Polish government, 'various propagandist campaigns' purporting that the massacre of the Poles was 'justified' in the eyes of Stalin." ← If I read the edits correctly, this was removed with the comment that it was not WP:RS!! It's from the website of the State Archives of the Government of Poland (and in English). I'm pretty sure the Polish government is a RS about the Polish government's views. And it is in their view that there were actual "campaigns;" certainly there are people with that opinion but I don't know if there are supporting sources who describe actual campaigns.
• Removal of the background of Katyn and the Soviet POW camps: It's important to note the history and timeline of events. Anti-Katyn did not emerge in 1920 or 1943; rather it is a very recent concept over the past 20 years, in particular developments over the last 11 years. A few more points should be added here.
• Anti-Katyn is a really abstract concept that needs in-depth explaining; it is not something as cut-and-dry wacko as Holocaust denial. The article should not imply that "anti-Katyn" is some kind of revisionist theory by Russians that the Katyn massacre never happened, or that Stalin didn't order it, or that it was the best thing ever. The term "anti-Katyn" originated from the Polish side and is their assessment of the Russian POV; in the POV of some Russians, they do not believe they are "anti-Katyn" nor are they apologists for the Katyn massacre; they feel they have a legitimate beef when it comes to this "Soviet-Polish investigation into our shared dysfunctional history." They feel the Soviet Union and Russia did their part by opening the archives about Katyn with Poland, with a complete list of victims and all, and admitting government responsibility, but that the Polish government has not reciprocated with the same level of openness or any acknowledgement of responsibility about the POW camps. This POV should not be excised. Per WP:RS: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered."
• Thus, the removal of the paragraph of info from Vladislav Shved's article, "Anti-Katyn" (also I think purported to be "irrelevant"). Shved represents the minority view and was the only minority viewpoint in the article, before and after I started working on it. He's not some random Internet commenter but a legitimate politician and historian. He's definitely an old-school communist, but not, as far as I can tell, a raging lunatic or anything that would disqualify him from being RS. Including his opinion is not the same thing as endorsing it.
• Re-inserting the "original" translation of Nikita Petrov's explanation in the first paragraph - first, this was a Google Translate cut-and-paste that needed a real translation. Additionally, qualifying his statement by saying he "succinctly characterized it as..." is not NPOV either. It needs to be lower down the page IMO.... the introduction should be more about the general term; Petrov is discussing the Russian mentality as the origin of "anti-Katyn". Andrzej Nowak's quote is a much better "definition" I think.
• Removing the Polish and Russian-language terms (no reason given); both are spelled differently from the title and, it seems standard for articles about non-English terms or events to include their original language terms as a frame of reference/research, so I don't know the reasoning for this.

I'm happy to work with rewording these things to make sure it's clearly NPOV, but I don't believe the above material deserved to be deleted and dismissed as "irrelevant" to what anti-Katyn is. —Wikimandia (talk) 12:44, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed and careful response. I'll try to provide the same soon, time permitting. Really quickly for now, freemedia.org or whatever, is not a reliable source.Volunteer Marek (talk) 09:22, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Dear editors

• Please learn basic history before you edit, eg. the facts regarding the Katyń massacre. I have removed the phrase The majority of the prisoners were members of the Polish military, but also included a handful of intelligentsia, religious figures and other civilians sent east to internment camps. which is unprecise.
• Inessa Yazhborovskaya, Ph.D. (The Institute of Comparative Political Studies, Russian. Academy of Science)
• Vladislav Shved is a politician, not a political scientist. The summary of the two changes suggest serious distortion of facts.
• Is is correct English Gorbachyov has been called one of the instigators of "anti-Katyn" when he demanding an investigation into the deaths of the Soviet citizens in Polish custody? The statement doesn't correctly describe Gorbachev's role. He started the campaign. some Russian historians and journalists responded - they acted according to party wishes.Xx234 (talk) 13:56, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Shved

The article by Shved isn't mentioned here. Shved uses the Anti-Katyn name and analogies/differences should be explained here.Xx236 (talk) 08:40, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

You mean this one? No differences. He refers to Polish coinage:

"Но даже если это две независимые темы, они требуют одинакового подхода и одинаковой моральной оценки. Начиная с 90-х годов Россия, проявив добрую волю, сняла табу с обсуждений катынской темы. Почему же польская сторона пытается уйти от рассмотрения не менее кровавого преступ­ления? Более того, цинично сводит проблему к желанию, якобы демонстри­руемому российской стороной, “изгладить из памяти русских катынское преступление” (“Новая Польша”, № 5, 2005). Не случайно в Польше ситуацию с гибелью пленных красноармейцев называют “Анти-Катынью”. Но разве русская кровь уже вовсе ничего не стоит и пригодна лишь для подкрепления риторических упражнений на тему — кто больше виноват?"

I did a brief google search but failed to find significant scholar discussion of the aticle (and his major opus Тайна Катыни / В. Н. Швед. - М.: Алгоритм, 2007. - 544 с. - (Политический бестселлер). ISBN 978-5-9265-0457-3). May be I was not diligent enough, but I would guess that rants of former Soviet apparatchik and current Russian supernationalist, although quite prolific, are not of much encyclopedic note. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:57, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

@Iryna Harpy: I removed two refs to Szwed's book because both of them were hearsay retold by Russian revisionist in skewed context. I found the first ref, I will find Nowak later. He did wrote about anti-Katyn, but I cannot find the text for exact statement in our article. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:17, 29 December 2015 (UTC) - Found it; it was his Russian article. Staszek Lem (talk) 22:36, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

<sigh> the article needs a massive rewrite. The text is both repetitive and incomplete, and chaotic, too. May be next year :-) Staszek Lem (talk) 22:39, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Uff, you're not wrong. Okay, now that you've found replacements for the Shved ref, I'll just finish expanding the new refs. I'm leaving the translation of points 8 and 9 of the Gorbachev report until I have some energy to tackle it. Have a great break (and New Year's greetings in advance). Meh, another project for 2016. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

chaotic

My agenda is:

1. The problem was created by Mikhail Gorbachev.
2. Some Russian academicians participate and Russian state media support them.
3. Poles named the disinformation campaign Anti-Katyn and oppose the Russians.
4. The context
   1. Poles and Soviets were murdered in Katyn forest, dead Poles are listed and their graves cared, the Soviet part is few (or more) years retarded.If not the POles no cemetary would probably exist there.
   2. Millions of Soviet victims of WWII don't have their graves. Russian activists search for their bones.
   3. It seems that the main reason to present the tragedy of the Soviet POWs is Anti-Katyn. Xx236 (talk) 09:31, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

1. Such claims cannot be proved. At best you must find a quote (like this one) which asserts this and write it here with attribution
2. Yes. Again, secondary sources needed
3. It is good to find the source which would say who exactly introduced this term
4. The context: please don't stray too far away

Staszek Lem (talk) 21:52, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

I need to read through the references again as some of the translations have come out somewhat messy... so, yes, the article needs work... and could do with more and better references. The reference to Gorbachev is awkwardly phrased and places him at the centre of anti-Katyn in a way that the reference itself doesn't emphasise. Ultimately, the article is in need of some serious work to make it passable. That said, it is going to be time consuming and I'm not prepared to drop everything else in equal need of being developed and improved right now, but I will be getting back to it ASAP. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 22:51, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Thesis 1 is referenced: ref. 7 point 9 (в результате которых был причинен ущерб Советской Стороне) and confirmed by Yazhborovska and Guryanov.

2 - the Polish-Russian book has been rejected by the Russian author Matveyev, who is the star of the Anti-Katyn campaign. Polish historians have published several academic books, the Russsian writers speculate.Xx236 (talk) 09:02, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

4 - What I call the context is partially discussed by Nosov Ее никогда и не было. (Russian people haven't known about the 1920 war.). The Russians aren;'t generally interested in Soviet crimes, see Memorial's position in Russia, kind of Western lobbysts.Xx236 (talk) 09:21, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Thesis 1 is referenced if you modify it as follows: "Some researchers attribute the problem to Gorbachev". Staszek Lem (talk) 02:30, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Thesis 4 - nothing against in particular, but I noticed in many articles that when somebody starts writing "Background" section, it may grow larger than the article itself, if left unchecked. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:30, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

There is the document signed by Gorbatchev, nothing to attribute. Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes there is a doc signed by Gorby. But how do you know that it created problem, rather than Gorby was a follow-up for an already existing problem stirred, e.g., by Andropov? The latter seems pretty plausible to me. Staszek Lem (talk) 23:30, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

It's very probable but I don't know any source to support it. Gorby was allegedly promoted by Andropov.

There are probably other subject similar to Anti-Katyn, e.g. the alleged Polish cooperation with the Nazis,[1] but they seem to be quite recent, only the Anti-Katyn can be traced to Gorby.Xx236 (talk) 07:14, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

What I am saying is that nobody really cared to thoroughly investigate the genesis of anti-Katyn. While during Soviet times in Russia there was "friendship of peoples" and not much efforts in searching skeletons in friends' cupboards, but nevertheless there was a steady flow of biased history about Polish-Soviet War, and it was "politically correct" because it was against "bad" type of Poles, "White Poles" (belopoliaki), and there was plenty of atrocities ascribed to them, so in a sense Gorby did not start anything really new in this respect. 18:37, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

publicists

Polish publicyści would be rather journalists. Do you mean really publicists in Russia? They are rather propaganda officers, aren't they?Xx236 (talk) 08:53, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

No, publicists in Russian does not mean propaganda officers. That would be "propagandisty". My very best wishes (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Russian propaganda uses false numbers

The information on the plaques, notably the figures of deceased POWs, exceed by a few times the actual numbers that have been confirmed by Polish and Russian historians. exceed by a few times means false. Xx236 (talk) 11:34, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Anti-Katyn ia a propaganda campaign

Please don't remove the word propaganda. If it's not propaganda, what is it? Russia rejects any academic research and ignores the fate of Polish POWs in Russia. Polish officers were frequently murdered as enemies of the Revolution. Xx236 (talk) 06:04, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is something this page already tells. My very best wishes (talk) 02:05, 22 May 2017 (UTC)