Talk:Two Hundred Years Together

1985 New York Times article dealing with charges of antisemitism made against Solzhenitsyn

The New York Times - Richard Grener - Solzhenitsyn and Anti-Semitism, a New Debate, 13 November 1985.     ←   ZScarpia   13:03, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

This article is from times before this solzh's book, hence irrelevant here. - üser:Altenmann >t 09:34, 12 December 2018 (UTC)

Reception

In this edit, Galassi provided this source to justify stating that "the reception of Two Hundred Years Together has been оverwhelmingly negative." In the abstract linked to, Zinaida Gimpelevich writes: "Dvesti let vmeste [Two Hundred Years Together], despite its undeniable literary worth, has evoked strong reactions from many scholars, who doubt in particular his factual data and ideological approach to the history of Russian Jews and their history in the Russian and Soviet Empires." A source stating that the book has provoked strong reactions doesn't justify claiming in the article that the reactio to it has been overwhelmingly negative. Is there anything in the full source justifying the assertion?

In the same edit, Galassi restored adjective "outright" to the statement, "Historian Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern of Northwestern University published a refutation of Solzhenitsyn's claims and has accused him of outright antisemitism." No source has been provided as justification for the whole statement. The article on Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern states that one of the things which Petrovsky-Shternthat is noted for is his "critique of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's controversial two volume-work about Jews in Russia, Two Hundred Years Together." However, the only source cited doesn't contain any mention of Two Hundred Years Together. Neither does the list of Petrovsky-Shtern's publications list anything appearing specific to Solzhenitsyn.

    ←   ZScarpia   09:03, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

YPS quoth "200YT is bound to take the honored place in the annals of russophone antisemitica".--Galassi (talk) 11:42, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

What's the source for Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern writing "200YT is bound to take the honored place in the annals of russophone antisemitica"?

See my first paragraph.Is there anything in the full Gimpelevich source justifying the assertion mentioned?

    ←   ZScarpia   20:50, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

YPS is the RS, currently the Eastern Euro historian #3, after Snyder and Magocsi. Re Gimpelevich - yes. She says the book is universally taken as vile. --Galassi (talk) 21:15, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

A citation to Petrovsky-Shtern's article should be added after the second sentence in the Reception section.     ←   ZScarpia   09:29, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

So, on one hand (coincidentally, the hand that is freely viewable online), Zinaida Gimpelevich writes that the book has "evoked strong reactions from many scholars", on the other (coincidentally, the one that is not freely viewable online) she writes something to the effect that "the book is universally taken as vile"?     ←   ZScarpia   10:24, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

Reception: overrepresentation of Jews in the first Soviet government.

Galassi, please read this talkpage archive section. I'm still waiting for a page number and explanation of how this book in Cyrillic jusstifies the statement edited here.     ←   ZScarpia   09:33, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Do you read Russian? The next paragraph states that the Zankevich source is a falsification.--Galassi (talk) 15:36, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Galassi:, I don't read Russian, so I'd appreciate a translation or fuller explanation of what the book says. I'm also hoping that you'll respond to what I wrote in the previous section.     ←   ZScarpia   09:30, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

"Even cursory look at the "Zankevich list" [AS uses it as his source] irrefutably proves that the author acts as a falsifier and a fraud."--Galassi (talk) 11:39, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

Revisited: Richard Pipes review: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

As noted in this talkpage comment, contrary to Daniel Pipes' assertion, 200 Years Together does actually discuss the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Earlier today, I modified the article, changing Pipes' assertion from a fact that was noted to an accusation that had been made. My edit was reverted within half-an-hour by Lute88 (talk · contribs). As stated in my previous comment, if the text outlining Pipes' accusation is not either removed or modified in some way, I will quote from 200 Years Together to show that the accusation is false, the book being a reliable source for its own content. Perhaps someone who has access to the French, German or original Russian versions might like to check what is in them?     ←   ZScarpia   13:32, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

We would generally rely on WP:SECONDARY here, and not try to debunk secondary sources using primary sources; Galassi's concerns in that previous discussion are valid. I can't tell from the quotes you provided what Solzhenitsyn is trying to say about the Protocols; can you summarize? Jayjg ^(talk) 13:45, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Pipes' accusation is not about what the book says about The Protocols but simply that "Solzhenitsyn failed to discuss" them, which may be quickly shown to be untrue by simply searching the text. That being the case, including Pipes' accusation in the Wikipedia article serves no good purpose. If you're interested in what the book actually says, I can quote it for you more extensively if you like, though hopefully I've already demonstrated that Pipes' accusation is untrue. I have a copy of Solzhenitsyn, A Soul in Exile (2011) by Joseph Pearce and can also quote what that says about 200 Years Together if you're interested.     ←   ZScarpia   14:08, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I was more interested in understanding what Solzhenitsyn said or is trying to say about the Protocols; can you summarize? Perhaps the difference here is regarding the word "discuss". Jayjg ^(talk) 14:48, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Looking at the Russian text of 200YT - it does discuss the Protocols, but mostly the Russian liberal opposition to them, with little in regard to their harm. In any event: we should stick to what the given source says re Pipes.--Lute88 (talk) 14:51, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, that's a good start, though I'm still interested in understanding what Solzhenitsyn thinks their significance is. In any event, I've changed the two occurrences of the word "notes" to "writes", per WP:SAY. Jayjg ^(talk) 14:53, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll get back to you with a summary/quotes. In the meantime, I've been trying to obtain a copy of Richard Pipes' 25 November 2002 New Republic article "Alone Together: Solzhenitsyn and the Jews, Revisited", but unfortunately with limited success. Perhaps somebody else may be able to do it. The New Republic site itself has a page for the article, but I haven't found a way of accessing the text of the article via it. The OrthodoxyToday.org site quotes the first couple of paragraphs and refers readers to the NCSJ site for the full article. The link given doesn't, however, give access to the full article and I haven't been able otherwise to access it if it is on the site. The UNZ Review has an archive of a lot of New Republic articles, but appears to withold the Pipes' one for copyright reasons. While trying to obtain a copy of the Pipes' article, I found the following resource which cites that article and may be of interest to other editors:

• Varieties of Antisemitism: History, Ideology, Discourse, (editors) Murray Baumgarten, Peter Kenez, Bruce Allan Thompson, 2009: see the article "Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Antisemitism" by Norman G. O. Pereira which begins on page 264.

    ←   ZScarpia   13:25, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jayjg:, answering the question about what the book says about the Protocols, see here for what I previously quoted from Chapter 17, "Emigration between the two World Wars".

In more detail:

Chapter 17, page 173: Describes how the Protocols spread and their origin:

"These were five editions in England in 1920, several editions in both Germany and France; half a million copies in America were printed by Henry Ford. “The unheard-of success of the Protocols, which were translated into several languages, showed how much the Bolshevik revolution was believed to be Jewish.” English researcher Norman Cohn wrote: “in the years immediately after the World War I, when the Protocols entered mainstream and thundered across the world, many otherwise entirely sensible people took them completely seriously.” The London Times and Morning Post of that time vouched for their authenticity, although by August 1921 the Times published a series of articles from its Istanbul correspondent, Philipp Greaves, who sensationally demonstrated the extensive borrowing of the text in the Protocols from Maurice Jolie’s anti-Napoleon III pamphlets (The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, 1864)."

"The Protocols came to the West from a Russia overtaken by the Civil War. A journalistic fraud produced in the early 20th century (in 1900 or 1901), the Protocols were first published in 1903 in St. Petersburg. The mastermind behind them is thought to be P. I. Rachkovsky, the 1884-1902 head of the Foreign Intelligence unit of the Police Department; their production is attributed to Matvei Golovinsky, a secret agent from 1892 and son of V. A. Golovinsky, who was a member of Petrashevsky Circle. [The latter was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded commoner-intellectuals in St. Petersburg organized by Mikhail Petrashevsky, a follower of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. Among the members were writers, teachers, students, minor government officials, army officers. While differing in political views, most of them were opponents of the Tsarist autocracy and the Russian serfdom. Among those connected to the circle were writers Dostoyevsky]. (Still, new theories about the origin of the Protocols appear all the time). Although the Protocols were published and re-published in 1905, 1906, 1911, they had little success in prerevolutionary Russia: “they did not find broad support in Russian society…. The Court did not give support to distribution either.” After many failed attempts, the Protocols were finally presented to Nicholas II in 1906 and he was very impressed. His notes on the margins of the book included: “What a foresight!’, ‘What precise execution!’, “It is definitely them who orchestrated the *revolutionary+ events of 1905!’, ‘There can be no doubt about their authenticity.’ But when the right-wing activists suggested using the Protocols for the defence of the monarchy, Prime Minister P. A. Stolypin ordered a secret investigation into their origins. It showed they were a definite fabrication. The monarch was shocked by Stolypin’s report, but wrote firmly: “remove the Protocols from circulation. You cannot defend a noble cause with dirty means.” And since then “Russia’s rulers’ dismissal of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion came into force: no reference to the ‘Protocols’ was allowed … even during the Beilis Trial.”"

Chapter 17, page 174 and following: Describes how after the Bolsheviks seized power and the Civil War began, the popularity of the Protocols surged, printed by by the White Army counter-intelligence agency and widely distributed among both the Volunteer Army, the Russian population and emigrees. After the Bolshevik victory the Protocols were banned and selling them became a criminal offence, Elsewhere in Europe, White Russians helped to spread the Protocols and they were used in developing the ideology of the political right-wing, particularly in Germany. What various Russian writers had to say about the Protocols and the situation of Jews in Russia after the Protocols were exposed as a forgery is then described.

    ←   ZScarpia   16:23, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Thanks ZScarpia. The book appears to give a fairly detailed summary of the development and reception of the Protocols in Russia and by Russians, and its acceptance or rejection by various Russian groups. Jayjg ^(talk) 23:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

@Jayjg:, to summarise my position:

• Cited to a Newsweek article, the Wikipedia one currently states: "In particular, Pipes writes that Solzhenitsyn failed to discuss The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a Russian antisemitic forgery." The most likely interpretation that readers would put on that is that "200 Years Together" doesn't mention the Protocols; the second most likely interpretation would be that the book may mention them, but only very cursorily.
• I've tried, but failed, to obtain a copy of Pipes' Newsweek article to check what was actually written. It seems strange that Pipes would actually have written what is stated on Wikipedia when neither of the interpretations which might be put on it are accutate. It's even stranger that Pipes made that criticism "in particular".
• I have access to a number of biographies of Solzhenitsyn, several of which comment on what Pipes had to say about "200 Years Together". None of them say that Pipes criticised the book for not discussing the Protocols.
• As it stands, I don't think the article fulfills the neutrality requirement. Either that particular criticism should be removed, or the article should outline what the book actually says about the Protocols, cited to the book itself, so that readers can make up their own minds about the validity of the criticism. My preference would be for the former course of action.

    ←   ZScarpia   09:58, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

@ZScarpia:, under the circumstances, I think it would be reasonable to remove that particular criticism/specific sentence. Jayjg ^(talk) 16:14, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Thank you.     ←   ZScarpia   19:46, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Categorisation.

At the moment, the article is in the 'Antisemitism' category.

There are a number of rules for categorising articles:

• Categorization of articles must be verifiable.
• Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view.
• A central concept used in categorizing articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently define.

In my opinion, categorising the current article under 'Antisemitism' breaks the second and, probably, third rule.

    ←   ZScarpia   21:56, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Lute88, perhaps you'd like to comment?     ←   ZScarpia   09:07, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

I think the current version is a half-decent compromise.--Aristophile (talk) 20:58, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

A compromise? Please explain.     ←   ZScarpia   21:56, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Jontel, perhaps you'd like to comment too?     ←   ZScarpia   21:58, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

If there is diagreement about whether or not the book is antisemitic or about Antisemitism, it should not be so categorized. Categorization should not be used to make a point. The second rule above says, further: 'Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate. '. Also, this rule applies: 'each categorized page should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs. This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C. For exceptions to this rule, see Eponymous categories and Non-diffusing subcategories below.' Wikipedia:Categorization. So, if the work is felt to be antisemitic, it should be categorized under Category:Antisemitic publications, not Category:Antisemitism. Or, if it is agreed that the work is About antisemtism, it should go in e.g. Category:Books about antisemitism and Category: Antisemitism in Russia Jontel (talk) 06:05, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

No, this is not a book about antisemitism. As page correctly tells, this is an essay on a history of Jews in Russia. Is it an antisemitic publications? Again, as page tells, that was a matter of debate. My very best wishes (talk) 00:53, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to remove the categorisation. If Lute88 objects, hopefully he'll come back to the talkpage and expand on his last comment.     ←   ZScarpia   01:58, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Seki1949 (talk) 19:25, 26 November 2020 (UTC)== Representation of Jews in First Soviet Government ==

"This assertion has been discredited, as the number of Commissars in the first Soviet government on 7 November 1917 was 16, not 22, of whom 10 were ethnic Russians (Milyutin, Yelizarov, Skvortsov-Stepanov, Lomov, Rykov, Lenin, Shlyapnikov, Nogin, Krylenko and Avilov), three Ukrainians (Lunacharsky, Antonov-Ovseyesnko and Dybenko), one Pole (Teodorovich), and only one Jew (Trotsky).[16][17]"

This is a joke! 3 of the 7 first members of the Politburo (where the real political power was in 1917) were Jewish: Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Trotsky. I will edit this into the main article when I locate the best sources on this. Seki1949 (talk) 18:39, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

FYI, Politbureau is not the government.--Aristophile (talk) 16:56, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

The Politburo (in it's various forms) was the center of power after the November revolution. The government was it's administrative arm.Seki1949 (talk) 19:25, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Added detail on Kamenev's origins. Add Yakov Sverdlov as prominent Jewish Bolshevik. Seki1949 (talk) 13:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Revert on basis of WP:Coatrack

My most recent contribution was reverted on the basis of WP:Coatrack. Having reviewed my text and WP:Coatrack, I don't see how this is a valid revert. A discussion of the political leadership of the Bolsheviks in 1917 is at least as important as a discussion of the government composition after the November Revolution in evaluating Solzhenitsyn's point of view. I trust the reader to form their own opinion. Please do not revert without discussion on the talk page. Seki1949 (talk) 04:17, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

"...one Georgian, one Armenian and 17 Jews"

I cannot find any trace of this quote in any edition of the book - not in English, nor in Russian ("один русский, один грузин, один армянин и 17 евреев"). A quick online search reveals that the quote predates the publication of Solzhenitsyn's book, and other sources attribute it to “Jews in Russia and the USSR” by Andrey Dikiy. For these reasons, I am removing the paragraph as it appears to be unrelated to the article. eh bien mon prince (talk) 03:22, 16 September 2022 (UTC)