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Revision as of 02:21, 5 June 2007

Bolshevik support?

I find this article quite confusing. It seems to say that the pogroms took place with the support of the Bolsheviks, but there don't seem to be references as to whether this is the case. Would it possible to clarify who controlled the territory at the time and whether the pogroms had any sort of official support? Warofdreams talk 18:12, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I’m interested in how you arrived at your conclusion and where exactly did you find the citation indicating that the pogroms took place with the support of the Bolsheviks. One of the links I suggest you examine leads to text by Elias Tcherikower called "The Pogroms in Ukraine in 1919" where the question of control over the territory is at least partialy explained. --Poeticbent talk 18:59, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

My point was that the references didn't seem to support the contention, which may simply have seemed possible from my reading of the text, but I was keen to see clarified. Either way, the sections of text in the article which suggested this seem now to have gone. Warofdreams talk 00:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about the disappearance of most of the article. It is an action verging on vandalism and will not be tolerated. --Poeticbent talk 00:30, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I've looked through the references, and can't find any suggestion that Red Army detachments were involved, so I've removed that claim. I also can't quite make sense of the sentence "Apparently, the new communist ideology of tolerance (see: Lenin, "On Anti-Jewish Pogroms") was very short-lived, and as early as 1918 the Russian Jews became victims of vicious attacks." Despite having two references, the sections visible to me on Google Books don't seem to support the claim. I suspect that other sources could be found to confirm the second half of the sentence, although I'd like to see it clarified who carried out the attacks (peasants? sections of the Red Army?), while the first half seems rather contentious and likely to be difficult to source satisfactorily. Warofdreams talk 01:06, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

scope of the article

I removed the material about events that were not part of Kiev pogrom. This is not a review article such as History of Jews in Ukraine, in Russia, Antisemitism in Russian Empire, etc. There are more general articles for that, please use this material there. --Irpen 22:13, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I find your attitude unacceptable. The article is about the series of pogroms in Kiev and its vicinity in the year 1919. It’s all highly relevant. --Poeticbent talk 00:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The article used to talk length about multiple pogroms in various townlets within the pale Ukraine-wide. Kiev was not part of the pale and its pogroms are just that, Kiev pogroms. If you want to talk about large-scale murders all over Ukraine at about that time, do that properly. The article about Kiev pogrom is should be about just that, not anything else. There is Ukraine after Russian Revolution article. There is a History of Jews in Ukraine article. There is also History of Jews in Russia and USSR. Perhaps you may want to start an article about Pogroms in Ukraine in early 20th century or something like that. I would have no objections. I do object to adding random material to random articles.

Finally, the article currently talks about three separate events. Is there any scholarly publication that calls this particular series of events in suburbs of Kiev as "Kiev pogrom". If not, this is an unacceptable synthesis, which is WP:OR. --Irpen 00:34, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do your own legwork. All three events listed in the article are at various times referred to as “Kiev pogrom of 1919” in all scholarly publications although not at the same time. That might be a source of confusion for those who haven’t read about them separately. It is important that the three massacres be put together for clarity and under one title. --Poeticbent talk 00:48, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, I will do some leg work to find out whether these events are connected elsewhere. However, the events in Volhynia, Proskuriv, "all over Ukraine" are separate events at any rates and should not be pasted to a randomly picked article. I don't want to delete encyclopedic info from wp. Nothing of this sort. This is exactly why I commented it out rather than deleted so that it can be moved to proper places.

I suggest the following. Take a look at the existing more general articles were such events might fit. Or start a new article about pogroms in Ukraine from the time of the closing years of the RU empire to the times where Soviet power firmly established (1921) that pretty much ended any mob violence. Please understand that the scope of the articles must fit the title and their actual contents. In the meanwhile I will try to find out whatever I can about Justingrad and a mysterious "Ivankov district" of Kiev and add the info to this article.

While this is being sorted out, I suggest we tag the article with {{noncompliant}} to preserve the integrity of the WP for the non-editing folks who use Misplaced Pages as a source of info. --Irpen 00:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion on the titling of the article, but the general principle of providing background and a summary of the aftermath of an event seems entirely appropriate for any encyclopaedia. Certainly, this article could use much more detail on the actual events - and the Tcherikower article looks a good starting point for this - but this does not mean that it is non-compliant with Misplaced Pages policies. Warofdreams talk 01:09, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

"Aftermath" of something is usually what is connected to the event by a "cause and effect" connection. The whole Ukraine was being rocked by violence. As always in any wave of country-wide violence Jews who were easiest to abuse suffered most and this anti-Jewish violence perpetrated by all sorts of scum, the worst elements of among all groups: the local mobs, the monarchists, the Poles, the nationalists, the anarchist bands and unaffiliated gangs, "neo-Cossacks", "partisans", etc.

What caused this all is impossible to say in one-two paragraphs but certainly not the Kiev pogrom was not the event that caused the rest. Kiev pogrom was nothing more that one such event of the many. General review and analysis belong to review articles rather than event articles. We already have several review articles about events in Ukraine of that time. Another narrower review article can be started. But picking one of such event articles and saturate it with events that are unrelated to it makes a mess and does not help the reader's understanding of this chaotic and violent time. --Irpen 01:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I checked more of the article's sources. I have an impression that the whole article is produced by dumping together whatever google + google books give out in response to a string "1919 Kiev pogrom". Many of these events were not even in Kiev and some, including many described in the article, are about events that took place hundreds of kiolmetres from Kiev.

In fact, the worse of them all was the Tetiev pogrom (1919) the event that, along with pogroms in Chernobyl, Vasilkov, etc. certainly deserves a separate article rather than be dumped to a random article so remotely related.

Tcherikower's The Pogroms in Ukraine in 1919 article may be used as a starting point but note that its title is not "Kiev pogrom". Also, that article, unfortunately, has very few references within that certainly affects its value for us.

What is the plan here? An overall article about the pogroms Ukraine-wide that took place at about that time? Why 1919 only? Tragic pogroms of 1918 and 1920 were of no lesser scale. 1919 mainly restricts the perpetrators to gangs and whites. Why are just these two perpetrators banded together? Add 1918 and 1920 and you get also Petlurovites, other nationalists, Poles and Budyonny Cossacks.

Sorry, but now this is plainly a mess. This is more than a title of the article problem. It is an utter incoherence and non-seriousness of the author's approach. Don't start writing such articles without setting aside sufficient time and doing some reading homework. I am tagging the article. --Irpen 01:49, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

That tag really is not appropriate. It reads "To be compliant, it must be written from a neutral point of view and must not include unverifiable or unsuitable material, or original research." You have not raised any of those issues. I am no expert on this topic and am quite prepared to consider that an alternative periodisation or spatialisation may be more appropriate, and no doubt there are many ways in which this article could be improved, but claiming this is "non-compliant" does not bear examination. Warofdreams talk 02:00, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

So, you propose to leave the article as is while you will be "considering alternative periodization, spacialization"? Think of the impression we make on the accidental visitor who finds that sort of text under such entry? And do you think that Kiev pogrom of 1919 does not deserve to have an article on its own? And if so, what is a more logical place for such article than this one which is already titled as such. Go ahead with your spacialization/periodization and take a look at the existing review articles or start a new one. But the current state of affairs is unacceptable and the reader needs to be warned. --Irpen 02:11, 5 June 2007 (UTC)