User talk:Anonimu/Romanian resistance movement

You know, Anonimu, if you plan to structure an article around trivia found in communist propaganda of the 1960s and 1970s, it's going to be a very short and clear-cut AfD; all one has to do is reference the more recent historical consensus about the feebleness of resistance in Romania (not to mention the moral ambiguities involved on both sides) and one of several works discussing the tiresome mythology put forth by Communist Party in their work of, well, redesigning history. You might as well start sourcing this with Sergiu's movies. Dahn (talk) 15:29, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Deletant is supposed to write a book about it sometimes soon. Until then we'll have to deal with what is available. What's on this page is currently 75% from Entasi's book about Resistance in Europe... if you can prove he was paid by the "communist propaganda" to write that book, you can AfD it... heck, the PCR is mentioned only twice, if this is their prop they must have been pretty weak at it... and I really don't care about those works that downplay the resistance to make Antonescu more palatable to the general public. After Ceausescu suppressed it because it didn't fit his personality cult (being in prison the whole time he couldn't invent anything to associate himself with; I think even VT's Commission acknowledged this), I was expecting it to be thoroughly studied. But then they decided that everything even tangentially connected with the PCR is inherently bad, and the resistance became a collateral victim (it's still a mystery to me how come Patrascanu somehow escaped this purge - Sergiu may have something to do with this)Anonimu (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What you're missing from my reply is this: resistance may well have existed, but not as a phenomenon. I have, you may remember, written articles about people who resisted Antonescu in more or less open forms, and have started the category. I do doubt that more is worth a separate article, especially since sources can be quite blunt on the matter of its importance and spread (i. e. "if not zero, thereabouts"). It is one thing to write three articles on the three people who are actually notable, a whole other thing to create a special article about those three people, centered on a topic which is treated as a network (even if the three of them were not conscious parties), covering the rest with dubious info, most of which is trivia about derailed trains. Plus: I have to call the trick on including Northern Transylvania in there as well, for all the mind-blowing contradictions this brings to light. Given the date and the nature of the details, Etnasi's work is very likely based on material provided by Romanian sources; and Romanian sources from the period... What's more, it's a single and obscure source on all those details, where all others simply go with what you call "downplaying". And the open questions regarding Etnasi may yet refer to 75% of the text, but just how is one supposed to view info from Analele and Pravda?
 * As for claims about NC: maybe, but that still don't make it notable - as far as I can discern, researchers who have dealt with this topic have agreed on the things you can read for yourself in the Ion Antonescu article. (Amusing speculation about LP and Sergiu, but I think that's from, as they say, "another film" - that where Vadim and his cronies are tripping about LP's "national" and "nationalist" profile. The answer to your question about how LP survived what you amusingly call "a purge" comes with another question: how do you think he managed to survive the actual purge, to which Foriş fell victim for, drumroll, not organizing a resistance movement? Take your time to think about it.)
 * Now, you mention Deletant's hide of the bear in the forest as something to go on. Interestingly, Deletant is one of the authors who come up with the conclusion I cited - about the lack of a phenomenon quality to what this sandbox inflates into one. Dahn (talk) 16:40, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I beg to differ. Resistance was a phenomenon, just that it wasn't a very successful one, while still being notable enough. From what I remember, all the instances of such people you wrote about talked about their action inside a group, be it small. All those groups were under PCR influence, and PCR had a program that called to resistance. Don't forget PCR also had an important role in organizing strikes (pre-1948, 1948-1989 and post-1989 historiographies all agree on this, even if the second praises it for doing that, while the other blame it). So while not being aware of each other's actions, all those people acted on a common program.

As for Northern Transylvania, it is mentioned by sources as part of the Romanian Resistance (and there's a whole corpus about it, mostly from a nationalistic POV, from the 80s).
 * Etnasi is a secondary sources, and unless you succeed in proving your accusations, it fits Wikipedia's policies. Pravda and Analele are one and the same source (It's a 1942 Pravda article translated in Romanian in Analele of 1969; I have no way to get that Pravda, and, contrary to the myth spread by Bonaparte, I can read Russian text only after putting it through Google Translate).
 * You are a bit too proud about that article. It still doesn't mention Molotov armistice's offer when the Soviet Army was at Romania's border, while mentioning an ultimatum by some US official who had no mean to enforce it. ( Sergiu's Oglinda seems to be the main source of info about WW2 in Romania for many common people - i.e. not historians or truly interested in history - and LP's portrayal there was quite sympathetic, compared to the other communist figures present in the film. Vadim is also constantly praising Ceausescu for the same reasons, yet we don't have streets in Bucharest named after him. Oh, and LP got around the Foris business because he was one of the few non-Jewish public figures recognised as a communist - Sadoveanu hadn't still come out, and the other where killed by Stalin a decade before - Dej couldn't risk losing such a great asset)
 * Excuse me, but I should remind you what are we talking about here: some thoughts in my user space that at the moment look nothing like an WP article (BTW, what were you searching following my contribs? :) ). It's not supposed to go live at least until August. And what are you doing: you're warning me not to write the article, and guarantee a successful AfD, without even knowing how the final article will look like? If I wouldn't know better (or I have a too good impression of you), I would say you're afraid I would steal your exclusivity about opposition to Antonescu :) You are a bit "owny" with the articles you write, you know...Anonimu (talk) 17:34, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, you opened up too many paths for me to be, well, able to follow them, but let me point out a coupe of things, in random order: I'm not "warning" you about anything, I'm just letting you know that you may be wasting a lot of time and effort into something that will probably sink champagne bottle and all; I'm not bragging about the Antonescu article, nor especially worried about "competition" (certainly not as "competition") - though I have put considerable effort into it, some two years after calls to have it improved by anyone, and although, judging by the talk page and some past edits, there is cause for concern with what has been pushed "against" my version in the past; the Antonescu article does not reflect my narratives or my priorities, but those of sources - if it doesn't mention something, then rest assured it's because the sources don't bother with it; and, yes, I did go through through some of your latest contributions (to be fair, I clicked the link once and noticed the title) - feel free to do the same, as I'm sure you have.
 * We could go on and, well, on about many things here. The main point I'm making is the following: if you plan to follow the pattern you already applied so far, this article doesn't really stand a chance of survival, in August or September or May. At least not with Analele (Pravda or no Pravda) etc, with or without Etnasi. Incidentally: not citing the material you present as sources is bound to make that procedure even smoother. Whether I find the topic worthy of a separate article or not (granted, my opinion is subject to changes) is ultimately irrelevant: you would need reliable sources amply covering the subject as such (i. e., a phenomenon). The scenario so far is that you may have one, which you haven't yet cited. And this when several reliable sources, recent reliable sources, basically say "there was none".
 * Oh, and: if this makes it into mainspace and it turns out you have improved per the above (which I don't suppose is impossible), and if I get to change my mind about the feasibility, then there's still room in the article for expanding on stuff such as the PCR's mythological build-up around the notion of "Romanian partisans" and its monotonous presence in productions from frescoes and textbooks to Sergiu (remember Şi ce vreţi voi, comuniştii?). I should have some very good sources around for that. Dahn (talk) 19:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So you imply you have covered every reliable source about Antonescu/WW2 Romania? You're basically saying that if something is not in the sources you used, then it's not relevant enough.
 * What's with Analele? It just quotes a Pravda article. In the 1946 elections article you used a lot of 3rd party sources (if I remember well, all opinion attributed to Pauker in that article are obtained through the memoirs of some Western diplomats). Should I search for the original Pravda, or should I use a readily available, easily verifiable (at least to those living in Romania) source that copies the original, without any commentary? Etnasi's book is a compendium with the resistance movements in each European country presented in a separate chapter (varying from 20 pages for countries with less important movements like Romania, to over 100 for countries such as France, Italy or the Soviet Union). That obviously shows that the Romanian resistance is considered as a phenomenon. I have also found a lecture presented at a Conference about Resistance in Europe that also deals with the Romanian resistance as a phenomenon (it's called something like "Romanian Resistance and the Allies"; is written by some German or Jewish guy, judging by the name) - facts from this aren't still included in the article-to-be, but much of it support the things already present in this collection, sometimes with more detail.
 * We can always have a section like "Contemporary view" stating some modern historians say the movement was unimportant or shit like this (hopefully with no fascist, former iron-guardist or other such species given credit for their opinions)
 * It would be an interesting read, however I don't remember any extensive "mythology", at least during the last period of Ceausescu's rule. There was the Pistruiatu series (yes, Sergiu again), but I don't think anybody took that as something that really had happened. There's a bridge bypassing the railway in Constanta still officially called "Filimon Sarbu" (even in recent government decisions) probably just because nobody in the administration has any idea who this guy was, so I don't know about how extensive this "mythology" was.Anonimu (talk) 20:23, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * "So you imply you have covered every reliable source about Antonescu/WW2 Romania?" No. I imply that what they have is what the article has - hypothetical coverage of idunnowhat event in relation to a precise topic is, erm, hypothetical, and it is also exhausting to contemplate. And certainly not about "WW2 Romania", but said article is not that topic, is it? I will eventually edit the "WW2 Romania" article with all detail that is viewed as significant there.
 * Because Analele itself is of dubious quality, producing the official history of a communist state. In this case, the contrast with competent recent sources should make it clear-cut that it's not worth a second look. Your comparison is flawed: first of all, the sources I cited are not "3rd party", they would be "2nd", validated by "3rd" (picked up from historical studies); that aside, the problem with Pravda is not the rank of info, but the simple, glaring fact that it's from Pravda, i.e. a paradigm of non-reliability, and a benchmark for, say, quoting the Beobachter on the "Crusade in the East". As for Etnasi etc.: Yes, yes, all good - cite them for what they say and we'll have something to talk about.
 * Nice spin. But it works the other way around. The brackets are preaching to the choir, though I'm certain I don't agree with your conveniently wide interpretation of "fascist" and the couldmeananything that is "other such species".
 * The sources I'm thinking of right now are the main Cernat-Manolescu-Mitchievici-Stanomir opus (good for Sergiu all-around) and Boia's Miturile comunismului. They go into significant detail about this. Btw, I would picture that even those articles were no mythology was constructed around such a notion (and not even the French Resistance was spared, as all Pif readers will remember) could and should use a section outlining the cultural impact. Dahn (talk) 20:54, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Then why do you resist addition of (obviously referenced) material then? As for the public armistice offer, it was refused by Antonescu himself, not by some negotiator. So this is very much about Antonescu. That your sources fail to mention this doesn't really project a good image on them (they seem to imply that the acceptance of an armistice fom the Soviets was not a option, and that only an armistice from the US could have "saved" Romania). But other reliable sources are readily available.
 * Every piece of officially approved history work is in itself dubious (including VT's report), but doesn't mean that the source is necessarily false or falsifying. I don't really understand how putting in a historical study a quote from a diplomat quoting Pauker quoting Stalin validates the quoted quotation as veracious. An important engineering principle is that the longer the way the greater the noise. This is also true for our example: the report of the United Press, quoted by Pravda, quoted by Anale, isn't guaranteed as fully correct, but making the path known to the reader we let him decide whether to believe the report or not.
 * People like Caraza or Gavrila-Ogararu shouldn't be treated as reliable mainstream sources in Wikipedia articles. If I'd use as sources clearly political articles from the Anale (and not just uncommented documents as I did) I think we'll have a more mainstream article than one sourced with authors like the above.Anonimu (talk) 22:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * And not to leave the Northern Transylvania issue hanging: the books discussing this subject as produced by Romanian historians from the period you mention are among the most outrageous works of manipulation. Aside from what's in the Antonescu article towards the end (on the Holocaust issue), the sources I used go into much more detail that was not directly relevant there: they discuss how Party historians turned people killed by Hungarians for being Jews into Romanians killed for being Romanian, how they invented a number of massacres, how they presented Antonescu's hirelings in Cluj as "resistance fighters" etc. This aside from the subjects addressing completely different realities and jurisdictions to begin with (which would, in fact, "justify" presenting Antonescians in Northern Transylvania as "partisans" etc., simply because they weren't Hungarian). And, incidentally: the word "Horthyist" (note the spelling: it's not "Horthyst") is a loaded term belonging to a politicized vocabulary; it is also highly inaccurate, almost ignorant-sounding, since it glosses over these guys, conveniently ignored by Romanian historiography for not being directly associated with the Vienna Award and for being Horthy's adversaries. So who exactly battled whom? Dahn (talk) 21:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Actually the resistance in Northern Transylvania is just mentioned in my sources, without any specific details. So currently I have no opinion about it, but, considering the extreme nationalism of the 80s, you might very well be right. But as long as the sources mention it, I would misrepresent the reference if I excluded it on my own. Also, the articles is to be about present territory of Romania, because otherwise we'll run into much more complicated problems (I doubt that the resistance in Transnistria could be seriously classified as Romanian). As for "Horthyist", I'm aware of its overtones, however it's much shorter than "Nazi-aligned Hungarian government of Horthy which had administered the area following the 2nd VA". But remember this is just a project. The discussion here seems more like a PrafD... ;)Anonimu (talk) 22:15, 22 June 2009 (UTC)