Talk:Ukrainization/Archive 2

Original research

Where the definition of "Ukrainisation" in the first paragraph came from? Looks like original research.--AndriyK 16:19, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Read the talk above. Scholars use the term in many senses and restricting a definition to the one specific instance is just false. This is not an original research but a plain summarizing of several uses and it is so straightforward, that it does not qualify for original research. Please seize your tag-trolling. Your assaulting of multiple articles with tags is very disruptive. --Irpen 01:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

In addition to quotes above, read, for instance, Petro Shelest article in uk-wiki. Also, google and google books the term Ukrainization, also the Ukrainian and Russian variant. If you know German and do some googling there as well, I would be interested to see the result.

Your "correction" as related to presidential election was removed as improper. The article doesn't speak of presidential promises to change the constitution on their own. I carefully wrote about promises made to "to support the idea" which might or might not have been succesfull. Personally, I don't support such an idea and I didn't vote for either of those guys. --Irpen 01:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

As for the proof the educational system in Ukrainian was changed to an overwhelmingly Ukrainian one, I added a ref. --Irpen 02:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

1. I removed the citation of Malenkovich because the numbers given there are not reliable. According to the official data of Kiev city state administration there are 16 Russian language school and 16 partially Russian language schools [1], which is quite different from what Malenkovich says.

I am restoring it. Malynkovych is a respected analyst in Ukraine. The data isn't conflicting in any way. It is for different times. I will keep your data as well. --Irpen

Respected by whom?

He is published and referred to in say Zerkalo Nedeli, his interviews are commentaries are frequently published in the Ukrainians liberal press. Don't pretend you haven't seen. Stop pestering in the hope to drain me down. --Irpen

Do you really believe that 10 Russian language schools disapeared in two years? He did not even mentioned mixed Russian-Ukrainian schools.--AndriyK 17:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Besides, I've shown in the article that the "official" data is incorrect. It lists school number 300 as a Russian school (as of 2003-2004), while school's own web-site claims the school was changed to Ukrainian in 2000 (see refs in the article). So, some of these 16 schools may have been not Russian as well, the list is proven false. Besides, and most importantly, Malynkovych's article is the most recent data. If you have numbers proving his data false as of 2006, bring it up.

1. I added the percentage of students obtaining education in Ukrainian. Let the readers decide what is "overwhelmingly" and what is "partially".

Nope, the modern numbers are overwhelming. You can file an article RfC to ask for more opinions if you want. --Irpen

If you have more fresh numbers please add them. But "overwhekming" is POV, let the readers judge.--AndriyK 17:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Nope, this is just commons sense. Numbers are overwhelming. They are referenced. I will not let you erase this word. It is absolutely clear here. I will bring more uninvolved editors through an article RfC. --Irpen 18:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

1. I restored the tag. The question was not about how scholars use the term, but where the definition came from. If you invented it yourself then it is original research and should be removed from the article. If it came from a reliable source, please give the reference. Do not remove the tag until the issue is solved.

I will remove the tag because this is nothing but tug trolling, the new tactic, you are using for fast-hand-fixes in enforcement your POV once your moving spree was trumped. I will bring this to a public attenton for the others to judge. --Irpen

Please bring it to public attention as soon as possible as well as your pushing of your OR into the article.

Will do. Sorry, if you regret the consequenses. --Irpen

1. Information about authority of the President to change the Constitution is factual and relevant. The state language is fixed by the Constitution and changing the Constitution is the only way to change the status of the language. Please do not remove the factual information.--AndriyK 09:20, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The authority of the president to change the constitution is irrelevant. The presidential candidates did not give a promise to change the constitution single-handily. They promised to work towards this change. Your adding to an article a piece of trivia about Ukrainian legal system is off-topic. --Irpen

Please provide the reference that " they promised to work towards this change".--AndriyK 17:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

This is pestering. Your trolling will be exposed as soon as I can find time for it. The president cannot change the constitution single handily. Neither can he guarantee that the constitution will be changed. The article doesn't say so. But the president, even legally, has the right for legislative initiative "Zakonodavcha initsyatyva", as per the consitution itself. He exherts certain influences on the pro-gov parties and even on the opposition parties through the compromises on the other things important to them. These are very general rules. Besides, in addition to such legal ways, president has many extra-legal ways to affect the deputies votes, especially in Ukraine and some other states, and this is all too well known to waist time and discuss. Right now this might have somewhat lessened but we are talking about Kuchma and Yanuk here. Even in the US when presidential powers are much more in check, presidential promises are important in the elections and they are implicitly understood as his plans to work things out with congress, not to dismantle congress, assume king's power and implement some changes. In any case, this legaleze either here or in the article is off-topic. The facts are that in Ukraine, president had always had much influence on how the things will go, even in the spheres of the government, parliament and Judicial rather than constitutionally his spheres of competence. Why so, whether he is authorized to check constitution, etc. are the pieces of trivia that belong to the article about Ukrainian political system and in much more comprehensive form. --Irpen 04:13, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Then it should be said clearly, what did candidates promissed

• Did they promise use the right for legislative initiative?
• Did they promise to use their political influence on the pro-Presidental parties?
• Did they promise to use extra-legal methods? ;)

Or they promised to make Russian a state language.

As far as I remamnber it was the latter case. If you disagree, please provide the references to what exactly promised the candidates and make the text more clear.

The section has to be tagged until the dispute is resolved.--AndriyK 07:59, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

No, they didn't promise to change the consitution. This is too vague for public campaign. the candidate gives clear political goals (second state language). The political details are the part of the political process should he win, rather than pre-election debate. --Irpen 18:04, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Recruitment poster

Does somebody see any "Ukrainization theme" at the poster? I don't.--AndriyK 14:26, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

It was discussed. Care to read talk. --Irpen 16:54, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

It was discussed but the issue was not solved. Its relation to Ukrainization is just a POV.--AndriyK 17:58, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

No, this is just commons sense. Yours is POV.

Please don't overload this talk for now with repeated arguments to make sure side viewers will read an entire page. I will bring them asap. By all means, if you have anything new to say, go right ahead. --Irpen 18:23, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

What is common sense? If a poster is in Ukrtainian then it is "with Ukrainization theme"? Then every poster in Russian is "with URussification theme"? Do any sources confirm that there was "Ukrainization of Red Army"?--AndriyK 08:11, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes I do, sourced to Encyclopedia Ukrainoznavstva material is added. --Irpen 18:04, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Malenkovich's numbers

Dear Irpen, why did you ignore my comment concerning the figures given by Malenkovich. The official source[2] dated by Jan 23 2004 gives essentially different numbers - 32 Russian language schools (cf. 6 given by Malenkovich). Don't see any problem?

I think, respectable and acting in good faith wikipedian would not use the Malenkovich's numbers until the discrepency is clarified.--AndriyK 08:34, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Do your research to clarify this than. I did my part and I see that official number is:

1. False as shown in the article (see discussion of school #300)
2. applies to a different time (2003-2004, while Malynkovych's number (2005-2006) is of two years later). Please find another number for 2005-2006 if you want to contest Malynkovych. --Irpen 18:04, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

POV-update by User:William Jockusch

I moved the passage added by that user here:

The Ukrainization policies of the Ukrainian government have provoked a backlash in Russian-speaking areas. In 2006, city councils in Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrivsk, Luhansk, Mykolaiv, and the Crimea have declared that Russian is a legal language in their respective areas. However, the central Government is threatening legal action to prevent this.[3], [4], [5]

The factual info (the one sourced by ext links) is relevant to the article, but interpreted in a POV/OR way. Neither text nor links explain why practically did the local councils made their decision. As far as I know, they wasn't reacting on any particular anti-Russian language attempts (since there was no such attempts at all :))). It is not stated in the text anyway.

According to the common knowledge, those councils are dominated by the Party of Regions which openly arranged the campaign. Given that, many consider this campaign as part of PR's efforts to make a pressure on President.

I believe the info from Mr. Jockusch's text belongs to Party of Regions and Russian language, in a NPOVed condition of course. Ukrained 14:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree. I believe it belongs right where I put it. Are you saying you don't agree that a dispute about the use of Russian language belongs in this article? I'm afraid I can't agree at all. William Jockusch 18:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Thinking about this some more -- surely the reaction to a policy belongs in any article about that policy. If my description of the reaction was incomplete, by all means, fill in the missing details. But inclusion of the reaction to something is common in many articles throughout Wikipedia. I don't see how this article should be any different.

As for the claim that this is original research, I can only wish that my erstwhile professors at the Univ. had been so generous :) Seriously, I simply took the information in the linked articles and synthesized it, adding a header sentence that this constituted a backlash. Is the header sentence what makes you consider this original research? Or is it possible that, having seen many attempts to "overdo" this backlash by certain other users, you mentally grouped my edit into the same bin? William Jockusch 20:57, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

The definition of Ukrainization

I restored the definition of Ukrainization which is base on a creadible source (Encyclopedia of Ukrainian studies). The previous version was unsourced (likely Original Research).

One of the sections does not fit into the definition of Ukrainization. I did not removed it so far but marked by a dispute tag. I propose to discuss where this section belongds to.--AndriyK 14:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

So what is Original Research, as you insist on inserting tags and revert warring why not discuss for a change prior to making the next revert. Is the fact that Yushchenko opposed the recent raising of Russian as official in Eastern regions Ukrainisation? Well again the article has varying definitions of what it is. So let's maybe have an understanding what is Ukrainisation itself --Kuban Cossack 14:56, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I restored the definition found in literature. If there are other definitions in creadible sources, then let's discuss how we can reconcile them. Inventing own definition is original research and violates the policy.

The post 1991-period does not fit the definition of Ukrainization. It does not belong to the scope of the article.--AndriyK 15:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The point is that definition in one source is different from another, and I think that all definitions (which in this case is only a question of scale and impact) should be presented accordingly, but removing text is not policy either. --Kuban Cossack 15:07, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Please list here all the definition you have found in the literature. And then we'll discuss.--AndriyK 15:12, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The definition is the same, to introduce/increase the role of Ukrainian in a scenario (they use different wordings, but its the same all around). However, what some see as Ukrainisation others, as Lysy pointed out see as de-Russification. I am not talking about positive or negative contributions, all I am saying is that say introducing Ukrainian in Crimea is as much of an Ukrainisation as having Ukrainian fully replace Russian in Kiev, and as much as offering Ukrainian language packages for e.g. Mobile phones or Computers, even having Ukrainian subtitles in cinemas is a form of Ukrainisation. The point is scale and impact, and this has to be expanded on, NOT removed. --Kuban Cossack 15:59, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Please list all the definitions you have found with the referencies to the sources.--AndriyK 16:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Intro should summarize the article. The policies of different historic periods are called by the term "Ukrainization" as per several respected refs. As such, the narrow intro suggested by AndriyK is inappropriate as it refers to only one specific usage. He is welcome to offer his version of the lead. The current version he proposes simply contradicts the article itself as well as the refs cited at this talk page above. --Irpen 06:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Ditto on that. --Kuban Cossack 10:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The WP editors should not invent the definitions of the terms. The definitions should be based upon creadible sources. And the content of article should correespond to the definition.--AndriyK 08:33, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

The content of the article should summarize the currently avaiolable scholarship. As per the latter, the issue is not limited to the Soviet policies of the 20s and examples of Subtelny and Magocsi prove that by themselves. As such, the policies of the other periods belong to the article where they are and the intro should reflect the article's breadth. If you have a better definition of the subject or a version of the lead that reflect the referenced use of the term, pls come up with this. If not, start doing something else for WP in addition to revert warring and tag-trolling. --Irpen 09:07, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a better definition and I rpoosed it in my version, but you reverted it.

Your version is original research and should be marked as such until the dispute is resolved.--AndriyK 09:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

What is Original Research

An edit counts as original research if it proposes ideas or arguments. That is, if it does any of the following:

• ...
• It defines new terms;
• It provides or presumes new definitions of pre-existing terms;
• ...
• It introduces an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source;

(see WP:NOR#What_is_excluded.3F)

The present version of the article is OR as the definition of Ukrainization in the leading paragraph was not published by any reputative source. Irpen can prove the opposite by citing the source where the definition is taken from. Otherwise the sourced version should be restored.--AndriyK 11:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The lead merely summarizes the uses of the term as per reputable sources cited in this talk page and in the article references. Your version, OTOH, weaselizes the usage by saying "some researchers"... Subtelny, Magocsi and others are not "some: but leading researchers in the field. If you have a better way to summarize the article in the lead, offer that by all means. --Irpen 22:06, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

"Merely summarizes" is nothing else as "an analysis or synthesis of established facts", which is OR.

Please pay attantion that the fact that we are discussing the problem means that the dispute is there and it has not been settled. Removing the tag is a violation of the policy.--AndriyK 10:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

summary : an abstract, abridgment, or compendium especially of a preceding discourse.

analysis : an examination of a complex, its elements, and their relations.

You are wrong. -Iopq 21:08, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Dispute tags

The present discussion clearly indicates that there is unresolved dispute about this article. Removing a dispute tag in such a situation is in varience with WP:Vandalism. Please stop removing the tag and switch to the discussion.--Mbuk 22:10, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Improper use of dispute tags is also Vandalism by the way. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:21, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In this case it was used poperly. Read the discussion above and take part in it, if you have objections.--Mbuk 22:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, let's get to it. If you think that the way "Ukrainization" is defined in that section is not appropriate, point out a source claiming so instead of putting that tag. Otherwise, chances are high that your tag will get reverted since it is unjustified.

Blanking and putting tags is hardly WP:DR. Adding references and points of view are DR. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Please read the talk. AndriK refers to a source, but Irpen does not.--Mbuk 22:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Sources were referred to above. But I will add more: Orest Subtelny, Ukraine: A History, 3rd Edition, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 0802083900. pp. 606, 608 For instance p. 608 (Chapter "The troubled transition" of the post-91 independent UA).

Quote: "Many critics of linguistic Ukrainization did not object to it in principle. Rather they wanted it to be appled gradually so as to cause a minimum of inconvenience and disruption. Since many Russian speakers staunchly and regularly supported Ukrainian interests and independendence, it would be unjustified to view them as less patriotic."

Another source: Gearoid O'Tuathail, A Companion to Political Geography, Blackwell Publishing, 2002, ISBN 0631220313.

Quote: "Since 1993, entrance examinations to higher education institutions are taken in Ukrainian and, as a rule, first years classes now be taught in Ukrainian. This confroms the language law that forsaw the Ukrainization of the higher educational network. Fortunately, the zeal of local authorities in the implementation of this principle varies from one region to another and fluctuates in time. As for the Ukrainization of higher education, there are objective problems with regard to text books, of the fluency of Ukrainian among the teaching staff, and even with the Ukrainian equivalnets in professional terms. As a result, the Ukrainization of education, at least in East Ukraine, is taking place much slower than the national "revivalists" would like".

Another Source: United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Foreign Relations. Subcommittee on European Affairs, U.S. Policy on Ukrainian Security, 1993, ISBN 0160415683.

Quote: "Ukraine has given major concessions to the Russian minority, by practically putting the Ukrainization on hold..."

Source: Ilya Prizel, National Identity and Foreign Policy: Nationalism and Leadership in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, Cambridge University Press, 1998, ISBN 0521576970.

Another quote for the 60s period (in addition to the one from E of U quotes already: Quote: "Ukrainizationof the Ukraine's Orthodox Church, much like Ukrainization of the Communist party of UA. (the quote further tells how this switch in 60s impacted the presence of UGCC in Western UA as people were less opposed to joining the OC that they perceived Ukrainian enough"

Another quote, same book: "The parties of the moderate right, consisting of Rukh, DPU and URP, all share basic vision. While committed to the democratic proocess and minority rights, the envision UA as a unitary state with the central gov dedicated to the gradual but systematic Ukrainization of the educational system."

More: Will Kymlicka, Magda Opalski, Can Liberal Pluralism Be Exported?, Oxford Uni press, ISBN 019924815X.

Quote: "'Ukrainiation' policy is not so dissimilar from the Soviet-era policy of Russification.... Attitudes favouring Ukrainian majority nation building, and its logical outcome 'ukrainization', dominate the ideological discourse."

Plenty of more are around in books and press. --Irpen 23:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Irpen. You activity became much more constructive. Citing the sources is much more usefull than removing the tags and edit warring. Please act similarly in the future. Thanks again.--Mbuk 06:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Mbuk, some of this info was cited above already prior to that. Read talk and the article which refs for non-20s as well. Such an approach on your behalf would help avoid wasting yours and others' time on the repeated discussions. You had to see the previously cited sources and google a little bit yourself even if you are not familiar with the topics and the books written on it. While in this instance I don't consider my time wasted, as the sources cited will be used for the article's expansion, note the end result. The usage is shown again as justified, tags removed as before as unwarranted, you did not add any content to Wikipedia. Time to start doing something about the latter and time to get critical when others just ask you to do something. Doesn't mean they are all wrong, but you should analyze that critically and use your own head. --Irpen 06:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I am very critical and always use my own head, but it has very little to do with Ukrainization. Please use my talk page for personal comments next time.

Thanks.--Mbuk 06:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

You obviously did not bother to read talk if you claimed that non-20s use of the term is unsourced. References were there, and in the article, before I added more today to this page above. --Irpen 08:23, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The OR problem is still to be resolved

I reread the article and the talk on Irpen's request and came to the conclution that the OR problem is still there. The references that were listed by Irpen above are very usefull and likely will help to improve the article content. But none of the citations contains the definition of Ukrainization in the form it is given in the present version of the article. According to WP:OR, an article is OR if "It provides or presumes new definitions of pre-existing terms" (see citations of WP:OR by AndriyK above).

Let's think together how to resolve the problem. I'll put the OR template on the top of the article. Please do not blank it before the dispute is settled. Thanks.--Mbuk 22:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

On of the solutions to the OR problem could be to split the article, as suggested in the section below. --Lysy^talk 11:28, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

A reasonable idea. One article could be about Ukrainization in the narrow meaning of this word. Another one could be more general about the Language policy in Ukraine, for instance.--Mbuk 11:53, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think so. The primary goal should be to avoid using the article for the purposes of political advocacy for or against the present government of Ukraine. Specifically I would suggest to:

1. merge the content of the 1917-1923: Times after the Russian Revolution section into appropriate place in "History of Ukraine" article
2. Move the content of the sections 1923-1931: Early years of Soviet Ukraine and Early-1930s to mid-1980s to a new Ukrainization in the Soviet Union article (or even better, merge the first section with Korenizatsiya)
3. Move the section Post-1991: Independent Ukraine into a new article Language policies in modern Ukraine.

"Ukrainization" itself is a very loaded term, and the title could be used for a disamb page (altough one might argue that this is not necessary as encyclopedia is not a dictionary) --Lysy^talk 12:07, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, I described the problem with your proposal to limit the scope of the article. The article is not being used to grind anyone's axe against the UA gov, so this is really just a hypothetical problem. The term is used not only to 20s and post-90s policies. Article and the term's usage is very well referenced. I object to the removal of info to other topic articles. These policies were called "Ukrainization" by plenty of sources and moving them to History of UA is hiding them from the reader, no matter how AndriyK wants that. I do not object to creating mainarticles, if one wants to elaborate but not remove the material I wrote, I repeat very well referenced. The fact is that there is plenty of respected usage of the term for the policies of the different times. The definition reflects that. I am ready to see proposals on how to change the definition but it should be equally applicable to what the article is about. --Irpen 19:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The purpose of my suggestion was to reduce the number of edit wars on the article by having a number of more focused articles instead of the general one. Contrary to what you say, the content would not get "hidden" that way, as I've also proposed to have a disamb page to direct users to specific articles. As for using the term "Ukrainization" with reference to modern Ukraine's policies, I'm not sure if it's not POV usage itself. What do you think ? --Lysy^talk 19:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It worth to reread what MZajac wrote above:

"Magocsi capitalizes the Soviet Ukrainianization program of the 1920s–30s, and in other contexts writes ukrainianization and ukrainianized in lower case. Subtelny uses the terms Ukrainization, Ukrainianize, Ukrainized, Ukrainianism capitalized both as a proper noun and in the general sense."

That is, ukrainization in general and Ukrainization with narrow meaning are not exactly the same. This should be made clear. Splitting the article is the most preferable way to do it.

Irpen is right saying "there is plenty of respected usage of the term for the policies of the different times." But this does not justify using an OR definition in the article. How do we know that the authors who use "ukrainization" implied precisely the same definition as Irpen proposed? Nobody knows.

I concur with Lysy that using the term "Ukrainization" with reference to modern Ukraine's policies may provoke POV disputes. To avoid them, I would propose the following:

• Use "Ukrainization" only in the title of the article about Ukrainization in the narrow sence;
• For all other periods use more general and neutral titles like "Language policies ..."
• The word "ukrainization" with general meaning can be used in the text of these articles precisely there, where it is used in the reputative sources. A resonable way to avoid disputes is "indirrect speach", i.e. instead of asserting "This was Ukrainization" better to say "Authors XXX and YYY consider/call this policy Ukrainization".

The final suggestion: please do not remove the tag before the dispute is settled.--Mbuk 21:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Not all scolars consider the policy of modern Ukraine as "ukrainization". I would say even that most of them do not consider. Different views cannot be reconciled in the article entitled "Ukrainization". Therefore, I agree with Max: neutral title will help to find a solution of the problem.--AndriyK 15:00, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, the usage of the term with respect to the modern policies of the UA gov is wide and should be reflected. Whether it is POV or not depends whether the article is right on the content. As long as it is referenced, there is going to be no dispute, provided the parties with strong POV still approach to it in good faith. If AndriyK reinvents himself or ends up locked out, I don't see who will be POVing it for now.

Now, let me ask you, the authors who apply the term to the different time, Policies of what do they mean? Policies of reduction of Ukrainian everything? Policies of permanentizing the results of the past Russification of or Ukrainization? No? What then? Not what's in the intro now? Suppressing any usage from the intro and leaving it limited to the 20s is going against the sources and common sense too.

One more thing, I suggest you take a look at the article's early history and match it with early talk, now archived by Elonka. I did not start the article. It was started exactly the way it should not have been started, it was an axe grinding exercise against Yushchenko's gov policies. At that time, I blanked that stuff. The article later was restarted and developed to the current stage where, along with Polonization it is one of the best referenced articles expecially taking into account the sensitivity of the topic. We won't have problems between good faith editors, if we stick to facts and sources. That said, I object to splitting as of now. I will be developing the article using the sources and sticking close to them. Cooperation of good-faith editors would be appreciated. --Irpen 04:04, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Split

The problem with this article is that it attempts to describe two very distinct phenmena under a single common title. I suggest to split it into two separate articles, one dealing with Ukrainization in the Soviet Union and the other with Ukrainization policies of Ukraine. The reason for this suggestion is to put stop to revert wars on this article, particularly on the lead which fails to satisfactory summarize the two different issues. In result we'd get two clearly focused articles and the editors could use their efforts in a more productive way than edit-warring. --Lysy^talk 12:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, as you can see from the article and talk the term is wider than just Soviet 20s and Ukrainian post-80s. The sections would do the trick provided that editors act constructively by helping to write an article instead of trying it to disappear. --Irpen 00:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Is there a benefit of having a single article instead of a separate one for each specific issue ? The constructive cooperation that you're longing for obviously is not happening, and the article continues to be plagued with revert-wars instead. --Lysy^talk 10:54, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

If there are conflicting opinions of what a term means, the best way forward is to describe these conflicting opinions in the article, rather that editwarring about which one is "right". We can say that according to Foo, Ukranization is ABC and according to Bar, Ukranization is DEF. We can even say that there are different contexts for this term, one dealing with "Ukrainization in the Soviet Union" and another dealing with "Ukrainization policies of Ukraine". This is the best way to avoid endless POV tags and edit wars... Describe all significant viewpoints, by attributing these statements to those that hold them, and supporting these by a reliable source that can be verified. Please note that I do not know anything about this subject, just suggesting a way forward based on WP's content policies of WP:NPOV and WP:V. Hope this helps. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that only Foo exist, whyle Bar does not. Only one definition is found in the literature, another one (the one in the current version of the article) was invented by Irpen and is an Original Research.

Some author use the term Ukrainization beyond its definition and tis is mentioned in the version of the article I've proposed [6]. This version was reverted by Irpen who insists on his OR definition.--AndriyK 19:01, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not OR, see Irpen's references provided here. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 19:07, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that user:AndriyK when he doesn't tag, revert wars and when neither, he removes material from WP not to his liking or tries to hide it from the view, no matter how well referenced the information is. We have yet to see him adding content to Wikipedia. This article is well referenced both here and at talk and the deletion of weaselizing of referenced information is intorelable. --Irpen 19:06, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Or, forgot to mention, that when AndriyK is not tagging, revert warring, removing info and attacking his opponents, trying with little luck to recruit the supporters, he is Wikilawyering. See his contributions to [Wikipedia namespace as well as to Wikipedia talk. I am sorry I ommitted such an important activity. Now I think I have it all covered. --Irpen 19:20, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I would also advise editors:

• to remain WP:CIVIL and not use the edit summaries to level personal attacks against fellow editors. Please see Wikipedia's no personal attacks policy. Comment on content, not on the contributor; personal attacks damage the community and deter users. Note that continued personal attacks may lead to blocks for disruption. Please stay cool and keep this in mind while editing. Thank you.
• Please refrain from undoing other people's edits repeatedly. If you continue, you may be blocked from editing Wikipedia under the three-revert rule, which states that nobody may revert an article to a previous version more than three times in 24 hours. (Note: this also means editing the page to reinsert an old edit. If the effect of your actions is to revert back, it qualifies as a revert.) Thank you.

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Protected

The article is now protected. Once you reach consensus on how to proceed, you can place a request for unprotection at WP:RFPP. Please note that protection is not an endorsement of the current page version, as stated. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I was about to expand the article further, especially, since I recently quoted more sources. Too bad it is protected, but fine if you insist. The tagger, user:AndriyK, is enduring another 48 hour block (following the more ones in the past). The ArbCom ruling and an ArbCom's one moth block did not teach AndriyK to change his habbits of not writing anything for Wikipedia but instead he continued to devise the methods to with as little effort as possible get the most bang for a buck. Banned from moving pages or even renaming placenames and people within articles by ArbCom, he resorted to the next simplest thing: the tag-trolling.

Please note that mutliple sources were cited in the article and at the talk and more have just been added above. For the tagger, user:AndriyK, tag-trolling has been the prevailing activity on Wikipedia since his ArbCom's ban. Just check his edit history. User:Mbuk, for whatever reason decided to simply act as AndriyK's proxy (I haven't seen any other activity from that user as well). I am saddened by that since he seemed a polite, albeit a stubborn, and potentially a contributor.

If this is all it takes to force a lock onto an article, too bad for Wikipedia. I am saying this just for the record, because I am unhappy about the article's lock even though the last edit before the lock is mine. The article needs major work and a flat-Earth theorist causing the lock of the Earth article is what happens with AndriyK causing locks to Russian architecture as well as now to this one, sadly, even with the locked version fiercely not to his liking. This is very un-wiki.

Fine, I have other projects to work at for now. --Irpen 03:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I can see that AndriyK (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) has been blocked for edit warring. Given this, I will now unprotect. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:43, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

of Symon Petlura had to face a new wave of chaos as Ukraine was invaded by Bolshevik and Polish troops,

What about the cooperation of Petlura and bad Polish troops? Xx236 07:55, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This article is not about the History of Ukraine. We just need a context that Petlura got other things on his head to worry about rather than UA-zation. Chaos meant the gov had to consern itself with more urgent things than UA-zation. Who of the two invader Petlura chose to cooperate with is known but it is not related to the article's narrow topic. --Irpen 08:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't known to 95% of the English speaking readers, who know perhaps, that Petlura was responsible for pogroms and was rightly killed in Paris, but nothing more. You misinform suggesting that there were Polish-Petlura fights. Xx236 11:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There were Polish-Ukrainian fights. Petlura chose to give in to the Polish demands and make peace in order to get Polish help against others. This all belongs to historic articles. This article merely brings the context of chaos in view of the invasions of Ukraine. --Irpen 00:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether the Polish-Ukrainian conflict over Eastern Galicia was a Polish invasion is a matter or POV and can discussed in Polish-Ukrainian War article but should not be judged here. I'm about to remove this part of the sentence as it does not bring new information relevant to the article's topic, and otherwise would need to be elaborated further. --Lysy^talk 10:42, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

But you kept "Bolshevik invasion". Interesting NPOV. There is not question that Polish actions (including the ill-concieved Kiev Offensive) were invasions. Please don't weaselize that. --Irpen 19:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure I do not need to explain to you that the Kiev Offensive happened later and it did not bother Petlura, as the Poles were his allies in this offensive, not invaders. I assume your good faith in your edit, but the current wording is misleading. --Lysy^talk 19:44, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, Poles invaded Ukraine from the West and Bolsheviks from the east. This is not POV but facts. The first goal of Poles was to crush the statehood attempt of Ukrainians in Galicia and Volhynia (which they did since the WUR was destroyed) and expand to the east where, as per Pilsudski ("the doors were open"), while Bolsheviks invaded from the east. Petlura, of the two invaders, chose one who would get content with less leaving something for him too. In any case, both Poland and Soviet Russia invaded Ukraine and that was chaos. These are facts and not POV. --Irpen 04:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The initial conflict over East Galicia cannot be called an invasion. Both nations considered the territory to be their. There was no well established traditional border between Poland and Ukraine. Both countries were just regaining their independence and defining their borders. You can call this a conflict, but calling it an invasion would reflect a biased point of view. As for the later events, including the Kiev Offensive that you mentioned, it was planned together with Petlura already. Of course you can argue that Petlura had to consider if to ally with the Poles or not, but that's another story. The fact is that in the Kiev Offensive Poles were Petlura's allies. The sentence that you reverted to, suggests otherwise and that is why I have changed it. --Lysy^talk 07:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, Galicia was obviously an invasion. The army was not local Polish resistance, but came from the West to crush the self-proclaimed Ukrainian state, the WUR. As for KO, I am not saying the Poles invaded Petlyura. They invaded Ukraine. Some Ukrainians (Petlura) supported that and assisted, some opposed and fought it. The matter is that Ukraine was in chaos under to invaders and the gov had to worry about other things. That's the only idea of this piece. --Irpen 07:37, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

From the Ukrainian perspective Lviv belonged to Ukraine, but from the Polish perspective it was Polish. Ukrainians tried to capture Lviv but were opposed by the local Polish population. Polish forces came to the rescue of the Polish self-defence units in the town. Also, Poland did not recognize the split of Galicia into Western and Eastern parts and assumed that it was an integral part of Poland. As I said, it's a matter of POV and I maintain that we should avoid using a single POV biased statements in the article, especially that such phrasing serves no other purpose here than advocating anti-Petlyura propaganda. --Lysy^talk 09:30, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me try to change the sentence again, to reflect the above concerns. From Petlura's point of view, the Kiev Offensive certainly was "liberation" and not "invasion" and it was not him but the Soviets who were the invaders. --Lysy^talk 08:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, you may not want to use the term "invasion"/"liberation" in Wikipedia. A disagreeble to me but an understandable approach. However, Wikipedia uses strong terms if respected scholars use them. In plenty of literature Polish eastward drive is called invasion and there is no reason to purge it from the article. However, I am even more baffled by your replacing the "invasion" for the Poles and keeping it for the Russians. This is totally unacceptable POV pushing which I did not expect from you. I repeat, I am not speaking of the Petlura perspective only. I am talking about Ukraine as a whole. It was invaded from West and East at the same time. --Irpen 16:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The sentence obviously suggest Perlura's perspective. It reads: "...government of Symon Petlura had to face a new wave of chaos as Ukraine was invaded ...". You said this refers to the "ill-concieved Kiev Offensive". Again, Petlura was a Polish ally in this offensive, so if you call this an invasion, than Petlura was among the invaders. Now, claiming in the very same sentence that he had to face the invasion is not only POV but also inaccurte and misleading. --Lysy^talk 19:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I will rephrase that. --Irpen 19:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm happy with the current sentence. (I think I missed your rephrasing earlier). --Lysy^talk 21:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Ukrainization of the Poles

The article doesn't inform about the Polish minority in Ukraine. Xx236 07:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

The article is now being developed. You can help it with any relevant info. If there are editors interested in adding info to WP rather than removing it, WP and all of us would benefit from such an input. --Irpen 08:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Civility

To involved editors: There is no excuse for personal attacks on other contributors. Please do not make them. It is your responsibility to foster and maintain a positive online community in Wikipedia..

Some suggestions:

• Discuss the article, not the subject;
• Discuss the edit, not the editor;
• Never suggest a view is invalid simply because of who its proponent is;
• If you feel attacked, do not attack back.

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with Jossi. Based on a quick glance of the discussion on this talk page, there seems to be way too much in the way of attacks on editors, as opposed to ideas. Please try to stay focused on the article, and not on the respective personalities involved. Keep additions to the article carefully referenced, and if there are conflicting references, then try to include both sides in the article, which usually makes for a stronger article anyway. --Elonka 22:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, may I ask you to read the talk, not just "glance" it if you are going to take part in the further article's development. --Irpen 04:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Based on my read of the talk page, I see a dispute about the definition of the word "Ukrainization". The quantity of editors on either side of the dispute seems to be relatively balanced, though some editors seem to be engaging in personal attacks which are making it difficult to maintain a civil discussion. There does not appear (to me) to be consensus on the article, so I feel that the "disputed" tag is appropriate, and engaging in an edit war about the tag itself is not appropriate. I recommend working harder at civility (especially in regards of accusing other people of trolling), and trying to reach consensus here on the talk page. Perhaps a poll would help clarify matters? --Elonka 05:46, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, please note that if simply someone disagreeing with something and persisting no matter how many references are shown to the contrary would be sufficient to tag the article, we would have any historical article tagged forever as there are always people who disagree and persist. Since you are in US, you are aware that some people dispute evolution and some dispute the Holocaust (its not illegal in US unlike in Europe), and continue doing so despite the significant amount of scholarly research on both. Common sense is needed too. Also, if the holdout is a known problem user, his tag has to be taken with the grain of salt. He refuses to acknowledge the sources given to him in any article when the info does not fit his fringe POV of the aggressive Ukrainian nationalist. Stating that is not a personal attack but a statement of fact defined by ArbCom, the second highers authority of Wikipedia (after Jimbo).

Now, please, after reading the talk and disagreeing with definition, please propose the definition that would have been agreeable to you.

"Ukrainiastion is the policy (of what?) applied in several periods in the History of Ukraine"

I am looking forward to your suggestion.

AndriyK's opinion that UA-zation is the Soviet policy in 1920s in Ukraine simply contradicts a whole lot of academic sources. If you see the current definition lacking something, pls propose yours but make sure you familiarize yourself with the article and its talk. Thanks in advance and again, I appreciate more users looking into it. --Irpen 05:58, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I have read the entire talk page. Twice. And I think that there has been a lack of civility, and obviously some profound difficulties in communication. It is also my opinion that a certain amount of sensitivity is required when dealing with the issue of Ukrainian national identity. This is not an issue unique to Andriyk, but a wider movement within the Ukraine as a whole, so I feel that Andriyk's comments are actually representative of a larger group, and that it is inappropriate to say that this is just a nationalist issue unique to him. When I have looked into how the issue is handled in other press, such as the Lonely Planet guidebooks, I see them agreeing that there is a strong difference of opinion here. I don't have the guidebook in front of me, but it basically says something like that there is a difference of opinion among academics, based on their national origin, with Ukrainian authors still struggling after the breakup of the Soviet Union to define their national identity, so that as a result, some Ukrainian academics may offer one point of view, while Western authors may offer a very different one. As such, I think it would be worthwhile for the Wikipedia article to include a similar statement in the article. Rather than trying to find the "one best" definition of Ukrainization, include the different ones, and list their varying sources. I do understand what you're saying about Holocaust-deniers and "Flat Earth" proponents, but in the case of the Ukraine, I truly believe that trying to give more leeway for what is effectively a young country trying to re-find itself, is appropriate. --Elonka 06:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, I do not oppose adding the opinions of others. I do maintain that the position of AndriyK is untypical as the Ukrainian nationalism among the Ukrainians, a friendly and open nation, is a "minority faith"[7]. As for the issue, I restate my question: "Ukrainization is the policy of what in your opinion?" if you dislike the current definition. TIA, --Irpen 06:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen wrote:

Now, please, after reading the talk and disagreeing with definition, please propose the definition that would have been agreeable to you.

"Ukrainiastion is the policy (of what?) applied in several periods in the History of Ukraine"

Please have a look at what I porposed. Let's make a separate article about "Ukrainization" in narrow sence. (The definition can be found in the article history).

(A) more general article(s) "Language policies..." can use "ukrainization" according to the sources without defining it. (Wikipedia is not a Wiktionary) Later, academic definition can added to the article if it is found in literature. If you cannot find the definition in literature, please do not invent your own. This is OR and not permitted in WP.

Please note that AndriyK is not the only user who oppose you in the dispute. Are we all "aggressive Ukrainian nationalist"? I do not think anything "nationalistic" in the proposal to avoid Original Research in the article.

I cited some WP policies at your talk[8]. This has very little to do Ukrainization and does not belong here.--Mbuk 06:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I explained why splitting is inappropriate. Your refusal to provide a better definition is telling. I don't need to be cited policies I am aware of them. You, OTOH, should start doing something on your own rather than serve AndriyK's faithful fan and revert proxy. And please don't try to call this a personal attack. It is a statement of fact. If you have anything to say regardiung this article's conflict, say it here for a wider audience rather than at my talk. I would like to give this discussion the best exposure among other editors so that others would perhaps come up with better suggestions. --Irpen 07:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I regard your above comment as more of an attack on Mbuk, than on what Mbuk said. Calling someone a "faithful fan and revert proxy"? Please try to work harder at civility. As for my own opinion on the definition, I'm not here to propose a definition, I'm here to propose a method of coming up with a definition. As I look through this article's history, over and over, I see people working on different definitions, and then someone else comes along and just does a wholesale revert. I have seen multiple people do this on the article, and I regard each case, regardless of who is doing it, as inappropriate, especially when it involves rude edit summaries. Reverting someone's good faith work tends to just make the situation worse. There obviously is a dispute, so the key issue is figuring out a way to work through that dispute in a civil manner. Perhaps making a list of proposed opening paragraphs, and then letting the community vote on them? --Elonka 07:28, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

My comment is based on Mubk's behavior. It is harsh but not uncivil.

Fine, let's propose the opening paragraphs. I am intereste to see what others say re "Ukrainization being the policy of what". Or we can try to find a way to get rid of the definition considering it obvious. That would be strange. Polonization, Russification, Rumanization all start with definitions. I fail to see what's unique in Ukrainization that makes it not needing one. --Irpen 07:33, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

suggestion on way to proceed

There seem to have multiple versions of the opening paragraph that have been proposed in the article history (before they were reverted out of existence). One possible place to start is that we dredge the different versions out of history, post them here as "Proposal #1", "Proposal #2", etc., and then debate the merits of each separately. We could also name them if you prefer, such as "Irpen's proposed definition", "Andriyk's proposed definition", "Ilya K's proposed definition", and so forth. Where possible, I also recommend that each definition include its own references, to show where the information came from. Then we can either try to forge a compromise between the different definitions, or else conduct a straw poll to see which definition has the most endorsements, perhaps RfC style. Would this be acceptable? --Elonka 17:19, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

This is the definition based on "Encyclopedia of Ukrainian studies":

Ukrainization (or Ukrainianization) was the policy conducted by the Bolshevik party and the Government of the Ukrainian SSR during 1920s and early 1930s to increase the presence of Ukrainian within schools, the press, and other educational and cultural institutions as well as in administration. Ukrainization was a temporal policy forced by the hostile attitude of the Ukrainian population to the Communist regime. The true objective of this policy was a strengthening of Soviet power in Ukraine.

In the same time, I proposed to add:

Some scolars also use this term in reference to the policy of the Communist regime in Western Ukraine after its annexation to the Soviet Union in 1939 and in Cremea after its transfer from Russian SFSR to Ukrainian SSR in 1954.

Sometimes also the resolution of Ukrainian Central Rada about development of Ukrainian school system is refered to as ukrainization.

Mbuk proposes to limit this article only to the Ukrainization within this narrow definition. All other periods could be moved to a more general articles with more neutral title. I think, it would be a reasonable solution.--AndriyK 17:35, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Your definition is very similar to the one I've found in Polish "Leksykon Kultury Ukraińskiej" ("Lexicon of Ukrainian Culture", Universitas, Kraków 2004, ISBN 8324202021). --Lysy^talk 20:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Let's first separate apples from oranges. There are two questions. What is this misterious policies called "Ukrainization"? Is this a policy to promote the things Ukrainian or is this the policy to preserve the fresh water or clean air or the world peace or whatever? Please, Lysy, let me know what's your opinion on the Ukrainization being the policy of what. Than we can discuss the applicability to the different historic periods. BTW, its applicability to any historic period described in the article is referenced. That someone claims that modern policy is not Ukrainization, we can discuss once we figure what exactly this policy is, not when it was applied. --Irpen 21:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The lexicon that I mentioned does not define it as "policy" but a specific action of Soviet authorities. Pardon me for quoting in Polish, hopefully you can understand it or maybe someone would be able to translate parts if needed:

Ukrainizacja (Українізація) - akcja dotycząca Ukrainy Naddnieprzańskiej w 1923-1932 oraz Ukrainy Zachodniej, Bukowiny Północnej i Zakarpacia w 1945-1950, podjęta przez władze ZSRR, próba ukierunkowania narodowych dążeń Ukraińców w stronę tzw. internacjonalizmu komunistycznego; była też wyrazem ustępstw bolszewików wobec odrodzonego ruchu narodowego w zakresie językowym, oświatowym i kulturalnym; w miarę wzmacniania się władzy Sowietów na Ukrainie oraz eliminowania przez aparat represyjny inteligencji narodowej oraz mniejszej potrzeby kamuflowania polityki imperialnej ZSRR, zwłaszcza wobec Zachodu, powracała bezwzględna sowietyzacja, ateiacja i rusyfikacja narodu ukraińskiego.

To summarize, according to this definition, Ukrainization was a specific plan of Soviet authorities in 1923-1932 and 1945-1950, carried out in certain areas of Ukraine (in the periods when the Soviets needed to win the sympathy of Ukrainians, coincidentally). Interestingly, a similar definition is presented on Ukrainian wiki. --Lysy^talk 09:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Totally incorrect approach. There are two questions: What is Ukrainization? It is the Policy of what? (See above). Your refusal to give any answer is telling. Second questions: to what policies by who and of what time is the term applicable. You are saying that only for 20's. Other researchers disagree and refs are given. Now, you say that some researchers do not consider the policies of other times as Ukrainization and do not use this term. Same may be said about 20s. Some do not use Ukrainization, but use Korenization term only or, in English, they use indignization and putting down roots. So, let me restate the question. Ukrainization is the policy of what? Would you mind answering that? --Irpen 16:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, can you please try to show a tiny bit more respect for the opinions of other editors? Just because someone has a different opinion from you, does not make it "totally incorrect". Also, could you please participate by suggesting what definition you would like to see? Or are you saying that you are completely supportive of the paragraph that's currently at the head of the article? And if so, could you please cite the specific sources where that information came from, so that we can compare the different versions, side by side? Thanks. --Elonka 16:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, I do appreciate your involvement but please udnerstand it is OK for people to disagree or even to totally disagree as long as they try to work out their differences in good faith and civilly. Saying that something is "totally incorrect" is not a personal attack. It is just a statement that someone's opinion is toally incorrect in the view of the writer. I may very well be also totally incorrect. As for the definition, the current one is good IMO. Whatever one thinks about applicability of the term to 20s, 60s and post-90s, when thinking about the term, we all mean one and the same thing. Polonization is promoting of all things Polish, Ukrainization is promoting of the all things Ukrainian. Every source that writes about Ukrainization of any period writes exactly about those things: spread of Ukrainian language into education, publishing, government and public life, promotion of the Ukrainian culture, etc. Saying so in the article is not an original synthesis of the idea by the author. It is a mere repetition of what's said in the sources. WP:V taken to extreme would mean that entire WP should consist only of the quotes, each referenced to its own book. Common sense should never be thrown out. That e^π ≈ 23.140692632779269005729086367949 may not be exactly written to this precision in any book. No one can ban a Wikipedian to state so in the article. --Irpen 17:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, your definition is not "a mere repetition of what's said in the sources". None of the sources you cited sais it. You definition is

• new definitions of pre-existing term;
• an analysis or synthesis of established facts, ideas, opinions, or arguments in a way that builds a particular case favored by the editor, without attributing that analysis or synthesis to a reputable source;

In other words, it is OR.--AndriyK 17:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I repeatedly asked you and Lysy to give your own definition of the term that would fit the sources cited, not only the ones liked by you. Give it a try, I am all listening. --Irpen 17:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Irpen, I am asking for something different. I am not asking Andriyk to come up with a definition based on your sources, but for him to come up with a definition based on his sources, which he has done, and which Lysy has confirmed according to his (I'm assuming it's "his"?) sources. Now, what I'd like to see is for you to provide sources backing up your own definition -- not a "check this book" source, but an exact word-for-word quote from a cited source, if possible. Thanks. --Elonka 17:57, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"My own" definition would be another OR which would violate the policy. I would not like to do it. Let's stick at sourced definitions.--AndriyK 18:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, the definition currently in the article reflects all the sources, one that uses the term for 20s and ones that use it for 40s, 60s, and post-90s. The definition proposed by AndriyK implies that the usage for 40s, 60s and 80s is the wrong usage. Who is AndriyK to state that Subtelny and Magosci are wrong? All I see is perpetual refusal to provide the definition in place of the the one not to someone's liking. --Irpen 18:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not state that Subtelny and Magosci are wrong. I mentioned their usage in my version of the leading paragraph.

I state that your definition is OR. That's all.--AndriyK 18:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Your "definition" implies that S and M use the term inapropriately. You are in no position to say so. This is becoming an endless loop as long as you and Lysy challenge the definition I gave and refuse to provide a different one that would fit the sources listed. --Irpen 18:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I am not in position, therefore I do not say so. My version summarize the sources, whyle yours gives an unsourced definition. To stop the endless loop, please take a break an read the WP policies.--AndriyK 18:44, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

For one, I am familiar with policies. Your version implies that one usage is more correct than the other, something you are not qualified to state. The whole thing is off the wrong foot. The primary problem is to agree on the essense of the word. Ukrainization is the policy of what? You refuse to answer. You only speak about the usage. Your refusa; to answer is obvious to anyone. I will not be feeding this loop anymore unless I see some new points. As soon as you, Lysy or Elonka post a definition of UA-zation that would state what it is and fitss the sources, as the current one does, I will resume my participation in this. --Irpen 18:48, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

So far we see only two confirmed definitions, the one from "Encyclopedia of Ukrainian studies" and the one that I quoted in Polish from the "Lexicon of Ukrainian Culture". Both seem quite similar (and are called "totally incorrect" by Irpen). Then we have Irpen's definition in the current lead of the article. With all due respect, so far, I'm inclined to believe the authors of the Lexicon and Encyclopedia than Irpen's word on this one. What we need now is to see quotes of some alternative definitions, that would contradict the two already provided. --Lysy^talk 20:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, those definitions only reflect the usage those particular authors see appropriate, thus dismissing other usage as "incorrect". Please finally, respond to the question: "Ukrainization is the policy of what?" --Irpen 20:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Disputed tag

Why has the "disputed" tag been removed ? I'm certainly disputing the factual accuracy at least in the Symon Petlura/Polish invasion section above. Irpen reverted my attempt towards neutral wording and I'm trying to persuade him in the talk page. Would the dispute get better recognition if I engage in the revert war instead ? I insist that the "disputed" tag is put back. As to the "OR" tag, I still believe that splitting the article would solve at least part of the problem and so far do not understand the rationale behind Irpen's strong opposition to this suggestion. --Lysy^talk 09:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Ditto.--AndriyK 10:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur, the article is in dispute. We therefore have at least a consensus that there is a dispute.  ;) --Elonka 17:12, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

As long as other users, rather than the one who does nothing but placing tags here and there frivolously and on the whim, joined, the tag stays while we are discussing it. I don't have a problem with that. --Irpen 00:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I am confused. Here on the talk page, you agreed with the tag, and yet you are still removing the tag from the actual article. Please cease this activity. If you don't like the tag, you are welcome to suggest a different one, but please abide by consensus, and discuss controversial actions here on the talk page before changing the article itself. --Elonka 18:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, please make sure you understand what tag are you inserting and if inserting, explain it at talk. You reinserting the "disputed" tag that states that the "factual accuracy is disputed". Please state exaclty which facts are disputed. It is you, could do not explain the insertion of the controversial tag at talk. --Irpen 18:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Please see Lysy's comment at the top of this section. The issue of whether or not there is a dispute, seems to be confirmed by everyone involved in this discussion, except for you. If there is anyone watching this discussion who does not think that the disputed tag is appropriate, I encourage them to speak up. Alternatively, Irpen, you are welcome to suggest a different type of dispute tag, and I will be happy to take a look at it and offer my opinion as to whether or not it might be more appropriate. --Elonka 18:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, let's take for instance a recently published book named "Ethnic Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Ukraine" published by SpringerLink ([9])

• the Ukrainian polity that is softening the excesses of Ukrainisation policies
• The Ukrainisation campaign of the Ukrainian government has been very ineffective and Ukrainian culture is in 2001 more endangered than in 1991.

A serious book calling a cat a cat. Is this OR?

Another example from the European Journalism Center written by an Ukrainian journalist ([10])

Such steps of the young Ukrainian state were immediately interpreted as a forced Ukrainisation and discrimination against the Russian speaking population.

Is this OR too?

From an article by Dr Peter W. Rodgers of University of Toronto (PDF):

The region’s strong attachment to the Russian language and stuttering embrace of ukrainisation since 1991 is seen in the results of the 2001 National Ukrainian Census. This is OR?

-- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Where is the definition? What imply the authors saying "ukrainization"?--AndriyK 18:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it is pretty obvious from the links provided. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 18:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not obvious at all. The authors can imply that "Ukrainization" is

• "the policy of Government to force ethnic minorities to change thir ethnic identity for Ukrainian"
• it may be also "the process of changing national identity by the minorities" (whether forced by the Government or not)

It can be something else. Inventing own definitions for WP article is verydangerous thing. There is a denger of misinterpretation of the sources. It is in variance with the policy.--Mbuk 21:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You invented the two definitions you just gave, not me. For me "Ukrainisation" is the act of imposition of elements of Ukrainian culture and language. Who does it, when and how forcibly it is done are different questions and should be considered seperately. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

For you it A, for me it B. How to decide who is right? To use the definitions found in reputative sources and do not invent everybody's own.--Mbuk 21:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You totally misunderstood me. Do you agree that "the process of changing national identity by the minorities" (whether forced by the Government or not), as you say, when applied to post-1991 Ukraine, can be named "Ukrainization" or not? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It is not my job to propose a tag as I don't see the article problematic. If you persist with a tag, it is your job to find the one that fits. The tag that claims that the "factual accuracy is disputed", with refusal to explained at talk what facts exactly are disputed is inappropriate. Tehrefore, i removed it. Since you reinserted, please explain what facts you dispute and if none, remove the tag yourslef. If you choose a different tag instead, read what it says and provide an explanation at talk. If you want an OR tag, explain what is OR and how to address it. If you choose POV, explain what's in the article is POV and how to address it. That's all I ask if you persists with your desire to have an article some tag on its top. --Irpen 18:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, please, a couple of sections above you are engaged in a dispute of factual accuracy of Petlura having to face the Polish invasion in Kiev Offensive. You keep reverting to the wording that ~you know I consider inaccurate and misleading, and now you're telling there's no dispute ? Come on ! --Lysy^talk 20:17, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, the taggers were placing the tag because of the def only. Our disputed may be resolved separately and I rephrased the sentence already. We can work it out further but calling the Bolshevik "Invasion" and the Polish "War" is not NPOV and you know it. --Irpen 20:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Possible "dispute" tags to use

There are several possible tags to place on this article. A list of possibilities is here: Wikipedia:Template messages/Disputes, and I've listed a few possibles below. Does anyone have a preference on which of these is most appropriate? --Elonka 18:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Elonka, none of the objections dispute a single fact in the article. As such, "disputed" tag that states about there is a dispute about the factual accuracy is inaplicaqble.

"Disputeabout" is a dubious tag and should follow the AndriyK's faforite POV-Because to a TfD since playing with the wording gives room for trolling and another POV dispute about the wording itself.

"POV" tag is inapplicable, as far as I can see. The article is not about opinions but about facts. Facts are right on the money. That some do not consider something Ukrainization but a mere correction of past Russification or Polonization is included. As such, I see no room for it.

Finally, the claim that the definition is OR makes no sense. The definition simply states what the policy is. Do you deny that Ukrainization is the promotion of the Ukrainian language and culture? Does anyone deny that? Alternative def favored by AndriyK and Lysy is applicable to a single example of Ukrainization. The phenomenon is wider than 20s as I've shown here and in the article. --Irpen 18:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

• {{disputed}}
• {{disputeabout}}
• {{pov}}
• {{originalResearch}}

A game of tag?

Adding and removing dispute tags repeatedly will take editors nowhere. These tags are designed so that editors can express concern about an article not abiding by WP content policies and encourage an open discussion about these concerns in this page. Unless editors want this page protected, I would suggest that you engage in a meaningful discussion, rather than keep revert each other. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 20:24, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

First, as there obviously is an accuracy/POV dispute between myself and Irpen, any of the "pov" or "disputed" tags is warranted. Second, I find it ridiculous that instead of disputing the probelm, we are now discussing the tag, which was first accepted by everyone involved (including Irpen) and then removed from the article. Finally, it would be good if accusations of "trolling" and similar could be avoided in edit summaries and in the talk page. Namecalling is not really helpful for a constructive dispute. --Lysy^talk 20:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The dispute between myself and Lysy is really minor and doesn't concern the whole article at all. We will work it out. If Lysy insists on placing a tag just because of this minor issue, it should be POV-tag although. That is if he thinks that the issue warrants the tag over an entire article. As for the definition dispute, again, this has nothing to do with the "factual accuracy" of the article tag the tagger persist with. They can mark a particular statement but not the whole article because someone doesn't like the content. Finally, name calling is unhelpful but trolling is even more unhelpful. When someone is trolling, talking is useless. Constructive disputes with such people aren't possible. As soon as someone is talking here, we are all talking. In fact, that's all we are doing at this talk page for a long time.

One more time I request Lysy and others who challenge the statement that UA-zation is the policy of implementation of Ukrainian language to say what is then Ukrainization policy. It is a policy of what? Please answer. --Irpen 20:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've already provided the only definition that I could find in my sources. I'm sorry I've done it in Polish, but I did not want to introduce any POV changes in translation (and I assume that since I can read Ukrainian and Russian, then also Ukrainian and Russian editors will be able to understand Polish). The answer to your question ~("policy of what") according to this definition is: "Ukrainization was a policy of the Soviet Union". The lexicon that I cited is a pretty recent publication (2004). Maybe we could use one of these traditionally established definitions and complement it by a sentence about the modern context usage. Eg. something like:

Recently, mostly in media and publications influenced by Russian propaganda, the term is increasingly being used to denote de-Russification policies of the government of independent Ukraine. ?

--Lysy^talk 21:35, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Another tag

Now that the article is tagged by Jossi by the yet another tag that states that the article lacks one or more from: a "neutral point of view", "veryfiability", "suitability" and "non-original research" may I request that the tagger elaborates which of those the article indeed lacks and explain that at talk. --Irpen 20:52, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I support Jossi's choice of the "noncompliant" tag. It is appropriate. --Elonka 21:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Ditto.--Mbuk 21:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The tag refers to the talk page. Jossi, if placing the tag, should clearly say what is non-compliant. Is it factual accuracy, neutrality, veryfiablity or what else. --Irpen 21:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

All of the above, if one is to judge by comments made by editors in this page. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 23:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Jossi, you said "all of the above". Could you please point out what facts are disputed by anyone here? --Irpen 22:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The POV dispute

I think, there is also a POV dispute which is tightly rellated to the OR dispute discussed above.

The policy of 1920s has the official name "Ukrainization". It was called so by the Bolshevik party who conducted it. And all scolars: Soviet, Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Canadian, American as well as Communist, Nationalist and Liberal use this name. So there is no POV problem if one applies this term to the 1920s policy.

In contrast, Ukrainian Government never called its polisy of 1990s and 2000s "Ukrainization". I am sure there are many Ukrainian scolars who would disagree, that the policy of their government should be called "Ukrainization". I do not think that all Western scolars consider "Ukrainization" as a part of UA Gov. policy. For instance, according to ISBN 0160415683 cited by Irpen above "Ukraine has given major concessions to the Russian minority, by practically putting the Ukrainization on hold...". Therefore, using "Ukrainization" in the context of the modern Ukraine is a POV (this is notable and verifiable POV, but still a POV). In view of it, describing these policies under the title "Ukrainization" is giving andvance of one POV over other ones, which is not neutral. To avoid it, it is better to use a neutral title and describe how different authors view the policy, including those who call it "Ukrainization" (see my proposal above).--Mbuk 21:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

First, there are Ukrainians who call their own policy Ukrainisation, e.g. here.

Second, the very word Ukrainisation is actually pretty unambigous. Ukrainisation is the assumption or imposition of elements of Ukrainian culture and language. The same way "Polonization" is absolutely unambigous and the same way "Russification" is, the word Ukrainisation is pretty self-explanatory.

Whether the current Ukrainian governement is conducting a forced Ukrainisation is another debate. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Of cause, there are Ukrainians, Russians, Westerns, etc. who do call it Ukrainization.

But there those who do not. There are two different POVs. Both should be considered equaly. If you call the artcle "Ukrainization" then you gies a preference to one of the POVs, which is in variance with WP:NPOV.--Mbuk 21:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Wait wait wait... What part you disagree with. Do you agree that "ukrainisation" means "assumption or imposition of elements of Ukrainian culture and language" or not? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Mbuk, read WP:NPOV#Undue weight. If one of the POVs is the mainstream POV, it takes precedence. --Tēlex 21:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not see any evidence that "no ukrainization" is a tiny minority view. WP:NPOV#Undue weight is not applicable in this case. Even one of the sources cited by Irpen says "Ukraine has given major concessions to the Russian minority, by practically putting the Ukrainization on hold..."--Mbuk 21:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't matter how tiny it is. What matters is what is the more common view. I know it's hard sometimes; see the article Armenian Genocide. That title supports a POV which is only narrowly a majority. --Tēlex 21:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

It sould not be the most common POV. It should be the NPOV.--Mbuk 21:41, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

You have to bridge the gap between the mainstream view and fringe theories. I'm not saying it's a fringe theory despite the fact that even Ukrainians have accepted the more common one. Anyway, what's your idea of NPOV? To say that Ukrainization never happened and it was all a bad dream? --Tēlex 21:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Please read the talk. You find there my idea how to settle the dispute.--Mbuk 21:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Mbuk, are you doing it on purpose? I'm not telling you that ukrainisation is good or bad nor that current Ua governement does it or not, I'm telling you that Ukrainisation is the action of imposing Ukrainian language and culture at all times and that is therefore not limited to 20s or 30s. It is just a definition, everything else comes next. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:43, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

And I am telling you it is not. There are two POVs.--Mbuk 21:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Again, I expect nothing more than denial. Tell me though in detail, what are the two POVs. We can put the common grounds in the "general" definition. --Tēlex 21:46, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I second that request, too. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Dear friends, please read the talk.--Mbuk 21:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I currently do, so what? :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Please continue doing it :)--Mbuk 21:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Mbuk, I'm finding it increasingly hard to assume good faith here. It seems like you're deliberately trying to wear people out. You have been asked a simple question; please answer. You have not specified the common grounds anywhere on this talk page, nor has anyone else (except Grafikm, although you don't seem to like his definition). Make plain what you want, or begone, or better still, edit the article to make it NPOV - be WP:BOLD. I hope you assume a more cooperative and constructive attitude in the future. --Tēlex 21:55, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Please read the talk it will help you

• To assume good faith
• To find the answer to your questions.--Mbuk 21:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Seriously though, what you consider two POVs are for me two nuances of a same definition. We're not discussing of the governement policy, but of the fact that minorities change their identity and adopt Ukrainian language. This phenomenon should be called Ukrainisation, regardless of who's doing it (or even if it is a spontaneous phenomenon). What part of this statement you disagree with? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I personaly agree with you, but you'll find planty of people who disagree that "that minorities change their identity and adopt Ukrainian language".

Irpen would also disagree with you as his definition says nothin abot "minorities change their identity".--Mbuk 22:02, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If you agree with that, do you agree that it does not depend on the epoch (be it 20s, 30s or 90s)?? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that the status of the term is different in 1920s and in other times. I made it clear in my first message of this section. Please read it.--Mbuk 22:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The status is an issue not addressed in the definition. --Tēlex 22:07, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This is the problem to be solved.--Mbuk 22:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

So you mean you want the "state" in ... is the state policy to increase the prominence and facilitate the development of the Ukrainian language, culture and, sometimes, representation of Ukrainian people within the state institutions and in public life... nixed? --Tēlex 22:12, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, I do not mean this. I believe that definition should be sourced rather that invented and negotited between ourselves.--Mbuk 06:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

Rather than discuss editor's opinions about what a term means, and as per WP content policies of WP:NOR and WP:V, please find reliable sources that explain this term. If there are different sources explaining the term in different ways, describe all these in the article: "According to XYZ, Ukranization means ABCD, a definition that is disputed by KLM who asserts that Ukranization means EFGH". ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

A consensus version ?

I've changed the lead to reflect both Russian and Ukrainian POVs:

Ukrainization was the term traditionally used by the Bolsheviks to name their policies in certain parts of Ukraine during 1920s and early 1930s, aimed at strengthening of Soviet power through increasing the presence of Ukrainian language within administration, educational and cultural institutions. Recently, the term is also increasingly being used in media and some publications to denote the de-Russification policies of the government of independent Ukraine.

The above combines both the "traditional" and the "modern" usage of the word. Can we work out a consensus version out of it ? --Lysy^talk 22:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

This is unacceptable. Lysy's intro does not state what the hell this policy was. Only who conducted it. Then it also says that recently other uses appeared. The Encykopediya Ukrayinoznavstva from which AndriyK draws his definitions uses that very term for '60s Policies by Shelest. This Encyclopedia is not a recent publication.

The term's usage by respected scholars (plenty of references above) is ignored or it is implied that such usage is incorrect. This is untolerable POV pushing aimed at denying the existence of the phenomenon on the par with AndriyK. --Irpen 22:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

"Recently" does not refer to AndriyK's definition, but the modern usage not covered by the traditional definition, as explained in the proposed sentence. How should I understand the purpose of your "on the par with AndriyK" comment ? --Lysy^talk 22:16, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I think Irpen has a point. Rather than "de-Russification", one should talk about "promotion" of Ukrainian. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:06, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that it's mostly being used as a derogatory term by the critics of the modern Ukrainian policies against the Russian minority. The "de-Russification" seems very descriptive in this context. What is wrong with this ? --Lysy^talk 22:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No it is not derogatory. Second, the Ukrainization is aimed not only on the Russians (Poles, Romanians) but on the Ukrainians as well, some of who find themselves Russified to different degrees as a consequence of the times of the Russian Empire and the USSR. --Irpen 22:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I personally like the new intro that was just made. :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:28, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I have the feeling that it hasn't solved anything. With the recent Irpen's edits we have made a cirle and are at the OR version back again :-( --Lysy^talk 22:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

*scratches head* what part do you consider OR? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

All right, I should have said "alleged OR". But still I'm not happy with the intro, particularly its last sentence, which messes all the uses together. --Lysy^talk 22:49, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Is it just the last paragraph or is there something else that bothers you? -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:51, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've just tried to de-mangle it a bit. Specifically moved the last paragraph into its appropriate context and added the sentence about the modern usage. Do you still see any problem with "de-Russification" for this usage ? --Lysy^talk 23:14, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

De-mangle? Don't you know that these policies are cited to address and correct Russification not only byt the Soviet gov? Your sentence about the modern usage was gross POV. First of all, not only in the media but in the books as well. Second, if speaking of media it is used to explain the attempts either to "de-Russify" or "assimilate" depending on the media POV. May I ask you again to add content to the topic if you are so interested in it instead of persistent POVing the intro. You will never make a controversial topic article robust against certain users? Just please write some content. --Irpen 23:25, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

We are discussing the lead here, let's better stay focused. I see you've moved "The Ukrainization policies are often cited as a response ..." out of the 1920s context, again. I'm naturally most interested in de-PL, as I should probably know most about this. So, how "often" is the Ukrainization in the modern sense cited as a response to Polonization, please ? --Lysy^talk 23:36, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

objection

I'm afraid Lysy's version does not solve the OR/POV problem: "the policy aimed at the increasing of the usage and facilitating the development of the Ukrainian language" can be also called "national revival policy", "de-Russification policy", etc.--Mbuk 21:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

"National revival policy"... Hmmmm... That feels like propaganda from some nationalistic sheet. You know, some guy used to talk about "National Reawakening"... Seriously though, do you think such a propaganda term is NPOV?

As for "de-Russification policy", Ukrainization was not only about Russians but also about Moldavians and Romanians, so the scope is different.

Between those three, "Ukrainization" is the neutral one, since it carries no additional information about who, when and how. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 21:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If your dislike a certain term, this does not mean yet that the term is "propaganda". If you lile a certain term, this does not mean yet that the term is "neutral". Neutrality means that all notable views should be discussed without sympathy or opposition to any of them.--Mbuk 06:51, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, your "friendly revert" is friendly reverted back as follows:

• Soviets never presented it as the reversal of past russification, they presented it as getting closer to people. In late-30s-40s UA-zation of the territories gained from PL and RO the Ukrainization was indeed cited by Soviets as a means to address those. As for the means to address the Russification of the Empire, it was presented as such not by Soviets but by Ukrainian scholars who supported it. It is also presented by its modern supporters as the means to address the Soviet russification. As per such, I will restore the old version with "fact" tags until I provide refs that point to the connection with Polonization and Rumanization. --Irpen 21:11, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Exactly what I meant, too. I've rephrased the lead to better address this, now. --Lysy^talk 21:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

No, you did not. Your new version states: "The term can be encountered in other periods ". This implies that such use is qustionable. It is not "encountered" but used and frequently and in many publications, including the very pro-Ukrainian ones who speak of the importance of Ukrainization. The term is not derogatory, as you once said. It is simply a term about promotion of Ukrainian things. Also, your intro misses the mid-60s. --Irpen 21:32, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Attacking Irpen as a proponent of the bad version

May I also suggest that some here check the history of the article. At the original stage it included such beautiful language as:

Intro

Ukrainization refers to the policies of Ukrainian government to forcibly transfer Russian-language schools of Crimea and other historically Russophone territories of Ukraine to Ukrainian as the main language of instruction. The term may also refer to Viktor Yushchenko's efforts to ban Russophone TV channels and radio stations. As of 2005, there have been numerous rallies against Ukrainization in the Crimea and other regions of Ukraine.

Inside

The Ukrainization campaign was one of the factors leading to the Russophobe government of Yulia Timoshenko being toppled two days after the publication of above-mentioned statement. Many experts hold that government responsible for breaking the traditional economic ties of Ukraine with Russia, which ultimately led to the profound political and economic crisis in the Ukraine.

See also early talk, now in archives. After I took infinite pains to purge that nonsense, totally rewrite the article, make it encyclopedically looking and being one of the most well-referenced articles on the controversial subject, I see it attacked by the same two fringe POV-pushers who simply "don't like it" and manage to recruit a couple of more in support. I do not claim the ownership of the article. By all means, expand and improve it. So far, most of what those fellows did was wanton-tagging the article as the part of their wider tagging series. Wait, for more at the RfC response, which will be eventually coming. Regards, --Irpen 22:37, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, I'm sorry that you feel attacked. I respect and truly admire your editing efforts. All I'm trying to do is to make the article more robust against different accusations and more robust. Take a look at the version of the article at Ukrainian wiki, and you'll see the difference. I still stand that the article would be best split into two, and that artificially squeezing the two different subjects into a single article with a single lead is doing no good here. --Lysy^talk 22:47, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The example is ill-chosen because the interwiki points to the wanted article. uk:Українізація, however, gives the exact definition we seek. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Still, it only proves my point, as there are two separate articles, one for the "traditional" meaing of the word and the other for "de-Russification" (actually also mentioning it explicitly).

The iwiki article was pointing not to Ukrainization but to UA-zation of 20s-30s. I corrected it. Lysy, I appreciate your effort to make an article robust against attacks. Note, however, that no matter how good a well-referenced an article is, it can never be universally robust because there is always someone to disagree and if that person is committed enough and lacks any principle in POV-pushing, the articles will be attacked and they are attacked. The only robust article is non-existing one, especially on the historic topic. Holocaust is attacked hourly. Abortion and George W Bush are attacked even more often.

I don't object to additional articles. By all means, make the separate ones and expand them. We will have several "mainarticles" then. But you can't say in good faith that there is nothing in common between those policies. They are all united by the fact that they all consisted of promotion of all things Ukrainian into all spheres of public life. They are also all united by the fact that the term is applied to them, widely and by respected scholars. As such, they do belong to this article.

That said, I will address tag-trolling by certain individuals by the policy means. I had enough of this disruption. I don't spend time writing and referencing in the language which isn't even my native one to see the likes of AndriyK come in and do nothing but disrupt the articles. Had those fellows written anything at all for Wikipedia, this would have been a different story. I am saddened that people use those two to advance their own views, whatever those are. Would be much nicer and more useful for Wikipedia to see you and others adding content and references, including to this article, as well as correcting and improving my English. --Irpen 23:10, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

While these policies can be seen as "united by the fact that they all consisted of promotion of all things Ukrainian", their purposes were completely different and they should not be that easily confused. --Lysy^talk 23:23, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Fine, then don't say anything about their purposes in the intro. Just state there what they were and address the goals in appropriate sections or in the mainarticles you are going to write. --Irpen 23:27, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No good, the intro should reflect the content of the article. --Lysy^talk 23:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The intro cannot repeat the whole content. It defines it and states that there are different uses in different contexts. Are you going to write anything for the topic? Mainarticles perhaps? --Irpen 23:34, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Irpen, nobody says you proposed a bad version. Your version is much better that the one you cited. But it has to be further improved to be in harmony with WP:NOR and WP:NPOV. I hope, you'll be working cooperatively with other editors to settle the dispute.--Mbuk 19:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion

For some guidelines about how to write an excellent article lead, see Wikipedia:Lead_section, which reads:

"The lead section should contain up to four paragraphs, depending on the length of the article, and should provide an overview, or executive summary, of the main points the article will make, summarizing the primary reasons the subject matter is interesting or notable, and including a mention of its notable controversies, if there are any. The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, or abstract, should be written in a clear and accessible style, should be carefully sourced like the rest of the text, and should encourage the reader to want to read more."

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 16:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Let's continue the discussion

I propose to continue the discussion after the break caused by the block. I propose everybody to write a short summary of her/his proposal. Please post your comments to other users' summaries to the subsection "Discussion of the summaries", to make this section easy to read. Thanks.--Mbuk 06:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Summary by MBuk

I see two major problems of the present version of the article:

1. The definition of the Ukrainization is invented by a WP user and therefore is OR.
2. Application of the term "ukrainization" to other periods than 1920s and early 1930s is not accepted by everybody. Describing other periods under the title "ukrainization" is in variance with WP:NPOV.

Both problem can be solved by splitting the article into two cross-linked articles:

1. "Ukrainization" using the sourced definition and focused on 1920s and early 1930s
2. "Language policies in Ukraine" which can also use the word "ukrainization" according to the sources, but other notable views have to be represented as well.--Mbuk 06:12, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Summary by Grafikm_fr

1. The word Ukrainization has a transparent meaning and designates, regardless of any other context, the act of increasing importance of elements of Ukrainian culture and language.

2. Every period when Ukrainian language regained importance (usually but not always after a period of decreased importance) is by definition considered ukranisation and should be covered in this article, regardless of whether it is forced or not.

Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 09:22, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Discussion of the summaries

Comment to the Summary by Grafikm_fr

Every period when Ukrainian language regained importance (usually but not always after a period of decreased importance) is by definition considered ukranisation Considering this "ukrainization" is a POV. It can be considered as de-Russification (as well de-Polonization, de-Romanization, de-Hungarization), or "National Revival", or "National Renaissance", etc., etc., etc. All notable POVs have to be analysed.--Mbuk 20:56, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, Ukrinization does have a strong negative connotation and mostly represents the point of view of national minorities. This is the case not only in Ukaine, but in all areas where the predominant language and culture of a state was given precedence as a result of a change in policy. The term should not be used to denote the revival of local culture after it had been suppressed to any extent in the immediate past. TSO1D 21:59, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Sources on the table please. "connotation" is not a reason as it is by definition subjective and not objective and based on facts. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

TSO1D, I think you are a good editor but you are wrong here. The term "Ukrainization" or "Ukrayinizatsiya" is frequently used by its proponents to denote what changes they want to see or are happy to see in Ukrainian education, publishing and media. Google it in English and Ukrainian and you will see it for yourself. Also, your correction of "Rumanization" to "Romanianization" is not an improvement. Most sources who speak of the interwar policies of the Kingdom of Romania in Northern Bukovyna use the term Rumanization and not Romanianization. It is used in EB and many academic books. I am not overly conserned about the "Romania/Ruma-nization" article title, but I used the term in this article accepted among the academics who write in this particular context. I specifically inquired a while ago at the Romanian board whether the term is offensive. Once I was told that it is not, I would like to use it in consistent with the literature. There is nothing wrong with linking through a redirect. --Irpen 22:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, --Irpen 22:30, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

About Romanianization, I only changed the word to remove the redirect, I know that both versions are acceptable, and you right, Rumanization is probably the better term to be used here. I changed the visible text to Rumanization while keeping the link to Romanianization where the article is located. As for usage of Ukrainization, when I googled it in English I mostly got sites about the negative aspect of the policy and it was viewed as discriminatory. When I googled it in Russian, I only found statements from discontent minorities of the following model: "Украинизация основывается на лжи, фальшивках, дискриминации и прочих пропагандистских вытребеньках, вдалбливаемых в сознание граждан с детсадовского возраста. Украинизация является этноцидом, то есть преступлением против человечества." . From my own experience, whenever I have encountered this term, it has been used in a negative meaning. TSO1D 22:34, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

If you look at references I provided on this talk page, you will see it used in other contexts too... :) -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 22:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I only gave my first impression of the issue, I admit that I lack detailed knowledge of this particular topic. But I still believe that the majority of references to Ukrainization are not too positive. TSO1D 22:41, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

And if you google the Ukrainian word you will find plenty of authors that view it as an entirely positive and/or necessary phenomenon and not only in connection with 1920s. To summarize, the term has both positive and negative connotation, in certain contexts depending on the opinion of the author. That explains the difference between the majority of pages that pop up when you google the Russian and the Ukrainian version of the wrod, respectively. But outside the context it is neutral. --Irpen 22:44, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

When I searched the Ukrainian word, strangely enough most of the links that came up dealt with creating Ukrainian interfaces for various computer programs. Of the few pages that talked about the language policies most had the prefix anti before the word. Only a minimal number of the results discussed the topic in a positive or neutral light. I think the number of Russian pages about the actual concept of Ukrainization is far greater and they usually discus the flaws of the movement. As I said before, I do not know the full details of the issue but I believe that some people, especially ethnic Ukrainians might not agree with the application of the term about the current policies of the Ukrianian government. TSO1D 23:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

TSO1D, I just did a google search for Ukrainization OR Ukrainisation OR Ukrainianization -computers

• The very first link[11]: A big part of what is needed in Ukraine is to concentrate on enforcing the Ukrainianization laws in order to bring civility and stability that is more evident in the western regions. In eastern Ukraine cities (where most of the Russian population is located) the Russians generally blatently ignore the rule of any law, are highly criminalized, and still practice anti-Ukrainian/Russification policies with virtual impunity (such as nearly beating a Ukrainian Bishop to death). Anti-Ukrainian link?
• Second link[12]: A friendly interview with prof. Vitaliy Keis "on the state of Ukrainianization in the Donbas". "Prof. Keis taught at the Slavianske State Pedagogical Institute, the leading teacher-training institution in the oblast and the center of Ukrainianization efforts in the heavily Russified Donbas."
• Next ones are about 1920s and computers and the next two are indeed critical, one using "violent Ukrainization" (note we don't use this in our article)
• Next is a link to a pro-Ukrainian article in Zerkalo Nedeli, titled: BY THE WAY OF QUIET UKRAINIZATION

Can I stop here? --Irpen 00:08, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Yea, sure, sorry if you wasted time on my behalf. I was under the impression that the word was mainly used with a negative meaning, but as you (and Grafik) have shown there are neutral or even pro-Ukrainian sources that use the term. When I posted the first message here, I just wanted to show that I agreed with Mbuk that this is a sensitive issue and the selection of the exact word to describe the policy might be a matter of point of view, I didn't intend to start another long discussion. TSO1D 00:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Whather "ukrainization" have a strong negative connotation or not, this is not the only term used in literature to describe the policies and processes under discussion. Giving a priority to it is a POV.--Mbuk 06:54, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you that there are other words that could be used to describe the policies under discussion, but I don't see a problem with maintaining all the information in this article. If you read the "Post 1991" section, the term is virtually never used (only one instance where the word is encountered). Since the same proceses are basically described throughout the article, though differing in circumstances and form at different periods, I don't believe it is necessary to split the article. I also accept your statement that the usage of the word Ukrainization in reference to the modern policies could be POV, however it is used by neutral and even pro-Ukrainian sources. If there would be a widespread resentment against the usage of the word among certain groups and if there are sources indicating this, then the situation would be different. TSO1D 13:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that the title of the article is "Ukrainization", which gives the preference to one POV over other notable POVs.--Mbuk 06:16, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Also, again breaking my pledge not to feed Mbuk until I deal with his activity in general, Ukrainization is not the only term used in the literature to refer to the 1920s either. Some sources use indignization, some korenization and some putting down roots to desrribew the Soviet policies of that time. Still, there are enough academic sources that use this term for both 20s and later times. As such, those policies belong to the article, also as per TSO1D.

As for this revert by Lysy, I asked him to give me a break, but since he persists, fine, I will spend a little more time here. The intro version to whicj Lysy reverted is unacceptable since it makes a judgement that the use for 20s is "correct" but the use for other times "can be encountered". In fact, there is no such a thing as incorrect and correct usage, at least not as judged by Wikipedians according to their personal views. It was shown repeatedly at this talk page, both uses are widely accepted on one hand and sometimes other terms are used in either of those uses. Therefore, I am de-weaselizing this again.

Besides, Lysy's version is anachronistic. It implies that Soviets justified 20s Ukrainization by de-Polonization which is simply false. This particular justification was brought up only following Soviet westward expansion in the 30s-40s. --Irpen 18:40, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

"Korenization" is a more general term: "Ukrainization" is "Korenization in Ukraine". There is no problem of using "Ukrainization" for the title, precisely as there is no reason to avoid using "Apple" for the tiple of the article even if it is often called "Fruit".

Indignization, or putting down roots is nothing else as different translations of the term "коренизация". This discussion belongs to the corresponding article.--Mbuk 21:10, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not think that Ukrainization is an apropriate title. There is no Ukrainization. Once again, it is a cultural revival. Ukrainization would be when Kyiv would force Putin make an Ukrainian channel on Russian TV, open Ukrainian schools in Voronezh, Tula, Yaroslavl, Kostroma. I can bet that percentwise Russia does not offer as much education to its citizens of Ukrainian ethnicity. That would be the Ukrainization, but when it is happening in natural way, meaning people start to learn the language of the country where they live and actually speak it, that is way off from the Ukranization. Not speaking in Ukrainian is as much contribution to avoid the revival of the national language. Ukrainization in Kuban has taken place, because in those are lands the majority of the population was Ukrainian, not because of the Ukrainization. I do not understand the position of Irpen on this topic when it is clear as the sunny day what is Ukrainization and what is National Revival. It is far not the same thing. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 18:18, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Taras Shevchenko and Gogol spoke Russian, not because they were ashamed of their ethnicity, but because of simple discrimination of the culture. Only by speaking Russian those people were able to portrait the Ukrainian culture in their works, all of the other works were subject to elimination. Now in Ukraine is another Valuev in the face of Yanukovych. Are we really going just be listening to those Russophiles and simply forget the culture and language of our true ancestors? Who are we then after that? Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 18:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

A break

I'll not be able to participate in work on the article for some time because of the trick Irpen exercised on me. I feel my current frustration with his behaviour is too high to allow me to participate in the discussion in an unbiased way. --Lysy^talk 20:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Lysy, I'm sorry to say that, but you remind me of a child who got his favorite toy confiscated.

This whole story may be an infortunate oversight, but nothing to end the world. Such things happen, and what is important is not to transform a mouse into a mountain and get past it. When you have several thousand people involved on such a huge project, this can happen. However, these kinds of things can and should be overcome.

It is good you finally replied on a public page - maybe people will help you and Irpen to sort this one out. Best, Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:39, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I really could not see what is that Lysy wanted and what was the merit of his accusations. He decided to resort to insults and offences at my talk, but I prefer this discussed right here, so that whatever issue Lysy has is brought up to the as public view as possible. That discussion over the unwarrated accusations was ongoing here for too long as I made a mistake of responding to the baseless insults and accusations instead of following the guidelines and let Lysy just say whatever that he wanted. Anyway, I am glad Lysy brought this issue to publicity and now I will not tolerate this discussion at my talk since there are public pages for such issues and if Lysy or whoever wants to continue this talking, I request it is done on the public pages. --Irpen 00:54, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Further steps of DR?

As I see, the discussion does not move anymore during the last days. What shall we do? Any ideas?--Mbuk 21:34, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm... Well, how about stopping denying evidence that is presented to you by several unrelated users? I mean, this is getting ridiculous. Sure, this article needs improvement, like almost every article on Wikipedia, but "improvement" and "POV-pushing of undue-weight theories" are quite different concepts. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 00:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Nobody presented any evidence that the definition in the article is not an OR.

Alternative names for the 1990 policies are widely used and notable.

What would you suggest for the further steps of DR?--Mbuk 06:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

As far as everybody lost the interest to the dispute, I decided to split the article as I explained in my summary above. If nonetheless anybody disagrees, please do not revert. Let's first discuss the further steps of article improvement.--Mbuk 21:44, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Moving of the article

User:Mbuk moved the article to the Language policies of Ukraine without discussing it on the talk page. It is usually a good practice to discuss movement of an article if more than one user is actively engaged in the editing. I am not sure if it was intentional or not, but the redirect Ukrainization was edited so the article could not be returned back without an administrative interference. The trick was discussed on User:AndriyK arbcom and sometimes known as AndriyK's trick. Please do not do it again, it may consider a vandalism.

Please discuss the move and if there will be no consensus file the WP:RM. I have protected the article from moving (not from editing). Please let me know when you would have a consensus on the name, so I could unprotect the article.

I have merged the Mbuk's edits on the Ukrainization redirect, they could be found in the history of the article. abakharev 22:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I generally avoid interacting with user:Mbuk, due to my past experience with him and his edits, while I did try talking to him earlier and for a long time before giving up. However, I decided to make an excemption prompted by his radical attempt to impose his views on the community by moving the article followed by the creation of artificial irreversibility of the move using the AndriyK-style dirty trick condemned by ArbCom.

I checked the history of this talk page and found out that over 20 people spoke here. None of them, save the Mbuk/AndriyK couple expressed the support for a controversial move, except, perhaps, Lysy, who was willing to contemplate some sort of the split. But even Lysy did not support this particular move which in this exact form was never proposed but rather imposed. After the failure to push a fringe minority POV through the text removal, frivolous tagging and radical edits the attempt was made to achieve the same goal by a page move, an action much more damaging because restoring the damage done by such move involves a significant degree of technical difficulty.

We have surely seen enough disruption by now and the ArbCom will be a proper means to address the issue once and for all. --Irpen 06:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

As it isn't fully clear how many of the current users favor the move and how many oppose it, maybe a local survey might shed some light onto the situation, and I'm sure that no user would act against general consesus. TSO1D 12:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Categorisation under anti-Polonism

Is it really appropriate for this article to be categorised under Category:Anti-Polonism?

I know little about the subject, but the only mention in the text of POland or "Polish is in this phrase "two invasions at the same time, from the East by the Bolshevik forces and from the West by the Polish troops, as well as being ravaged by the armed bands, often not backed by any political ideology". That does not seem to me to justify including this article in a concept of "anti-Polonism".

Of course, there may be more evidence which would justify such a categorisation, but until it is included in the article, it seems to me to be more appropriate to categorise this article under a heading such as "Ukrainian nationalism" rather than "anti-Polonism". Nationalism may involve an idelogy of hostility to a neighbouring state, but this article does not demonstrate that this is the case here. --BrownHairedGirl 12:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Deletion of Malenkovych and Kiev school district citations

Given that this is a contested article, I wanted to explain my reasoning in recent changes. Firstly, I inserted exact statistical per centages for the # of schools teaching in Ukrainian. I did this b/c using partly to characterize 48% and overwhelmingly to characterize 70% is really pushing it. 48% is almost 1/2 and 70 is about 3/4. Partly sounds like 1/5-2/5 and overwhelmingly is somewhere between 85%-99% broadly understood.

Now about the Kiev's school district footnote. In my opinion, whereas the information is true, it is too narrow for our purposes here. Citing national or at least regional statistics seems more appropriate. As for Malenovski's article, the issue was unverifiability of the statistics. I read through the article and came to the section where Malenovski cites the numbers (towards the end). They are there, but no original source is named, no link is given for verification of the numbers. Finally, I hope that wikipedia editors contributing to Ukrainization will continue to insist on the level of scholarship expected and enforced for sources/articles dealing with the Holodomor article. Citing Malenovski and going to the lengths of translating his pov (in this case) is rather unacceptable.

By the way, I certainly prefer Gogol in Russian than in translation to English, Polish or Ukrainian. How can you not love?:

Как упоителен, как роскошен летний день в Малороссии! Как томительно жарки те часы, когда полдень блещет в тишине и зное и голубой неизмеримый океан, сладострастным куполом нагнувшийся над землею, кажется, заснул, весь потонувши в неге, обнимая и сжимая прекрасную в воздушных объятиях своих! [13]

But then again, works in the original are better whatever the language. I digress and stop.--Riurik 23:56, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with the deletion of valid and referenced information from the article. If you have better statistics, pls add it by all means but deleting of valid info does not make an article any service. Volodymyr Malenkvych is a very respected in UA political analyst. He was a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, the same one whose member was Vyacheslav Chornovil (takers for this redlink, btw?). Malynkovych worked at the Radio Liberty at Soviet times.[14] and is now a director of the respected Research institution in Ukraine [15] and is frequently cited by the media. --Irpen 20:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Malenkovych's citation was not removed due to his lack of authority/respect/reputation. Prior to my deletion, I looked into his background which I found to be what you wrote above - very respected. Malenkovych citation was removed b/c it is impossible for a reader or an editor to verify the statistics given by Malenkovych. Statistics "should be checked and explained with the utmost care, with reference to published sources" (from wp:reliable sources). This cannot be done with Malenkovych' reference. --Riurik ^(discuss) 21:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I also disagree that the info on Kiev schools is too narrow. It is rather illustrous. We have the survey results (cited elsewhere) that although most Kievans cite Ukrainian as their "ridna mova" (native language), they mostly use Russian in everyday life (I can find the survey results I cited elsewhere in Wikipedia), including at home, thus making Kiev a predominantly Russophone city. That there are practically no Russian schools left in the Russophone city is an important indicator of the extent (if not a success) of the Ukrainization policy..--Irpen 20:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Using Kiev schools as an indicator of an extent/success of the Ukrainization policy is overgeneralization. By citing it, we are applying statistics from that city to Ukraine. It is better to use statistics for Ukraine or at least its major regions as examples of the level of Ukrainization. This citation should be removed from this article.--Riurik ^(discuss) 21:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

As for measuring the data by the percentage of the secondary schools only, this is misleading. While about half of the schools were indeed Ukrainian, one could not honestly say that pre-perestroyka educational system was "half-Ukrainian". The reason is that the overwhelming majority of the higher education institutions were Russian and we all know this well. Same applies to today. It could be that only 3/4 of the secondary schools are now Ukrainian, but the overwhelming majority of Universities now teach in Ukrainian only (BTW, the Romanian education was also practically eliminated from the Chernivtsi University. The Malynkovych quote you deleted mentions the situation with higher educational institutions as well. As such, I am restoring the relevant ingo and references.

I agree with you that we have to make sure that the article on such a controversial topic should be well referenced. And note, that we are trying, and with success, to do just that. Like the Polonization article, also written by me, this article contains a very large number of references and I will keep adding more as I expand it and I hope you will help me.

Finally, the tag has to go. It is there purely by insistence of one renowned troll and his meatpuppet and is totally unjustified as shown by the majority of the responces. The accusation of the Original Research is absurd in its face. Factual accuracy is not disputed, every word is referenced and no once so far challenged any info. I am removing the tag as well. --Irpen 20:04, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Above I replied to your objections, and will refrain from further editing for now. I too look forward to improving this article together.--Riurik ^(discuss) 21:20, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

As for Malynkovych and the numbers he presents, we both agree that they look sensible. We do not have any other published source for the same time. Official data published by Kiev gov (16 schools) is: 1) from two years earlier, 2) is shown false (eg. school #300), 3) is still not much different. Note that there are over 500 schools in Kiev of which the Russian schools comprise less from 1 to 3 percent. 1 or 3 are equally negligible. Here is another source:[16] Number of Ukrainian-language schools in Kiev in 2003: 500; Number of Russian-language schools in Kiev in 2003: 8. As you see everything looks consistent. The article does not imply that Kiev numbers can be extrapolated to the nation. Kiev numbers for the Ukrainian secondary education are important only when matched with the percentage of people who use Russian/Ukrainian as their primary language. I will add this data.

This article has underwnet some painful trolling and I was too tired to get back to it. Maybe we can try to develop it further now. --Irpen 01:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, Irpen, you are going too far, calling editors as "renowned troll" and "meatpuppet", as well as claiming that the tag is "totally unjustified". Currently, the scope of this article is too wide, covering Language policies in Ukraine rather than Ukrainization itself, which is the term predominantly used in academic literature to describe the policies of 1930s. It's true that the term "Ukrainization" is used in few journalist publications with respect to the language policies of 1990s, but the dominant view is Ukraine is returning to its mothers' tongue. Thus, basically, I support the split of the article as proposed by Mbuk.

Also, the article states that "the government implemented policies…", which is formally correct, but in the same time an important part is missing. It's actually a democratic government; of course it’s still far form being perfectly democratic, nonetheless the government more-less acts based on the will of the citizens. So, in fact, the truth is that the citizens of Ukraine prefer the move from Russian back to their native Ukrainian language, and the government is rather playing the role of an intermediary, facilitating the process. --KPbIC 01:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not going even a smallest step too far my calling a troll as a troll as well as his meatpuppet.

The usage to the 1990s is not restricted to the journalist publications. Plenty of books are listed above. You are welcome to put a proposal to split for a vote

As for the policies being by a democratic government, this in no way make these policies non-existant or non-Ukrainization, which, btw, as shown above, is not a unversally negative term but often used by its modern proponents. There is no proof whatsoever of the position of the citizens of Ukraine on the matter. People's voting for the democracy and demonstrating against the falicifications is no proof that they support the Russian schools closed and replaced by the Ukrainian ones with the parents having no say on the issue. During the Orange Revolution people demontsrated against the elecetoral fraud and not for the closure of the Russian schools. In fact, during the first days, before the support from provinces arrived, the Maidan was mostly Russophone. Ask me how I know.

Yushchenko himself made an electoral promise that the issue of schools and church will be left to the local communities which is the only democratic way to handle such issues. The government's continuing to pursue the centralized policies on the matter is the deviation of such promise.

Finally, tag trolling is still trolling. --Irpen 02:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Although there are many instances where our views match, we do not agree on this issue.

Whether Malynkovych numbers are sensible or not is not the question, I oppose citing statistics from his article without knowing where he gets them (this is inline with WP policies of verify and reliable sources). Does not the statistics office or Ministry of Education and Sciences of Ukraine have any statistics that support Malynkovych'? If so why not use them, if not then we should not use Malynkovych' numbers?

The educational system in Ukraine was transformed over the first decade of independence from a system that was only partly Ukrainian[9] to one that is overwhelmingly so.[10] [11] [12]. Citation #11 is the Kiev schools citation; by using this citation, we generalize from Kiev to Ukraine. Not that it is incorrect, it is just too narrow for this context meaning we cannot take what the status in Kiev and apply it to the status in Ukraine. Oppose.--Riurik ^(discuss) 02:10, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, I disagree that 48% should be described as "partly," or 75% as "overwhelmingly." Doing so is inconsistent.--Riurik ^(discuss) 02:14, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Riurik, it's fine to disagree. I see your point. While the quote is relevant it is cited indeed non-optimally. I will add to the article the material that this quote will illustrate exactly and mvoe the quote there. --Irpen 02:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Also note, that we are not just comparing 50% to 75%. We are comparing 50% of schools plus 7% of colleges (=partly) vs 75% of schools (currently even more) and ~90% of colleges (will add a citation for this number), which is indeed ovherwelming. --Irpen 02:17, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for elaborating, pending those modifications with proper citations, I will drop my objection to the Kiev schools reference. The objection, however, still stands for Malynkovych' reference.--Riurik ^(discuss) 02:33, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, don't we have to use vefiried sources? So, if the info that there are 16 Russian language schools is incorrect, then what is the point of mentioning that incorrect info? There are may be less than 16 schools, or more. --KPbIC 02:41, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Krys, it is difficult to exhaust my patience. The official data (16) for 2003 is contested because I showed where it is self-contradictory. Malynkovych numbers (2005) are not shown false. The Sarmatian review numbers (500 vs 8) are also not shown false.[17] I will add those to the article. --Irpen 02:51, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The "self-contradicting" numbers should be taken away, but keeping Malynkovych or adding Sarmatian is fine with me. However, please note that these numbers are not sufficient to make a claim about the whole country. If Malynkovych is making a claim about Ukraine citing Kiev numbers it does not mean that we should do it as well. Or, if you do want to make such claim, because Malynkovych did so, then please add "according to some researchers" part. And, again, please do not ignore the fact that there is no indication that Kievans are lacking Russian schools. It's similar to the situation in Russia where millions of Ukrainians de-facto are fine to study in Russian language schools, probably because if they were to study in Ukrainian schools it may impose some kind of a disadvantage for them, as they live in a country with Russian language as official. The same may apply to Russian citizens of Kiev, the capital of a country with Ukrainian language as official. --KPbIC 03:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Official numbers were there only at AndriyK's insistence. He wanted to make a point that Malynkovych numbers were suspicious. However, as I have shown, the official numbers were suspicious themselves. I will remove them now. I will add the overall statistics for Ukraine. I am working on that right now. The rest of what you say is irrelevant. Official language is one thing. Constitutional guarantees is quite another. People voting for independence is one thing. People not being asked what schools they want their kids to go is quite another. People protesting electoral fraud is one thing. Saying that they support current language policy based on that is entirely baseless and so on and so forth. I present mere facts in the article. You come here with frivolous tags to disrupt the article you "don't like" as you do with others. --Irpen 03:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

First, 1990s policies should go into Language policies in Ukraine, as people pointed out on this talk page. This way it would be NPOV.

Second, parents can bring their children to any school. There is no indication that a few Russian schools in Kiev have abnormally high enrollment. It's true that in some regions people do miss Russian language as it was recently expressed by the local councils. But in the majority of regions people are fine with Ukrainian schools. Again, people do vote, people are choosing the government, and the government is acting at large accordingly. When I voted, I took language policies into account up to some degree, and I voted for a party, which proposed the package closest to my interests. The government is not acting out of the blue. It's just easier to blame the government, but there are people (voters) behind the government.

Third, you frivolously removed the tag, not me. Familiar story. --KPbIC 04:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

First, put up the proposal of where and what should go for a vote. Stop repeating the claim about "people"

Second, your claim whether people are "fine" or not is 1) baseless; 2) irrelevant. I do not claim how people are about it. I bring numbers, that's all. 3) tag was removed as per lack of good faith objections according to my judgement. I may be wrong. If many people think otherwise, they will restore the tag. --Irpen 04:13, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the proposal has been stated in #Summary by MBuk. Alex Bakharev reverted the move by Mbuk claming that Mbuk followed "AndriyK's trick". Actually, the article is still protected from moving. Alex forget to add "Template:Moveprotected". Should it be called Alex's trick? :)

I support the proposal by MBuk. Do you want it to be formally announced for voting?

With respect to tag removal, you removed it following some time, once the user who put the tag is absent from wikipedia. This is a sneaky strategy in my view, as such issues should rather be discussed, instead of accepting the tag in the first place, and then removing it when your opponent is not around. --KPbIC 05:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I remove the tag as per my opinion that points are answered and thoroughly discussed and the tag cannot stay permanently because some fringe POV pushers are still dissatisfied. This is a unversal common sense. Otherwsie, evolution would have been permanently tagged as well as the Holocaust and the Earth. My tag removal meets an overall support at this talk. You are welcome to bring up any votes you want. The problem is that once dissatisfied by the results you won't calm down. As for the rest, it does not warrant any response. --Irpen 05:15, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The voting may be influenced by "concerned" Russian editors, which may result in the "dissatisfactory" result, as you pointed out. It would take significant efforts to bring the voting to the wide international community. And, at the end, as you again correctly pointed out, after voting, we still have to work toward consensus.

I still don't understand why you want to put everything (appropriate or not) under the umbrella of "Ukrainization". There are NPOV ways to present the information, such as Language policy in France, Languages of Ghana, Languages of Eritrea. By itself, language policy is the appropriate scientific term. "-zation" is the Russian terminology with few instances of usage in English with respect to the current language policies in Ukraine. --KPbIC 05:40, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

You are wrong. Sources are above. --Irpen 05:43, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I just checked, according to books.google.com, it's more common to use terms language policy, language politics, while Ukrainization is used almost exclusively with respect to the 1930s. --KPbIC 05:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

More common in respect to what? The term is self-evident. It is neutral as it is used by both supporters and detractrors. You will not get it your way by tiring your opponents in endless discussions and making empty unsupported statements. I spent enough time responding to your pestering and will for some time seize doing so. --Irpen 06:25, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I have not checked the Krys statement about language policies vs ukrainization terms with respect to the 1990s, but will do so in time. Recent changes have further developed the article to which I hope to contribute as well. Thanks for citing the Institute's table with statistics, which according to the Institute were compiled from the Ministry of Education and Sciences. This in itself does not allow us to verify the original data! Given its reputation, and its affiliation with Soros and Yavlinsky, it seems safe for now to give this data the benefit of the doubt. However, original statistics when available must be cited in articles such as this one. If not available, then titles of specific documents should be cited, not just this table is based on statistical data compiled by the Ministry of Education and Sciences. How am I supposed to verify this? How should a Wikipedia reader be able to verify this? Unless they are a scholar or an investigative journalist, they cannot.--Riurik ^(discuss) 18:02, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Irpen's POV

I see four problems with Irpen's edition. First, Irpen is providing his interpretation for the changes in the education system, instead of neutral stating of statistical data. It's also absurd to bring personal claims into the article on whether laws are too broad or not.

Second, Irpen ignores the important fact that "Russian language is still studied as a required course in all secondary schools, including those with Ukrainian as the primary language of instructions". The fact characterizes the degree of Ukrainization.

Third, without a single fact, Irpen claims that Ukrainization continued during Yuschenko presidency.

And forth, native Ukrainian population is confused with Ukrainophone population. Ukrainians do express desire to use native language by themselves, and for education of their children in particular. --KPbIC 05:10, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

First, Please quote what exactly is the interpretation that does not match the statistical data. That such laws as constitution are usually broad is a common knowledge. There are no narrow laws in Ukraine that specify how the consitutional protections would be provided to Ukrainian, Russian or any other language. Is there a law about, say, conducting the parent's survey before switching schools? No. Is there a law that would adjust the policies to take into account the census results for the region? No. If there are such laws, or instructions of the ministry of education, please cite them. If not, the statement is correct.

Second, I left the statement about Russian's being studies in all schools with the "fact" tag (that you attemtped to delete). I think it is true and I will look around to replace the tag with the ref.

Third, I will add the refs about schools' continued transfers during the Yushchenko's presidency. You know full well that the trend of school tranfers continued but I will add statistics to replace your tag.

Fourth, your statement about the desires of Ukrainian population is baseless until you provide the surveys on the issue of school transfers.

Additionally, note that "Universal" is not a legal document. It is not a law, it is a declaration of intent. It does not assure anything. It is simply a declaration ammended such that all sides agreed to sign it. So, it declares things rather than assures them.

And finally, most Ukrainian population is native to Ukraine, that is born there. What matters is the native language and not genetic composition of Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, Polish, Tatar and other genes, unless you think that such genes matter and it would be a totally different discussion (or lack of it as I don't consider racist views worthy to be discussed). "Ukrainians want their childred bla-bla-bla" means Citizens of Ukraine and there is no statistics on the issue at all, let alone the restricted statistics just for the ethnic Ukrainians (btw, the ethnicity is eliminated from all national ID documents). Also, there are no known to me data on population's overall attitude to the schools transfers as well as there is no data about the population's even being consulted. --Irpen 05:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

"fact" tags are accepted practice especially if an editor will replace them with proper references in due time; As for statistical references, we should: 1. know the source of any statistical data - this allows us to evaluate an organization's "authoritativeness/reputation" & 2. be able to check the actual statistics ourselves (if only to check for incorrect data input); additionally, it helps to know research methodology used in gathering statistics, etc.--Riurik ^(discuss) 17:42, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

With respect to the Russian language course in Ukrainian language schools the correct statetement should be the following: "Російська мова в загальноосвітніх навчальних закладах з українською мовою викладання вивчається за вибором навчального закладу з урахуванням побажань учнів та їх батьків. Крім того, у всіх загальноосвітніх навчальних закладах з будь-якими мовами викладання передбачено вивчення російської мови, як й інших мов національних меншин, факультативно." [18] --KPbIC 19:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I have inserted your reference abakharev 00:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, thanks for all your recent attempts to be very helpful, but being completely honest, I should say that a person with sufficient knowledge of Ukrainian, after reading the paragraph above, would not insert the reference as you did. --KPbIC 01:38, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, my Ukrainian is next to non-existent. Fix the reference or get a better reference or if you affraid it may be counted as a revert provide your version and I will insert it abakharev 02:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the statement "There are no narrow laws in Ukraine that specify how the consitutional protections would be provided to Ukrainian, Russian or any other language." in Irpen's comment is incorrect.

First, the law on the languages in Ukrainian SSR is still in force (link to law).

Second, the re-ratified European Charter For Regional or Minority Languages is currently an integral part of Ukrainian legislation (link to re-ratification law, link to Charter). It has a fairly specific article on education (article 8) and the re-ratification law stipulates how exactly this article is applied. Sashazlv 04:16, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Mixed schools

The article completely misses such phenomenon as mixed schools, i.e. schools in which some classes are taught in Ukrainian and the other are in Russian. The cited number of Russian schools (like "26 Russian schools in 16 western oblasts") overstates the Ukrainization process, as it implies that the rest of schools are Ukrainian, which is not the case.

"Конституція України гарантує вільне використання та розвиток усіх мов національних меншин, так як і інших етнічних, культурних чи релігійних аспектів корінного населення та меншин. В Україні діє 1.880 російських шкіл, 94 румунських, 69 угорських, 12 кримсько-татарських, 9 молдавських, 4 польських, та більш ніж 2.200 двомовних шкіл." [19]

"Загальновідомими є факти задоволення мовно-освітніх та інформаційних потреб етнічних росіян України, які становлять 17,3 % населення країни. Нагадаємо окремі з них ще раз. В країні діють 1 411 російськомовні школи та 2 109 двомовних українсько-російських шкіл; а російську мову як предмет вивчають близько 1,5 млн. учнів" [20]

"У м. Харкові функціонує 181 школа, з них у 46 закладах навчально-виховний процес здійснюється українською мовою, у 82 - двома мовами" [21]. У Сумській області "із загальної кількості шкіл 76 – двомовних, 19 – російськомовних" [22], etc. --KPbIC 19:58, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The plight of Russian schooling in West ans Center

• "For instance in 16 western oblasts (provinces) of the country there remain only 26 Russian language schools out of 12,907[9] and in Kiev only 6 out of 452 schools still use Russian as their primary language of instruction,[14] while, according to a 2006 survey,[15]"

The articles gives a bit distorted impression. " 16 western oblasts" are in fact 16 oblasts of Western and Central Ukraine (including for instance Sumy region). This means that the Constitution of Ukrine is ignored (inverted into an empty declaration) in all Western and Central Ukrainian regions (for instance Lviv has only 5 Russian schools for more then 90 000 Russians and 18 000 Russophones of the region; Chernigov city + region have 4 Russian schools for 62200 Russians and 60000 Russophones [23]). Russian schooling is absent in Ternopil, Rivne, Cherkassy, Kiev regions [24]. Russianname 12:26, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

"Во всем Западном регионе Украины на более чем 6,5 тысяч школ с украинским языком обучения приходится лишь 16 русских школ (соотношение 1:407). В то же время в восьми областях Западной Украины проживает 10 млн. 979 тысяч жителей (10 млн. 142 тысячи украинцев), и 306,5 тысяч русских. Соотношение между украинцами и русскими составляет 1:33. Исходя из таких расчетов, русских школ в регионе должно быть 175-200, а их почти в двенадцать раз меньше. "[25]

The relationship of schools does not have anything to do with population. What is that a rule of some kind? There should not be any Russian publuically funded schools whatsoever in Ukraine especially after all of the things those are happening in Sevastopol, in September 2008. If a Russian community wants a school it should pay the tax to Ukrainian government, because the land where the school that they want belongs to Ukraine not Russian Federation. The Ukrainian government should cease all the funding of the Russian speaking schools, because keeping such only keeps further Russification of Ukraine which needs to be discontinued at once. People who oppose that cannot be consider the Ukrainian nationals, but rather dicidents. Also it is can hardly be consider as cutting the rights of the Russophiles due to the language, but rather cutting rights of Ukrainians in cultural, economical, and political ways. So stop putting all of the useless statistics and spreading this idiotic propoganda. There is no Ukrainization has taken place ever, but rather a cultural revival. Aleksandr Grigoryev (talk) 11:58, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Some thoughts

I was referred to this article, and before anything else is said about it, there seems to be quite a bit of a unnecessary suggestive language. The article seems to be full of interesting data, but the way of putting it down sort of defeats the effort, and feeds the quarrels. The issues I see:

• Name of the article:
  • Ukrainisation is a relative term, and can be used on its own merit without problem, I believe. Yes, it may be emotionally loaded both positively and negatively.
  • The term is and was half-official at best of its times. Even the 1920s Ukrainization and its counterpart Belarusization were called so informally. That occured to be catchy kind of word, so it made way into historical literature.
  • The respective 1990s-2000s processes were often informally called Ukrainization (and Belarusization), too, because they represent the same kind of process, indeed, the proponents of these processes in Belarus in the beg. 1990s referred to the 1920s as the "First Belarusization" and to the 1990s as the "Second Belarusization". I can't give you the ref, as it was rather long ago, and would take a ungodly amount of paper digging.
  • To separate the 1990s-2000s processes into separate article sort of makes some nit-picking sense, but the name of a kind "Language policies in years such-and-such" is overly indefinite and vague. Whose policies are those? Implemented where? To what purpose? Then, Russification should go in there, and Polonisation, and god knows what, and so you end with a meta-article and in need of separation again.
    • Obviously, some good references to the 1990s usage should be added.
  • Is the problem with collective name "Ukrainization" kind of supposed negative name perception problem?
• Mandatory study of Russian needs good official reference.
• The suggestive language proper, in need of removal. Quite possibly, good-faithed, though.

However, the most significant was the government's concerted effort to implement the Ukrainian, as the only official state language in the country, into the state educational system. Despite the Constitution as well as the Law of Languages guarantee the protection of all languages in Ukraine, the laws leave the specifics out, thus allowing for a broad interpretation.

However, it's less than the native Ukrainian population and the schools

Despite the transition was gradual and lacked many controversies that surrounded the de-Russification in several of the other former Soviet Republics,

in an attempt to widen his political appeal,

In addition to the stagnating economy, the language issue likely contributed to Kuchma's victory in the election;

Nevertheless, during the Yuchshenko's presidency the transfer of educational institutions from Russian to the Ukrainian continued

Statistical reference needed here, too.

Well, what do you think? ---Yury Tarasievich 09:09, 1 September 2006 (UTC)