Talk:Bogdan Musiał

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Criticism/views spam

A lot has been added with cherry picked sources, I have taken a look at some sources and they are severely misinterpreted. Also the criticism section seems to be now larger than main article although he is uncontroversial historian.It needs to be toned down to due weight.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:19, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Not all of the criticism is bad. Some is favorable. Regarding Musiał being an "uncontroversial historian" - do you have a source for that?

Also you reverted content with the quote "The Holocaust is a supplementary religion for Judaism" which appears directly in an English language source [1] (also present was Polish coverage of this - which seemed wide - and which seems to say the same) - how is this a misinterpretation of what Musiał said?Icewhiz (talk) 15:27, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

It is because he says something completely different and in much wider and bigger context about horrific ordeal that Jews and others went through in Holocaust.Basically that reactions are so strong due to terrible atrocity Holocaust was which due to suffering has made commemorating enormous losses and suffering an almost religious experience.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 15:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

@MyMoloboaccount: Musiał doesn't have much coverage in English (He does have wide coverage in German and Polish sources) - this is something that was reported in an English source (and a respected one) in this exact form - I was careful to use attributed quotes for this from a RS that translated this to English in a manner that shouldn't be challenged for accuracy in terms of translation. I believe this statement should be in - however if you feel Musiał's comments on this matter should be expanded (and he's talked a great deal, and he's been analyzed quite a bit - from what I see in the Polish sources) - how about you expand this to reflect his views more comprehensively on the matter? He's definitely quite involved with the IPN amendment (involvement which possibly also should be expanded).Icewhiz (talk) 16:19, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I have added a positive reception of his work from Alexander B. Rossino who is a research historian at the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. In general I believe this section should be trimmed to bare essentials as it is now too bloated.--MyMoloboaccount (talk) 23:03, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

We're not even close to this article being long enough to be trimmed. We should perhaps reorganize a bit - e.g. cover each major work and its reception (by others - e.g. move Sowjetische Partisanen 1941-1944 and Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen to a "works" section along with some items from the "career" section), leaving Rossino and Michlic in the criticism (or possibly re-title to reception). Some of the pargraphs (Rudling and Rossino) are perhaps too long and should perhaps be summarized.Icewhiz (talk) 23:29, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

BLP vio?

@Volunteer Marek: - you removed coverage of Musial in WP:RSes covering historiography of the period. Reliably sourced (and attributed) information is not a BLP violation. The author, Joanna Michlic (sole author in one, in second with Malgorzata Melchior[2][3] who is also a scholar in the field), is an expert in historiography and the publishers Leipziger Universitätsverlag and University of Nebraska Press are acceptable and respected academic publishers. Similar text is also available in this journal article (possibly a copy/rewrite of what was in the book - but was published in a peer reviewed journal). Other authors have made similar claims in peer reviewed settings - e.g. Norman Naimark "Bogdan Musial's bloated claims about extensive Jewish participation in Soviet crimes and justifiable Polish resentment against Jewish perpetrators beg the question." Where's the BLP vio here?Icewhiz (talk) 11:55, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

References

• Comment - This is how article looked like before Icewhiz arrived: [4] This is how the article looked like after Icewhiz edits: [5] UNDUE weight, unbalanced, not presented responsibly and conservatively, and it has hair-raising biased tone. Clear BLP breach [6]GizzyCatBella (talk) 11:10, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

  This is Musial's dewiki entry - 38 words to the lede, 341 words for a short life section + spotting the photo error (in 1999) in the Wehrmacht exhibition, and then 1163 words to various negative controversies (clearly titled as such) - or some 75% of the dewiki article. I migrated some of the dewiki article to enwiki - but only did so for sources that were available online and I could vet myself (or could find English language RSes covering the same). BLP articles should reflect what is written about the BLPs in RSes.Icewhiz (talk) 11:47, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

  Is dewiki some kind of guidance to follow?GizzyCatBella (talk) 12:36, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

  It is a well regarded wiki project, with content policies that are more conservative than enwiki. Considering that most of Musial's work was in German - and that coverage of him for that period is mainly German - it is a relevant yardstick.Icewhiz (talk) 12:39, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

If you don't read German - part of the crtics is about The Neighbours by J.T. Grooss, a not quite academic book. Musiał lists obvious errors.Xx236 (talk) 11:19, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

If you don't read German, don't believe editor's biased opinion various negative controversies, some are positive. Xx236 (talk) 11:25, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

an ethno-nationalist school of thought

Academic schools are created by people sharing similar background, generation, views.

• Tomasz Strzembosz was a Home Army historian born in 1930, died in 2004. He was oppressed during the war (Underground education) and by the Communists till 1989.
• Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is one generation younger, an NSZ historian (HA nad NSZ don't like each other), Polish-American. He studied and obtained his PhD in the USA.
• Bogdan Musiał is a German historian - he finished a high-school (as a worker), studied and obtained academic title in Germany. He has published all his books in Germany. Xx236 (talk) 11:44, 19 July 2018 (UTC)

BLP vio again

We've had Icewhiz try to turn this article into an BLP violating attack page. Let's avoid doing that again. This opinion is UNDUE and a BLP VIO. Volunteer Marek 20:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

It looks like legitimate characterization. Why do you consider it a BLP vio? François Robere (talk) 21:12, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

You've never edited this page before. Please stop WP:STALKing my edits. Volunteer Marek 21:15, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Don't flatter yourself. Now what's your objection to the edit? François Robere (talk) 21:34, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Please recall that my topic ban was a result of ArbCom believing that I followed Icewhiz to articles I've never edited. You've never edited this article. You've popped in on several articles which I have recently edited to make personal attacks . If you wish to compound your clear attempts at WP:HARASSMENT by taunting me with uncivil comments [7] (I see you thought better of that one... but still couldn't help yourself), then that is your choice I guess. Volunteer Marek 21:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

VM, I would suggest you put this paranoia of yours on hold and try to focus on the content. I understand you're in a stressful situation with the AE and all, but you'll have to trust that I've no need nor will to follow you, let alone to this article. Now, are you going to explain why this is a BLP vio? François Robere (talk) 21:46, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Stop. Stalking. My. Edits. Volunteer Marek 23:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that FR was already following the article as he thanked me for an edit on it several months back. (t · c) buidhe 21:49, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

That's some memory you have there! I believe the edit in question was this. François Robere (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Buidhe, after you were JUST told over at WP:BLPN that your edit violated BLP [8] you responded by... restoring one of indef banned user Icewhiz’s BLP violating edit. Remember that he got the topic banned for turning BLPs into attack pages? What in the world makes you think it’s a good idea to restore his old edits right after you were told at BLPN that your edit was a BLP vio? Please self revert. Volunteer Marek 23:04, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

• Just read Per Anders Rudling's review of Konterrevolutionäre Elemente sind zu erschießen. I'm afraid its representation in our text is not satisfactory. Rudling makes the point that Musial is over-focused on Jewish involvement in Soviet repressions, while sidestepping their own history - along with Ukrainians and Belarusians - of being repressed by Poles. At the same time he exaggerates the Soviet attitude towards Poles, suggesting that they were treated much worse than other minorities. Rudling also criticises his choice of statistics, and his reliance on anecdotal evidence where historical analyses would be due.

I can't see how it is at all misrepresentation to attribute opinions Musial expressed in a book to Musial himself. The book was written by Musial, after all. However, if it's preferred to cite a different source, Michlic says essentially the same thing. What matters is the content, not who wrote it, and I checked to make sure it accurately represented the source. (t · c) buidhe 17:45, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

What does that have to do with you restoring one of Icewhiz's edits? Volunteer Marek 21:51, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Musial offers 24 pages detailing the misdeeds of Jews against Poles... but Musial only spends three pages on some 20 years of institutionalized Polish discrimination against Jews. In only a few places in the book does Musial admit the importance of traditional Polish Antisemitism.

Musial comes dangerously close to trivializing the nature of antisemitic attitudes among the local Slavs, and he does not do much in terms of analyzing them. On the contrary, by focusing on the register of “Jewish” crimes against the Polish people, it is not hard to see how this way of writing history could be interpreted as beneficial to the radical right or catering to those who interpret the escalation of hatred as a response to “Jewish” crimes.

Most of this is not mentioned in the text. This paragraph was introduced by Icewhiz in 2018;[9] seems that, unlike Żbikowski's text which you say is exaggerated, in this case he "undershot". Anyone wants to rework that? François Robere (talk) 16:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• There's also Michlic's The Soviet Occupation of Poland, 1939-41, and the Stereotype of the Anti-Polish and Pro-Soviet Jew which relates Musial with MJC, Thomas Strzembosz and Marek Wierzbicki as "the main representatives of the post-1989 historiography characterized by prejudicial views toward Jews and other minorities" (we already cite this in MJC's article). She writes on one of Musial's works that:

The insistence that a communist conspiracy has prevented a critical examination of the (Judeo-)communist crimes against the Polish nation between 1939 and 1989 is nothing more than a political statement from the repertoire of extreme right-wing Polish nationalists. This is an example of what can be called the extreme anti-communist martyrdom deviation in post-1989 right-wing historical scholarship, which treats Judeo-communism not only as "a historical fact" but also as a part of contemporary reality. The notions of "speaking the truth" and "acting in the name of truth" always seem to accompany this position.

And later:

[Strzembosz and Musial's] strategy is used to imply that, even if the Poles were guilty of wrongs against the Jews at that time, the Jews were twice as guilty vis-a-vis the Poles... These highly politicized interpretations are interwoven with another main thesis put forward by these two historians about the sole responsibility and active participation of the Germans in the Jedwabne massacre and other similar anti-Jewish pogroms. Yet this thesis is inconsistent with their references to the participation of ethnic Poles in the anti-Jewish massacres. When they refer to this participation, they are quick to minimize its criminal nature and scope, and they insist that, in the majority of instances, it was the Germans who forced small groups of Poles to take part in the anti-Jewish violence. They also contrast this participation with a claim of help offered by ethnic Poles toJewish escapees. This view aims at balancing the good deeds and the crimes, and it belongs to the key narratives of the pre-Jedwabne hegemonic interpretation of Polish-Jewish relations during the Holocaust. In this narrative, the Christian Polish rescuers ofJews are treated instrumentally to support the thesis of solidarity and unity of Christian Poles with Jews during the Holocaust. Therefore, the low societal approval of their rescue activities within the local communities-which constitutes an important understudied aspect of historical inquiry-does not feature in this narrative.

And yet later:

For their part, Musial and Chodakiewicz insist that they are "speaking the truth" and "acting in the name of historical truth." They invoke truth as the premise and aim of their writing, but, in fact, they use it as a technique aiming at relativization and the distortion of the truth... Musial and Chodakiewicz insist that they are capable of unraveling the distorted representation of the past because they are the champions of sophisticated scientific methods that will free the profession from stereotypes about "Poland" and "Polish attitudes" during the Holocaust. What their claim stands for is the promotion of the one-dimensional traditionalist and ethnonationalist image of Poland as the community of heroes and victims.

Anyone wants to work this into the Reviews section? François Robere (talk) 16:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

• Also, why are we explaining Musial's views, instead of quoting him directly?

...historian Bogdan Musiał, a newly appointed member of the Council of the Museum of World War II in Gdańsk and adviser to the chairman of the Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (IPN) [National Memory Institute], declared on state television channel TVP, “The Holocaust is a supplementary religion for Judaism.” According to Musiał, the Israeli reaction to the Polish law is a result of recognizing the memory of the Holocaust as a form of religion, in which emotions play a crucial role at the expense of facts. At the same time, Musiał defended the role of Polish Catholics and deflected blame for historical antisemitism to the political left. Asked about the Church’s role, he said: “Trying to get the Church into the Holocaust is a diversion of attention from the left-wing ideas that laid the foundations for national socialism.”

(Pankowski, R. The Resurgence of Antisemitic Discourse in Poland. 2018.) François Robere (talk) 17:01, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

What does any of this have to do with Buidhe restoring one of Icewhiz's old edits, from before he got topic/indef banned? Volunteer Marek 21:51, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Both you and Buidhe should consider if you really want to start restoring the very same edits that led the ArbCom to ban Icewhiz [10]. If an editor gets banned for doing something, and then another editor, who had a history of close collaboration with the banned editor, comes back and starts restoring the edits that led to the ban in the first place... that's kind of problematic. Volunteer Marek 21:55, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

1. BLPN suggested more focused sources are needed for such claims, so here they are.
2. ArbCom mainly discussed WP:EDITORIALIZING, not quoting a source word for word. If you're in doubt about it, I would support raising this at WP:ARCA. François Robere (talk) 15:17, 5 February 2021 (UTC)