Talk:Korenizatsiia

Untitled

Excellent start! Maybe there should be more context in there regarding the theory of historical materialism to show that the poliыфьcy was never supposed to lead to a long-term independence of nations. Dietwald 05:21, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

If nobody objects, I will develop a text that will provide this context. Should take me some time, as it is a difficult subject. I will appreciate any kind of feed-back throughout the process. Since I am something of an anti-Marxist, I recognise that some of my contributions may be coloured by my POV, but I trust the community here to make sure I don't go off too much :) Dietwald 09:29, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Mack2

I may add a slight twist to the essay in this sense. As already noted, the word korenizatsiya also can be translated as "rooting," and this was literally what the Bolsheviks were trying to accomplish in the late 1920's -- build roots for the party organization in the locales. In the national minority areas, the recruiting of locals was an important aspect of the struggle against what was called "Great Power Chauvinism," though another threat was "local chauvinism." But in the late 1920's Great Power Chauvinism was officially identified as the main danger to the solution of the national question.

The plan, clearly stated by Stalin at the (I believe 12th Party Congress) was that the fight against Great Power Chauvinism (i.e., Russian chauvinism) had to be carried out by Russians themselves, and the fight against local chauvinism had to be carried out by the locals. They didn't want each group fighting against the other. But they needed a self-regulatory mechanism, and among other things this involved providing representation and voice to all kinds of local soviets. They created and promoted something called "natssovety" (national/ethnic soviets) in all flavors. In Ukraine, for example, there were even natssovety for Russians and Estonians.

Also during the period of late 20's til about 1934 (korenizatsia essentially ended then), there wasn't that much emphasis on the teaching of Russian (contrary to what the essay now says). Rather the emphasis was on the development of schools in the local languages. Although Russian was taught as a language in many schools, it only became universally required as a language of study in 1938 -- arguably sparked by the sense of impending war and the need to do what they could to assure that non-Russians had some comprehension of Russian language, which was the language of command on the Red Army. In this connection, it is well to keep in mind that although the Bolsheviks eliminated the use of the Arabic script in the local languages of Central Asia, at first they did not promote Cyrillic alphabets but rather Latin alphabets. While they wanted to disconnect the locals from the influence of the Islamic clergy, the ma38drassahs, and texts (namely the Koran) in Arabic stript, they did not immediately push Russian script nor Russian language. Both of those came in only in 1938-39, as the Latin scripts were to give way to Cyrillic script in textbooks and other printed form. Thus, on the eve of WW II, the non-Russian areas had not been exposed to widespread and enduring Russification at the hands of the Bolsheviks. The emphasis was rather to avoid ethnic conflict by seeking accommodations.

Thus, I think a fairer way to depict the korenizatsia policy was as a policy of "rooting" the Bolshevik leadership and the new government in the locales in the early phase. Keep in mind that in many of the non-Russian areas, especially in rural areas, there weren't a whole lot of communists. Even after collectivization, there might be one or two communists per collective farm in the non-Russian areas. This is one reason why they created and used the MTS (machine tractor stations) to take political instructors into the countryside: local communists were scarce, so bring in the itinerant propagandists to teach to the locals. But the Bolsheviks also provideed advancement to locals through recruitment of locals into local soviets, and they created natssovety as one form of encouraging local engagement and rooting of the communist regime in the countryside. Further they sought to develop local languages, in many cases 'creating' alphabets -- such as in the project of the Committee of the North -- so that the minorities would have a literary language to use for school textbooks and to carry forward some of their national traditions in literary form. Also bear in mind that prior to ca. 1930, there wasn't much central control of the educational system, and prior to 1934 there wasn't much control over publishing. But in the early 30's things began to shift in emphasis, and the main danger identified as "local chauvinism" instead of "great power chauvinism." And so 1934 witnessed the first significant purges in the national regions to root out local chauvinism (nationalism), and put into place even more docile and indoctrinated (or coopted) locals.--Mack2 03:09, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Later: I made a series of changes, which I hope you all view as improvements. I also noted that the essay had previously implied that korenizatsiya was the very foundation of Stalin's essay on the national problem (not cited yet, by the way) and of Soviet nationalities policy in general. In fact, korenizatsiuya was the watchword only beginning in the latter 1920s and, as the essay noted elsewhere, faded away in the late 1930's. There is no essay on korenizatsiya on the Russian-language version of Wikipedia, but there is a timeline for nationalities policy as a whole. I tried to link to this but don't know the protocols for linking across the different versions of Wikipedia. If somebody knows how to do that, please fix the link. Thank you.--Mack2 16:32, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Still Later: I added some key citations, to Stalin's pamphlet on "Marxism and the National Question" (1913) and his "theses" on the national question presented at the 12th Party Congress (1923).--Mack2 17:18, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Peltimikko's contributions

I wish to thank Peltimikko for adding more substance and a better chronology to the discussion throughout the article. I tried to clear up the writing, but otherwise left all of his additions.--Mack2 (talk) 13:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

"Aftermath" section

The section says nothing related to korenizatsiya - a particular, rather short, period. In addition, the section is mostly original research. I don't see what dissolved International and persecution of Jews have to do with korenizatsiya. Not to say that "The national pride of the Great Russian people was boosted by a campaign against rootless cosmopolitans" is rather dubious opinion (who has it, by the way? It is quite a racist remark, and it would be good to know which source is racist). - Altenmann >t 17:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I re-edited and restored some parts. a) Due to the Korenizatsiya policy (and Nazi rascist policy), the Soviet minorities did not collaborate with the Germans. b) Other part relates to the Russian chauvinism, where the Soviets did not restore Korenizatsiya after the WWII. c) But you are right about Stalin's persecution of Jews. It was an example to show that the Soviets fight against the cosmopolitanism, but it can be understood as rascist (sentence took out of its content). So that part not restored. d) I partly disagree that Korenizatsiya was just this short period. I think part of its "fruits" are still seen today's Russia. For example in Republic of Karelia Finnish language has still semi-official status though it is spoken by very few (actually during the Stalin era, Finnish was picked up as main official language though Russian language and even Karelian language was spoken by more people). Peltimikko (talk) 22:42, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

translate.google.com Korenizatsiya - word of the journalistic jargon of the 20's - 30's, XX century. After this time the word was not used in the USSR, as insulting to small nations. At the same time, Western historians distinguish rooting as a stage of national politics in the USSR, which allegedly ended in the 37-39 year, Reversal to Russification. An indication of the End of korenization, in their opinion, can be considered repression late 30-ies against part of the national intelligentsia and the party nomenklatura in the republics, the translation of the Cyrillic alphabet, etc. This is certainly a vulgar and simplistic understanding of the events of that era. It is possible that foreign "Sovietologists" to this view prompted disappearance corenization words from the dictionary of the Soviet media at 37-39 years. But this fact, as, for example, and the rejection of word туземный ('native') to northern peoples, means rather that the Soviet leadership realized the offensive and politically incorrect connotation of the term. (("His horse koreniziruy !"))

Thus, Korenizatsiya is just only politically incorrect word. The policy consisted of promoting representatives of titular nations of Soviet republics and national minorities on lower levels of the administrative subdivision of the state, into local government, and polic continued in 40-s, 50- s аnd continue...

To (unsigned) commenter above. This is/was the term widely used at the time and in many historical accounts (see the bibliography to this article as well as the one in the .RU Wikipedia:

• И. Чистяков. Коренизация государственного аппарата национальных районов в первые годы советской власти :По материалам национальных районов Среднего Поволжья.
• Национально-государственное строительство в Казахстане. Коренизация Советского аппарата республики).~Mack2~ (talk) 16:37, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

That it may have been offensive to the local population needs to be documented; it is simply the term that obtained conventional usage. On the issue of offense, however, I don't see how the idea of "rooting" is itself any more offensive than, say, туземный (locals, indigenous residents). The construction that you give to "korenizatsia" is opposite the intention of the policy, which was to root Soviet institutions in the predominantly non-Russian areas by creating "natssoviety," promoting local populations to administrative positions, opening schools in local languages.~Mack2~ (talk) 16:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Korenizatsia was related to another policy: National-territorial delimitation (RU: национально-территориальное размежевание).~Mack2~ (talk) 18:20, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Korenizatsiia/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Could use more factual material -- if it's available -- on how korenizatsiya worked on the ground, i.e., in practice, in different regions of the Soviet Union.--Mack2 (talk) 20:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 20:42, 19 April 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 21:23, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Requested move 27 December 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Uncontested move request. (non-admin closure) Colonestarrice (talk) 05:40, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

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Korenizatsiya → Korenizatsiia – WP:COMMONNAME: the most common form in English-language reliable sources[1] (corresponds to romanization by the modified Library of Congress system widely used in academic and popular-academic literature).  —Michael Z. 22:57, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Since the 1970s, the proposed spelling has seen 50% to 85% of the usage of the top two spellings.[2]  —Michael Z. 04:32, 28 December 2022 (UTC)

• Support per well-researched nomination. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 03:19, 29 December 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Un-capitalized

Google Ngram shows that by any spelling, the lowercased form is more commonly used.[3]  —Michael Z. 16:41, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 21 August 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus that the current title is the WP:COMMONNAME and should be retained. If there's further interest in discussing the recommendations of WP:RUS more broadly, that essay's talk page is likely to be a fruitful place for that discussion. (closed by non-admin page mover) ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 15:10, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

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Korenizatsiia → Korenizatsiya – correct transliteration from Russian per Wikipedia rules - Altenmann >talk 15:48, 21 August 2023 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:06, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose. Does not seem to be the WP:COMMONNAME.[4]  —Michael Z. 12:23, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

By the way, WP:romanization of Russian is not a rule but a personal essay which contradicts the actual policy WP:UE, “Established systematic romanizations . . . are preferred,” and guideline MOS:ROMANIZATION, “use a systematically transliterated or otherwise romanized name.”  —Michael Z. 12:33, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Whatever essay or not, it is the basis of uniform transliteration all over wikipedia. Ngram is a research tool not an argument for critical decisions, especially about rarely used words. - Altenmann >talk 16:10, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, COMMONNAME is the basis for naming. Frequency of usage in the corpus, as shown by Ngram among other sources, is exactly a way to establish a common name. Romanization is only to be used failing the determination of the most commonly used English spelling, per WP:UE, only if “there are too few reliable English-language sources to constitute an established usage.”

Secondly, and incidentally in this case, because our ad hoc amateur suggestion has significant differences from the most commonly used system, modified Library of Congress, it is actually a basis for non-uniform and inconsistent naming. As often as not, common names do not correspond to the WP:RUS spelling. We should adopt a real system instead.  —Michael Z. 21:17, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

A strict Library of Congress romanization of the name is Korenizatsii͡a; modified LOC Korenizatsia. This is widely used in academic literature and likely the reason this is the common name.  —Michael Z. 21:41, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

We should adopt a real system instead -- Sounds reasonable. The question is what is "real" system? And ours in tot "ad hoc amateur". It is basisally an insignificant simplification of BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian. At least you can start a discussion about this in the corresponding board. - Altenmann >talk 22:16, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

This RM is not the right place for that discussion, but I agree. WP:RUS is 100% WP:OR, and I am shocked that we've been using it this long. That whole essay should be deleted, and the unmodified BGN/PCGN romanization of Russian used instead. 162 etc. (talk) 22:33, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

It’s not a simplification. If the changes are “insignificant,” what are their purpose? Oh, there’s no rationale for them given! It’s hobbyist work, non-standard, and shouldn’t be taken seriously.  —Michael Z. 16:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Socialism has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:04, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Soviet Union has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Russia has been notified of this discussion. —usernamekiran (talk) 21:05, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

Oppose, not a common name Marcelus (talk) 18:23, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Neutral. Thank you all for all the compliments about my work on WP:RUS; always nice to meet the fans :) Here, however, is obviously not the place to address them, but anyone interested is always welcome to inquire about the motivations and rationale behind it on my talk page. I will just say that it was primarily intended to deal with human and geographic names where common English name was absent, but we needed some semblance of consistent approach to deal with them; hopefully without producing outlandish, never seen in the wild variations which strict BGN/PCGN can sometimes produce. With коренизация being neither a human nor a geographic name, and with academic sources using predominantly LoC romanization (note I'm taking Mzajac's word on this, mind; I haven't really checked myself), I'm personally fine with this article remaining where it is, but wouldn't go as far as saying the current variant is the best choice.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 31, 2023; 02:13 (UTC) 02:13, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

Don’t take it personally. It’s not 2005 through 2018 any more. A home-brew system doesn’t follow the guideline and has a number of practical problems. But indeed, it’s academic in this discussion because commonname.  —Michael Z. 05:54, 31 August 2023 (UTC)

I think you're conflating the standards we are using to write the articles with the standards we are using to create guidelines. Nearly every guideline we have in place can be described as "home-brewed", "original research", "a collection of preferences", and yes, "a work of amateurs". Sure, it's nice when there exists in a given subject area a single, widely accepted academic standard we can adopt as a guideline, but that's rarely the case (and romanization of Russian is most definitely not that case). In most situations we, sadly, just have to wing it, and go with whatever gets a consensus (preferably explicit, but quite often just a silent one).—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 1, 2023; 00:52 (UTC) 00:52, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Countless hours of discussion over spelling, including this one, could have been avoided if we’d chosen a good standard for romanization of Russian, as recommended by the guideline.  —Michael Z. 04:58, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The community has chosen a goode one, as the practice of many years. It makes wikipedia consistent for spelling of Russian words. If you disagree with it, why dont you state the objections in WT:RUS? - Altenmann >talk 06:36, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

It’s not a good standard because it is not a standard at all. WP:EN: “established systematic transliterations … are preferred.”

In case you haven’t noticed, Wikipedia is not consistent for spelling Russian words and names, in part because of this. COMMONNAME corresponds to modified LOC romanization as or more often than that of any other system.

I could make a proposal for using systematic romanization in an appropriate place, when it looks like the community is willing to listen and heed its own guidelines. It is not something to do without investing the proper time for research and explanation.  —Michael Z. 14:34, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

<Sigh> I guess, tten, let us wait until Wikipedia will be knee deep in the chaos of Russian transliterations, so that the community will be prodded to do something about this :-(. - Altenmann >talk 17:14, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.