Talk:Fyodor Dostoevsky

Belinsky

Does Belinsky's Polnoe sobraniye need to be in the bibliography? If we are including it, I'd like the publisher name. And I'm assuming "sobranye" is a typo. Overall, though, great work on the article improvement! Lesgles (talk) 17:05, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I did not read Polnoye sobranye yet (and can't find this anywhere at the moment) and yes the transliteration is incorrect, will change it. Also good work on the American! :)Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 18:42, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

The Russian transliteration system is very odd, perhaps Ezhiki could explain it here. I think it should be "Polnoye sobranye" per WP:ROMRUS. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 18:47, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Suggest removal of a section

Hello,

I propose a removal of the section "Stance of Jews in Russia". Many Russians at that time held similar views towards Jews (Pushkin, Gogol, etc) and the section gives undue weight to the article. Alternatively I suggest a re-creation of the "Criticism" section and include a very short summary of his stance towards Jews. I don't want to do this myself and instead want to hear suggestions from other people. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 11:01, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm good with this suggestion. I think that much of the content in the entire "Beliefs" section can be folded into other parts. I can also see some major structural changes happening to the entire article. I can work on this some, after I finished what I started with Themes in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's writings. Perhaps when User:Wadewitz gets here, she can give up input about how to better structure things, and then some other lit experts can weigh in as well. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

So I went ahead and cut the section as requested. As I state above, I think that some of its content can be folded into other sections of the article, so I paste it here. Next, I'll do a copyedit, as promised, and may be able to include the content below as I go.

I respect your work, but I put this RFC to create a community consensus... Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 08:38, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I realize that. This is just me, being bold. Removing it doesn't mean that I've bypassed consensus; anyone can replace the removal if they want. As I state above, I'm for removing the section and folding the content into the rest of the article, or perhaps putting it in the new Themes in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's writings. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 04:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

It's not really part of "themes in his writings, " but a theme in his thought in general, and was appropriately located in the section on beliefs,though perhaps it should go best as a subsection of political rather than religious beliefs--he seems to be referring to their political/economic influence, not their religion. The section as it reads below seems very well balanced, and belongs in the main article. The argument that other Russian writers thought similar is an argument for including similar material there also, not for eliminating it here. DGG ( talk ) 01:22, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Stance on Jews in Russia

Several writers and critics (including Joseph Frank, Maxim D. Shrayer, Stephen Cassedy, David I. Goldstein, Gary Saul Morson and Felix Dreizin) have offered insights and suppositions regarding Dostoyevsky's views on the Jews and the presence of organised Jewry in Russia. One view is that Dostoyevsky perceived Jewish ethnocentrismand influence to be threatening to the Russian peasantry in poorer areas of the country. In A Writer's Diary, Dostoyevsky wrote:

Thus, Jewry is thriving precisely there where the people are still ignorant, or not free, or economically backward. It is there that Jewry has an open field. And instead of raising, by its influence, the level of education, instead of increasing knowledge, generating economic fitness in the native population – instead of this the Jew, wherever he has settled, has humiliated and debauched the people still more; there humaneness was still more debased and the educational level fell still lower; there inescapable, inhuman misery, and with it despair, spread still more disgustingly. Ask the native population in our border regions: What is propelling the Jew – and has been propelling him for centuries? You will receive a unanimous answer: mercilessness. He has been prompted so many centuries only by pitilessness to us, only by the thirst for our sweat and blood.

And, in truth, the whole activity of the Jews in these border regions of ours consisted of rendering the native population as much as possible inescapably dependent on them, taking advantage of the local laws. They have always managed to be on friendly terms with those upon whom the people were dependent. Point to any other tribe from among Russian aliens which could rival the Jew by his dreadful influence in this connection! You will find no such tribe. In this respect the Jew preserves all his originality, in contrast to other Russian aliens, and of course, the reason therefore is that his status, that spirit of which specifically breathes pitilessness for everything that is not Jew, with disrespect for any people and tribe, for every human creature who is not a Jew ...

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Diary of a Writer, translated by Boris Brasol (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons), 1949.

Dostoyevsky expressed antisemitic sentiments such as these, but he also stood up for the rights of the Jewish people. In a review of Joseph Frank's book, The Mantle of the Prophet,Orlando Figes notes that A Writer's Diary is "filled with politics, literary criticism, and pan-Slav diatribes about the virtues of the Russian Empire, [and] represents a major challenge to the Dostoyevsky fan, not least on account of its frequent expressions of antisemitism." Frank, in his foreword for David I. Goldstein's book Dostoevsky and the Jews, attempts to paint Dostoyevsky as a product of his time, noting that Dostoyevsky made antisemitic remarks, but that these views were ones which he was not entirely comfortable with.

Dostoyevsky expressed support for the equal rights of the Russian Jewish population, which was an unpopular position in Russia at the time. Dostoyevsky stated that he did not hate Jewish people and was not antisemitic. He spoke of the potential negative influence of Jewish people, but advised Emperor Alexander II of Russia to allow them positions of influence in Russian society, such as access to professorships at universities. Labelling Dostoyevsky as antisemitic does not take into consideration his expressed desire to reconcile Jews and Christians peacefully in a single universal brotherhood of mankind.

• Proszę nie uprzejmie ukryć prawdę tak, że nie może podobać tym, którzy są zdegustowani przez podmiot osobistych poglądów. 188.116.36.6 (talk) 05:16, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Legacy

I haven't read through the archives so I'm just going to put this here and hope it's not redundant. The section reads like hagiography and needs some counterbalancing criticism. For instance I know that Nabokov considered him overrated and ranked him a step or two below Tolstoy and Chekhov in the important Golden Age fictionists. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 15:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I removed your large, undue section. First, legacy should not contain any criticism; it should summarize why and what he influenced. Second, Nabokov is simply overrated; there are really better critics out there. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 08:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Whoah. You response to the above concern is simply remove the entry? Also, what possible relevance does your personal opinion of Nabokov have? I noticed in the history that there was a section called "Criticism" that was deleted several months ago. It contained some good counterbalancing critiques. I'm wondering what the reason was for its deletion. Barring any valid one, I'll go ahead and restore it and add in the Nabokov stuff. Am I detecting a bit of wp:own here? ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 12:25, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

"You response to the above concern is simply remove the entry?" - uhm, yes, as was decided...

"Also, what possible relevance does your personal opinion of Nabokov have?" - because he is overrated and not a literary critic. He is known for having written some pervert book. There are far better critics then just him, and writing one section as he was a something special is odd. He is for me like "Freud of literature", there is almost no Russian literature article without a mention of his name.--Kürbis (✔) 19:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

whatever the merits of the add/remove discussion above (about which I've no opinion), Nabokov is one of the most brilliant and influential writers of the 20th century, writing in both Russian and English, a teacher, lecturer and critic also, and certainly not to be dismissed as "overrated" and "having written some pervert book". Lolita is a masterful work, in the opinion of many. MathewTownsend (talk) 22:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

Hello,

User:Alcmaeonid put a large section about Nabokov's critique in the criticism section. I would like to hear suggestions from the 300+ watchers. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 18:49, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Seems undue to me to include a large criticism section that focuses on the views of a single critic. Perhaps an additional couple of sentences in the Legacy section, where views on his writings are included, would be better. --regentspark (comment) 19:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

6 different writers/critics are represented in the section. Nabokov, as probably the most preeminent of recent Russian literary figures, deserves & gets some detailed explication. (As a world class novelist and native speaker of Russian, he occupies as special place in English-speaking Russian criticism.) This provides some balance to the extensive Legacy section that, as I said above, reads like hagiography. Doesn't appear Undue to me. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 03:10, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Rather than a separate section, it would be better to put both the positive and negative views of his work into a single section. A heading like "Criticism" should not be in a blp (the criticism is about Dostoyevsky as a writer not about the person Dostoyevsky). --regentspark (comment) 14:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm assuming you don't mean blp but granting that, where does this constraint about "criticism" appear? I have to disagree with your assessment that these are critiques on D. as a person. They (barring the recent entry which was placed there to be inflammatory) are literary criticisms. Actually I originally put the critique in the Legacy section but the above editor stated that criticisms don't belong there (where that comes from he doesn't say - seems to be a personal preference). I'm flexible on this. My original concern was and remains simply balance. All witers, even the greats, have met with critique. The reader needs to have these available as well as the kudos. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 14:17, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I meant biography. Sorry about that. You've misread my comment above. I'm saying that these are criticisms about dostoyevsky as a writer not of the person. Therefore, a section titled "Criticism" makes no sense in an article on the writer (it might in an article titled "The writings of Dostoyevsky" or some such place) . My suggestion is that this be included in the legacy section where opinions of his writing, both positive as well as negative, can be appropriately discussed and properly balanced. Perhaps GreatOrangePumpkin could explain why he believes that this material is inappropriate in that section? --regentspark (comment) 13:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

There are many ways of doing this. Jane Austen is a biography and discussion of her writing is interwoven throughout; after all this is a biography of a writer. The reception of her work is discussed several times, as she was much praised, but there were times when she was criticized. Overall, she is considered "one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism and biting social commentary have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics." MathewTownsend (talk) 13:56, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Criticism, in the conventional sense, does not mean a listing of negative views but rather should be a nuanced commentary on the writings and writing style and therefore should, as you suggest, be interwoven into the text. I looked at Honoré de Balzac as a model (it is an FA) and critical views, few though they are, are incorporated into the text of the Legacy section with appropriate nuance. That's what we should be seeing here as well. --regentspark (comment) 14:23, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Rationale for CE tag in Political stance section

• The sentence: "Dostoyevsky believed in an utopian Christianized Russia, as he meant that 'not a single social question would come up'" is opaque and needs to be clarified.
• "He viewed democracy as an ill-minded system, taking the French disinterest of society and the country's future state." What is meant by "ill-minded"? evil? deceitful? stupid? And what exactly is the connection with the French?
• Regarding the quotation that starts with "lacking the instincts of the bee", where does the quote end?

—copied from my Talk page. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 21:52, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

 Done all except first. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 12:29, 2 October 2012 (UTC)

Not done until all concerns have been addressed. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 18:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• What does this mean: "taking the French disinterest of society and the country's future state"? MathewTownsend (talk) 18:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• I replaced "taking" with "exemplifying"--Kürbis (✔) 19:02, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

• well, still what does it mean? Did the French have a disinterest "of society and the country's future state"? (Does the French disinterest refer to France or to Russia? MathewTownsend (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

 Done. Removed the fuzzy French example & clarified the "Christianized Russia" sentence. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 00:28, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• Why exactly did you remove "exemplifying the French disinterest of society and the country's future state". Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 09:37, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• "Does the French disinterest refer to France or to Russia" What are you talking about? Your suggestion really does not make sense at all, as it is clear what country is meant. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 09:41, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• well, I'm unaware that French people (in contrast to people of other nationalities) are known for having a "disinterest of society and the country's future state". Specifically, what does "disinterest of society" mean? That the French are not interested in social events? And the meaning of "the country's future state" is that the French don't care what happens to Russia? (Just seems unlikely to me; the French seem to care about such things, and Russia is rather close to them geographically.) (Ignore my comment if I'm not making sense - just don't understand what the French have to do with Dostoyevsky,s views. Was he particularly influenced by what the French thought?) MathewTownsend (talk) 13:47, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

• You are talking nonsense. Ever heard of the French Revolution in 1789? France was a very good example as they introduced democracy into their system.--Kürbis (✔) 10:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Reinstate tag. Could GOP's inability to grasp the problem here, be an ESL issue? ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 01:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Funny that you say this even though you can not understand the following note: "This section may require copy editing for grammar, style & cohesion. You can assist by editing it. (September 2012)". It says "section" not a few sentence and "may" not "must". Post the issues here for the record. Thanks.--Kürbis (✔) 10:47, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm just flabbergasted. And at my wits end with how to deal with you. After the whole issue was laid out, discussed, fixed, reverted, & etc., you have the temerity to ask for the issues to be laid out?! Again? And then make threats? I've come to the determination that you are no longer editing in good faith. I think you've got some serious ownership issues and it might be time for you to step back and take a critical look at your contentious behavior here. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 01:00, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Post the issues here, simple as that. --Tomcat (7) 10:28, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I give up. I have no stomach for edit wars. I guess a campaign of exhausting the patience of productive rule-abiding editors really works unless countered by aggressive concerted effort from several editors. Singly it just wears you down. You can keep your bungled prose. Good luck. You're going to need it. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 03:12, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Tatar ancestry

Hello,

to avoid edit-warring let us discuss the current problem. It is about the sentence that Dostoyevsky's family may have had Tatar blood. Either though I cited two sources, both offline, they may be viewed as snippets. Let us take the Hingley 1978 biography Dostoevsky, his life and work as an example. It states: "The family name occurs fairly frequently from the sixteenth century onwards, and Tatar, Lithuanian, Belorussian and Polish connections have been established or suspected." The Lavrin book states (saddly my library won't open until the end of October) that Dostoyevky may have descended from a partial Tatar family. There is also a genealogical and heraldical site: [1]. There it is written that the coat of arms of the ancient family Rtyshchev, ancestors of the Dostoyevskys, had a crescent and a hexagonal star, both indications for the Tatar ancestry. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 19:41, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Any one interested in the backstory of this dispute can take a look here. As a compromise—even though speculations are not my cup of tea—I've added the substance of the Hingley reference to the section. That currently is the only independently verifiable source available. My opinion is that any interpretation of a coat-of-arms is going far afield and must necessarily fall under wp:or. Instead, it needs to be stated—unequivocally—in an accessible, written-in-English, reliable, secondary source. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 20:57, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Why you always state OR. This information is written in the Dostoyevsky archives, and English sources are acceptable. Also your edition may be closely paraphrased. Also it already states that the Dostoyevskys were of multi-ethnical ancestry. And third, it does not really belong on this page. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 11:15, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

OK: I'll ask one final time: please provide—right here on the talk page—the book, page number and a quotation (in English) that supports the Tatar assertion. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 01:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

You'll have to read what I actually wrote. I don't want to repeat. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 08:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

That's called evasion. I'm removing the sentence and ask one final time for you not to reinstate it until it is properly sourced. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 01:07, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

You need to discuss what you add. Because of you, who suddenly edited this article, it failed the nomination. Post the issues here, simple as that. --Tomcat (7) 10:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I don't have the book as my library is closed at the moment. The other references state that the Dostoyevsky may had Tatar ancestry. The coat of arms is also a definitive statement.--Tomcat (7) 10:38, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

It's interesting, but not surprising, to see your finger raised at me. I suppose your own intransigence and prickly collaboration skills directed at the first two reviewers, myself and others had nothing to do with it? What's apparent to me from the failure notice below, is that the article in very material ways is simply not up to snuff yet. I agree with Christine's assessment. (a telling excerpt: "other editors also ask you to correct basic English grammar errors and you refuse to do so".) You dismissed many of Christine's constructive criticisms and reverted her good faith efforts at CE for English. Then, minutes after its failure and without any further effort at improvement, you go and re-post the article for GA status. Wow. Good luck with that.

But getting to the point of this section. Can you be blind to the irony in your asking me to "post the issues here"? given the above history of this thread? Or could this simply be a case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT?

For the record, as you say, I will lay the situation out once again in B&W: There are 4 references for the Tatar statement. I'll deal with them one by one.

1. Lavrin 1947, p. 7. a search of the books finds no hits on 'tatar'
2. Hingley 1978, p. 17. a search turns up this: "The family name occurs fairly frequently from the 16th century onwards, and Tatar, Lithuanian, Belorussian and Polish connections have been established or suspected." If you select only the tatar part of this sentence then that is wp:undue. What is your reason for including only "tatar" and not the others? I inserted this expanded information as a compromise a day or so ago, and you reverted it. Perplexing to say the least.
3. Kjetsaa 1989, pp. 9–35. a search turns up no hits on 'tatar'.
4. Frank 1979, pp. 6–22. a search again turns up no hits.

Joseph Frank, having spent three decades documenting D's life, is the definitive English language source here. In a full 6 volumes, the size of door-stoppers, not one mention is made of Tatar. That in itself should be enough to convince anyone that it's inclusion might be the pushing of some hidden adenda.

Putting the valid wp:or issue aside, the coat-of-arms—since there is no English language reference—is simply not in play. So there it is. The other references do not state that the Dostoyevsky may have had (strictly) Tatar ancestry. I'll stay my hand and await your reply. Please try to be specific and keep your answers genuine. Thanks. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 19:50, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Copyedit tag

Hello,

why not simply state the problems on this talk page rather than putting this tag? The article is read by approximately 2000 users per day. Now when they see this tag they lose their trust on Wikipedia. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 08:32, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually, what looks worse is badly-written prose and inept sourcing. The purpose of tags like this is to inform readers that the current version is a draft, and that more work needs to be done to it. I came upon this article because I was asked to do a GA review, which I admit has been slow due to real-life busyness, but the main editors have consistently refused to consider my feedback and/or not seemed to understand why I asked them to make basic corrections in English grammar. Here's just one example: in my most recent copyedit, in the "Last years" section, I was unable to correct this sentence: He declined the invitation after his son Alyosha's death on 16 May, after an epileptic seizure that had lasted for two hours. The original version's grammar makes it unclear who had the seizure, Dostoyevsky or his son, so I placed a hidden note asking for clarification. Instead of making the clarification, Kurbis, you simply removed the note without addressing the confusion; your version is unclear and fails to tell us who had the seizure. I'm tempted to explain some basic English grammar to you, but taking the above discussions into account, where other editors also ask you to correct basic English grammar errors and you refuse to do so, I won't waste my time. My copyedits, the purpose of which were to improve the article so that it can be passed to GA, haven't accomplished this goal because of the above issues. Therefore, I can't pass this article to GA. It has been improved greatly since its current GAC, but it's still far away from it. In addition, I'll no longer waste my time trying to copyedit this article, since I have other articles that are worth my limited time. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 16:09, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Christine, thanks for all your work, even though you made some radical changes and introduced minor nitpicks. I feel it was a mistake to change my mind. Your large nomination page was interesting but it was rather a peer review. I feel sorry that I asked Grapple and then you; I know learned from this that I probably won't ask anyone. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 16:40, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Fyodor Dostoyevsky/GA3. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Dr. Blofeld (talk · contribs) 15:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Allow 72 hours, I'll try to start the review on Sunday.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:24, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Quickfail

This article meets quickfail criteria as per WP:GACR:

3. There are cleanup banners that are obviously still valid, including {{cleanup}}, {{wikify}}, {{POV}}, {{unreferenced}} or large numbers of {{fact}}, {{citation needed}}, {{clarifyme}}, or similar tags. (See also {{QF-tags}}.)

See: Fyodor_Dostoyevsky#Political

4. The article is or has been the subject of ongoing or recent, unresolved edit wars.

See: Talk:Fyodor_Dostoyevsky#Tatar_ancestry

There is also the disturbing issue of this article's renomination within hours of its failure without any effort being made to address failure criteria. ~ Alcmaeonid (talk) 15:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

All resolved now. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 08:13, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

Needs a copyedit/rewrite

The article was copyedited two times. Please state examples.

1. B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

Contains numerous unreliable sources

I used high-quality sources only. Could you give me examples of sources you feel are "unreliable"?

1. C. No original research:

2. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

Needs improvement

Elaborate please.

1. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

Some concerns have been raised by other editors

Which are resolved.

1. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

History of edit warring and dispute

No more edit wars. The atmosphere was peacefully when suddenly an editor jumped in.

1. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

2. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Given the issues surrounding this I don't feel I am able to pass this. The prose could also do with a polish.♦ Dr. Blofeld 16:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your, ehm, comments. And not really in due time. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 18:36, 19 October 2012 (UTC)