Talk:Kaja Kallas

Place of birth

There seem to be several unregistered users on a crusade to change her place of birth to "Estonian SSR", which would go against the general style on Wikipedia for people born in Estonia during that period as Estonia was illegally occupied and the Soviet rule her was legally null and void. Should we perhaps limit editing this page only for registered users? H2ppyme (talk) 08:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

I filed a request for page protection which led to the 124.49.87.174 IP being blocked for 72 hours. If the vandalism begins again I will file another request. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 14:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

There actually have been some RfCs on this topic and consensus is that like the rest of the wiki the place should be listed as it was at the time of their birth which is the Estonian SSR. There are some such as H2ppyme that unfortunately keep changing all the Baltic BLPs to Estonia etc despite the result of the Rfcs. -DJSasso (talk) 12:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

I am sorry, but it is a hard fact of international law that the Soviet rule in Estonia was legally null and void, which is why all people born in Estonia during the Soviet occupation should just have "Estonia" in their infobox. Do not push your pro-Kremlin POV on Wikipedia! 213.184.49.21 (talk) 09:08, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

That doesn't change the fact of what it was called at the time. -DJSasso (talk) 11:55, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@Djsasso: there's only one way to stop any editors from re-writing history. Boards, like AN, ANI etc. GoodDay (talk) 00:29, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, I went to Riigikogu and several sub-articles listed there, and clicked on every person I could find, and it turned out that out of all Estonians with infoboxes who were born after 1939, every single one listed Estonia as their place of birth, and not the Estonian SSR. There were zero mentions of Estonian SSR as a place of birth. Even going back through several years of edits, the only thing I found was an edit from last month that changed it to Estonian SSR on only one article that was quickly reverted. It would appear that it is not current practice on Wikipedia to use Estonian SSR as a place of birth. NorthernFalcon (talk) 03:32, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, as mentioned there was a group of editors who went through and changed it on most biographies a few years back which kicked off some RfCs which sided on using the Estonian SSR. But any time anyone has tried to implement the results of the RfC the same group of editors generally revert the changes despite the result of the RfC, usually with comments like the IP editors above. -DJSasso (talk) 11:55, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

Well, she born in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was part of the USSR, why does the same Putin or Zelensky indicate that they were born in the USSR (in the RSFSR and the USSR, respectively), but this is not here, independent Estonia of which at that time did not even exist, well, in the Soviet period, she was part of the Soviet nomenklatura, his father Siim Kallas, graduated with honors from Tartu State University with a degree in finance and credit, and noted his success in 1972 by joining the ranks of the CPSU.

His Soviet career was quite successful: director of the republican branch of the Sberbank of the USSR, deputy chief editor of the newspaper Rahva Hyael (an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Estonia and the Council of Ministers of the Estonian SSR), chairman of the Central Union of Trade Unions of Estonia, people's deputy of the USSR. Well, in the USSR there were no separate wagons for livestock, there were common wagons for both livestock and people Цйфыву (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Just to double check, I've noticed that the prime ministers and presidents pages of other Baltic states (Egils Levits and Gitanas Nausėda who are the presidents of Latvia and Lithuania respectively) use the term "Soviet-occupied Latvia" and "Soviet-occupied Lithuania", could and should this be done with figures from Estonia? SpyroeBM (talk) 00:46, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

home page photo

This photo is being used on the home page today - but it's not in the article https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RE_Kaja_Kallas.jpg Tondelleo Schwarzkopf (talk) 15:31, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Looks like the photo was changed on the 27th. »NMajdan·talk 21:24, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

Leader of the Communist Party since 2018??

Leader of the Communist Party since 2018?? Is that a troll — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.158.32.47 (talk) 21:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Is she still a member of the Riigikogu?

If you go on the website of the Riigikogu, Kallas is no longer listed as a member of parliament. She was certainly listed prior to becoming PM, so does anyone with advanced knowledge of Estonian politics know whether the PM has to leave their seat when being appointed to the office of PM? { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 14:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't claim to have advanced knowledge, but I read on ERR News that Estonian ministers are required to vacate their seats in the Riigikogu and are replaced by an alternate.[1] [2]Tammbeck ^talk 15:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

So then since the seat has to be vacated isn't it misleading to still say she is an incumbent member of parliament in her infobox? Since she is just being replaced by an alternate it is not the same thing as resigning entirely I suppose, and she'd return to parliament if she steps down as PM. I'm not sure what the protocol is on this when it comes to incumbency in the legislature. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 16:05, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

References

Semi-Protected Edit Request

Can someone remove the last two sentences in the personal life section? The first one is unsourced and the other is sourced to Google Translate which doesn't make sense as Google Translate is just a translation tool. 45.251.33.222 (talk) 13:06, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I went ahead and repaired the second citation as requested. NorthernFalcon (talk) 17:12, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

The personal life section says that Taavi Veskimägi was a partner after Kaja Kallas was divorced from her first husband in 2006 after they married in 2002. The Wikipedia page of Taavi Veskimagi states that they were married in 2002 and were divorced in 2014. This is a contradiction of facts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rmorrisons (talk • contribs) 06:21, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Typo

In the Personal life section, Taavi Veskimägi's name is misspelled. 90.190.68.51 (talk) 09:50, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, I've fixed it. Tammbeck^talk 09:56, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Kaja Kallas

Kaja Kallas on inimkasutaja ja poliitiline sekkuja 2001:1530:1017:B299:A113:D78F:2C08:9E02 (talk) 18:45, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

What is the meaning of Kaja name?

Ural altaic laguages Kaja or Kaya or Kai words mean "stone" . 178.246.108.225 (talk) 19:19, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC regarding historical Baltic state births

At least as far as I've noticed, when including a place of birth in an article's infobox, it's the general practice on Wikipedia to use historical place names. Sometimes the modern-day country is included, as with Mikhail Gorbachev or Mila Kunis. With Kaja Kallas being featured on the main page, it came to my attention that many articles for people born in what's now Estonia (and possibly other states) do not adhere to this practice. It appears that, due to Estonia having been on the receiving end of Russian imperialism for the last few hundred years and the idea of state continuity of the Baltic states, opinions on whether to list Estonia or Estonian SSR as someone's place of birth often reflect the politics of the editors involved.

Personally, I think the de facto recognition of the Soviet administration by most paired with other factors like the monopoly on the legal use of force make linking to the SSR articles the sensible thing to do. Additionally, I believe the articles on the Baltic SSRs do a sufficiently good job of addressing questions about their legitimacy. In any case, I think it would be helpful to solicit comments and see if we can maybe get some kind of consensus here. Rockhead126 (talk) 23:00, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

• My understanding is that the Baltic countries have a rather unique view on the Soviet era; they view their country as illegally occupied from 1940-1991, and you can even see evidence of that in the Estonia article. In light of that, they would not list themselves as born in the Estonian SSR; they would list themselves as born in Soviet-occupied Estonia, much in the same way that I believe Wikipedia would list Ukrainians born in Mariupol in the past six months to have been born in Ukraine, not Russia. I also believe in deferring to how a country or people refer to themselves, rather than forcing them to conform to our standards. Therefore, I would leave it as it is. However, I would also suggest that this is not the appropriate talk page for this discussion; it should be at Wikipedia:WikiProject Estonia. NorthernFalcon (talk) 23:57, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

As can be seen in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Baltic states-related articles, the consensus on this has been established as there being no consensus to list Baltic births as being Soviet-born, so the Baltic states form an exception where births in Baltic Soviet republics have historically not been recorded as such on Wikipedia. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 00:14, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Manual of Style is always in a "draft" state - RFC's have more weight along the lines of Guidelines and those overwhelmingly wanted to reflect what history books show - the SSR's existed, and that is a fact - national pride has no place here, only scholarship. Otherwise, Wiki will continue to be seen as a conglomeration of rednecks by professional historians in these areas. HammerFilmFan (talk) 18:28, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

• For the German occupation, we have Jean-Claude Killy as born in "France" and Bernard Tapie as born in "occupied France." Can we say Estonia (as SSR)? Senorangel (talk) 00:21, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonia - per NorthernFalcon BogLogs (talk) 10:19, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonia. The docs for template:infobox person say the name of the birthplace at the time of birth. Well, Estonia’s had the name Estonia since before it was occupied by the USSR, and Estonia is also the most common and most recognizable synonym for the Estonian SSR. Those docs are often interpreted to mean “use the Russian name,” with various bogus rationales given, favouring Russian and Soviet colonial bias, for no actual valid reason. Time to start using common sense and following both the letter and spirit of the guidelines (and cf. the WP:CRITERIA). Time to stop WP:RGW by clinging to something from some Cold-War-era Russian history book and start respecting Wikipedia’s guidelines and readers.

Estonia was and is Estonia. So why is it so frickin’ hard to just call it that?  —Michael Z. 23:26, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonia SSR, I don't see a source or even conjecture that the Soviet occupation is seen as illegal, and I think it's consensus around the world that they were valid and accepted parts of the USSR.--Ortizesp (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

I don't see a source or even conjecture that the Soviet occupation is seen as illegal Wow. Levivich (talk) 20:35, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

There is an entire Wikipedia article about this { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 17:32, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonia. Listing an Estonian as being born in the Estonia SSR is like listing a Palestinian as being born in Israel or listing an Israeli as being born in Palestine. Levivich (talk) 20:37, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

If a Palestinian were born in occupied territory, I would expect WP to record that. If a Jewish person were born in the pre-1948 Palestinian mandate territory, the same, regardless of whether either recognised the regime under which they were born. Ditto someone born in East Germany, or anywhere in former European empires. Recording the political reality under which someone was born (and grew up?) is not imposing any national identity on them, it's simply recording historical facts. Facts which may or may not impact on who they later become. Pincrete (talk) 07:42, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonian SSR. We list George Washington as having been born in the Virginia Colony, Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim as having been born in the Grand Duchy of Finland, Mahatma Gandhi as having been born in the Porbandar State, and Konstantin Päts as having been born in the Livonia Governorate. I don't see why Kallas' page would be any different with regard to the de facto ruling entity at the time of her birth. CJ-Moki (talk) 06:39, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Each of those people you listed were born before their countries existed. Washington born 1732 before US independence in 1776; Mannerheim 1867, Finland 1917; Gandhi 1869, India 1947; Pats 1874, Estonia 1918. But Kallas was born in 1977, after Estonian independence in 1918. Levivich (talk) 06:52, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

You are misinterpreting the situation. Estonia was founded in 1918, you are citing examples of people born before their nations were founded. The Estonian SSR is the Soviet occupation of the independent Republic of Estonia, not the same situation. A comparison would be the "Donetsk, Donetsk People's Republic, Russia" rather than "Donetsk, Ukraine," not saying George Washington was born in a British colony. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 17:28, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

If the occupation of Donetsk continues, and someone is born and grows up there, I would expect their article to record that they were born in whatever common name "occupied Donetsk" acquires, which would not be plain Russia, nor plain Ukraine. I don't see how it helps to ignore the political reality of the 'occupation'. Article text can 'flesh out' these issues. Pincrete (talk) 10:04, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonian SSR. I was going to cite many of the same people as CJ-Moki. The political regime in which someone was born is part of their basic biog information, even if they and their compatriots saw their own identity as being a more 'national' (or otherwise different) one. Even if the Soviet occupation were illegal, or never recognised by the locals, (Estonians), it is nonetheless the political regime in which, and under whose laws, the person was born. If the period of occupation were brief, there might be a case for making an exception, but that isn't so here. We aren't in any way recognising legitimacy by recording political/historical facts. I could add that the poet Seamus Heaney, was born in Northern Ireland, a political unit which neither he, nor many of his community, has ever recognised as ever having been legitimate. Pincrete (talk) 07:16, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

USSR with the interlink to the Soviet Union, this is my option A. I have not found any WP guidelines for states in infoboxes, but judging by what appears in the “featured articles” category, in case of biographies they almost always indicate the city and the state as it was at the time. Then, option B is “USSR” with the interlink to “Estonian SSR”; I like it less, because after all Estonian SSR does not equal the USSR, though on the other hand, it is more informative. My option C is “Estonia” with the interlink to Estonian SSR. It is somewhat confusing, as "Estonia" does not equal "Estonian SSR", yet one might say that it points to a specific phase in the history of Estonia, the phase relevant for the period when Mrs Kallas was born. As option D I would refrain from other info than “Tallinn”. It is a somewhat evasive option, so that we do not have to tackle the issue up front, and this is why I see it as the fourth preferred one. As option E I would go for “Estonia” with no interlink, also an evasive option but worse, since we introduce a term but we do not explain it, and it might get confused with the Republic of Estonia. Then my option F would be “Estonian SSR” with the interlink to "Estonian SSR". Though factually correct, it refers to the administrative unit within the USSR. I do not think we need administrative details in infoboxes, and quoting “Estonian SSR” might deliver a false impression that it was sort of a state. The least preferred option G is to go for “Estonia” with the interlink to “Estonia” (“...formally the Republic of Estonia”); this would be a blatant error, as Kaja Kallas was certainly not born in Republic of Estonia. --Hh1718 (talk) 14:47, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Option E is my preferred choice as linking countries violates WP:OVERLINK, so we should refrain from linking it anyways. I also take issue with your rationale in Option G, as the majority of the international community did not recognize the Estonian SSR, and instead recognized the continuity of the independent Baltic nations throughout Soviet occupation. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 17:31, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Estonia – since this is becoming a thing now, adding my comments. As other people have mentioned, the history of the Baltics and the Soviet Union is not the same as for other Soviet republics. They were illegally annexed and taken over, and this annexation was not recognized by most of the western world – we would not list a 2022 birth in Donetsk as a birth in Russia, or a 2014 birth in Simferopol as a birth in Russia, births in the Baltic states between the 1940s and 1990s were births in independent Baltic nations occupied by the Soviet Union. It has been longstanding practice on English Wikipedia to not enforce Soviet birth places on Baltic-born individuals during the Soviet era because of how contentious this is. This is not a matter of "Estonians don't acknowledge the Estonian SSR," it is a matter of what actually happened and what the Soviet Baltic republics were – occupied independent countries. Hyperlinking (ie, Birth Place: Tallinn, Estonia) would be an acceptable middle ground, but listing births as "Tallinn, Estonian SSR, USSR" is misleading and not how we would be handling modern-day instances of the same thing. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 17:21, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Much of the western world did not recognize the Soviet government when it was formed, so can we not say someone was born in Soviet Russia or the USSR during those first few years? Mellk (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

• Estonia: it's within editorial discretion to pick one or the other. In this case, the subject was 14 when Estonia regained independence and none of her career took place during the USSR era. --K.e.coffman (talk) 18:15, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

Comment: We list Helena Majdaniec and Vitaliy Khmelnytskyi as having been born in Reichskommissariat Ukraine. If we list these people as having been born under a bygone occupation regime, shouldn't we do the same with Kallas? CJ-Moki (talk) 23:16, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

• Tallinn The questions are whether the annexation of the Republic of Estonia by the USSR was legal; if not, where did Tallinn fall under during that time? I do not see a clear answer to BOTH questions. Some changes from that time, such as border and demographics, are accepted. Other changes are not. In general, we should try to describe controversies. The infobox is not the best place to settle them. Senorangel (talk) 00:14, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
• Estonia Users well explained it beforehand, illegal annexation with limited recognition and person played no role in the SSR. Pelmeen10 (talk) 07:55, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
• Estonia - It is an official stance of Estonia that the country was illegally occupied from 1940-1991, and legal continuity was maintained throughout this period. Majority of western countries shared this view, by never providing de jure recognition of annexation. I am sure all kind of different examples for handling such issues can be found on wikipedia, like the earlier comment mentioning two French persons born in 1943 being treated differently, but as far as Estonian people go, the current approach has been applied pretty consistently since those infoboxes started appearing 15+ years ago, and there isn't really any need or policy requiring to change it. Furthermore, we are dealing with a BLP here, and if you take a passport of an Estonian born 1940-1991 like Kallas, then the place of birth will marked as Estonia, not Estonian SSR or whatnot. Finally, the RfC is also malformed because initiators personal opinion has been added to the original question.--Staberinde (talk) 22:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
• Estonia - For all the reasons mentioned previously, i.e. Estonia became a sovereign state in 1918 and continued to exist to this present day, long been the accepted style for over 15 years in Baltic state related BLPs, the subject has no connection with the communist regime, etc. Editors often cite template:infobox person, quoting the name of the birthplace at the time of birth but the example given in the docs applies to a city not a country, and they ignore the part that's actually related to country: For modern subjects, the country should generally be a sovereign state, which Estonia remained under international law according to reliable sources. Additionally, per WP:COMMONNAME, during the period of occupation from 1940 to 1991, majority of English language sources refer to the country as “Estonia”, not “Estonian SSR”, see [3]. We don’t say Julie Bishop was born in the Commonwealth of Australia, we just say Australia without overlinking, so no different when we say Kaja Kallas was born in Estonia. Regardless of whether it was run by republicans or communists, it was and still is Estonia. --Nug (talk) 09:32, 14 March 2023 (UTC)

Oscar Wilde was born in Ireland, but Ireland had a different meaning then, (one of the four countries making up the UK) than it does now (an independent Republic - or an island with two political elements). The COMMONNAME usage graph is an agument for 'piping' Estonia - not for ignoring the political reality under which Kallas was born. Pincrete (talk) 10:20, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Your argument does not follow. If you look at the article Oscar Wilde, the infobox states that he was born in Ireland, without linking or piping the country. This article Kaja Kallas does the same per template:infobox person, which also states Countries should generally not be linked. Ignoring this is tantamount to WP:CHERRYPICKing parts of template:infobox person to make some WP:POINT. --Nug (talk) 04:23, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Wilde links to the island, rather than the country. What I'm saying that linking to something which had a different meaning at the time of someone's birth is not very informative. Wilde was born on an island which was part of the British state at the time of his birth, but that island is now two 'countries'. If one needs to understand the political realities of the time to simply understand the place of birth, that isn't very informative IMO. It has nothing to do with making a point - most of us as interested in learning the regime into which a person was born as simply the name of the place of birth. The legality of a regime's annexation seems to me to be fairly trivial compared to the de facto control of the place. Pincrete (talk) 17:58, 25 March 2023 (UTC)

• Estonia, simple, clear and short. More accurate, second best longer alternative would be Soviet-occupied Estonia. ("(Estonian) SSR" is an ambivalent and less known abbreviation which stands for a confusing Orwellian set of three words - each of which has a markedly different meaning in standard English and in common Russian usage.) 3 Löwi (talk) 22:26, 14 April 2023 (UTC)