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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion:

You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:07, 20 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So.... is his story true, not true, or disputable?

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So, an editor added a section "Controversy" with this content:

References

  1. ^ "Люди мира, на минуту встаньте!" [People of the World, Stand up for a Minute!]. Урало-Сибирский Дом Знаний. Retrieved December 14, 2018.
  2. ^ Andre Asberg (September 1, 2018). "Ander Asberg: punamadruse kangelasloo mõistatus" [Ander Asberg: the Enigma of Heroic Story of a Red Sailor]. Postimees. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  3. ^ Лейтенант Бондаренко(lt Bondarenko) (March 26, 1943). "Моряк с "Минска"" [A Sailor from "Minsk"]. Красный Балтийский флот. Retrieved December 17, 2018.
  4. ^ Data Bank "Memorial". "Информация из картотеки ID:76178601" [information from the database ID:76178601]. Retrieved December 17, 2018.

And this has been challenged. So, let's see... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talkcontribs) 18:04, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging Gertsch who added this content a while ago, and the two IPs, 83.143.64.43 and 109.252.201.192 (almost certainly the same user, notified at their talk pages). I don't have an educated opinion on the substance of these edits, but would caution participants not to edit war or make personal attacks. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 18:23, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first reference is just to the propaganda poster. Just the picture, so there's no proof there that somebody didn't draw it yesterday. But even it's legit, it only demonstrates that such a poster existed, and that it depicted a sailor from the Minsk being immolated. That doesn't in and of itself prove that it was the basis for the Yevgeny Nikonov story. It's a possible data point; timing would matter some.

The second ref is to the Postimees, which is apparently the flagship newspaper of Estonia. It is in the Opinion ("Arvamus") section tho, written in 2018. I don't Estonian so I'll use google translate to figure it out, near as I can tell it says something like:


Hmmmm. I don't know who Ander Asberg is (FWIW here is another of his articles), but... it's in the Opinion, not the News, section of the paper. That means it probably hasn't been fact checked. It does sound believable. But Asberg doesn't seem to give any sources, so it's just him talking I guess.

The third ref is this Russian paper. It's used to ref the statement "The story of the heroic death of Nikonov was first published in the newsletter of the Red Baltic Fleet on March 26, 1943". I can't even make it out let alone read it, so I dunno. It does have a picture of the poster. Even if it's legit (probably), I guess it's not necessarily proof that the first publication of Nikonov's story was March 26, 1943. It might be, depending on what it says.

The Third ref is this facsimile of a data card which is used to ref the statement "The information about the death of Nikonov appeared in the database of casualties only on April 24, 1943, that is after the story of the heroic death had already been published." It is apparent that the card was made on that date. Whether that is significant I don't know, I'm not up on how the Soviets did this stuff during that time. It does give his date of leaving the Navy (on account of being dead) as August 1941, no day given. This is primary-source original research, but IMO it's legit to buttress claims made elsewhere. Herostratus (talk) 21:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So...........

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So. Well, some things that come to mind right off. For one, it's really hard to sort things out when we're dealing with Russians v Estonians, as one might imagine. We want to be super careful to watch out for bias. This person Ander Asberg is Estonian and some of the ways he puts things indicates to me that he might have an anti-Soviet (and therefore maybe anti-Nikonev-as-hero) lean.

But common sense tells us that Anvers could be right. It's not just Soviets, but every country, which is inclined to sometimes spin things a bit for the sake of propaganda. I wouldn't be shocked if the Soviets had made this up. And after all I think we have for Nikonov's story (not his postmortem perambulations, but the story of his martyrdom) is official Soviet sources, is that not right? Which.... is not that great. (I have no opinion about whether the stuff regarding dates of publications and starts of offensives etc. shows anything, and it'd be original research to go very far down that rabbit hole.)

What I really want to know, is this something that people actually talk about in bars, or that's been mentioned by actual journalists, or is it just Ander Asberg spouting off stuff he came up with? 99% sure it's not, but we don't have any proof of that -- yet. If it's not just Anvers, I think it'd be appropriate to include a couple sentences to the effect that some people (rightly or wrongly) think that Nikonev's story is made up. IF AND WHEN we can come up with a source besides Asberg. Herostratus (talk) 21:45, 5 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Alright. No immediate response, so I redacted the material to two sentences which basically say "some people dispute the story" without saying much more. I suppose that's the best thing, maybe not. Herostratus (talk) 17:10, 8 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Explanation

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@ Herostratus: I'm not happy with the changes - the facts, which have been presented in the links are important. In my view it's the timeline that matters - Soviet official story is far off from the truth and facts, and you can actually see that the story is evolving as time passes, more and more details have been added from a retell to a retell, but no new facts of any kind emerge, just some more propaganda fantasies.

Facts:

1. The alleged death occured in 1941, but the official record of death comes only 2 years later. So for two years nobody noticed that a man was missing.

2. The story itself emerges only two years later - official records of death are made only after the story has been published (i.e the cited article - it is the earliest publication until proven otherwise - if You question it, then prove me wrong and find another, which is earlier. Even the Soviet sources tell that it is the first mentioning). There is no contemporary source (i.e from 1941) that would have mentioned the incident - no documents, articles, photos (not even of the aftermath), even no memoires (again, prove me wrong, if You can).

3. The incident could not have taken place in the location mentioned - other sources state that at the alleged time of death, the Germans were far away from the location of the alleged death. Attack on Tallinn started August 20th, and first larger town in that direction - Rapla (50km from Keila) was taken only on 21th.

4. Story of the politruk changes as time passes: at first he just recognises Nikonov from a poster two years later in a hospital (in the cited article) - I hope we can agree that this is not the best source for identification of a person, especially if it has been drawn thousands of kilometres away by some propaganda artists two years later. Then the story evolves in other retells, e.g the given politruk becomes a leader of a recce squad, to which Nikonov belonged - Nikonov goes missing and they find him tied to a tree. Next retell he hears last words of Nikonov - "Comrades, avenge me!" and he himself cuts Nikonov down from a tree, etc. I didn't include all the iterations of the story, as they are of a little value to the whole picture, only the most important controversies are mentioned.

5. You can see the fog of propaganda on Russian Wiki: it states that the other side was not the Germans, but Estonians from a diversion group Erna 1, under obersturmbannführer Hans Hirvelaan. This is wrong on so many levels, that one can hardly count them: Hans Hirvelaan was not in SS, in fact Estonians could not join Waffen-SS before 1942, as officers they could serve even later; Hans Hirvelaan did not participate in Erna, but was an Estonian partisan (a Major in the former Estonian Army) who organised an anti-Soviet battallion in Rapla; Hirvelaan fought all the time some 50 km to SE of Keila around Rapla, where he was killed on the next day of the alleged killing of Nikonov while trying to take Rapla; Erna 1 itself did not come anywhere near Keila, acting on the other side of Tallinn (i.e East side, as opposed to Keila which is to the West of Tallinn) more than 60 km away from Keila, in addition it was mostly active weeks before August 19th.

P.S: I found an article from a recent (April 4th 2020) scientific journal "Keel ja Kirjandus" ("Language and Literature", has an English summary) by Irina Belobrovtseva (a Russian), who has tracked the story back to a propagandist Vsevolod Vishnevski, who first made an entry of a similar story to his diary on 25th August 1941 (diary was published in 1944). Didn't publish the story then though. So I can see a path: 1. propagandist makes up a story (cannot be real as the dates of different events do not match - see above), 2. another propaganist make a poster, 3. poster gets into the hands of a politruk, who "recognises" a familiar face and gives nameless victim a name, 4. a story is published, now with a name, 5. story gets so out of hand that nothing can be stated for sure any more. https://dea.digar.ee/cgi-bin/dea?a=d&d=AKkeeljakirjandus202004.2.5 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gertsch (talkcontribs) 12:40, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So You can see, that Soviet accounts are at least to the same extent dubious as Anvers, but probably much more. Gertsch 11:26, 28 May 2021 (UTC)