Talk:Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova

Jewish category additions

An editor added Category:Ashkenazi Jews and Category:Russian Jews to the article, another reverted, and since then we appear to have an edit war in full effect. In an effort to (hopefully) resolve this I removed the categories based on the following rationale:

• Nowhere in the article does it state that Ulyanova was Jewish. In order to add these categories the article must state this and link to a reliable source that backs up the claim.
• Typically, in order to be considered ethnically Jewish one's mother must be Jewish. The article states that Ulyanova's father was Jewish, converted to Christianity and married a Swedish/German woman. The implication is that this woman was not Jewish, which would mean that Ulyanova herself was not Jewish either (she certainly would not be considered as such under Israel's Law of Return, for whatever that's worth).

I hope this helps. -- Hux (talk) 02:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

While I do not think the category is relevant here, I want to correct the above statement about Israel's Law of Return. The religious ruling is that a Jew is a child of a Jewish mother, or one who has converted to Judaism. The Law of Return grants Israeli citizenship, and the attendant privileges, to a Jew by religious definition, the child or grandchild of a Jew, and the spouse of any of these. So, if the claim about Ulyanova's father is true, she would indeed have qualified for Israeli citizenship under this law -- and so would Lenin himself. RolandR (talk) 08:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Neither of those statements is true. One does not need to attribute categories to reliable sources. Judaism as a religion is passed through the mother (by most traditions). Jewish ethnicity is a matter of heritage, upbringing, self and external identification, and all the usual hallmarks of ethnicity. Ethnicity is a very real but imprecise concept. For purposes of categorization it is useful (depending on consensus) to cast the categories widely to avoid exclusion. Some might see an attempt to deny people's Jewishness to be anti-semitic or at least misguided. Others might see over-inclusion in the same way. Not a simple thing one can stand up and demand citations for. As long as the facts are correct, the decision is a matter for consensus, not verifiability. Wikidemo (talk) 14:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikidemo, you are at serious problem with understanding wiki policies. A day ago I advised the newcomer (whose edit is discussed here) to use reliable sources to back his edits (and I see he already received a praise from someone else for following my advice). If he follows your advices "does not need to attribute categories to reliable sources" "consensus not verifiability", he will be in a deep trouble waging edit wars of words and personal opinions. "Reliable sources" is an absolute requirement in wikipedia.

Now, back to the topic. IMO the problem is that ethnicity categories are badly conceived. It is very often confused notions of "ethnicity" and "ancestry". A person may have 8 different ethnicities in his close ancestry and even more if one moves up genealogy tree. You say "Some might see an attempt of antisemitism". I say "Some may see it as an attempt of Jewish domination of the world by assigning all glory to Jewish people by including people with 1/32 Jewish blood into "Jews", which is a form of reverse racism." Ethnicity was well-defined category where people could not move more than 30 miles a day. In modern days the whole Earth is one big melting pot of ethnicities. And we cannot solve this problem of wikipedia in the talk page of a single person. There should be a guideline in wiipedia for assigning ethnicity categories, and this I agree is a matter of consensus (still based on commonly recognized rules found in reliable sources). Mukadderat (talk) 15:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikidemo: While the second statement is debatable, the first is not - there is nothing in the article that states that she herself was ethnically Jewish, only that her father was. In order for the two categories to be in this article, the article itself needs to say that she was Jewish and that claim needs to be backed up with reliable sources. Anything less is POV. -- Hux (talk) 03:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Goodness gracious. I understand Wikipedia policies just fine, and verifiability in particular. No, you don't need to back up a category addition with copy in the text of the article or a reliable source. If challenged, however, the matter is up for debate. Ethnic categorization, as people here amply demonstrate, is not merely a matter of finding a reliable source to back up that someone belongs to ethnicity or another. It is also a substantive decision about how we treat ethnicity on Wikipedia. Wikidemo (talk) 05:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

"you don't need to back up a category addition with copy in the text of the article or a reliable source" - Depending on the category, yes you do. When the article doesn't state at all that she was Jewish (because, let's face it, she was never known as such during her lifetime) and when defining her as such is a controversial move (because, let's face it, it has ramifications for a number of other articles, most notably Lenin's), adding Jewish category links becomes a matter of opinion and will inevitably be viewed as original research. I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that if her article is to be added to Jewish categories then it needs state that she was, in fact, Jewish, and it needs to back that up with reliable sources. If we stick to standard, agreed upon requirements for verifiability then we avoid problems. That's all I'm suggesting we do. -- Hux (talk) 18:34, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I think we're saying the same thing. Asking for a citation or use in the article is a reasonable requirement for a category, I'm just observing that it's not the automatic default on Wikipedia. There are plenty of categories, most of them probably, where this is not the case. Hypothetically, if there is a category for female tennis players one does not need citation or mention that a person is a female. Or for "companies based in Rome, Italy" one may not need a citation to prove the company is based there (though it may be good practice). It's a little more complicated when we're talking about ethnicity but if people see the category as controversial or prone to error I agree there has to be some standard for inclusion. Citations and sourcing is not the only choice here - you need a source to make a disputed factual claim, e.g. whether someone has Jewish ancestry. However, where the ancestry is clear and the question is how to characterize ethnicity, verifiability only gets you so far. There's a separate judgment we have to make on Wikipedia on how to frame the question. Wikidemo (talk) 22:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

We may be saying similar things. Where we differ, I suspect, is in the details. Case in point: your female tennis player example supports my position, I think: we would never add an article to "category: female tennis players" if the article didn't even mention that the person was a tennis player. We would also very likely require some kind of cite to show that she was a tennis player. (Though if she was known for tennis then links to other sources would probably already be in the article, so this would likely not be an issue.) And if her tennis playing was in any way controversial we would definitely require a reliable cite, probably multiple ones, in fact. Imo, the situation with Jewish categories in this article pretty clearly demands a higher than average level of verifiability given that the claim is both murky and controversial. -- Hux (talk) 19:30, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for more detailed explanation of your position. Yes, we don't need a citation for each two words in wikipedia. The fundamental policy wikipedia:Verifiability clearly says so (or said when I read it last time; you never know with wikis:-). At the same time it is a rule that if someone questions some statement, it is your obligation to provide supporting reference for your addition of information. But again, you wrote for "companies based in Rome, Italy" one may not need -- wrong, wrong, wrong. Especially for companies. There are zillions of companies which operate in, say, California, but incorporated in New Mexico or elsewhere, for tax reasons and where they only have a P.O.Box. You cannot take official info on hearsay. Colleague, you have an amazing mixture of correct and incorrect understanding of rules. Putting an article about a company Bucknaggers Ltd. into category "companies from Apopka, Colorado" has no essential difference from a sentence "Bucknaggers Ltd. is headquartered in Apopka, Colorado": it is a piece of knowledge which must be verifiable in wikipedia. The same with ethnicity: however we frame it in wikipedia policies, they do not override the Verifiabilty rule. Mukadderat (talk) 22:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Again with the statement that I don't get policy. This isn't the place for a discussion about company headquarters (much less commenting on me as an editor) but in practice most such categories are not cited and many are not mentioned in the article. For example, see Category:Companies based in San Francisco, California. There is no policy statement that they must be or that adding a source is the only legitimate response to a dispute over categorization. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think WP:V even mentions the word "category." That is one interpretation of policy shared by some people but not others, and clearly not upheld universally in practice, hence a matter for consensus. There are plenty of pieces of information for which we do not require citations. The nature of ethnicity and how we treat it is a matter for interpretation and agreement. One can find plenty of sources that would claim Jewishness is a matter of lineage, others upbringing, others choice or self-identification. None of those prove the point. It's not entirely a question of fact. Wikidemo (talk) 02:41, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with Wikidemo. First of all, Maria Ulyanova was half Jewish from the Paternal side of the family, whereas her mother was of mixed Swedish, German, Russian and Kalmyk descent. This in itself is sufficient enough to categorize her as a Russian Jew. Since being Jewish also signifies an ethnicity as well being a member of a Jewish religious sect, one does not necessarily have to practise Judaism in order to be recognized as a Jew. Therefore, the issue of her Christian faith is a non-issue in this context.

While Lenin cannot be classified as a Jew because he has many ancestries, his mother can because the Jewish side of her paternal lineage is dominant, albeit her many ancestries from her maternal side. This in effect, neutralizes the first arguement brought up by the culturally oversensitive Mukadderat about how a person is capable of having upto 8 different ethnicities, why adding the Jewish category constitutes reverse racism among other absurdities. Thank god, he did not add propagating Zionism, soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred to the list.

Throughout the history of mankind, the Jewish people have proved themselves as the salt of the earth with their numerous contributions to science, literature, philosophy and other fields. Inspite of constant persecution, hatred and expulsion, they have managed to force the world to respect and admire them by their wit, intelligence and hardwork, not by yelling, rioting and blowing themselves up. If this is not worthy of respect and admiration, then i dont know what is. Mark Twain once said that the Jews are the only people in the world who work fully using their brains and not their hands.

Please dont misunderstand me, I am not overpraising Jews while deliberatly ignoring contributions made by Christians, Muslims, etc to modern civilization. I am praising them because they have managed to contribute disproportionately to modern civilization inspite of their peculiar situation throughout history. Therefore, one need not add Maria Ulyanova to the Jewish category to unduly praise Jewish people. They have already proven themselves worth warranting my respect.

Also, it is unnecessary to back this up with sources specifically stating that she was Jewish since the fact of her paternal Jewish heritage is already mentioned in this article. SantiagoMatamoros (talk) 09:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but the fact remains that deciding that she qualifies as a Russian Jew simply because her father was born Jewish constitutes original research given the total lack of respectable evidence that she was ever known as being Jewish. By the reasoning you present, Lenin himself is a Russian Jew, as are his children and their children and so on ad infinitum, but I guarantee you that if you add Vladimir Lenin to the Russian Jews category it will get reverted immediately. Why? Because there's more to being Jewish than being a blood relative of someone who's Jewish. The fact remains that a) Ulyanova's father deliberately gave up his Jewish heritage at the age of sixteen, b) he did not raise Ulyanova nor any of her siblings as Jews, c) there is no evidence that Ulyanova ever self-identified as Jewish, d) no respected historian identifies her as Jewish, and e) the article itself doesn't say anywhere that she was Jewish. Wikipedia is not and should never be in the business of going against established historical opinion, period; we are here to reflect existing knowledge, not create new interpretations. For all these reasons, I'm reverting the article. -- Hux (talk) 04:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, all that is irrelevant. Firstly, i am not talking about the Jewish heritage or culture. Being Jewish is also an ethnicity, just like being an Eskimo, Polish, English or German is. The Jews are an ethno-religious group which trace their ancestry to the ancient Hebrews. The Ashkenazi Jews (which Israel Blank belonged to) trace their ancestry to the Jews who fled to Europe from Israel after the destruction of the second temple in AD 70. An ethnic Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Romaniote Jew, etc can abandon Judaism and still be considered Jewish because it is a factor determined by ethnicity. Ethnic Jewish individuals like Allen Ginsberg, Carl Sagan, Issac Asimov, etc. abandoned Judaism and had nothing to do with that faith, but still considered themselves ethnically Jewish.

An ethnic Jew can abandon Judaism and the Jewish culture, but cannot abandon his ethnicity because that is a factor determined purely by blood. She would not be considered Jewish by Halakhic law and the Orthodox Rabbinical court of Israel. However, this is purely by religious reasons and even an ethnic Jew who abandons Judaism is not considered Jewish by them. They do not consider even Jews of other sects as legitimate Jews. So, they shouldnt be used as an credible source for claiming that she is not Jewish, because they recognize being Jewish as a practitioner of Judaism, whereas most anthropologists, historians and ethnologists recognize being Jewish also as being a member of an ethnic group.

Your idea that she cannot be considered Jewish because she has Jewish blood relatives is stupid. We am not talikng about the fact that she has Jewish cousins when we refer to blood relatives, but an ethnically Jewish father. A person's ethnicity is determined by his parents, Am i right?

Maria Ulyanova was born of mixed ethnic backgrounds, but in this case her Jewish side is predominant because her father is a full blooded Jew. What i am doing is not conducting original research, but simply stating the obvious. Lenin had 5 or 6 different ethnicities. One can call him as an ethnic Russian, but it would be ludicrous to call him a Kalmyk, German or Jewish because these sides are not predominant in his family tree. Lenin is quarter Jewish. Similarly, while Maria Ulyanova might have had the many different ethnicities from her mother's side, she was totally Jewish from her paternal side which makes her half Jewish.

In this case, the fact that her father abandoned Judaism and that they never considered themselves Jewish is irrelevant. The same goes for the fact that no historian considered her Jewish.

She was half Jewish from her paternal side as stated in the article. The article states that her father was an ethnic Jew. Thats what matters and that is sufficient to add her into the Jewish category. Like her, even Lev Kamenev and Sergei Eisenstein are Jewish from the paternal side, yet they are still considered to be ethnically Jewish. So, please stop holding to the same old thoughts and arguements obstinately like a god damned four year old fighting for a piece of candy. I hope i have made my points clear. SantiagoMatamoros (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 15:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

First, and most importantly, several of your comments above are unacceptable. We have a disagreement and that's fine, but it's not fine for you to insult other people by calling them a "god damned four year old". Nor is it reasonable to be belligerent by saying things like, "Your idea that she cannot be considered Jewish because she has Jewish blood relatives is stupid". I am not being obstinate, I simply disagree with your argument. I'm sorry if you find this frustrating but you need to calm down and act in a more civil fashion.

Second, on the point in question, you simply cannot reasonably dismiss everything I'm saying as irrelevant. You may personally believe strongly that anyone with one Jewish parent is ethnically Jewish, but this is not a universally held belief; it's not even universally held among prominent academics and, as I keep saying, no respected historian has ever identified Ulyanova as being Jewish. This is significant and you simply cannot dismiss that significance simply because you, personally, believe that 50% Jewishness == Jewish, especially when you also seem to believe - quite oddly, imo - that 25% Jewishness == not Jewish. But your argument's inconsistency is not really the point here. The point is that, again as I've already said, Wikipedia is not and should never be in the business of going against established historical opinion, period; we are here to reflect existing knowledge, not create new interpretations. You cannot simply waive this away as irrelevant when it is core to the whole point of this encyclopedia. (I see from your contribs that you haven't been around here that long so perhaps you're unaware of this.)

So, since we are failing to reach consensus on this, the next step is to restore the article as it was - for now - and open a Request for Comment in order to get some more editors in here to discuss the issue. Please do not add the category back in unless consensus has been reached to do so. Likewise, if it turns out that the consensus agrees with your argument, I will respect that. -- Hux (talk) 21:56, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Request for Comment: Ethnicity of Maria Ulyanova

I'll repeat my position here, so that other editors don't need to wade through the discussion above.

I do not think it is reasonable to add [[Category: Russian Jews]] to this article because:

• Ulyanova's father deliberately gave up his Jewish heritage at the age of sixteen, converting to Orthodox Christianity.
• Neither Ulyanova nor any of her siblings were raised as Jews.
• There is no evidence that Ulyanova ever self-identified as Jewish.
• No respected historian has ever identified her as Jewish.
• The article itself does not say anywhere that she was Jewish.

Wikipedia is not in the business of going against established historical consensus; we are here to reflect existing opinions, not create new interpretations. -- Hux (talk) 22:03, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

• Of course we should not add the Jewish cats to her. She was not Jewish by religion, culture or self-identification. Most probably she was not even aware of her Jewish heritage. Alex Bakharev (talk) 23:41, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Let me repeat myself in such a clear manner that even a four year old child will understand, even if you two self congratulatory "GENIUSES" cannot or dont want to.

• All that is IRRELEVANT since being JEWISH is also an ETHNICITY like being Eskimo, Chinese, Japanese, Aborigine, etc. One can deny or abandon their Jewish faith, culture or even origin, but cannot get rid of their ethnicity because that is a factor purely determined by blood.

• Her father was a full blooded ASHKENAZI JEW. Her paternal jewish side is predominant in her family which makes her half jewish. It would be a mistake to call her German, Swedish or Kalmyk because these sides are not predominant in her family tree. While Lenin cannot be considered Jewish because this side was not predominant in his family and he was only quarter Jewish among many other ethnicities, his mother can because her father's jewish ethnicity is clearly mentioned in this article.

• Why in the earth should we not add her to the Jewish cats? Like her, Lev Kamenev, Bela Kun and Sergei Eisenstein are also Jewish from the paternal side and did not practise Judaism. Yet, they are still considered to be Jewish. So why should they be considered Jewish, while Maria Ulyanova's own paternal Jewish background is denied in this article. Isn't it SHEER HYPOCRISY?

• Also, what i am doing is not conducting original research, but simply stating the obvious. SantiagoMatamoros (talk)

Something Is Totally Wrong

How can a woman whose ancestors were so called Dagö Swedes from Moonsund Archipelago, kin lived there since 1564, be of Jewish origin. They lived in Suurupi (Stora Uppnäs) village. During the Great Northern War 1702 or 1703 they escaped with their large fishing sail ship to Sweden. One of the kin settled to Uppsala, 60 km north of Stockholm. His name was Östedt and he was a Swedish Protestant as can be clearly seen from the Uppsala Church books. One of his decendants by profession handskmakarson Carl Gustav Östedt was invited by President of the Russian Academy of Arts, Ivan I. Betsky to Imperial Russia in 1782. He took with him his family, wife and his daughter Frederika Anna Beata Östedt. Carl Gustav Östedt headed the first Russian school of goldsmiths and become later a Russian citizen. He died in 1826 in St.Petersburg and was buried there. His widow followed him in 1838. She was Vladimir Iljitsh Uljanin´s grand - mormor.

Frederica Anna Beata Östedt was Vladimir Uljanin´s grand mother. She had at least one daughter Maria whose father should be, according to article, by forename Ivan as Maria was Ivan´s dotter if it is to believe the main article of her roots. According to the main article Vladimir´s grandfather was a Russian Jew from Volhynia, born in Starokonstantinov. He was baptized to Orthodox Faith at St.Petersburg in 1820 at the age of 16. His new baptized name was Alexander Dimitrijevitsh Blank. Alexander to honour his famous godfather Councelor Alexander Ivan´s son Arpaksin. The second forename Dimitri´s son to honour his brother´s godfather Dimitri Baranov who seems to have been son of the Alexander Andrei´s son Baranov, a Karelian origin knjäz from Kargopol pogosta near Arch Angel, the first Governor of Alaska and president of the Russian - American Trading Company. Quite a ceremony for Volhynian Jew marrying Swede born woman in St.Petersburg. But then one read from this complicated kin history that Alexander Dimitri´s son Blank enters on 24.07 1824 into Saint Petesburg Academy of Medical Surgeons. Then one read 19.07.1824 Alexander Blank graduated his medical school with diploma of surgeon - obstetetrician. He worked in the town of Porechye in Smolensk Governorate. Soon he returned back to Saint Petersburg and worked as a police or santarm medical doctor, then in the Naval Department. In 1837 he started to work in Mariinski Hospital. His wife Anna Groschopf died in 1838. In 1842 he married a widow od the Government Offical of XII class, Jekaterina Ivanov´s daughter Essen. This second marriage was childress. In 1842 he moved to Perm, then Zlatoust. In 1847 Alexander Dimitri´s son retired from service and bought the estate of Kokushkino or Janasala, with 39 souls (serfs), in Kazan Governorate, about 40 versts east of Kazan. There Alexander Blank lived as respected landowner to 1870 when he passed away to meet his Lord. He had with his first wife six children, one son and five daughters named; Anna, Ljubov, Jekaterina, Maria, and Sofia. Their son Dimitrij commited suicide at the age of 19 because of gambling dept. All five daughters married elementary circulating school teachers named Veretennikoff, Uljanin, Zhalesk, Lavrov, and Ardashev. Maria who married Ilja Nikolai´s son Uljanin, an Mordvin Erzä (Erzya) of origin. She was born on 06.03.1835 just three years before her mother died in 1838. They were married in 1866. At first the young couple lived in moderate house at Penza both teaching in local elementary school. Later they moved to Nizhny Novgorod, and then to Simbirsk. It was in Simbirsk where Ilja Uljanin Russificated his name to Uljanoff. The first child, Alexander was born on 1866 only to be hanged on 08.05.1887 at Petrokrepost prison. The famous younger brother Vladimir was born in 1870. Ilja Uljanoff died in Simbersk in 1886 not to see his son senected to death penalty. In one stage Maria asked her nato to take care of the young Vladimir and he moved to Kokushkino after his brother´s death to live there almost a year as said "out of the sight".

But there is one point in the story I do not understand. Sometime (but when?) after 1842 a woman ask her brother´s Alexander Blank´s new wife, a widow Jekaterina Ivanov´s daughter h.k. Essen with her new name Blank, to take care of her daughter´s children; Dimitrij, Anna, Ljubov, Jekaterina, Maria, and Sofia. The children of Anna Groschhopf (from Suurup) and his brother Alexander Blank. Jekaterina Ivanova Essen agreed and took all to her arms and started to act as step mother for the children and married Alexander Blank who both women knew before. Alexander Blank must have been lived also among those 2.000 Swedes which lived in Dagö or more exactly in Suurup village. They must have been kin to each other or neighbours dotters. In 1781 the Russian Empress Jekaterina the Great deported half of the Swedes c.1000 people from Dagö to so called New Russia in Ukraina to the Azov Government where they founded their new village named Gammölsvänskbi (Staroshveds´ke.) Alexander Blank was one among those those 135 who managed to walk there. All the remaining 865 did not. In surroudings came the German emigrants, so called Volga Deutsch who built three villages around the Gammölsväskbi named; Schlangendorf, Mülhausendorf, and Klosterdorf, all four Lutherian villages in faith. The Germans built also a church there and invated their Swedish faith brothers to take part in common church services. This is why some sources give for Vladimir´s mother´s kin so complicated roots.

Then this name game came clear to me. Groschhopf is in German Grosshopf, in Sweden Storhopp, in English Greatjump, In Finnish Suurhyppy, In Estonian Suurloik. The name of the village in Dagö, Hiiumaa, Hiidenmaa. Village Suurupi is shortern Estonian version of name Suur - Upin niemi (Great Upnäs). In Finland´s side of the gulf is at Porkkala udde Cape Upnäs or Upinniemi. They all refer to same village located at Dagö (Day Island) where Great Cape Upnäs is located and a village named Suurupi. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.112.46 (talk) 17:14, 5 September 2008 (UTC)