Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 December 30

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December 30

The status of Central Asians in the Russian Empire and Soviet Union

Was the status of Central Asians in Tsarist Russia comparable to that of Native Americans in the U.S. before 1924 (which is when they were granted U.S. citizenship)? Basically, the information in this book (on the cited pages) appears to indicate that this was indeed the case:

[1]

Hélène Carrère d'Encausse (the author of the quoted part in this book) appears to be a very well-respected scholar of Russian history. Thus, I am tempted to trust her judgment in regards to this. However, I want to make sure that I understood her correctly in regards to this, which is why I am asking for your opinions here.

Also, was it the Soviet Union that nominally made Central Asians full citizens? If so, was this done early on during Soviet rule? Futurist110 (talk) 07:01, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Central Asians were never an anomaly within an otherwise-democratic system, so I'm not entirely sure what the point of a comparison with "Indians not taxed" is. From some points of view, they passed from Tsarist tyranny to Communist tyranny (see Basmachi movement)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:01, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I think in that Time Native Americans where mainly seen as ethnic unworthy (unproductive)competition for the steady flood of settlers coming from Europa, looking for good land or trying their luck in a goldrush, while Russia, with double the landmass of Usa or China even today and much less people, always had farmland and natural resources in abundance for all its subjects.

The expansion of the soviet union was pure geostrategic. The early stages of the Soviet Union where flooded with humanistic promises and symbols on paper but we all know from history how that turned into hell for the people. So its no secret till today all the "assimilated" people of the soviet unions famous satellite-states saw not much benefit in being threaten "all alike". --Kharon (talk) 10:33, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I'll tell you how "Tsarist tyranny" worked in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The 5% local Muslim nobility owned if not all but the bulk of the best land and pastures while the rest had to pay to the landowners, e.g., to tend their sheep/cattle on those pastures. Also more likely those 5% owned the bulk of the best cattle as well. It is out of understanding what that situation had to do with the tsars. Under Persian shahs, or Turkish sultans, or any local emirs of khans it would certainly be the very same.

Also I'll tell you how "Communist tyranny" worked. Those 5% were stripped of their land and cattle and all the privileges and that property was given to the 95%. Of course, some were very unhappy with that. Of course, for those people who know nothing but capitalism the idea that the land may belong to the people who work on that land, not to the privileged few, was/is absolute outrageous, pure "tyranny". I'm just left bitterly astonished how on one hand Communist propaganda is very intact in the West, reading phrases like "Tsarist tyranny" always gives me impression that I'm reading "Pravda"; on the other hand, how anti-Soviet propaganda is still vibrantly living like it is still the Cold War and people just have to fear and smear the USSR which is long defeated and dead, there is no need to punch the dead lion again and again with such clearly ideologically loaded lexicon.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 11:36, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Central Asians had the absolutely same rights in the USSR as any Soviet citizens. On the contrary, the local ethnic groups (so-called "titular nations") were given privileges in getting administrative positions in the local governments as well there were various minimum quotas requiring that the titular nation was never underrepresented in the government. And any bureaucrat had to know the local language and/or pass the language exam, and those who failed were fired. There were also educational preferences and quotas for non-Russian students in Soviet universities. It better could be compared with affirmative action. There is actually a book titled such a way, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union by Terry Martin, I recommend you to read this.

As for the Russian empire, after the Russian conquest not very much had changed, the local continued to live as the previously lived. I believe even the Russian laws were applied very liberally, e.g. polygamy were likely kept intact, even though the Russian law forbade that. Only the most outrageous practices were strictly forbidden, namely slavery and open slave trade, very widespread practice in Central Asia before the Russian conquest. Otherwise the locals lived according to their traditional law, that is Shariah. Yes, the highest governmental and military positions, like of a governor, were reserved for Russians, but in the middle and lower levels everything was controlled by the local nobility and bureaucracy. It better may be compared with a protectorate. The Emirate of Bukhara and Khanate of Khiva were literally protectorates. As for the exemption from military conscription for non-Russians (or more correctly for non-Christians), I do not think this was a discrimination, but rather a privilege.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 11:09, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Любослов Езыкин -- for many ordinary central Asians around 1920, they had already heard of or suffered one round of atrocities at the hands of Tsarist troops in connection with the suppression of the Central Asian revolt of 1916, and another round of atrocities at the hands of the Red Army and its related forces through various events such as the 1918 Kokand massacre. The Reds had a way of cracking down on communal Muslim institutions such as mosques and madrasas -- and it was very noticeable that the Reds were most willing to tolerate such institutions when they were militarily weak and the Basmachi rebels were most threatening. And War communism didn't necessarily have any greater appeal than traditional landlordism (in many cases probably less). A large number of Central Asians around that time basically didn't want anything to do with any Russians, whether Tsarist or Communist. The theoretical "enlightenment" of literacy campaigns and land-reform really does not hold a great appeal when you hate the guts of those in charge of conducting the literacy campaigns and land reforms, when such literacy campaigns and land reforms are accompanied by the imposition of an oppressive secret police network, and when you think that one of the main purposes of such literacy campaigns and land reforms is to destroy the religion you cherish. More or less the same thing was seen in Afghanistan 60 years later... AnonMoos (talk) 13:55, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Notably, Central Asian Muslims were (largely?) exempt from military service during WWI. However, in the Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917 Central Asians did have suffrage (excluding Bukhara and Khiva, which were not considered parts of Russia proper). --Soman (talk) 20:27, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

The Constituent Assembly was post-Tsarist and high-handedly destroyed by Lenin, and so could be considered an intermediate between Tsarist tyranny and Communist tyranny... AnonMoos (talk) 22:06, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Spelling matters in New Jersey: Biannually v. biennially

In 1926 and 1927, the New Jersey legislature passed a constitutional amendment calling for, instead of annual elections for the lower house, elections to be held "biannually" (twice a year) when they meant "biennially" (every two years). After someone noticed, apparently the amendment was never submitted to the voters. With the exception of a rather tongue in cheek article in The New York Times 4/18/27, I've been able to find little on this. I'm hopeful someone can point me to a source that explains what happened with a little less snark than the Times used.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:54, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I use Newspapers.com (a pay site, and not comprehensive) which has various references, for example the Asbury Park Press for Apr 22, 1927, in which they are nitpicking that issue. Obviously, the workaround would have been to avoid those ambiguous terms and just say "every two years". The first reference I'm seeing that lists the wording of the amendment (albeit without comment) is in the Long Branch Daily Record for July 29, 1926. I guess that kind of puts a frame around the time. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:11, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I suspect I'm going to need to go to Trenton or Newark if I want to do this one.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:32, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Fólkvangr

According to the article here, the Fólkvangr is a "meadow or field". However, in the corresponding German article, it is described as a palace. So, which is correct?--Hildeoc (talk) 16:29, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Wiktionary:vangr says "garden, field, meadow", with several citations including Zoega's Old Icelandic Dictionary and An Icelandic-English Dictionary.Alansplodge (talk) 18:02, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Read Freyja, second paragraph of the lead in. --Kharon (talk) 19:35, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

@Alansplodge and Kharon: Hm, is the German article referring to a different [kind of] Fólkvangr then??--Hildeoc (talk) 21:23, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Its the same place. Freyja lives there. You can place a hall on a field cant you? Its still a field. One of the autors obviously didn't describe the field in detail. Don't take wikipedia-articles for a page of the holy bible! Some have inconsistencies or are even wrong in some details. --Kharon (talk) 11:54, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

This article says: 'The Prose Edda mentions that Freya’s hall within Folkvang was called Sessrumnir (Old Norse Sessrúmnir, “Hall with Roomy Seats” or “Hall with Many Seats”).' The reference quoted for that is: "Simek, Rudolf. 1993. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Trans. Angela Hall. p. 280". Alansplodge (talk) 17:26, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Lace worker

Hi there.

I come across this occupation quite often when looking into biographies of British footballers that played around 1900. But I can't really find an explanation about the type of work... Is there really a connection to Lace (or the textile trade in a broader sense) or is it something completely different? Ureinwohner (talk) 21:58, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

Lace is also a Britishism for ornamental iron works. Maybe that's what they're talking about? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Lacing (Chiefly British) is a term in masonry for a course of bricks or stonework, so he might have been a bricklayer or stonemason. Akld guy (talk) 04:38, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Lacing refers to brickwork where the bricks are laid on edge. Typically, this applies to arches (very flat, with a minimal rise) as they were used at the top of doors and windows in the Victorian era. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 09:10, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

I would have thought the closest connection with footballing would be the manufacture of bootlaces, but without more context it's difficult to be sure.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 12:00, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

The OED lists, but does not define, "lace worker"; but it's pretty clear that all four of the citations refer to workers in the lace (not bootlace) trade. The meanings mentioned above are for "lacing", not for "lace", even as a verb. (I've never heard "lace" for "ornamental iron works", and the OED does not acknowledge it). Apart from the fact that "lacing" in these senses is one small part of another craft, I can't see a compound involving "lace" as opposed to "lacing" being used. I only looked at the first three of pages of results for "lace worker" in Google books, but I didn't see one which seems to refer to anything other than makers of lace (though I admit, the majority are clearly referring to females).

In short, I have looked for, and failed to find any evidence of a meaning of "lace worker" other than the obvious one. How many of those footballers came from Nottingham, which was the traditional centre for lace making in England? --ColinFine (talk) 15:30, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Hand-made Honiton lace] was popular in the Victorian period and was produced in small workshops all over south Devon. However, as Colin says above, the Lace Market area of Nottingham "was the centre of the world's lace industry during the British Empire". Although our article says that the 25,000 employed in Nottingham lace-making were "mostly female", this BBC article says: "Lace machine operatives, called 'twisthands', were male and as the machines were lubricated by black lead, (graphite), and oil they often finished work as black as coal miners". Alansplodge (talk) 18:23, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

A huge thanks for those information. I came across this occupation (among others) with John Ackroyd (footballer, born 1868) who was lace worker in Heanor (and secretary of the Lace Traders’ Union) and Frank Ballard who was lace worker in Long Eaton. I looked into the pre-WWII players of Nottingham Forest and found at least two more in that field: Albert Carnelly was a designer in the local lace industry and Arthur Saxton who was employed in the local lace manufacturing industry. There's also around a dozen England international footballers or their fathers who were in the lace business see englandfootballonline.com. --Ureinwohner (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

Good thing the Barrister wasn't there to prove it was wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 19:55, 31 December 2018 (UTC)

BBC local news - Derbyshire, August 2003: Lace-making jobs go in sell-off - Textiles group Sherwood has announced more than 150 job losses and plans to sell struggling lace-making operations in the East Midlands. How are the mighty fallen. Alansplodge (talk) 16:02, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Reception of Queen Kapiolani of Hawaii at the White House

What is the original public domain source for this image, File:Reception of Queen Kapiolani of Hawaii at the White House.jpg? Who was J. H. Moser and his lifespan? KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:20, 30 December 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about the public domain source, but the illustrator might be this guy,[2] James Henry Moser. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:55, 31 December 2018 (UTC)