Potemkinized?
Grant Robinson
In the last couple of weeks, I've run across the word "Potemkin" used as an
adjective: Potemkin-like and Potemkinized.
My OED, fifth edition, bears no reference. I believe it's the name of a
Russian Village with some historical significance, what is the signifance
attached to this word?
Thanks,
--
Grant Robinson, VP of Sales
BATS, Inc.
http://www.bats.com
408.743-9702 gr...@bats.com
Clifford O. Thompson
In article <4nqda0$g...@samba.rahul.net>, Grant Robinson <gra...@rahul.net>
writes:
|> In the last couple of weeks, I've run across the word "Potemkin" used as
|> an
|> adjective: Potemkin-like and Potemkinized.
|>
|> My OED, fifth edition, bears no reference. I believe it's the name of
|> a
|> Russian Village with some historical significance, what is the
|> signifance
|> attached to this word?
Potemkin held state office of some sort under Catherine the Great, and
arranged a progress through the realm for her at one time. Along the
route he either constructed false facade villages, or placed facades over
existing villages, and filled the streets with people dressed to look like
happy and prosperous peasants, the object being to hide the poverty and
poor conditions throughout much of Russia from the Empress Catherine.
How does the process of putting up a false facade to hide unpleasant
facts fit with the context where you encountered the terms?
Or, it could refer to Eisenstein's famous film, "Battleship Petemkin,"
about the 1905 mutiny in Odessa, but my bets are on the first take.
Cliff
--
"That's like hypnotizing chickens."
--- Iggy Pop, "Lust for Life"
Judith Eubank
In article <4nqda0$g...@samba.rahul.net>,
Grant Robinson <gra...@rahul.net> wrote:
>In the last couple of weeks, I've run across the word "Potemkin" used as an
>adjective: Potemkin-like and Potemkinized.
>
>My OED, fifth edition, bears no reference. I believe it's the name of a
>Russian Village with some historical significance, what is the signifance
>attached to this word?
>
facade got up to impress passing visitors. (Well, it might actually
conceal something unpleasant. Say, an Andy Hardy main street that
disguised a toxic waste dump. That kind of thing.)
Judith
Vernal Reader
On 20 May 1996 18:22:56 GMT, Grant Robinson <gra...@rahul.net> wrote:
>In the last couple of weeks, I've run across the word "Potemkin" used as an
>adjective: Potemkin-like and Potemkinized.
>
>My OED, fifth edition, bears no reference. I believe it's the name of a
>Russian Village with some historical significance, what is the signifance
>attached to this word?
>
Potemkin was a Russian minister of something or other who was known
for fakery. A Potemkin village is a bunch of false fronts made to
look like a thriving community--so long as one doesn't look too
closely.
Bigkids
Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe that Sergei
Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt of the sailors on
board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
One classic closeup from it shows a man wearing glasses; one lens has been
smashed and blood is running down the man's face.
There's also a scene of a baby-carriage rolling down a broad outdoor
staircase that, according to my elder son, was lifted for the big-screen
version of "The Untouchables" a few years ago.
Dick Lupoff
Grant Robinson
In article <4nqha3$t...@murrow.corp.sgi.com>,
Clifford O. Thompson <cl...@marasai.mfg.sgi.com> wrote:
>How does the process of putting up a false facade to hide unpleasant
>facts fit with the context where you encountered the terms?
Fits perfectly. It was in Peter Maass' recent book about
the Balkan Wars wherein press reporters were being allowed
to see recently cleaned up prisons & concentration camps.
(Omarska, Trnopolje, Keraterm)
I tried to find the quote prior to posting but my
"grep" of a traditional print book failed.
Out of curiosity, what was the net result of Potemkin's
misrepresentation? Did Catherine ever see through the
facade? Were there other consequences?
Cheers,
Francis Muir
Bigkids writes:
Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe
that Sergei Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt
of the sailors on board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
Questions. Was there really a Battleship Potemkin or was Eisenstein just
being Russian? Also, what ever happened to the real gent named Potemkin?
Philomath
Ted Samsel
Bigkids (big...@aol.com) wrote:
: Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe that Sergei
: Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt of the sailors on
: board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
: One classic closeup from it shows a man wearing glasses; one lens has been
: smashed and blood is running down the man's face.
:
: There's also a scene of a baby-carriage rolling down a broad outdoor
: staircase that, according to my elder son, was lifted for the big-screen
: version of "The Untouchables" a few years ago.
As did Woody Allen's BANANAS.
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net *1996* Year of the Accordion~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Home of the brave, land of the free,
I don't want to be mistreated by no bourgoisie."
AAFOUF# 0000003 Huddie Ledbetter
John McCarthy
In article <4nsjsd$p...@elaine35.Stanford.EDU> fra...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Francis Muir) writes:
Bigkids writes:
Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe
that Sergei Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt
of the sailors on board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
being Russian? Also, what ever happened to the real gent named Potemkin?
Philomath
the ship in Romania.
Potemkin was Catherine the Great's lover for two years. After that he
led troops in a war with Romania and died while travelling, i.e. not
in any interesting manner.
--
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
*
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
Clifford O. Thompson
In article <4nr3gm$m...@samba.rahul.net>, Grant Robinson <gra...@rahul.net>
writes:
|> In article <4nqha3$t...@murrow.corp.sgi.com>,
|> Clifford O. Thompson <cl...@marasai.mfg.sgi.com> wrote:
|>
|> >How does the process of putting up a false facade to hide unpleasant
|> >facts fit with the context where you encountered the terms?
|>
|> Fits perfectly. It was in Peter Maass' recent book about
|> the Balkan Wars wherein press reporters were being allowed
|> to see recently cleaned up prisons & concentration camps.
|> (Omarska, Trnopolje, Keraterm)
|>
|> I tried to find the quote prior to posting but my
|> "grep" of a traditional print book failed.
|>
|> Out of curiosity, what was the net result of Potemkin's
|> misrepresentation? Did Catherine ever see through the
|> facade? Were there other consequences?
I wish I knew. The above information is from something I read over twenty
years ago, and not much has stayed with me.
Cliff
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, fra...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Francis Muir) says:
>Bigkids writes:
>
> Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe
> that Sergei Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt
> of the sailors on board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
>
>Questions. Was there really a Battleship Potemkin or was Eisenstein just
>being Russian? Also, what ever happened to the real gent named Potemkin?
>
> Philomath
>
There really was a battleship Potemkin; Eisenstein didn't make it up.
Potemkin built a rather crummy though useful Black Sea fleet for Catherine II,
so that's the reason a ship was named for him.
The real Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin was one of Catherine II's lovers as
well as being a statesman and army officer. His charade involving the
phony villages was only one of his projects.
Catharine knew the villages were a sham but didn't care. She admired Potemkin's
nerve (as well as other things). Potemkin eventually fell out of
favor with the Empress and was sent on a diplomatic mission to what is now
Romania. He died on the journey.
J. Del Col
--
Jeff Del Col * "Sleeplessness is like metaphysics.
A-B College * Be there."
Philippi, WV *
* ----Charles Simic----
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, j...@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) says:
>In article <4nsjsd$p...@elaine35.Stanford.EDU> fra...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Francis Muir) writes:
>
> Bigkids writes:
>
> Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe
> that Sergei Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt
> of the sailors on board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
>
> Questions. Was there really a Battleship Potemkin or was Eisenstein just
> being Russian? Also, what ever happened to the real gent named Potemkin?
>
> Philomath
>
>The Battleship Potemkin mutinied in 1905. I believe the crew scuttled
>the ship in Romania.
This was one of the events of the 1905 Revolution. Aside from the brutal
mistreatment of enlisted men by officers, causes of the Potemkin
mutiny included wretched shipboard living conditions and rotten food--
i.e. maggot-ridden beef and moldy bread. The presence of
political agitators among the crew also was a factor.
>
>Potemkin was Catherine the Great's lover for two years. After that he
>led troops in a war with Romania and died while travelling, i.e. not
>in any interesting manner.
Acutally it was a war with the Turks; they controlled what is now
Romania. Potemkin was made a Field Marshal. His troops fared poorly,
and Potemkin was shunted off on a diplomatic mission during which
he died.
Michael Abalovich
In article <4nsjsd$p...@elaine35.Stanford.EDU>,
Francis Muir <fra...@leland.Stanford.EDU> wrote:
>Bigkids writes:
>
> Wasn't it also the name of a Russian naval vessel? I believe
> that Sergei Eisenstein made a great silent film about the revolt
> of the sailors on board; it's called, simply, "Battleship Potemkin."
>
>Questions. Was there really a Battleship Potemkin or was Eisenstein just
>being Russian? Also, what ever happened to the real gent named Potemkin?
>
> Philomath
>
My favorite story about the film (that doesn't live up to its fame, imo)
is the one that has Joyce kneeling down by the screen inspecting every
inch of it (presumably, after he had had some twenty operations on his
eyes). The ship had a role to play in the 1905 "revolution"; besides
Eisenstein, there's Pasternak's long poem with some great metrical and
imagistic achievements that considerably outweigh his subject matter,
the battleship being a part of the poem.
Here is a nice tale about Potemkin with which W.Benjamin's essay
on Kafka starts out:
It is told that Potemkin suffered from states of depression which
recurred more or less regularly. At such times noone was allowed
to go near him, and access to his room was strictly forbidden. This
malady was never mentioned at court, and in particular it was known
that any allusion to it incurred the disfavor of Catherine. One of
the Chancellor's depression lasted for an extraordinary length of time
and caused serious difficulties: in the offices documents piled up
that required Potemkin's signature, and the Empress pressed for their
completion. The high officials were at their wits' end. One day an
unimportant little clerk named Shuvalkin happened to enter the anteroom
of the Chancellor's palace and found the councillors of state assembled there,
moaning and groaning as usual. "What is the matter, Your Excellencies?"
asked the obliging Shuvalkin. They explained things to him and regretted
they couldn't use his services. "If that's all it is," said Shuvalkin,
"I beg you to let me have those papers." Having nothing to lose, the
councillors of state let themselves be persuaded to do so, and with the
sheaf of documents under his arm, Shuvalkin set out, through galleries
and corridors, for Potemkin's bedroom. Without stopping or bothering
to knock, he turned the door-handle; the room was not locked. In semi-
darkness Potemkin was sitting on his bed in a nightshirt, biting his
nails. Shuvalkin stepped up to the writing desk, dipped a pen in ink,
and without saying a word pressed it into Potemkin's hand while putting
one of the documents on his knees. Potemkin gave the intruder a vacant
stare; then, as if in his sleep, he started to sign -- first one paper,
then a second, finally all of them. When the last signature had been
affixed, Shuvalkin took the papers under his arm and left the room
without further ado, just as he had entered it. Waving the papers
triumphantly, he stepped into the anteroom. The councillors of state
rushed toward him and tore the documents out of his hands, breathlessly
they bent over them. Noone spoke a word; the whole group seemed paralyzed.
Again Shuvalkin came closer and asked why the gentlemen seemed so upset.
At that point he noticed the signatures. One document after another was
signed: Shuvalkin . . . Shuvalkin . . . Shuvalkin. . . .
Ted Samsel
Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
Clifford O. Thompson
In article <4o1mob$a...@nw003.infi.net>, te...@infi.net (Ted Samsel)
writes:
|> Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
...it probably wouldn't have told the story many want to see.
Do I get a prize for finishing your sentence?
Cliff
|> "Home of the brave, land of the free,
|> I don't want to be mistreated by no bourgoisie."
|> AAFOUF# 0000003 Huddie Ledbetter
--
szabadkr
In article <4nqda0$g...@samba.rahul.net>, Grant Robinson <gra...@rahul.net> says:
>
>In the last couple of weeks, I've run across the word "Potemkin" used as an
>adjective: Potemkin-like and Potemkinized.
>
>My OED, fifth edition, bears no reference. I believe it's the name of a
>Russian Village with some historical significance, what is the signifance
>attached to this word?
>
(a university text that I never got around to selling at the second hand
bookstore). After Russia under Catherine the Great finished with the
conquest of a lotofland in the Crimean area, Potemkin, her prime
minister, made a great effort to develop and populate these lands around
the Black Sea. When Catherine toured the area along with the Emperor of
Austria and the King of Poland in 1787, Potemkin had everything
cleaned up and polished, according to legend fixing up villages like
theatrical sets to make them appear prosperous. Hence the current use
of Potemkin Village to refer to any kind of thing that is put on for
show and lacking substance. (The CEO toured our office the other day so
we had to spend the week before cleaning everything up to make it a nice
Potemkin Village)
Bob Armstrong
Martin Adamson
In article <4nv3nj$9...@madeline.INS.CWRU.Edu>,
br...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Jeffrey A. Del Col) wrote:
>>The Battleship Potemkin mutinied in 1905. I believe the crew scuttled
>>the ship in Romania.
>
>This was one of the events of the 1905 Revolution. Aside from the brutal
>mistreatment of enlisted men by officers, causes of the Potemkin
>mutiny included wretched shipboard living conditions and rotten food--
>i.e. maggot-ridden beef and moldy bread. The presence of
>political agitators among the crew also was a factor.
The Battleship Potemkin was real, as these messages say. However, in real
life, the crew did *not* get away with the mutiny. The ship was either
recaptured or sunk by other navy vessels, I can't remember which offhand, and
the crew was punished.
Martin
ron
I came in late on this thread but if the original question was what
does "Potemkinized" mean then it has nothing to do with the mutiny.
During the time of Catherine the Great an army officer named Grigori
Aleksandrovich Potemkin had several model villages constructed and
filled with happy well-fed peasants. When Catherine wanted to do a
little "management by walking around" he would take her to one of his
model villages to show her how happy her folk were. These
model villages were named Potemkin villages after their instigator.
From this you can see the derivation of Potemkinized.
The North Koreans have a Potemkin village built on the edge of the
DMZ. It looks like a model city from the south but aerial photographs
show that it is built more like a movie set.
In article <4o1hj4$3...@scotsman.ed.ac.uk>, mar...@srv0.ems.ed.ac.uk
Bigkids
That's fascinating -- your mention of the Potemkin village north of the
DMZ in Korea. Are any of those aerial photos available? Have there been
news reports of this? Is there any documentation? What's your source?
I ask these questions not to challenge your veracity, but in the hopes of
getting more data. I'd never heard of this, and would like to learn more
about it.
I do recall there being reports of a "Potemkin village" of resettled Jews,
operated by the Nazis during World War II, although I don't quite
understand whom they were trying to fool, or for what purpose they did
this. And, alas, I don't have any photos, documents, etc. It's just one of
the many things that pass through one's receptors in this life.
Dick Lupoff
Celee96
Sailors of the battleship Potemkin, angered when they were served portions
of bad meat overboard, raised the red flag and steamed their ship along
the Black Sea coast, bombarding towns, until the need for fuel forced them
to intern at the Rumanian port of Constanza.
John Atwood
>Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
I'll bite, what's the Kronstadt Uprising?
--
_________________________________________________________________
Office phone: 541-737-5583 (Batcheller 349);home: 541-757-8772
Office mail: 303 Dearborn Hall, OSU, Corvallis, OR 97331
_________________________________________________________________
Dan Morisseau
In article mkag...@lynx.dac.neu.edu (Michael Kagalenko) writes:
>John Atwood (atw...@ada.CS.ORST.EDU) wrote:
>]>Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
>]
>]I'll bite, what's the Kronstadt Uprising?
> A bunch of assholes got hoisted by their own petard.
Maybe more accurately: a bunch of guys get duped by some evil assholes
and get killed when they catch on and try to set things straight. Take your
pick.
==========================================================================
Dan Morisseau, N7ZXL| I root for 2 teams - The St. Louis Cardinals ...
47.28N/122.50W/300'| and whoever is playing against the New York Mets!
dp...@dpm3.seanet.com|
==========================================================================
Robert Teeter
Bigkids (big...@aol.com) wrote:
: I do recall there being reports of a "Potemkin village" of resettled Jews,
: operated by the Nazis during World War II, although I don't quite
: understand whom they were trying to fool, or for what purpose they did
: this. And, alas, I don't have any photos, documents, etc. It's just one of
: the many things that pass through one's receptors in this life.
This was Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia (Czech name: Terezin).
Its purpose was to fool agencies like the International Red Cross.
Prominent Jews were sent there. I believe Leon Blum, former Premier of
France, was one.
ObBook: Lucy Dawidowicz's _War Against the Jews_ and anything
by Raul Hilberg.
--
Bob Teeter (rte...@netcom.com) | "Write me a few of your lines"
http://www.wco.com/~rteeter/ | --Mississippi Fred McDowell
Contra CDA: Reproductive health info is available from Planned Parenthood,
1691 The Alameda, San Jose, CA 95126 (408) 287-7526
Ted Samsel
Michael Kagalenko (mkag...@lynx.dac.neu.edu) wrote:
: John Atwood (atw...@ada.CS.ORST.EDU) wrote:
: ]>Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
: ]
: ]I'll bite, what's the Kronstadt Uprising?
:
: A bunch of assholes got hoisted by their own petard.
Ooh! How harsh. Are you a neo-Trot or summat? Or was one of your Ukrainian
forebears involved?
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net *1996* Year of the Accordion~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Francis Muir
Ted Samsel writes:
Michael Kagalenko writes:
John Atwood writes:
A N Other writes:
Now if Eisenstein had made a film about
the Kronstadt Uprising....
I'll bite, what's the Kronstadt Uprising?
A bunch of assholes got hoisted by their own petard.
Ooh! How harsh. Are you a neo-Trot or summat?
One of my English neices, Daphne the Trot, assures me there are no more
neo-Trots than there are neo-Wobblers; like the Wobblers you either are
or you are not.
Oh yes, and Mike, the pp of "hoist" is "hoist". So: "they got hoist by
their own petard." No, don't grovel, its embarrassing.
Philomath
Donald Phillipson
John Atwood (atw...@ada.CS.ORST.EDU) writes:
>>Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
>
> I'll bite, what's the Kronstadt Uprising?
Suppression and massacre by Lenin's government 1921 of the mutiny of a
sailors' soviet, the point being that the sailors' democratic case was
better theoretical Marxism than the government's. Among the Marxist
cognoscenti "Kronstadt" figured for decades like "the road to Damascus" --
the turning point where you have to choose between ideological sincerity
and holding onto effective power (invoking "party discipline.")
--
| Donald Phillipson, 4180 Boundary Road, Carlsbad Springs, |
| Ontario, Canada, K0A 1K0, tel. 613 822 0734 |
John McCarthy
The Kronstadt uprising was by sailors of various leftist politics
against the domination of the Bolsheviks.
Here's part of what the Britannica said.
Kronshtadt also spelled KRONSTADT (March 1921), one of
several major internal uprisings against Soviet rule in
Russia after the Civil War (1918-20), conducted by sailors
from the Kronshtadt naval base. It greatly influenced the
Communist Party's decision to undertake a program of
economic liberalization to relieve the hardships suffered by
the Russian population during the Civil War.
The sailors, located at the Kronshtadt fortress in the Gulf
of Finland overlooking Petrograd (now St. Petersburg), had
supported the Bolsheviks in 1917; their cooperation had been
crucial to the success of the October Revolution. During the
Civil War, however, they had become disenchanted with the
Bolshevik government, which had been unable to provide an
adequate food supply to urban populations and had restricted
their political freedoms and imposed harsh labour
regulations.
When the urban workers responded (early 1921) with strikes
and demonstrations, the Kronshtadt sailors, sympathizing
with them, formed a Provisional Revolutionary Committee. In
addition to economic reform, they demanded "soviets without
Bolsheviks," the release of non-Bolshevik socialists from
prison, the end of the Communist Party's dictatorship, and
the establishment of political freedoms and civil rights.
Leon Trotsky and Mikhail N. Tukhachevsky led a force that
crushed the rebels, shooting or imprisoning the survivors.
It was became de rigeur for communists to lie about the Kronstadt
uprising, because it interfered with their view that the sailors
entirely supported the Bolsheviks.
I am surprised that the tradition of these lies is still so strong.
Jeffrey A. Del Col
In a previous article, atw...@ada.CS.ORST.EDU (John Atwood) says:
>>Now if Eisenstein had made a film about the Kronstadt Uprising....
>
>I'll bite, what's the Kronstadt Uprising?
The Kronstadt insurrection occured in March 1921. Sailors of the
Baltic Fleet rebelled against the Bolshevik failure to live up to the
promise of "power to the soviets(more or less democratically
chosen councils of workers, peasants, soldiers and sailors, etc)"
as well as against the privations of War Communism. They seized control
of the Kronstadt naval base and adopted the slogan "free soviets." as their
rallying cry.
The Bolsheviks faced a serious problem. The Kronstadt rebels
had substantial sympathy among the citizens of Petrograd. In particular,
Lenin was concerned that the workers at places like the Putilov Iron
Works would come out in favor of the rebels.
When the showdown came, the workers sided with the Bolshevik
principle of "all power to the party," and Trotsky was given the
job of assaulting Kronstadt. The ensuing attacks were very bloody. The
Red Army lost as many as 10,000 killed or wounded, while the rebels suffered
fewer casualties but were finally crushed after 16 days.
In the aftermath hundreds of surviving rebels were shot, and many others
imprisoned. A substantial number of rebels escaped to Finland.
The Bosheviks tried to portray the rebels as dupes of the White forces
in the Russian Civil War. There is no evidence that the Whites had
any role in fomenting the uprising, though they did try to give support
to the rebels once the rebellion was underway.
Kronstadt destroyed any illusion that the Bolsheviks would allow
even the slightest pretense of democracy. It also reinforced iron party
discipline and ruthless suppression of any dissent wihin the party
The Kronstadt insurrection made clear to the Bolsheviks
that the threat of a mass uprising against them would remain a possibility
unless something was done to meet the demands of the Kronstadters, in
particular for an easing of the grim regimen of War Communism. The
institution of the New Economic Policy--NEP--was
was almost certainly hastened by the uprising. This was a brief period
in which a limited free market economy was allowed to operate
A good book on the uprising is Paul Avrich's --Kronstadt 1921--.
BTW, in 1939 Stalin accused Trotsky of having conspired with the Whites to
bring about the Kronstadt rebellion!
Perhaps what Kagalenko meant was that, having helped the Bolsheviks to seize
power, the Kronstadters got what they deserved at the hands of Trotsky, et. al.