Idle: Fairytale Character Map Raises Ire In Russia and Ukraine 146
The downside of not having ones base of children's stories crafted and maintained by trained storytime engineers from the Disney Corporation has reared its warty head in Russia and Ukraine. A map of purportedly Russian folktale characters' haunts has drawn fire from Ukrainians, who object to what they see as the appropriation (from Ukraine) of such famous characters as miraculously strong Ilya Muromets, the gold-producing Speckled Hen, and Kolobok ("a cheerful talking cake who flees animals eager to eat him"). This seems like nothing that couldn't be cleared up with some artfully mis-pointed highway signs and a few tons of papier-mâché.
Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, very unfortunate. Because we need more historical culture to be tied up in intellectual property rights so rich people can sue other people who reference it.
Idiot (Score:4, Insightful)
No, that's actually a very, very good thing.
Re:No shit (Score:4, Insightful)
One other thing worth keeping in mind while visiting the links provided.
While a major famine with very high death toll did happen, and it is quite likely that it was, at least in part, orchestrated by communist authorities, there has been a great deal of falsified materials [wikipedia.org] in various articles on the subject, especially photos. For example, there is an information stand in Kiev describing Holodomor, but the most prominent photo - the one with the actual pile of corpses - is actually of a village near Saratov, during the Russian famine of 1921. Another popular photo set is from the US Great Depression - both have been prominently features as "horrors of Holodomor" in various official Holodomor-related thematic expositions in Ukraine and abroad.
In other words, same business as usual - when you see someone paint you a picture with angels on one side being tormented by fiery demons on the other, make sure to check your sources. The gist of it may well be true, but the representation is often exaggerated, and there's plenty of distorted information from both sides. If you want solid information, you should read books written by professional historians on the matter (and, preferably, from a "neutral" country, not either side to the conflict), rather than websites set up those with an ax to grind.