A little note on the relationship of the New York Times with truth

[fpb]

There once was an exquisitely beautiful actress called Laura Antonelli. She mostly wasted her beauty on smutty comedies for the lower end of the Italian market, but this is not important. What is interesting is this: she was born in Istria in 1941, when the peninsula was Italian. Her family fled the country in 1945, along with 300,000 other Italian-speakers, when it was surrendered to the Yugoslavs. She spent all her life in Italy, and when she did not speak Italian, she spoke the Venetian dialect of Italian (which is very pretty). Her father had been involved in the Italian (which, at the time, meant Fascist) government. Her original name was Antonaz, but that was all. And finally, Istria, where she comes from, has, even today, and in spite of being a part of Croatia and having suffered violent and largely unrecorded ethnic cleansing in 1945 and following years, an Italian majority.

So how does the New York Times describe her?

As a Yugoslav actress.

Suddenly I have a clear understanding of why American conservatives loathe this supposed newspaper of record.

Comments

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

Not that I'm surprised.
In one - pretty good besides - American scientifical work I found that Frederick Chopin was Russian.

Which is technically true, by the merits of the passport, but still...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

But still it does not do much to explain the Polonaise Heroique, does it?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

The thing however is this: Chopin was at least a subject of the Russian Empire, however unwilling. Laura Antonaz/Antonelli was not a Yugoslav citizen for a single day; she was born in an Italian Istria, and her family left their native town, Pola/Pula, rather than have the pleasure of Yugoslav citizenship and Communist government. So the NY Times' reference entry is not only an insult to her family, it is factually false too.

[bufo-viridis.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, with all due respect to Ms. Antonelli, Chopin is better known, and usually marked as "THE Polish composer".

Of course I'm probably too toouchy, since we have but him...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Not quite (Szymanowski) but yeah, you've got a point.

[shezan.livejournal.com]

Chopin? RUSSIAN????