Henryk Batuta was a

hoax A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible. S ...

article on the Polish Wikipedia from November 2004 to February 2006, the main element of which was a biographical article about a nonexistent socialist revolutionary, Henryk Batuta.

History

The perpetrators of the hoax created an article about Henryk Batuta (supposedly born Izaak Apfelbaum), a fictional socialist revolutionary and Polish Communist. The fake

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curri ...

said Batuta was born in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

, Ukraine, in 1898 and participated in the

Russian Civil War The Russian Civil War () was a multi-party civil war in the former Russian Empire sparked by the 1917 overthrowing of the Russian Provisional Government in the October Revolution, as many factions vied to determine Russia's political future. I ...

. The article was created on November 8, 2004 and was exposed as a hoax 15 months later, when it was deleted on February 5, 2006. The article was ten sentences long while it existed on Polish Wikipedia. It gained some prominence after stories about it appeared in prominent Polish newspapers (e.g. ''

Gazeta Wyborcza (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish nationwide daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It was launched on 8 May 1989 on the basis of the Polish Round Table Agreement and as a press organ of the Solidarity (Polish trade union), t ...

'') and magazines (e.g. '' Przekrój''), as well as a British newspaper (''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

''). The article also falsely claimed a street in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

was named "Henryk Batuta Street", after the fictional communist official. The anonymous hoaxers who created the article, according to the press calling themselves "The Batuta Army" (), allegedly wanted to draw attention to the fact that there are still places in Poland named after former communist officials who "do not deserve the honour". The hoax was exposed when the article was listed for deletion. Even after the article was exposed as a well-organized hoax, its perpetrators tried to convince others of its authenticity by providing false bibliographical information and even by uploading a doctored photograph of a street name "ulica Henryka Batuty" (Henryk Batuta Street). The mystification was "officially" exposed and confirmed on 9 February 2006, when the Polish daily ''

'' and weekly '' Przekrój'' published their articles about the hoax. There is a Batuty Street ( Polish: ''ulica Batuty'') in Warsaw; however, the name comes from the Polish word "batuta", which means " conductor's baton". In this area of the Służew district, there are many street names relating to music and this is one of them. Streets named after a person in Warsaw always carry the first name, not only the family name, on the plate. On the street plate for Batuta, there is no first name.

Content of the hoax article

The following is an English translation of the hoax article as it appeared on the Polish Wikipedia on 1 February 2006, when it was exposed as a hoax:Henryk Batuta article on the Polish Wikipedia
1 February 2006. HenrykBatutaHoaxFakeStreetName

References

Polish

* * * * :pl:Wikipedia:SDU/Henryk Batuta {{DEFAULTSORT:Batuta, Henryk 2004 hoaxes 2004 in Poland Fictional Polish military personnel Fictional Polish people History of Wikipedia Internet hoaxes Nonexistent people used in hoaxes Wikipedia controversies Fictional communists