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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
The article starts with this paragraph:
I have to admit, I found it a little disconcerting to read "traditional history says this, but instead it was like this". Is this now the universally accepted view, then? If it isn't, it needs altering for NPOV. — Matt Crypto 12:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Please do explain the edit where:
was replaced with:
What makes you think that the Central Powers would allow for the independent Poland if not defeated in WW1 ? -- Lysy ( talk) 17:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Russian Revolution was an important factor, so was the defeat of Central Powers. Why not mention both events? IIRC Entente main reason for recreating Poland was weakening Germany. I think that our Polish-Soviet War explains Lenin's intentions towards Poland. Bolsheviks were more friendly then the Whites towards the idea of minorities self-governance - provided it was a bolshevick self-governance.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Partitions of Poland → Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Partitions of Poland is the commonly used name while the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth seems more correct but not in common use. -- Lysy ( talk) 08:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
It is strange that the Polish editors, who insist on referring to the 18th-century Poland as "the Commonwealth", prefer to talk about the partitions of Poland. I propose to move the articles to the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the sake of consistency. Other drawbacks of this article are the proliferation of strange {EB} notices and the lack of data as to which country *initiated* which partition. -- Ghirlandajo 15:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I can easily see how it is considered and perceived as the "Partitions of Poland" in Polish national historiography. Since the history of Poland gets more researched internationally than the Lithuanian history (reasons aside), this resulted in that "P of P" is more a popular collocation than "P of PLC". However, despite these events are justifiably perceived as "P of Poland" by the Poles, this is not what the article is about. This article is about the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and currently it simply sits under the incorrect name. As I see it a Partitions of Poland should be a DAB page which would list all these partitions as well as the partitions between the USSR and Germany in '39. However, for this article, the name does not reflect the topic and should be changed. -- Irpen 00:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I don’t think that the name Partitions of Poland derives from Polish historians. On the contrary, I remember descriptions like Upadek Rzeczpospolitej (the Fall of Commonwealth) etc. I think the term comes from western historians and I decided to check why. I looked it up in 1911 encyclopaedia to see how it was referred to once. And of course it’s called Partitions of Poland. But, in the same encyclopaedia one can find an article about Poland and its history [6], but there is no article about Lithuania at all [7]. Lithuanians are referred to as people who live in Russia, Poland and Prussia, although Poland didn’t exist when the encyclopaedia was written. Similarly, there is no mention about Polish-Lithuanian Union, or Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, though words like “union” and “common” appear in the article. I think they used to refer to Poland as we refer to England. It’s easier to say England than United Kingdom or Great Britain. There is an English Queen and English parliament, so we use the name England as common, but officially we often use the proper name. There was a Polish king in PLC, and parliament gathered in Warsaw, so they used to say Poland. Partly out of laziness (it’s my guess), and partly because they didn’t see then the many peoples living in PLC as separate nations. I think the view will be changing now, since today historians are more careful about proper names, and there are several countries in the place of PLC. After all a view like political correctness didn’t exist once at all. And e.g. Norman Davies in his Złote Ogniwa (I think it’s called Golden Links in English) writes about Partitions of Poland referring to history of Poland. But in his Europe he mentions both Partitions of Poland and Partitions of Poland-Lithuania (page 661).
I also checked the article Battle of Britain. There are 16 articles about the battle in different Wikis. I can’t read the name of the article in 3 Wikis, but out of remaining 13 only 4 articles are called Battle of Britain (the English Wiki included) while 9 articles are called Battle of England. Among them articles in popular languages like French, German and Spanish. If e.g. French was the most popular language of communication today, we would all use the incorrect name of the battle in the main encyclopeadia as common, even though the English themselves call it Battle of Britain. Well, I don’t have my own opinion on the name of the article yet, but I think we should take all the things under consideration.-- SylwiaS | talk 03:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Should be noted when saying "common usage" that "common usage from the angle of History of Poland". Otherwise, the argument misses the point. Lysy, could you correct that at your WP:RM entry? I could do that, but it is signed by you, so I would rather ask you to modify your entry. -- Irpen 08:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Worldwide in the context of the History of Poland. It is not studied in Poland exclusively. Check what is said above. -- Irpen 08:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I explained above why I see your summary misleading. Some of the voters might not read the whole discussion and vote, mostly based on the summary only. "More a common usage" is usually a very strong argument in move votings and cannot be used in the summary lightly. The correct way to say it is "More common usage in the context of the History of Poland". If you refuse to modify the summary, I will have to add this correction to your summary myself. I do not assume the bad faith on your part. I am just saying that you, understandably, view this from the same perspective as the historians who specialize in the Polish history, --- Irpen 17:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I try a different example. I've seen Ukrainian history books that view the Eastern front of what we call here a Polish September Campaign as a unification of historic Ukraine: unification of Ukrainians with there Western brethren. I've seen similar terminology in Soviet books when they also referred to "liberation" of not only Ukrainians but Belarusians. The former view is entirely justified from a narrow Ukrainian historian's perspective. What that historian fails to see is that he is applying a Ukrainian perspective to an event that was indeed of the grand-European scale, perhaps even a world-wide scale. He sees the trees but doesn't see the forest.
This is somewhat similar here. From the perspective of the Polish history, no matter who writes it, this is a partition of Poland. It made it to the books by international scholars and I respect that. Therefore, I don't mind using this terminology, even considering that it is incorrect, in the History of Poland article, but not in the article of its own, whose title should match the content. I am not speaking about correct/incorrect terminology for calling the same thing differently, like Kiev vs Kyiv, where there is no doubt that this is one and the same thing. The partitions of Poland, that includes the '39 events is not the same thing as the Partition of PLC, unless you concede that PLC was just Poland. In the latter case, please make sure you correct for that in all other Wikipedia articles. -- Irpen 19:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
"Partition of PLC" is also a partition of Poland as far as the History of Poland is conserned, as well as far as the scholars of the History of Poland are conserned and as far as the Poles are conserned. "P o PLC" is not an unused but a less used term in English because there are many books on the history of Poland where it is understandibly called the "P of P". Go ahead and use it in the History of Poland article too. I have no problem with that.
However this article, is an article about the event and not about the Polish history. It should not be viewed through a prizm of the Polish history, and as such, should have a name that reflects the content. '39 was indeed a Partition of Poland from any POV.
Finally, to your last point, the ongoing vote doesn't prevent any bad-faith user from moving the article and make a PITA for everyone. Your finger-pointing contradicts an Assume good faith rule. I said earlier at a different talk, and I am ready to repeat that here, that from now on whenever I see any article move that's made with a dirty trick of artificial history creation, it would be immediately brought up to the attention of the community and such moves will likely soon be reverted regardless of their merit based simply on the fact that the trick was used. -- Irpen 20:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, this is a reasonable discussion and thanks god we haven't got yet voters brought in by the WP:RM listing, voters who having no clue on the topic, would just place a vote based on a misleading summary. Since the WP:RM listing is not withdrawn, I will modify it first thing when I have any time for some editing in accordance with what has been said earlier. -- Irpen
I see no problem with generally using "Poland" to refer to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as this is standard English usage. john k 22:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
The title "Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" has historic truth to recommend it. "Partitions of Poland" has convenience on its side. (The second title is 8 syllables, or nearly 60%, shorter than the first title.)
Actually, the term "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" is an English interpretation rather than a translation of Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów. Accordingly, perhaps we could ask Norman Davies and other prominent historians to adopt a handier moniker for the Multiethnic Entity, such as "Polithia" — a conflation of "Poland-Lithuania." We might then enjoy both historic truth and convenience in the same title, "Partitions of Polithia." (We wouldn't have to call it Commonwealth of Polithia, as we don't ordinarily speak of the Republic of Poland.) logologist 05:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC) )
Since someone asked me to take a look at this article, I thought I would try to gather some evidence. Here are the stats from JSTOR, one of the larger scholarly journal archives in the social sciences and humanities:
From my perspective, it makes it pretty clear that the current title is the best bet from a non-involved American view (full disclosure, I am 1/4 Polish and 1/8 Lithuanian by ancestry, as near as I can figure). -- Goodoldpolonius2 04:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, the point I am trying to make is in what fraction of the cited scholarly articles the the primary topic of the article is the History of Poland? Is it comparable to the ratio above? Any scholar writing about the Polish history would call this partition "of Poland" and so would a Wikieditor writing a History of Poland article . But this is a general encyclopedia and not a Polish history book. And this is a separate article and not a part of the Template:History of Poland series. Nor it is a part of the Template:Polish statehood or other Poland-only tied series. As such, its content and its title should be broader than how this is viewed from the Polish perspective. -- Irpen 06:04, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Moreover, in Russian books you will find much less of referring to the country as Польско-Литовское содружество or ru:Речь Посполита than Польша. This is absolutely right, the readers are more used to call what's called "the Commonwealth" throughout WP as simply "Poland". However, note that by this logic we should purge the "Commonwealth" from most articles and replace it with Poland (take for example the Union of Brest and envision the article with Poland in place of the PLC). If we are going to do that, we may start a separate discussion at Talk:Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and some of the Naming Policy pages. Note that this is not a WP:Point I am trying to make.
Again, "Partitions of Poland" (that along with these ones, includes 1939) is a separate topic and a separate title for a different article. This discussion here is not similar to deciding which of the titles that clearly mean one and the same thing to choose based on common usage like Lviv/Lvov/Lwow or Kiev/Kyiv/Kijow or Peter Mogila/Petro Mohyla. In these examples there is no ambiguity that all names refer to one and the same thing. In here, we have two different phenomenas and partially, one event may be called by the other due to some perceptions. -- Irpen 21:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
As I've said above "some other article" titled so should be a DAB to these partitions and 1939. How would that mislead anyone? -- Irpen 23:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Very well, if you prefer a redirect, fine with me too. Note however, that there is no need to be picky in DAB articles. As MichaelZ wrote earlier, the DAb pages..
I am not a specialist in Polish history. As such, I thought of 1939 as one more partitions. OTOH, I guess, I am not the most ignorant in Polish history wikipedian. If I thought so, others might as well. But if calling '39 a partitions sounds offensive, we don't have to do it. I take no position in that. -- Irpen 04:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Since I was asked for my opinion (by Lysy), I'll give it, even though I'm neither Polish nor Lithuanian. On the English-language Wiki, it would be needlessly complex and inappropriate to use any other term than "the partitions of Poland." It's unrealistic to expect casual English-speaking readers to relate to a more complex title, particularly since the existing one has been used universally since the early 19th century.
The article should explain "high up in the story," as we say in journalism, that what's generally known in the west as Poland included more than just Poles, i.e. Lithuanians and parts of what's now Ukraine and Belorussia, and it should give some brief historical background on the extent of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But it should be brief, with links to more detailed articles for those who are interested.
BTW, the article could include a reference to "the feast of the black eagles," which according to Halibutt was a Polish term for the third partition at some point. Also, it might mention that the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (a misnomer if ever there was one!) of 1939 was in effect the fourth partition -- part of which became permanent after Comrade Stalin imposed his will on the western allies at Yalta and Potsdam.
Observation: It's one of the ironies of history that the four partitions of Poland, in the meaning above, ultimately resulted in Poland becoming an ethnically unitary state for the first time in its history. Sca 22:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Another outsider's voice - I'm for "Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth". ナイトスタリオン ✉ 13:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I was invited to take a look at this by Renata3. As another non-Pole, non-Lithuanian, native English speaker (well, since age 5 anyway) with a reasonable interest in history, I would say that the great majority of English speakers would not think of looking for "Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth", as in the first 20+ years of my life I think the only inkling I ever heard that there ever existed an entity called something like "Poland-Lithuania" was in one old Tony Curtis movie. Most English-speakers would look for "Partitions of Poland", I think. I'd also note that as far as the British educational system is concerned, the period and location of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth falls outside the period covered by the examination syllabus (since we never fought a war with P-L, it gets ignored!). When I did my A Level (pre-university) history course 30 years ago, detailed European History ran from 1815 to 1914, so we did briefly cover the "Partitions of Poland" to explain how the "Kingdom of Poland" came to be part of the Russian Empire, and what happened in 1830 and 1848, but previous history is a big blank which is why Wikipedia is such a useful resource. I do however feel relatively safe in asserting that at least 95% of native English speakers have never heard of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sorry if this ruffles some feathers, it's just how things are. -- Arwel ( talk) 14:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I believe from this simple survey it is obvious that there's no consensus as to the name change. Therefore I would leave it as it is and try to improve the contents of the article instead. -- Lysy ( talk) 18:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Irpen that voting was premature and that we do not need any random votes, and I'm going to withdraw my earlier
WP:RM call. It's interesting that most of us were reluctant to cast our votes too soon, anyway. As for the discussion, it seems that we are beginning to repeat the same arguments. That I we tend to understand both the arguments for and against the rename but I do not see many new things being thrown in. --
Lysy (
talk) 19:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
If it isn't clear from above for some reason "how to interpret Irpen", let it be told that I support the PoPLC and I think I explained why.
Just a comment to the following quotes:
Let's just all be consistent here. We are talking about the choice between the two titles that do not mean one and the same thing. In the latter case (like Kiev/Kijow, Lviv/Lwow) we are choosing between the words that definitely mean one and the same thing but are just derived from differenet languages. Naturally, between several versions of one and the same name, we choose the one more used in English as of today (Kiev and Lviv). None of these words are "incorrect", just one is used and the other isn't (or little). Poland and PLC are not one an the same thing. So, the arguments of which one is "correct" makes the difference unlike in the example I brought up.
Should we sacrifice the correct name for the incorrect, but perhaps more common? Well, we may. We may add to it that Poland was indeed a common appellation of the state of its time by its neighbors. If we go by this argument, we should be consistent though. Renaming of Coat of Arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth probably doesn't look to sensible, does it? Many of the articles, where the political entity is called the "PLC", this name should then be purged and replaced by Poland because it is "the commonly used in English", "it's in common usage worldwide", "it may be a problem for English speakers", "lots of publications refer to Poland where they should refer to PLC", the "common usage should prevail", "it is the more common term in English, and much shorter", and because "95% of native English speakers have never heard of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth". Let me ask some users here whether based on these very same arguments they would prefer to use Poland in place of PLC in the following articles:
It would probably be the most aggravating because of many well-known sensitivities if in the Anti-Semitism PLC is substituted for Poland throughout "because of the common usage".
I brought these examples here to illustrate that the choice of PLC for this article is absolutely logical. We do not need an impression that Wikipedia humbly uses Poland when the country was a victim but uses PLC when the nation was on the offensive. If my comparison hurts anyone's feelings, please accept my apology. I just want to illustrate, the difference between the "correct" and "incorrect" choice most vividly. This is not the choice between several variants which essentially means one and the same thing when the common usage argument should be applied. -- Irpen 03:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
They must simply be referring to the so-called Fourth Partition--I don't see anything wrong with that. Other users have already listed search results, but we can do them ourselves. I added "-site:wikipedia.org" to these searches:
And now for the more authoritative Google Books
JCarriker agreed that I paste his response here.-- SylwiaS | talk 23:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I would use what is most correct rather than what is common or popular. Common belief is that Texas is a wild untamed land in the Southwestern arid desert that does not change the fact that East Texas is a stayed prudish land in the humid-subtropical forest of the Southeast. It important to acknowledge popular ideas, but they are not always correct or well informed. Popular ignorance leads to stereotypes. You have to fight the Polish plumber stereotype, I have to fight the cowboy stereotype, so we both know that stereotypes are quite harmful, and conceding too readily to popular opinions lends itself to endorsement of stereotypes. The simple fact is that Jagiellon Poland was centuries in the past and the Second Polish Republic was over a century in the future; Poland as a distinct independent political entity did not exist at that time and could not have been partitioned then. Poland as partner in the union with Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth could have been. Therefore, in my opinion POPLC is the best article title. - JCarriker 21:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Renata's entry in the previous section of this talk confirms what I always thought and, perhaps, read somewhere too, that PoP is better a DAB than a redirect. Please note that DAB pages are totally devoid of opinions and they are there only to direct a user to where it really needs to go. Links to DAB should be avoided anyway, so I don't see any drawback. DAB does not "approve" any particular term. It just says: "may refer to one of the following" and the list of things. Check, for instance, an extremely controversial dab at Ukrainian_Holocaust_(disambiguation). It does not imply that this is a correct or a accepted term of Holodomor. In fact the applicability (or lack of) for the term gets discussed in an article Ukrainian Holocaust, which is not an article about Holodomor but about the term itself (the term article needs improvement, I admit). We can do similar here. The Partitions of Poland would have an "othersuses" template on top. The article itself would discuss a history of the term and its applicability and the link from "otheruses" template to the Partitions of Poland (disambiguation) would list the article about partitions (or to separate articles for each partitions, if ever written) and to the '39 article (whichever we decide, the "Pact" or the "September Campaign" one). -- Irpen 00:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I think we should write somewhere an explanation why Poland has been used as a synonym for PLC. After all something like national identity is quite a new thing. It was born in 19th century together with Romanticism. Not only in Poland, but everywhere. So I really think that it didn’t make any difference for Rousseau how he called PLC, but it makes a great difference for us. I read some fanfic stories that take place in the early 19th century. Their authors often forget that the English would not travel to Paris then (Napoleonic Wars), Italy (there was no Italy), Greece (there was no Greece). And, moreover, they would not go for trips in our understanding at all, because tourism didn’t exist. We apply our modern thinking to the past times, forgetting that e.g. before Enlightenment people weren’t even able to define things like we do today. I agree that since the term PoP has been used in English for 200 years it makes a long time to get used to it. But what will it mean in next 1000 years, if we start using the correct name now? In Poland we simply know that not Poland but all the PLC was partitioned, no matter how we call it. Moreover, I believe that all the people living in PLC during the Partitions felt Poles in the general meaning, like Donald Tusk feels now both Polish and Kashubian, but it has changed. How someone studying the history of Lithuania, Belarus, or Ukraine is to understand that the countries were partitioned as Poland? Moreover, would Poland be partitioned if there was no PLC? Norman Davies gives two probable reasons for the Partitions: one that PLC was too modern, decentralised, and developed too fast in comparison to its neighbours, the other is that PLC was simply too large a country situated in a geographic position difficult to defend. We are all descendants of PLC, but we are not all Poles now. When I look at the history of my family, it seems quite accidental that I was born in Poland. Well, my grandpa was born in Habarovsk, Russia, his sister in Lvov, Ukraine, their father in Pinsk, Belarus, while their mother in Prussia near Gdańsk (mind, not near Danzig, although it was in 19th century and her family name was Dietrich), their grandpa was born near Poniewież, Lithuania, and their great grandparents in France. One of my grandpa’s brothers fled from Habarovsk to Harbin, my cousins must be Chinese now, lol. One of his sisters went to Kamchatka, so her grand children are Russian now. But they were all Polish nobles as the citizens of PLC. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. Many 19th century western poets, philosophers, politicians etc were sensitive for the Polish case, but they knew that they were talking about the Commonwealth. They simply didn’t know the Poland that exists now. Today people hardly know that there was PLC at all, we should try to change it, not preserve the wrong stereotype.-- SylwiaS | talk 15:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved.
Also, everyone's opinion and thoughts are counted regardless of whether they "voted" :). The voting system, as it were, just makes it a bit more structured for me to look through things.
WhiteNight T | @ | C 23:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
So far we have 6 votes. As of now, 10 people expressed their oppinions in discussing the matter and did not vote (Ghirlandajo, Piotrus, Irpen, SylwiaS, Chelman, logologist, Goodoldpolonius2, Sca, JCarriker, Arwel). Please do so! To help you find it in this humongous discussion: Talk:Partitions of Poland#Requested move. Renata3 12:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I've already had my say above, but as a native English speaker -- AND as a person who's not totally unfamiliar with the history of Poland AND Lithuania -- I have to add that I agree with Irpen that "the choice of PLC for this article is absolutely logical" -- it just doesn't correspond to the reality of English usage.
If you Poles and Lithuanians (and Belarussians and Ukrainians or Ruthenians or WHOEVER) are so passionate about educating the English-speaking world as to the "correct" term for Poland in the 18th century, then WRITE BOOKS that will be so fascinating that millions of English speakers will buy them. Don't expect to transform English usage overnight on one of several online encyclopedia sites. Get real! In English, Poland will always be Poland.
Sca 16:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Sca 22:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
The article starts with this paragraph:
I have to admit, I found it a little disconcerting to read "traditional history says this, but instead it was like this". Is this now the universally accepted view, then? If it isn't, it needs altering for NPOV. — Matt Crypto 12:38, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
Please do explain the edit where:
was replaced with:
What makes you think that the Central Powers would allow for the independent Poland if not defeated in WW1 ? -- Lysy ( talk) 17:05, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Russian Revolution was an important factor, so was the defeat of Central Powers. Why not mention both events? IIRC Entente main reason for recreating Poland was weakening Germany. I think that our Polish-Soviet War explains Lenin's intentions towards Poland. Bolsheviks were more friendly then the Whites towards the idea of minorities self-governance - provided it was a bolshevick self-governance.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 17:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Partitions of Poland → Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Partitions of Poland is the commonly used name while the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth seems more correct but not in common use. -- Lysy ( talk) 08:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
It is strange that the Polish editors, who insist on referring to the 18th-century Poland as "the Commonwealth", prefer to talk about the partitions of Poland. I propose to move the articles to the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth for the sake of consistency. Other drawbacks of this article are the proliferation of strange {EB} notices and the lack of data as to which country *initiated* which partition. -- Ghirlandajo 15:43, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I can easily see how it is considered and perceived as the "Partitions of Poland" in Polish national historiography. Since the history of Poland gets more researched internationally than the Lithuanian history (reasons aside), this resulted in that "P of P" is more a popular collocation than "P of PLC". However, despite these events are justifiably perceived as "P of Poland" by the Poles, this is not what the article is about. This article is about the Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and currently it simply sits under the incorrect name. As I see it a Partitions of Poland should be a DAB page which would list all these partitions as well as the partitions between the USSR and Germany in '39. However, for this article, the name does not reflect the topic and should be changed. -- Irpen 00:46, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I don’t think that the name Partitions of Poland derives from Polish historians. On the contrary, I remember descriptions like Upadek Rzeczpospolitej (the Fall of Commonwealth) etc. I think the term comes from western historians and I decided to check why. I looked it up in 1911 encyclopaedia to see how it was referred to once. And of course it’s called Partitions of Poland. But, in the same encyclopaedia one can find an article about Poland and its history [6], but there is no article about Lithuania at all [7]. Lithuanians are referred to as people who live in Russia, Poland and Prussia, although Poland didn’t exist when the encyclopaedia was written. Similarly, there is no mention about Polish-Lithuanian Union, or Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, though words like “union” and “common” appear in the article. I think they used to refer to Poland as we refer to England. It’s easier to say England than United Kingdom or Great Britain. There is an English Queen and English parliament, so we use the name England as common, but officially we often use the proper name. There was a Polish king in PLC, and parliament gathered in Warsaw, so they used to say Poland. Partly out of laziness (it’s my guess), and partly because they didn’t see then the many peoples living in PLC as separate nations. I think the view will be changing now, since today historians are more careful about proper names, and there are several countries in the place of PLC. After all a view like political correctness didn’t exist once at all. And e.g. Norman Davies in his Złote Ogniwa (I think it’s called Golden Links in English) writes about Partitions of Poland referring to history of Poland. But in his Europe he mentions both Partitions of Poland and Partitions of Poland-Lithuania (page 661).
I also checked the article Battle of Britain. There are 16 articles about the battle in different Wikis. I can’t read the name of the article in 3 Wikis, but out of remaining 13 only 4 articles are called Battle of Britain (the English Wiki included) while 9 articles are called Battle of England. Among them articles in popular languages like French, German and Spanish. If e.g. French was the most popular language of communication today, we would all use the incorrect name of the battle in the main encyclopeadia as common, even though the English themselves call it Battle of Britain. Well, I don’t have my own opinion on the name of the article yet, but I think we should take all the things under consideration.-- SylwiaS | talk 03:44, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Should be noted when saying "common usage" that "common usage from the angle of History of Poland". Otherwise, the argument misses the point. Lysy, could you correct that at your WP:RM entry? I could do that, but it is signed by you, so I would rather ask you to modify your entry. -- Irpen 08:17, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Worldwide in the context of the History of Poland. It is not studied in Poland exclusively. Check what is said above. -- Irpen 08:37, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
I explained above why I see your summary misleading. Some of the voters might not read the whole discussion and vote, mostly based on the summary only. "More a common usage" is usually a very strong argument in move votings and cannot be used in the summary lightly. The correct way to say it is "More common usage in the context of the History of Poland". If you refuse to modify the summary, I will have to add this correction to your summary myself. I do not assume the bad faith on your part. I am just saying that you, understandably, view this from the same perspective as the historians who specialize in the Polish history, --- Irpen 17:22, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, I try a different example. I've seen Ukrainian history books that view the Eastern front of what we call here a Polish September Campaign as a unification of historic Ukraine: unification of Ukrainians with there Western brethren. I've seen similar terminology in Soviet books when they also referred to "liberation" of not only Ukrainians but Belarusians. The former view is entirely justified from a narrow Ukrainian historian's perspective. What that historian fails to see is that he is applying a Ukrainian perspective to an event that was indeed of the grand-European scale, perhaps even a world-wide scale. He sees the trees but doesn't see the forest.
This is somewhat similar here. From the perspective of the Polish history, no matter who writes it, this is a partition of Poland. It made it to the books by international scholars and I respect that. Therefore, I don't mind using this terminology, even considering that it is incorrect, in the History of Poland article, but not in the article of its own, whose title should match the content. I am not speaking about correct/incorrect terminology for calling the same thing differently, like Kiev vs Kyiv, where there is no doubt that this is one and the same thing. The partitions of Poland, that includes the '39 events is not the same thing as the Partition of PLC, unless you concede that PLC was just Poland. In the latter case, please make sure you correct for that in all other Wikipedia articles. -- Irpen 19:36, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
"Partition of PLC" is also a partition of Poland as far as the History of Poland is conserned, as well as far as the scholars of the History of Poland are conserned and as far as the Poles are conserned. "P o PLC" is not an unused but a less used term in English because there are many books on the history of Poland where it is understandibly called the "P of P". Go ahead and use it in the History of Poland article too. I have no problem with that.
However this article, is an article about the event and not about the Polish history. It should not be viewed through a prizm of the Polish history, and as such, should have a name that reflects the content. '39 was indeed a Partition of Poland from any POV.
Finally, to your last point, the ongoing vote doesn't prevent any bad-faith user from moving the article and make a PITA for everyone. Your finger-pointing contradicts an Assume good faith rule. I said earlier at a different talk, and I am ready to repeat that here, that from now on whenever I see any article move that's made with a dirty trick of artificial history creation, it would be immediately brought up to the attention of the community and such moves will likely soon be reverted regardless of their merit based simply on the fact that the trick was used. -- Irpen 20:52, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Well, this is a reasonable discussion and thanks god we haven't got yet voters brought in by the WP:RM listing, voters who having no clue on the topic, would just place a vote based on a misleading summary. Since the WP:RM listing is not withdrawn, I will modify it first thing when I have any time for some editing in accordance with what has been said earlier. -- Irpen
I see no problem with generally using "Poland" to refer to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, as this is standard English usage. john k 22:37, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
The title "Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" has historic truth to recommend it. "Partitions of Poland" has convenience on its side. (The second title is 8 syllables, or nearly 60%, shorter than the first title.)
Actually, the term "Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" is an English interpretation rather than a translation of Rzeczpospolita Obojga Narodów. Accordingly, perhaps we could ask Norman Davies and other prominent historians to adopt a handier moniker for the Multiethnic Entity, such as "Polithia" — a conflation of "Poland-Lithuania." We might then enjoy both historic truth and convenience in the same title, "Partitions of Polithia." (We wouldn't have to call it Commonwealth of Polithia, as we don't ordinarily speak of the Republic of Poland.) logologist 05:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC) )
Since someone asked me to take a look at this article, I thought I would try to gather some evidence. Here are the stats from JSTOR, one of the larger scholarly journal archives in the social sciences and humanities:
From my perspective, it makes it pretty clear that the current title is the best bet from a non-involved American view (full disclosure, I am 1/4 Polish and 1/8 Lithuanian by ancestry, as near as I can figure). -- Goodoldpolonius2 04:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, the point I am trying to make is in what fraction of the cited scholarly articles the the primary topic of the article is the History of Poland? Is it comparable to the ratio above? Any scholar writing about the Polish history would call this partition "of Poland" and so would a Wikieditor writing a History of Poland article . But this is a general encyclopedia and not a Polish history book. And this is a separate article and not a part of the Template:History of Poland series. Nor it is a part of the Template:Polish statehood or other Poland-only tied series. As such, its content and its title should be broader than how this is viewed from the Polish perspective. -- Irpen 06:04, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Moreover, in Russian books you will find much less of referring to the country as Польско-Литовское содружество or ru:Речь Посполита than Польша. This is absolutely right, the readers are more used to call what's called "the Commonwealth" throughout WP as simply "Poland". However, note that by this logic we should purge the "Commonwealth" from most articles and replace it with Poland (take for example the Union of Brest and envision the article with Poland in place of the PLC). If we are going to do that, we may start a separate discussion at Talk:Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and some of the Naming Policy pages. Note that this is not a WP:Point I am trying to make.
Again, "Partitions of Poland" (that along with these ones, includes 1939) is a separate topic and a separate title for a different article. This discussion here is not similar to deciding which of the titles that clearly mean one and the same thing to choose based on common usage like Lviv/Lvov/Lwow or Kiev/Kyiv/Kijow or Peter Mogila/Petro Mohyla. In these examples there is no ambiguity that all names refer to one and the same thing. In here, we have two different phenomenas and partially, one event may be called by the other due to some perceptions. -- Irpen 21:32, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
As I've said above "some other article" titled so should be a DAB to these partitions and 1939. How would that mislead anyone? -- Irpen 23:26, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
Very well, if you prefer a redirect, fine with me too. Note however, that there is no need to be picky in DAB articles. As MichaelZ wrote earlier, the DAb pages..
I am not a specialist in Polish history. As such, I thought of 1939 as one more partitions. OTOH, I guess, I am not the most ignorant in Polish history wikipedian. If I thought so, others might as well. But if calling '39 a partitions sounds offensive, we don't have to do it. I take no position in that. -- Irpen 04:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Since I was asked for my opinion (by Lysy), I'll give it, even though I'm neither Polish nor Lithuanian. On the English-language Wiki, it would be needlessly complex and inappropriate to use any other term than "the partitions of Poland." It's unrealistic to expect casual English-speaking readers to relate to a more complex title, particularly since the existing one has been used universally since the early 19th century.
The article should explain "high up in the story," as we say in journalism, that what's generally known in the west as Poland included more than just Poles, i.e. Lithuanians and parts of what's now Ukraine and Belorussia, and it should give some brief historical background on the extent of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. But it should be brief, with links to more detailed articles for those who are interested.
BTW, the article could include a reference to "the feast of the black eagles," which according to Halibutt was a Polish term for the third partition at some point. Also, it might mention that the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact (a misnomer if ever there was one!) of 1939 was in effect the fourth partition -- part of which became permanent after Comrade Stalin imposed his will on the western allies at Yalta and Potsdam.
Observation: It's one of the ironies of history that the four partitions of Poland, in the meaning above, ultimately resulted in Poland becoming an ethnically unitary state for the first time in its history. Sca 22:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Another outsider's voice - I'm for "Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth". ナイトスタリオン ✉ 13:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I was invited to take a look at this by Renata3. As another non-Pole, non-Lithuanian, native English speaker (well, since age 5 anyway) with a reasonable interest in history, I would say that the great majority of English speakers would not think of looking for "Partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth", as in the first 20+ years of my life I think the only inkling I ever heard that there ever existed an entity called something like "Poland-Lithuania" was in one old Tony Curtis movie. Most English-speakers would look for "Partitions of Poland", I think. I'd also note that as far as the British educational system is concerned, the period and location of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth falls outside the period covered by the examination syllabus (since we never fought a war with P-L, it gets ignored!). When I did my A Level (pre-university) history course 30 years ago, detailed European History ran from 1815 to 1914, so we did briefly cover the "Partitions of Poland" to explain how the "Kingdom of Poland" came to be part of the Russian Empire, and what happened in 1830 and 1848, but previous history is a big blank which is why Wikipedia is such a useful resource. I do however feel relatively safe in asserting that at least 95% of native English speakers have never heard of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth. Sorry if this ruffles some feathers, it's just how things are. -- Arwel ( talk) 14:27, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I believe from this simple survey it is obvious that there's no consensus as to the name change. Therefore I would leave it as it is and try to improve the contents of the article instead. -- Lysy ( talk) 18:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Irpen that voting was premature and that we do not need any random votes, and I'm going to withdraw my earlier
WP:RM call. It's interesting that most of us were reluctant to cast our votes too soon, anyway. As for the discussion, it seems that we are beginning to repeat the same arguments. That I we tend to understand both the arguments for and against the rename but I do not see many new things being thrown in. --
Lysy (
talk) 19:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
If it isn't clear from above for some reason "how to interpret Irpen", let it be told that I support the PoPLC and I think I explained why.
Just a comment to the following quotes:
Let's just all be consistent here. We are talking about the choice between the two titles that do not mean one and the same thing. In the latter case (like Kiev/Kijow, Lviv/Lwow) we are choosing between the words that definitely mean one and the same thing but are just derived from differenet languages. Naturally, between several versions of one and the same name, we choose the one more used in English as of today (Kiev and Lviv). None of these words are "incorrect", just one is used and the other isn't (or little). Poland and PLC are not one an the same thing. So, the arguments of which one is "correct" makes the difference unlike in the example I brought up.
Should we sacrifice the correct name for the incorrect, but perhaps more common? Well, we may. We may add to it that Poland was indeed a common appellation of the state of its time by its neighbors. If we go by this argument, we should be consistent though. Renaming of Coat of Arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth probably doesn't look to sensible, does it? Many of the articles, where the political entity is called the "PLC", this name should then be purged and replaced by Poland because it is "the commonly used in English", "it's in common usage worldwide", "it may be a problem for English speakers", "lots of publications refer to Poland where they should refer to PLC", the "common usage should prevail", "it is the more common term in English, and much shorter", and because "95% of native English speakers have never heard of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth". Let me ask some users here whether based on these very same arguments they would prefer to use Poland in place of PLC in the following articles:
It would probably be the most aggravating because of many well-known sensitivities if in the Anti-Semitism PLC is substituted for Poland throughout "because of the common usage".
I brought these examples here to illustrate that the choice of PLC for this article is absolutely logical. We do not need an impression that Wikipedia humbly uses Poland when the country was a victim but uses PLC when the nation was on the offensive. If my comparison hurts anyone's feelings, please accept my apology. I just want to illustrate, the difference between the "correct" and "incorrect" choice most vividly. This is not the choice between several variants which essentially means one and the same thing when the common usage argument should be applied. -- Irpen 03:14, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
They must simply be referring to the so-called Fourth Partition--I don't see anything wrong with that. Other users have already listed search results, but we can do them ourselves. I added "-site:wikipedia.org" to these searches:
And now for the more authoritative Google Books
JCarriker agreed that I paste his response here.-- SylwiaS | talk 23:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I would use what is most correct rather than what is common or popular. Common belief is that Texas is a wild untamed land in the Southwestern arid desert that does not change the fact that East Texas is a stayed prudish land in the humid-subtropical forest of the Southeast. It important to acknowledge popular ideas, but they are not always correct or well informed. Popular ignorance leads to stereotypes. You have to fight the Polish plumber stereotype, I have to fight the cowboy stereotype, so we both know that stereotypes are quite harmful, and conceding too readily to popular opinions lends itself to endorsement of stereotypes. The simple fact is that Jagiellon Poland was centuries in the past and the Second Polish Republic was over a century in the future; Poland as a distinct independent political entity did not exist at that time and could not have been partitioned then. Poland as partner in the union with Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth could have been. Therefore, in my opinion POPLC is the best article title. - JCarriker 21:54, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Renata's entry in the previous section of this talk confirms what I always thought and, perhaps, read somewhere too, that PoP is better a DAB than a redirect. Please note that DAB pages are totally devoid of opinions and they are there only to direct a user to where it really needs to go. Links to DAB should be avoided anyway, so I don't see any drawback. DAB does not "approve" any particular term. It just says: "may refer to one of the following" and the list of things. Check, for instance, an extremely controversial dab at Ukrainian_Holocaust_(disambiguation). It does not imply that this is a correct or a accepted term of Holodomor. In fact the applicability (or lack of) for the term gets discussed in an article Ukrainian Holocaust, which is not an article about Holodomor but about the term itself (the term article needs improvement, I admit). We can do similar here. The Partitions of Poland would have an "othersuses" template on top. The article itself would discuss a history of the term and its applicability and the link from "otheruses" template to the Partitions of Poland (disambiguation) would list the article about partitions (or to separate articles for each partitions, if ever written) and to the '39 article (whichever we decide, the "Pact" or the "September Campaign" one). -- Irpen 00:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
I think we should write somewhere an explanation why Poland has been used as a synonym for PLC. After all something like national identity is quite a new thing. It was born in 19th century together with Romanticism. Not only in Poland, but everywhere. So I really think that it didn’t make any difference for Rousseau how he called PLC, but it makes a great difference for us. I read some fanfic stories that take place in the early 19th century. Their authors often forget that the English would not travel to Paris then (Napoleonic Wars), Italy (there was no Italy), Greece (there was no Greece). And, moreover, they would not go for trips in our understanding at all, because tourism didn’t exist. We apply our modern thinking to the past times, forgetting that e.g. before Enlightenment people weren’t even able to define things like we do today. I agree that since the term PoP has been used in English for 200 years it makes a long time to get used to it. But what will it mean in next 1000 years, if we start using the correct name now? In Poland we simply know that not Poland but all the PLC was partitioned, no matter how we call it. Moreover, I believe that all the people living in PLC during the Partitions felt Poles in the general meaning, like Donald Tusk feels now both Polish and Kashubian, but it has changed. How someone studying the history of Lithuania, Belarus, or Ukraine is to understand that the countries were partitioned as Poland? Moreover, would Poland be partitioned if there was no PLC? Norman Davies gives two probable reasons for the Partitions: one that PLC was too modern, decentralised, and developed too fast in comparison to its neighbours, the other is that PLC was simply too large a country situated in a geographic position difficult to defend. We are all descendants of PLC, but we are not all Poles now. When I look at the history of my family, it seems quite accidental that I was born in Poland. Well, my grandpa was born in Habarovsk, Russia, his sister in Lvov, Ukraine, their father in Pinsk, Belarus, while their mother in Prussia near Gdańsk (mind, not near Danzig, although it was in 19th century and her family name was Dietrich), their grandpa was born near Poniewież, Lithuania, and their great grandparents in France. One of my grandpa’s brothers fled from Habarovsk to Harbin, my cousins must be Chinese now, lol. One of his sisters went to Kamchatka, so her grand children are Russian now. But they were all Polish nobles as the citizens of PLC. It wouldn’t make any sense otherwise. Many 19th century western poets, philosophers, politicians etc were sensitive for the Polish case, but they knew that they were talking about the Commonwealth. They simply didn’t know the Poland that exists now. Today people hardly know that there was PLC at all, we should try to change it, not preserve the wrong stereotype.-- SylwiaS | talk 15:54, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
It was requested that this article be renamed but there was no consensus for it to be moved.
Also, everyone's opinion and thoughts are counted regardless of whether they "voted" :). The voting system, as it were, just makes it a bit more structured for me to look through things.
WhiteNight T | @ | C 23:20, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
So far we have 6 votes. As of now, 10 people expressed their oppinions in discussing the matter and did not vote (Ghirlandajo, Piotrus, Irpen, SylwiaS, Chelman, logologist, Goodoldpolonius2, Sca, JCarriker, Arwel). Please do so! To help you find it in this humongous discussion: Talk:Partitions of Poland#Requested move. Renata3 12:51, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
I've already had my say above, but as a native English speaker -- AND as a person who's not totally unfamiliar with the history of Poland AND Lithuania -- I have to add that I agree with Irpen that "the choice of PLC for this article is absolutely logical" -- it just doesn't correspond to the reality of English usage.
If you Poles and Lithuanians (and Belarussians and Ukrainians or Ruthenians or WHOEVER) are so passionate about educating the English-speaking world as to the "correct" term for Poland in the 18th century, then WRITE BOOKS that will be so fascinating that millions of English speakers will buy them. Don't expect to transform English usage overnight on one of several online encyclopedia sites. Get real! In English, Poland will always be Poland.
Sca 16:30, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
Sca 22:23, 27 December 2005 (UTC)