Talk:Mikołaj Sieniawski

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[edit] Polonized name

[following discussion moved from Portal:Ukraine/New article announcements#February 2006 —Michael Z. 2006-02-08 20:15 Z]

• Mikołaj Sieniawski by Halibutt. Why Polish name for a Ruthenian noble? Shouldn't it be moved to Mikolai Sinyavski? --Ghirla | talk 09:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Or Mykolay Synyavskyy?—probably better to establish a naming convention for all of them. —Michael Z. 2006-02-08 18:54 Z

Indeed. We have Ostrogski not Ostrozhsky and Michal Glinski not Mikhailo Hlinsky. Polish names for these Ukrainians are anachronistic. --Ghirla | talk 19:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It may be tough to settle on a convention. I don't know the details, but I suppose many of these nobles and especially the later Cossacks spoke both Ukrainian and Polish, and became more or less Polonized depending on the cultural pressures and political climate of their time. —Michael Z. 2006-02-08 20:15 Z

But surely not in the early 16th-century, when Poland and Lithuania were different states, the major Orthodox magnates struggled against the Catholic influence in their lands and had no command of Polish whatsoever. It is strange that their names should be spelled in Polish after all. If Ukrainian editors find it normal, let it be. --Ghirla | talk 07:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

To justify such a move, you would have to show in each case that the Ruthenian form of the name is the one predominantly used in English sources. I suspect this is not often the case for personages which were high officials in the Kingdom of Poland/Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and so presumably are best known in historiography by the Polish form of their names (see this Google Book Search result, for example). This is especially true here, where we are dealing a Hetman, one of the highest officials in the land.

The very fact that even you cannot agree what the spelling should be seems to indicate that you have not located too many English-language books on the subject which use the Ruthenian name. Plus, of course, deciding when a given family became sufficiently Polonised to "qualify" for a Polish name would indeed be very difficult and fraught with controversy. So again, the best way to go here is to use the spelling most frequently used in English-language historical works. If we don't, we will open a huge can of worms which will soon spread conflict to articles like Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky and Konstantin Rokossovsky, just to name two. Balcer 00:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the more books you locate, the more spellings your are likely to unearth, because there are a number of transliteration systems in use for the Cyrillic alphabet. —Michael Z. 2006-02-09 04:29 Z

Balcer, I did similar search in Google books a while ago re Ostrogski vs Ostrozhky (among English books only). What I recall, is that if "Ostrogski Palace", a tourist attraction is Poland, isn't counted and only the hits in the context of the person and in English only are counted, the usages of Ostrogski and Ostrozhsky are comprarable. I didn't even bother to raise the issue since even my attempts to raise much more plain issue of Wołodarka, Mironówka, Wasylkowce, Nowochwastów, etc. at several PSW articles talk pages were dismissed. Occasionally, I raise the issue regarding the unwarranted Polonization of Ukrainian names but usually to no avail. I am learning to live with it. --Irpen 06:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I suggest you rerun your search, as Google is continuously adding books to its database. Right now, I get 47 books using Ostrogski (and not using the word "palace", of these I count about 20 that are relevant, in English etc) vs. 9 books using Ostrozhsky. Now, 4 out of 9 Ostrozhsky finds refer to a fictional character in one of Dostoyevsky's novels, so they are irrelevant here. If we subtract those, we get 20 vs 5 books, or a 4:1 ratio in favour of the Polish spelling of the name.

I hope this makes a good case for keeping the Ostrogski article under its current name. However, we have articles on the following people named Ostrogski: Konstanty Ostrogski, Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski, Anna Alojza Ostrogska, Katarzyna Ostrogska (1602-1642), Katarzyna Ostrogska (1560-1579), Zofia Ostrogska,Aleksander Ostrogski and Janusz Ostrogski. If you can find sources which show some of these should be renamed, make your case on the talk page of the relevant article. Alternatively, you could just add their Ruthenian names (if justified) to the articles and create appropriate redirects, saving us all a tedious argument over moving articles, which to me is a bit of a waste of time in most cases.Balcer 07:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

The people were (proto-)Ukrainian by nationality, spoke Ruthenian language, and were militant in defending their Orthodox faith. It is not their fault that the Ukrainian language and self-awareness came to be suppressed by their imperial neighbours, who somehow privatized the history of Galicia and polonized the names of major historical figures. Ostrogski is a valid spelling for the 17th century, not earlier. --Ghirla | talk 07:30, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I must admit that it is hard for me to think of magnates like the Ostrogski family being in any way oppressed. Rather, they did pretty well for themselves under Polish rule. Still I agree with your basic point that the history of Ukraine has been distorted by the fact that it was mostly written by its neighbours. Still, it is not Wikipedia's task to correct historical wrongs. Rather, it must reflect current historical research and accumulated publications in English. If you want to change the historiography of Ukraine, do it by, for example, writing great history books that will become bestsellers in the English-speaking world and change everyone's view of how Ukraine's history should be discussed. Wikipedia is not the place to do this. This is what Wikipedia:No original research policy is partly about. Balcer 07:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Also include Ostrozky and other transliteration variations in your searches. —Michael Z. 2006-02-09 14:54 Z

Please explain, why should all other transliterations be counted together against the Polish version. After all, the Polish version is also an attempt to reconstruct what the name must have sounded like. Balcer 15:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting a particular method for comparison, just pointing out the other possible transliterations. On the other hand, since you bring it up, do you think technically-different romanizations of one Ukrainian name should be counted as different names? —Michael Z. 2006-02-09 16:37 Z

IMHO, if the differences are small and technical, those romanizations should be counted together. On the other hand, if the difference is due to the Russian/Ukrainian/Ruthenian version of the name (as seems to be sometimes the case), then they should count separately. I must say I am no expert on transliteration from those languages, so I leave this field to you and other qualified people. Balcer 16:50, 9 February 2006 (UTC)