Talk:Roger Joseph Boscovich

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[edit] Too little information

How about instead of just stating when he published this and that theory, giving some information on what his ideas were?


[edit] description of origin

Boscovich was considered to be Italian at the time - there was no mention of his Croatian origin up until 20th century. He worked in Italy, spoke Italian, lectured in Italian, died in Italy. He is of mixed origin, and Italians consider him their own. So do not erase this repeatedly, it is not only inaccurate but extremely rude! User:18.252.2.32 04:47, 28 November 2002

Would this be a fair compromise: to call him "Croatian-born"? That way it would be clear that it was only a reference to his birth, and not necessarily his ethnicity. Then you can add the facts that he worked in Italy, spoke Italian, lectured in Italian, and died in Italy, and everyone would be clear about the matter. :) By the way, my browser is now displaying the Croatian version of his name with "<caron>" in the middle, which isn't right at all...! -- Oliver Pereira 03:11 Nov 28, 2002 (UTC)
I wonder who considered Bošković to be Italian. In his time there were no Italy at all. There we many disunited republics fighting each other. Languages spoken at the Apennine Peninsula were not Italian. For instance Venetian was spoken in Venice.--Martinis 16:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
So, being borne in Dubrovnik, it would be wrong to attribute him as Italian just because he lived and worked for some time on the territory which is Italy nowadays. Bošković never considered himself Italian. On the contrary he always said for himself to be catholic and spoke Dubrovnik language (dubrovački). He left all his legacy to Cavtat which is town neighbouring Dubrovnik.--Martinis 16:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
As for spelling, the name of dr. Luka Kovac from ER should be written Kovač, and the main actor is not Goran Visnjic, but Višnjić, but who cares about carons when small distant Slavic languages are in question. By the way, it is historical truth that in several countries even Latin was official language although it isn't and wasn't a living language used by the folks.--Martinis 16:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

He was born in Ragusa, or Dubrovnik, which was independet city at the time. It would not be accurate, Croatia didn't exist at the time. Compromise would be to erase Italian-Croatian and leave just the later statements which detail his birth (this I tried but was reverted; it is also what has been done in current edition of Britannica, as you can easily check on the web!) User:18.252.2.32

Just a comment, but what the heck is "Bos<caron>koviæ"? A formatting error? --Dante Alighieri

My opinion. I know him just as Croat. I had never heard he was considered Italian. It does not matter that Croatia at that time didn't exist. Nationality has nothing to do with historical political or state development of one area. When I was in Dubrovnik, years ago, I saw his birth street. He is also considered in some places as naturalized French, English or Italian. He wrote mainly in Latin, as was custom those days. I can't confirm he lectured in Italian, but I know he wrote letters to his sister Anica and to his brothers Baro and Božo in his native Croatian. For sure he knew Italian because he had to. But it is also known that he appreciated brother's opinions more than opinions of leading European scientists of that period. I really do not want to be rude if I delete what is not accurate. I am not Croat but I respect all nationality. I can say the same thing with, for example, Herman Potočnik, who was considered Austrian, but he was in fact Slovene and Herman of Carinthia who was also considered as Croat, but he was also Slovene. I was born in former Yugoslavia, so I am not Yugoslav, but Slovene and so on. The same thing is with Josip Broz Tito. His father was Croat and his mother was Slovene, so Slovenes never considerd him as Slovene, because he was Croat. Dante I've changed "Bos<caron>koviæ" to unicode form "Boškovi&#263" and I hope it is all right now. I guess it is another thing if someone retract his nationality. I respect this man so you should too. I guess he was proud he came from Dubrovnik, so let it be in that way. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 23:54 Dec 3, 2002 (UTC)

Probably the best thing is just to drop the claim from the opening sentence, as it is later said who were his parents. ---Johans

XJR, I agree that nationality has nothing to do with the state, but you cannot say someone is 'Croatian born' if Croatia didn't exist at the time (thats what it means). Saying that he is Croatian born is differet thing from saying that he was a Croat. But as you insist on this line, even the Croatian nationality of his father can be disputed. He is as much Croatian as Archimedes was Italian. The most accurate description, that would not offend anyone, would be to say that he was a Dalmatian. Dalmatians are distinct from Panonic Croatians, it was only in this century that they started to consider themselves Croatians - Dalmatia has distinct history from the rest of Croatia, and Croatians and Dalmatians despised each other in this century as any two other Balkan groups (and quarrel sometimes even today) - similary Montenegrins and Serbs, who were once considered to be the same nationality now are two considered to be two distinct nationalities - these things change. Dalmatia was long claimed by Italy, as you probably know, and has mixed population and a substantial Italian minority, which was much greater in the past. I have cousins who are from Dubrovnik and who are of mixed origin, and they have had problems during wars in the last century because of that. Italians fought on the side of partisans together with other people in Dalmatia in WWII, even before 1943, and Istria and Zadar only become part of Croatia (Yugoslavia at the time) after 1945. Cities on Adriatic coast at that time, like Venice and Ragusa, were all independent, akin of cities in ancient Greece, and had a lot of similarities - Italy didn't unite until the end of XIX century, as you probably know.

Also, I don't like your argument that mother's nationality does not count. Jews consider mother's nationality more important than father's. You are a Slovene and you know full well that a lot of your Slovene friends would be Bosnians by that logic (with some even not knowing it) - which they would probably consider to be a great insult, at least as far as my understanding of how Slovenes respect all nationality goes. Also, I don't know if you disown Tito now, but twenty years ago he was not considered a Croat, but a Croat-Slovene. All people in former Yugoslavia know stories of Joza's childhood in Zagorje, his Slovene mother and grandfather - little children learned all about it in schools, as a part of curriculum and it was part of his personality cult that he was of mixed origin, in accordance with the brotherhood and unity wich was promoted at the time. His Croatian language was far from flawless, he had a heavy accent and everyone was aware that he was half Slovene. User:18.252.2.32

As for Croats, their greatest tennis player, Wimbledon champion Goran Ivanisevic, is considered to be a Croat, despite the fact that his father is a Serb. His mother is Croatian, and that is enough, and Goran says sometimes that he is a Dalmatian because of his mixed origin, but more often just considers himself to be a Croat. His Croatian patriotism and nationalism is undisputed. User:18.252.2.32

Yes, very interesting, indeed. I agree with all what have you written. And I still think that we can't simply drop ones nationality. So I still vote for Bošković to be of Croatian origin. I didn't mean that someone is Croatian if he was born in a state of Croatia, but if he was born as Croat irrespective where he was born. According to your claim all Croats born before 1991 won't be Croats at all. We can't consider Dalmatians as national independent form. They are Croats if their parents are Croats and they are Italians if their parents are. I own Bošković famous book Theoria Philosophiae Naturalis (Theory of Natural Philosophy) published 1763 in Venice. And here Bošković is considered to be a Croat. But I guess we won't get far argueing in this way. I just say we have to find a nationality for every person here in Wikipedia. I have written my arguments and I really do not want to impose my point of view to anybody. I didn't say that mother's nationality does not count. If Bošković is to be Italian because of his mother's line than it is all right for me. I just wrote what I know of his origins and that I found mostly all around he is considered to be Croatian. So I leave a final decision to all of you. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 21:30 Dec 8, 2002 (UTC)

Dante, your atitude is very interesting. Indeed, you know only those historical facts that suits you. Unfortunately, history is not science and it's not so dificult to hide some facts. If you claim that Croats and Dalmatians unified in 20th century, than you have to learn some history regarding age before Italian ocuppation of Eastern Adriatic cost. Don't allow that history split people - especially if it's not true. Greeting... User:193.1.159.133

I don't believe you're talking to Dante. *sigh* If only everyone would sign their comments... -- Oliver P. 17:06 5 Jun 2003 (UTC)
You're correct. It was not Dante. Dante just have some problems with unicodes, which were latter corrected. User User:193.1.159.133 you've changed a link from Serbo-Croatian language to Croatian language. Please, see talk page at related pages of these 'two' languages. Bošković's name is the same in both ones. I can't comprehend why are you all so concerned with nationalisms and not with nationalities. --XJamRastafire 14:18 6 Jun 2003 (UTC)

He was a Serb-Italian. His father was Nikola Boskovic Pokrajcic from the village of Orahov Do in Eastern Hercegovina (originally from the family of the Pokrajcici). He was a trader who moved to the state of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and converted to Roman Catholicism in order to become a citizen of the Catholic statelet. He later married his Italian wife (her family originated from the Italian mainland). Nowhere, other than in nationalist Croat books is he ever mentionned as a Croat, in fact he considered himself a Ragusan citizen although his father was a Serb and wrote about Serbian history in Farlati's works. Igor 22:31, 26 Aug 2003 (UTC)

For the record Orahov Do was Croatian before the 1991 war. The 1990 census and census data from the 1900's will confim that. It, along with Ravno was one of the first villages to get destroyed by the Serbs in Hercegovina more accurately Fall of 1991 when Dubrovnik was attacked. You also will find that the last name Bošković is a common last name among Croats in Eastern Hercegovina.


For the record, I couldn't find a single reliable document via Google that would explain Bošković's father's supposed Serb origin. A very small amount of pages mention the issue, and those that support it are either assertions or web forum rants, whereas there are a few that actually dispute it. The story seems rather hollow and even if it is true that his father was Serb, it still makes no sense to say that the name Ruđer Josip Bošković is "Serbian". --Shallot 21:11, 27 Aug 2003 (UTC)

I further searched in order to find more information about this, using all sorts of transformations of his name and even typos in the search engines. After you weed out various nationalist tripe and start carefully reading between the lines to remove the vast amount of spin on the story, there does appear to be enough historical records to confirm that his father was indeed from the Dubrovnik hinterland (eastern Herzegovina), likely a Serb that converted to Catholicism.

Two web pages seem particularly worthy of pointing out:

http://www.arhimed.rs.ba/biography/boskovic/zoran.htm --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I'd just like to apologize for initially being so shortsighted. Issues surrounding the Dubrovnik Republic don't fit into the modern national(ist) schemes. (But then again, what does? *sigh*)

There does seem to be some confusion as to whether he was the sixth, seventh or the eighth child or son in the family of Nikola Bošković and Pavla Bettera. It would be nice if there wasn't, but it's not really important.


--Shallot 23:52, 20 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I would like to add some more words here about this great physicist. Nevertheless what in the end shall be proved what nationality was really his father Nikola (Croat or Serb) I guess we must not generalize things. Shallot - your first link does matter to me. Yes, in fact genes do really have much with nationality.
First of all, whoah, easy there with the ranting! Just as I thought my final comment was to clear up the whole mess...
--Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Please do not accuse me being a ranter. I just higly respect Boscovich' scientific work - that is all! --[XJam]
Secondly, nationality is acquired by birth but also by naturalization.
--Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps --[XJam]
Thirdly, surely we have established by now that Boskovic was first and foremost a citizen of Dubrovnik, and that the rest is interpretation?
--Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
His family came to Dubrovnik from somewhere - we also now know this. --[XJam]
I wouldn't be so straightforward on that. Rudjer's immediate family seems to have been in Dubrovnik throughout his life, so the link to his father's roots outside of Dubrovnik seems to be fairly symbolic. --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Untrue he looked for his family roots and told his brother to find their family crest (which I have and will upload) somewhere in the hinterland (Hercegovina and Bosnia). Besides his father wrote a piece for Farlati and other Dalmatian historians treating with the subject of the Serb ('Rascian') monasteries from Kosovo to the Popovo Polje region of Hercegovina from whence his family originated. -- Igor 19:54, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Igor wrote a note that Boscovich's (I'll write here his English name - but I prefer his S/C name Bošković) principal language was Italian. See my notes about this above. I'll repeat here once again: He wrote to his sister and two brothers in (I'll say for now in Serbo-Croatian) and all his scientific works were written in Latin. I guess he just speak Italian with his mother and when he was living in Milan officially and so on. How can his principal language be Italian?
Well the official language of the Ragusan Republic was the Venetian dialect of Italian. Serbo-Croat (or rather the Eastern-Hercegovinian Serb dialect) was spoken by the common folk. -- Igor 19:54, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I don't think it's terribly wrong to estimate that he spent most of the time using Italian. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
But I guess it is. I think he mostly spoke Latin and S/C... (Najbolje je kazati, da je Boškovic govorio 'naš' jezik (It is best to say that Boscovich spoke 'our' language)). --[XJam]
that would not clarify anything -- Igor 19:54, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Given that he mostly worked in foreign countries, I don't think he used it much except when communicating with his siblings. Certainly Latin, English and French were each important in various stages of his life, other than Italian. --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Whether his father was really (I'll start to belive this in a near future) a Serb or a Croat Boscovich had to talk also with his father I guess.
His father died when he was 10, BTW. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Yes, OK. If I think on my childhood, I was able to speak my native at that age perfectly. I've just learned some more grammar at schools afterwards. And also Boscovich was his son, and sons speak more frequently with fathers that with mothers - at least I think so - do not catch all my words. --[XJam]
Yeah, yeah, but he lived for 76 years, so those first 10 can't be much other than a fraction of his language-speaking life. :) --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
So this is a paradox of his socialization! The second link of astrophysicist Aleksandar Tomić from Belgrade, born in Croatia, is also very much interesting. At least to me. You, Shallot also wrote in your revision history note that this is the good old Pan-Serbian propaganda machine again.
Do us all a favour and read what I said later, a few lines above these? There's still certainly a link to the good old pan-Serb propaganda machine, but I seem to have established that it is not exactly founded on thin air. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Sorry, I can't believe you almost at all. (Perhaps you should also think about a term you've probably never heard - "the good old Pan-Croatian propaganda (infernal) machine"). Perhaps Igor is perfectly right and indeed Boscovich is a Serb! I have previously some edit wars with one user who claimed Boscovich was Italian (as it can be seen above). I do not want to argue anymore with others about Boscovich's nationality. I've read writting of Drago Dragović and a reply of Tomić. Firstly, Dragović quotes famous American physicist Leon Max Lederman that he wrote about Boscovich how he was a Serbo-Croat. Such a term exists nowhere. As a former citizen of former Yugoslavia I know just a term of Serbo-Croatian language. And then Tomić rectified Dragović's claim about Lederman's quote. Lederman in fact wrote in his original work and also in a translation that Boscovich was just a citizen of Dubrovnik. Someone put out several times a note that Boscovich's family originates from a village (I originally wrote "Orahovo" form eastern Herzegovina - but probably my source wasn't quite correct and Igor might be right that this village is "Orahov Do" - it lies some 100 km northwestern from Dubrovnik - and official border of Herzegovina is approx. some 100-200 km northern from there. But in fact I really do not know how far Herzegovina extends to hinterland).
Err, eastern Herzegovina is basically just beyond the hills above Dubrovnik. FWIW. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
So if Orahov Do is really not a "mith", we should say it lies in the vicinity of Dubrovnik - this would be the correct geographical term I guess. And, for me it is important if we know for one such famous scientist from where his family comes. Einstein might came from some place in the Himalaya - and we should state that.
Are we not stating so already, without your change? I did not revert such a change after the last edit. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Somehow now I am a bit pissed off because I've believed almost all the time Boscovich was a Croat - and perhaps he was not at all. As Tomić wrote: Boscovich (in fact) never lived in Croatia! Dubrovnik (aka Ragusa at that time) was an independent republic. Tomić says it was in fact Italian with many (now I do not understand his term - "slovenskog" (which nation in fact does he mean) - if he means Slovene citizens he can't be completely right, because Slovenes lived at the Adriatic coast around Trieste and in what is now Croatian Istra). Supplement: Komnenović in his reply to Dragović explains who were "Slovini" -- he didn't mean Slovenes but (original term "Slovini" -- I do not know the English name!)
The intended word is Sloveni and means Slavs in Serbian, so, there's no confusion. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
As I understand S/C language a term for Slavs is "Slaveni" and not "Sloveni". Tomić and Komnenović use a term "Slovini" and I am sure this is not a typo. They didn't mean Slavs. Slavs were already settled all over on Balkans at that time. --[XJam]
This is from the Italian 'Schiavoni' which was used to designate Slavs in general however in the Ragusan context it referes to Schiavonia/'Slavia' i.e. Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina which was Dubrovnik's major trading partner. I am not aware of any trading going on between Ragusa and Croatia? The Slavic language is sometimes referred to as such, sometimes as 'serviano', sometimes as Illyrian ('illirico') whereas sometimes both names are used such 'illirico overo serviano' (Illyrian or Serbian) when referring to Cyrillic letters used to communicate with the hinterland's Slavs as well as the Turks (I will scan a 15th century agreement between a Herzegovinian pasha/Turish sultan and the Dubrovnik Republic written in Serb Church Cyrillic). --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
No, "Slaveni" is the Croatian form and "Sloveni" is the Serbian form. Tomić said that in Bošković's time, people of Dubrovnik said "Slovini", as did Komnenović, and they both interpreted that to mean Slavs in the modern language (which is obvious) while Komnenović also added the good old pan-Serb spin: he stated "Slavs or Serbs". --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
BTW, Slovenes (Slovenians) are "Slovenci". --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Just a reflex from Proto-Slavic, the form 'Slavjanski' was also used among the Serbs as well. --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
They were citizens of Dubrovnik, called themselves not Croats but so, and they were in fact Orthodox Serbs (--XJamRastafire 23:18, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC))
To state that all the Slavs in Dubrovnik were Orthodox Serbs by origin is a blatant generalization. To state that they were Orthodox (remained that is) is pretty much nonsense, although your sentence seems cut off so perhaps you didn't mean to say that. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Not all but a very large proportion was, including Boskovic's family. --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
But I did mean that. I just didn't say that |all| "Slovini" were Orthodox by religion. Many of them were. As Tomić wrote, Orthodox Church was also on the island Korčula. This is not my claim - but it is interesting.
Yes, migrations naturally, particularly during the time of the Turks, Serbs settled as far west as in some portions of Slovenia (around the Bela Krajin: Žumberak, Črnomelj, Novo Mesto)... --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Yes, an interesting example of how one can spin things to match their beliefs. On the 2001 Census, there were 2,732 Orthodox believers in the whole Dubrovnik-Neretva county, and they didn't state their national Orthodox church. There were also 19 Serb Orthodox, 4 Greek Orthodox and 2 Macedonian Orthodox believers. All around 2.24%.
That was in 2001, completely irrelevant to history or rather the 15th and 16th centuries for example. --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Serb propagandists constantly tout the censuses of Bosnia from the start of the 20th century which show that there were more Serbs than Muslims there.
Not really the issue but the Orthodox outnumbered the Muslims in Bosnia before the beginning of the 20th century as well. Furthermore, not all Muslims at that time had a distinct sense of nationality, some considered themselves Serbs and some even Croats. It's amazing you missed that on those herceg-bosna, darko.hr pages you keep linking too. I beginning to wonder whether you even read that junk? :) --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Do the math -- how many centuries would it take to reduce the supposedly significant number of Orthodox believers to their present numbers? This is just another one in the long line of stories carefully construed in order to pave way for armies the likes of Milosevic's. --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Well let's see, there were 600,000 Orthodox faithful in 1991 and only 200 thousand in 2001... --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
How should I know here south of the Alps that many Serbs (aka "Slovini") lived in Dubrovnik some hundred years ago. Can you tell me?
I don't submit to that flagrant misinterpretation how Serbs are also known as Slovini. (It's funny, really, the pan-Serb propagandists have the audacity to claim that "Srblje" and "Slovini" means Serbs in the modern sense. That's so pathetically opportunist. Of course, there's wacko Croats that think anything with the syllable "hr" or "khr" in ancient Persia belongs to them, but the difference is that nobody really takes these seriously.) --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
If all Croatian historians are quite about this, nobody will know, right. In this way you can say that all Slovenes are in fact Croats, or that they are in fact Alpine Serbs - whatever you may wish. Or that all Russians are simply all Slovenes and so on. --[XJam]
If they are "quite" about this? I don't understand. I also don't quite see where your reductio ad nauseam is coming from. --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It was meant to be "quiet". --XJamRastafire 13:40, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Tomić also wrote that Italians do not consider Boscovich to be Italian - here many Wikipedians claim exactly this...! He ask himself: what was Boscovich - and he also gives an answer: Boscovich was a citizen of Europe. Dubrovnik is now in Croatia and Croats should be proud of him, but Serbs also have their right to be proud of since his father came from Serb etnic corpus. And Italians because his mother was Italian, and the French because he had a French citizenship, and Austrians because his book was written and published in Austria, and US citizens because there ramains almost the whole Boscovich's written legacy - and finally also citizens of Great Britain because his contemporaries who admired him mostly came from the British island. Tomić researches Boscovich's life and work for over 30 years. I think I do not have to say more. I previously vote for Boscovich nationality to be Croatian - but now I am not so sure any more. I just do believe his family lived in a Croatian manner. We should also learn ourselves how great was Boscovich work in physics at that time, because his ideas are still alive in a modern physics. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 22:52, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Now you're getting the right idea. Rudjer Boskovic was as all the other citizens of all the other cities along the Adriatic coast, completely occidental in nature. Croatia is based upon these values even today, so Croat historians have some merit in claiming Boskovic. There's also many links to Serbs, so their historians also have some merit in claiming Boskovic. One thing that we shouldn't be doing is assigning a supposedly clearcut national character to him.
Pseudo-cultural spin. If you ask me, the Greek contributions to astronomy, physics and math are vital, that is why Greek letters are used throughout. Yet this has nothing to do with Boskovic's ethnic origins. --Igor 20:09, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)
A lot of the south Slavic population speaking the Serbo-Croatian dialects in today's Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia never seemed to have been particularly well divided on purely genetic grounds, and even though it's possible that Nikola Boskovic actually declared himself a Serb, his children's ethnicity and nationality was open to interpretation even back in the 18th century, let alone nowadays after two centuries of national upheavals. --Shallot 11:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Yes. Interesting. Religion also did its own job. To my knowledge still today when all former Yugoslav republics are states S/C language is all the same. Yes, we (now) foreigners know some differences about three main forms of this language (kaj, što, ča, ...) but we can not understand such a hate between these two (now three (if we also count Bosnians)) great Slavic nations. Best regards. --XJamRastafire 15:30, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)
It's somewhat amusing that you should state that the language is all the same after the obvious confusion caused by differences just above :) The south Slavic nations that speak these dialects don't necessarily hate each other, it's just that over the years, among them developed many fools who try their best to impose their beliefs on others, how ever ludicrous they may be. With aggresion there usually comes defensiveness, and then we get to go back and forth about stuff that's not really debatable. Rather than wasting more energy on this kind of nonsense, I think we should stick to the definition that Rudjer Boskovic was from Dubrovnik, which is entirely uncontested given that he spent all of his diplomatic life working in the interest of the Dubrovnik Republic. --Shallot 09:45, 11 Oct 2003 (UTC)

May I ask why is Rudjer Boskovic still listed as Serbian?

Must be a mistake, should rean Serb-Italian. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Is it because of his father's original religion?

No, just ethnic and linguistic background. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If my father is Swedish and I am born in United Kingdom, am I Swedish? I think not. I would speculate that, since ethnicity at that time was greatly determined by religion, since Rudjer Boskovic was Catholic, he was either Croatian or Italian.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was also Catholic, was he Italian or Croatian? I am guessing the latter according to you? -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Since Ragusa was relatively independent , Catholic and the local population's native language South-slavic, it seems reasonable to pick Croatian.

What warped logic, the Venetian Republic was also Catholic and independent, was it Croatian too? -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
The reasoning of both of you is speculative. --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Could you provide references where it appears that Rudjer Boskovic's origins are Serbian? I've seen some deductions about his father's ethnicity on this page, but I wouldn't go as far as to declare him a Serbian.

Read the discussion page. Knock yourself out. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
That's not really a valid answer. All of the references I've seen so far are more or less conjecture. --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

If your great-great-great-grandfather is French, are you French? I think not. Furhtermore what are the sources for his father's ethnicity, I would be glad to call up some friends to look up the information back in Dubrovnik.

A great description would be: "Rudjer Boskovic was born in Dubrovnik, historically a city-state, nowadays a famous tourist-spot in Croatia.

Istanbul is also a famous tourist-spot today in Turkey but that has no place in Byzantine or Roman history for example. You can't project the present into the past. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
And yet that's exactly what you are doing when you resolutely claim he's a Serb, projecting the present into the past. This is getting circular. --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

His father, Nikola Boskovic Pokrajcic, was most likely a Serb, coming from an Orthodox village of Orahov Do, in Eastern Herzegovina, nowadays a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and his mother..." and so forth and so forth. Thus you let the reader pick the "exact" nationality.

Claiming that Dubrovnik people were Serbian is ridiculous, since the prime ethnical identification of Serbian people at the time was the Orthodox Church..

Wrong, the Ragusan Republic mentions the Slavic language and calls it 'serviano' despite being Catholic. Besides, Dubrovnik's law only accorded citizenship to Catholics, so all of the immigrants had to convert one way or another if they happened to be Jewish, Protestant or say Orthodox. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
I'd like a reference and context to this serviano statement. --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Since the local Dubrovnik population was Roman-Catholic (minus those few dozen of other religious orientations) , they were what are known today as Croatians.

You have to ask what was the characteristic that fundamentally identified the today's ethnicities back in time. It was a membership in an geopolitical and religious circle. Serbs were much more influenced by the policies of Byzantine, Ottomans and the East in general and they belonged to the Orthodox church.

The Kingdom of Serbia was one of the Ragusan Republic's biggest trading partner. In the 14th century it sold to Dubrovnik the isthmus of Peljesac (Rat), Ston, Konavli and 95% of the territory of the Ragusan Republic save for the town of Dubrovnik/Ragusa itself. The Serbs were also in contact with the Venetian Republic and its traders etc. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Croats were greatly influenced by Italy, Austria and the Central/West Europe, and they belonged to the Catholic church.

Yes, yes, I know, but what does that have to do with anything? Most of the innovations in astronomy came from the Greeks and later Arabs. Does that make one a Greek or an Arab should astronomy become a subject of interest of his? -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Ergo, Dubrovnik is and was Croatian. Ergo Rudjer Boskovic lived with Croatian people. He himself might have considered himself either Slavic or Italian, as terms Serbian and Croatian were not used very often back in those times. Yakov 20:40, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)yakov

OK, to end this discussion, let me quote a Serbian intellectual Gojko Nikolis (source: ) [Boskovic's well known biographical information listed...] On the basis on these facts, one must ask oneself: wherein lie R. Boskovic's Serbian roots? The times he lived and worked in (the time of the Turkish rule, when Boskovic had no interest in or opportunities to establish links with his Serbian heritage represented by a backward Serbia and Montenegro) do not speak in favor of the Serbian element.

Oh brother, what mighty arguments! Now you subjectively decide who is backward and who is unworthy of Boskovic? How worthy can the Croats be if they did not even have an independent state between 1102 and 1918? -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
How exactly do you infer that statehood has anything to do with this notion of backwardness? But I guess we could have expected that, per the Greater Serbian concept... --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The environment and culture in which he grew up and acquired his education and to which he belonged (the Jesuit Order, affiliation to the Western world's science and civilization) do not speak in favor of his Serbian feelings. It must be admitted however, that there is one factor which proves Boskovic's Serbian roots, it is the only one, and as such it is not very convincing. Boskovic's father Nikola Boskovic was a Serb from Herzegovina. He lived in Dubrovnik. He was a rich merchant who converted to Catholicism when he married an Italian. It turns out that Boskovic is a Serb only genetically. Can genetic roots be considered a decisive factor in determining the national orientation and essence of a man, while at the same time disregarding the much stronger sociological, cultural and other nongenetic aspects?

Might I add that this was an article from newspapers that was run by Milosevic's War Propaganda machinery. Milosevic is behind bars in the International Crimes Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, but his cronies are still around, defacing Croatian heritage by abusing the open-minded policy of sites such as Wikipedia. Yakov 20:40, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)yakov

Okay, researched some more, this whole BS about a Small serbian village is actually inaccurate. Orahov Dol/Orahov Do (varies) belongs in "Imotska krajina"

No it does not. There is no Orahov Do in Imotska Krajina. Orahov Do is in Popovo Polje (Orthodox priest's field) south of Trebinje. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

region nowadays, and is now in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the lower Herzegovina region, and has always been ethnically and culturally Croatian.

Always as in 1941-5? -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

The Orthodox and even Serbian roots of Rudjer Boskovic are pure hearsay based on the most-stretched speculations for which there is virtually no evidence. To all the visitors of Wikipedia: you have just witnessed another attempt of cultural assimilation by the rabid Greater-Serbian fanatics who will try to prove to you that anyone and everyone are, in fact, Serbian, they just don't know it yet. Orahov Dol was at the time at the borders of Dubrovnik republic, a small ethnically Croatian village and the only reason we are even speculating that his father might be from there is because that is the tale in that village.

According to the Council of Europe, a source _much more reliable_ than some Serbian propaganda magazine, Orahov Dol, the village of Rudjer's father, was ethnically cleansed of Croatians in the recent agression on Croatia. For the visitors without much information on this, Serbian/Montenegran military destroyed a humungous amount of cultural heritage in Dubrovnik and the region in their recent aggression on the area in 1991/1992. The next step is to send cronies such as Igor try to describe to the rest how this village and the whole region in fact, were always Serbian and so forth and so forth.

Oh dear Lord! What are you saying, that the war's aim was to shaft your efforts to appropriate Boskovic on Wikipedia? -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Sources: (You can translate this one through Google, gives an extensive account of Boskovic's history) http://www.fernuni-hagen.de/MATHPHYS/veselic/rudjer/

(Mentions the ethnic cleansing that went in Orahov Dol and the rest of Dubrovnik area) http://assembly.coe.int/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc93/EDOC6999.htm

The above text was silently removed by User:Igor. I've restored it; were this an article, a removal could have been warranted, but this is a discussion page so removing text without an explanation is censorship. --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

(Talks about Ivo Padovan, the founder of Croatian Academy of Science and Arts, also from Orahov Dol) http://www.acta-clinica.kbsm.hr/Acta2002/ ACTA2002_2/09NEWS~1.PDF

(Home page of the Rudjer Boskovic foundation in the lower Hercegovina region, you can see for yourself how Catholic, and Croatian, the whole area is. You can even see the pictures of Rudjer Boskovic's house) http://www.rb-donjahercegovina.ba/ Yakov 20:40, 27 Nov 2003 (UTC)yakov

I can see everything save for the arguments that allow you to label it as Croat. You should better take a look at what Emperor /Constantine_VII writes in his De_Administrando_Imperio about the migrations of the Serbs and Croats to the Balkans. Even Croat historians such as Franjo Racki, Klaic or Ferdo Sisic do not negate the fact that the Serbs settled south of the Cetina rivers leaving all of Hercegovina as Serb populated territory. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure how Igor has the nerve to call Yakov's edits vandalism when they're each based on conjecture.

And yet not so long ago you agreed that your claims about Boskovic's alleged Croatdom stood on weak ground. My, my, how easily do we change our minds. -- Igor 09:54, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)
This is the Nth time that you are blithely trolling. Let me spell it out for you: there's a significant difference between kindly not removing a set of conjecture while it's being discussed, and being in complete agreement with it. --Shallot 18:42, 1 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I read the unattributed link and it seems to me that it's no more worthy (and at one point even self-conflicting) than other sources... --Shallot 11:08, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Exactly why I am restoring now. Yakov 19:22, 28 Nov 2003 (UTC)yakov

I have added a few linx & deleted nonsense about Serbian/Italian whatever nonsense. First- there is no positive corroboration that Bošković's paternal ancestry has anything to do with Serbs (or Croatian converts who "shifted" their allegiances to Serbian Orthodoxy due to numerous factors & were especially numerous in post 1463. era period of Ottoman conquest when Serbian Orthodoxy was "fondled" by Turksih authorities). Second-it's of no importance even if it were true: Zola was a French although his father was Italian, or St.Francis Italian although his father was French. Not even to speak of "mixed" ancestries of Pushkin, Lenin, P.A.M.Dirac, Cezanne, Valery, ...Completely insignificant.

Mir Harven

you are all very funny..in the times boskovic lived there was no croatia and dubrovnik didnt belong to croatia :) before the formation of yugoslavia dubrovnik always either existed as an independant state or belonging to italy..so lets say we forget about his father (if he was a serb,you also forget that serbs lived in the regions around dalmatia and krajina,and you forget that modern dalmatians,real ones,dont consider themselves croatians because they are mainly of italian origin or mixed origin) he was still a citizen of dubrovnik.

One more thing..I dont quite understand the argument that in those days ethnicity was based on religion..sorry,but thats total nonsense..ethnicity was based on the fathers ethnicity and the last name went after the father,that were the basis of all patriarchatic sociaties and most were patriarchatic (it was nowdays liberal europe).. as for religion,some serbs were catholics..as for moslems as somebody mentioned,of course they didnt have a strong national feeling,because they were serbs or croats of muslim religion..the new made up nationality was given to them by tito in the attempt to create even a bigger hate between nations in former yugoslavia.. but as for boskovic..it was rather natural that he spoke italian..finns in finland spoke swedish because that was the official language and not finnish..so the same situation for dubrovnik..before the 20.century dubrovik was NOT a part of croatia because croatia didnt exist before 1918. as i said already,somebody should research a bit more about dalmatians and regions around dubrovnik and will find out that most of those people are not really croatians,but mostly belonging to the italian national minority or mixed.

"According to the Council of Europe, a source _much more reliable_ than some Serbian propaganda magazine, Orahov Dol, the village of Rudjer's father, was ethnically cleansed of Croatians in the recent agression on Croatia. For the visitors without much information on this, Serbian/Montenegran military destroyed a humungous amount of cultural heritage in Dubrovnik and the region in their recent aggression on the area in 1991/1992. The next step is to send cronies such as Igor try to describe to the rest how this village and the whole region in fact, were always Serbian and so forth and so forth. "

one last posting from me..somebody before this mentioned milosevic..well,people,i dont know if youre quite capable for such a big action,but try to remember that there was a time BEFORE 1990 and that the world didnt start in the 1990'. for example,do you remember that before milosevic there was a man whom i assume croats consider a big hero and was named ante pavelic.now,according to the US holocaust museum,yad vashem memorial center and some other sources (and not serbian nationalistic ones:) he killed "only" about 600 000 or so people.. of that number about half a million were serbs..maybe i should post the nice way he used to kill children?the rest were jews and gypsies. so you are claiming that serbs cleaned out the village Orahov Dol from Croatians in 1991/92..lets assume one thing..what if,only what if,pavelic before that cleaned out the village from Serbs and only then (after 1945) croats moved there?after all,rudjer was born 200 years before that,so how do we know who REALLY lived in that village?

IF BOSCOVICH LAST NAME HAS SERB ORIGIN OR A CONNECTION TO SERBIA...MMMMM HE IS ONLY 1/4 BOSCOVICH.... WHAT ABOUT HIS MOTHERS SIDE WHO WAS ITALIAN WHICH MAKES HIM 1/2 ITALIAN.... 1/4 OF HIS DADS MOTHER IS UNKNOWN.....WHAT IS THAT???.... DID HIS FATHER HAVE A CROATIAN MOTHER OR SERB MOTHER???? FROM WHAT I CAN SEE HE IS 1/2 ITALIAN AND ONLY 1/4 CROAT/SERB...1/4 UNKNOWN.... UNLESS SOMEINE CAN TELL ME WHAT HIS DADS MOTHER WAS?????

GOT YA NOW

[edit] move

Let me just state for the record pages should be renamed by using the "move page" function and not by copying and pasting (even if it is a reasonably sane change on its own). This sounds like a subtle way to hide the old Talk page from view, all 43 controversial kilobytes of it, I can see how that fits the pattern of User:Igor's behaviour. :p --Shallot 23:05, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've moved the old talk page to /Archive 1 now. --Joy [shallot] 12:38, 15 July 2005 (UTC) It's here now.

Technical stuff like pointing to old page (which is, IMO, complete) should be done. Also, I've deleted usual Serbian propaganda- Boskovic's imaginary "Serbian ancestry" (false-even if true: insignificant). Also-language and other tricks (quasi-Italian character of Dubrovnik from 15. to 19. cent by putting Italian name first. Should we give first names of Belgrade- Nandorfehervar, as i recall ? It was Hungarian, that's sure. Or Spalato for Split, or Marburg for Maribor, or Londres for London-after all, it was ruled for more than 2 centuries by French-speaking Normans.) But, this time Serbs try to sell their agenda by connecting to Italian irredentist and neo-Fascist sites. No passaran, fellas.Mir Harven 11:44, 17 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Actually that last thing, the biography by Antonio Fares from dalmazia.it, doesn't seem too bad to me regardless of where it's hosted, so I've reinstated that link. I've also renamed all of the external links so it's obvious where they point. --Shallot
I missed Mir Harven's usual ways in my absence. Boskovic's "Serbian ancestry is false yet even if true must be insignificant". Significant enough to give you heartburn I see and for you to want to erase any mention of it. I remove the relativisation of things, never heard of anyone claiming Nikola Boskovic, Ruggiero's father, was Italian. Boskovic's ethnicity is not controversial, Ruggiero Boscovich was a proud Ragusan. However his father's ethnic origin is clearly Serbian, mother's Italian. Even Mir Harven admits that is insignificant so I gather he has no objections? --Igor

[edit] Controversial

I must say that Igor has made several heavy pro-Serbian and, albeit following the ways of nationalistic fervor; but I must agree with him on this; Rudje Boskovic is a proud Ragusian of Serb-Italian descendence (I fail to see Mir Harven's point in here...) HolyRomanEmperor 11:48, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Utter nonsense - Croatian nationalistic claptraps

Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovic cannot be a Croatian for a few simple reasons

- no clue that he ever desclared himself Croatian

- parents - obviously not of Croatian lineage

- born in Ragusa, his first and second names - Italian names (following this wisdom of "translation" of foreign names to Croatian names - I'd say: Isaac Newton - Croat Isailo Novakovic, Louis Pasteur - Croat Lujo Pastir, Max Planck - Croat Makso Plankovic etc.)

- educated, lived and worked in Italy and France in the times when Croatia did not even exist

- Ragusans, in all their history, never called themselves Croats nor they were part of any Croatia

- Croatians, as people and nation, created in the second half of 19th and 20eth centuries - long after the times of the Ruggiero's birth, life and death

- to propagate an idea of nation back to the past and applying it to people and territories who aren't part of today's nation and its territory - could lead to ridiculluous conclusions like: Archimedes was an Italian (was a native of Syracuse, Sicily), Ptolemey (of Alexandria, now in Egypt)- an Arab, Thales of Miletus (Miletus now in Turkey)- a Turk

Nationalistic point of views (justified or not), like this one, should be published only in the national part of Wikipedia

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.18.16.251 (talk • contribs) 19:58, 11 October 2005.

The first and second point are probably true. The third is nonsensical - how do you suppose the Slavonic people of Dubrovnik called him? Ruggiero Giuseppe? The fourth point is false, .hr always existed to the north. The fifth point, first part, is also false, as shown clearly by quotes in the articles about the Republic. The sixth point is utter nonsense - as a people they very well existed at the time. The seventh point is true, but I'm not sure how it is relevant here? Who exactly is claiming that he was a Croatian national? --Joy [shallot] 10:53, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Croatian alternative

I don't see a reason why should we keep the Croatian language as an alternative to his name. I will not change anything myself, at least not still. Could anyone post a reason here why to keep that info? HolyRomanEmperor 19:34, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Eh, let's play silly games here. This goes to Elephantus and to HolyRomanEmperor both, and this new user who jumped in somehow. We're not describing the official language of the Republic of Ragusa here, because in that case we would omit both Croatian and Serbian to be honest :P Ruđer Josip Bošković is his name in today's Croatian and Serbian alike, so both should be kept. --Joy [shallot] 10:45, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

In fact, the languages that are mentioned have nothing to do with the Republic of Dubrovnik. Those are the names by which he was known. Italian should get the first place, Serbian the second, and French and English should share the last place (together with Russian) I am searching for the Russian name on the net but I can't seem to find it :( It is this way that I don't understand the necessity to keep Croatian. Could you elaborate a bit more? HolyRomanEmperor 20:43, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, so you're claiming that he was known by a Serbian-language name? Among his contemporaries? And removing Croatian altogether. How is this not implying that the Ragusan Slavonic language was only Serbian?! --Joy [shallot] 10:17, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

His name was the Italian version, officially in Dubrovnik. He was only known in cyrilic Serbian to his friends and relatives. Especially his sister, Anna who writes in Slavenoserbski to him. But then again, I withdraw all my previous statements (I turned off the Greater Croatian propaganda warning radar, I guess its borken :-) HolyRomanEmperor 12:44, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I suggested that Serbo-Croatian should be instated, but that failed. I now suggest Illyrian (as the actual combination-name of the two languages) to be stated. (I was temporarely brainwashed by the nationalistic tendencies of Elephantus and Mir Harven on one side, and Nikola Smolenski and Igor on the other :P) HolyRomanEmperor 12:50, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

This should answer both of your questions: 1. Why should the Croatian name be in this article? and 2. How was he called in Russian? It's from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia:
Бошкович, Боскович (Bošković) Руджер Иосип (18.5.1711, Рагуза, ныне Дубровник, Югославия, — 13.2.1787, Милан), хорватский физик, математик и астроном. Учился в Римской коллегии, где с 1740 был профессором математики. В 1764—70 профессор...
I think we should include some of that data in this article too.. --Elephantus 18:08, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I think that we already settled that Croatian language should remain :) (What about my Illyrian reference?) If you are aiming at that Croatian, it still doesn't prove a lot of his Croatian origing (it most probably meant by his place of birth) HolyRomanEmperor 21:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Especially can be Croatian propaganda noted on the fact that Ruđer had appeared on every single Croatian dinar bill (at the times of great nationalist and hatred). HolyRomanEmperor 22:01, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Origin, Nationality, Citizenship, Ethnicity

Let me first give some facts and then I will conclude:

1. Ruđer Bošković has been born in Dubrovnik;

2. Dubrovnik was then the capital and the principal city of Dubrovnik Republic (Dubrovačka Republika);

3. He was baptized in catholic church in Dubrovnik;

4. His birth was registered, as usual, in the Birth Register held by Catholic Church;

5. Ruđer and Josip are mainly catholic names;

6. All of his brothers and sisters had Croatian catholic names [sisters: Anica, Mare, Marija & brothers: Bartol, Boško, Dominik, Ivan, Pero where Boško is after family name Bošković, although this name is also popular Serbian name. Nikola, his father's name, is as much Serbian as Croatian.];

7. He was raised in a catholic doctrine and educated in a catholic schools;

8. Finally he became a Jesuit, an ultra-ortodox catholic order;

9. Dubrovnik's speech was always Croatian;

10. This speech was used to form a standard Croatian (štokavski & ijekavski govor);

11. Continuously throughout history, Dubrovnik Republic was more or less an independent state. Sometimes Dubrovnik had to pay a substantial amount of money in gold to their neighbors (Turks, Venice, ...) for its independence and rights to trade and had to obey superiority of some neighboring empires;

12. Between Wars in the Socialist Yugoslavia Dubrovnik was in the Republic of Croatia;

13. Nowadays, Dubrovnik is in the Republic Croatia being an independent and sovereign state;

14. Dubrovnik had a huge fleet building large trade ships trading in the Adriatic and The Mediterranean;

15. Lower (or South) Herzegovina near to the Adriatic See, where his father Nikola was born in the village Orahov do (Orahov dol) was mainly inhabited with Catholics, Croats;

16. Ruđer Bošković died in France as a French citizen;

Some countries nowadays distinguish between the citizenship and nationality (ethnicity) and some don't. For instance you can be only a Frenchman although your origin and place of birth is in Algeria and you might be an ethnic Algerian.

Moreover, one can posses two or even more citizenships holding several passport at the same time. Some countries by default give all newborns their citizenship if the birth took place at their state territory. Some countries require that you withdrew previous citizenship before you are given a new one. Some countries will do it automatically if they learn that you acquire a new one.

Some territories changed possession and ruler many times. There are places and regions in today's Croatia that were once part of Austrian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Italy, Venice, Turkish Empire, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Napoleon's France etc. As rulers and authorities changed they changed legislation, citizenship, public administration, personal names, toponyms and other attributes of one nationality to become theirs. For instance, today's name Ruđer has been transformed in several ways (Rudžer, Rudjer, Roger, Ruggero, etc).

Thus, there are many factors that can influence our objective or subjective viewpoints about people's origin, citizenship, nationality or ethnicity.

Judging by only one or few attributes or characteristics one can derive various quite different conclusions. The point is that all facts should be used at the same time related and weighted one to the other as a whole.

Summing up everything, and judging from the facts given, we can freely consider Ruđer Bošković being a Croat (Dubrovnik, catholic, Jesuit, ) since Dubrovnik ethnicity doesn't exist, there is no Dubrovnik Republic nowadays, inhabitants of Dubrovnik and the region are mostly Croats and of catholic religion and they speak Croatian language.

So, there is no doubt that despite his living in Italy, England, France and traveling throughout the World, his knowledge of many languages, his mother's and father's origin, Ruđer Josip Bošković truly and factually is and should be treated as Croatian scientist, physicist, philosopher, mathematician and writer.

Martinis 17:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

All your statements summ up on one thing - he was Catholic. No one is trying to deprive him of his Catholicism, since he was among the many prominent Catholic Serbs of Lower Dalmatia. Orahov Dol was a Serbo-Croatian village that at times had Croats and then Serbs; but when his family got nobility amongst the Serbs status in 1595, the village was almost 100% Serb (because of the Ottomans) HolyRomanEmperor 13:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Dubrovnik speech was never Croatian. It was unique and close to Serbian. Ljudevit Gaj engulphed Serbdom when he forged the new Croatian language. HolyRomanEmperor 14:02, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Dubrovnik was mostly under Serbian and Bosnian influences than any other (even Hungarian was more important than Croatian) HolyRomanEmperor 14:06, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Ragusa was throughout the history from its creation to its fall to Napoleon's imperial hands either Byzantine-Serbian or Venetian-Bosnian orientated. HolyRomanEmperor 14:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

In the XIX century Dubrovnik is beaming with Serbian romanticism. Medo Pucić (Pozza, Conte Orsatto) was the most prominent and educated man of the XIX century Dubrovnik. He ran the Serbian party which won the municipality elections of 1855. in Dubrovnik and wrote beautiful songs of Ragusian Serbdom. He was the member of one of the five Noble Ragusian Serb families - The House of Pozza HolyRomanEmperor 14:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Besides, Ruggero was a member of the other of the five Serb noble families of Dubrovnik - The House of Boshko and his father, Nikola, was a Serbian nationalist. Ruđer's descendent in the XIX century, Božo Bošković was baptised Catholic, but was really never a Catholic in his life, but - returned to Orthodoxy. Božo's greatest act was to found a school for Orthodox Girls in Dubrovnik. HolyRomanEmperor 14:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Karl von Czoernig composed the ethnic structure of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1851 and in 1857 in which he claimed that the municipality of Dubrovnik was inhabitted by Serbs. HolyRomanEmperor 14:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

According to the Catholic encyclopedia and many other sources, the Catholic inhabitants of Lower Dalmatia concider themselves (mostly) as Serbs. Even the Vatican new this... HolyRomanEmperor 14:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The Pozza Serb family is among the oldest noble families of Dubrovnik (two of them were elected Princes (knez) of Dubrovnik, but only one served). The House of Resti (third that I mention) produced the Princes of Ragusa at the end of the XIV century, and remained well-known throughout the Austrian Empire to the XIX century. HolyRomanEmperor 14:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The House of Zlatarich (nobles from Serbia) was among the lesser important Ragusian nobles. HolyRomanEmperor 14:28, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

One of the most important other Catholic Serbs from Dubrovnik was Matija Ban; a man that cried for Dubrovnik's incorporation into the Serbian mileu and worked for Ilija Garašanin, because he feared of Greater Croatization. They didn't listen to him, and Dubrovnik was Croatinized entirely. HolyRomanEmperor 14:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Not to forget Balthazar Bogišić either... HolyRomanEmperor 14:46, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] War again? From the East again!? For the same borders!

... Thus little-by-little we came to the same old known position of Ilija Garašanin and the Serbian Academy of Science with their prominent members supporting the famous line across Croatia - Virovitica-Karlovac-Karlobag - that should have become the border of Great Serbia. This idea is more than 100 years old and from time to time turns to something tangable like shells, mortars and bulits (kuršumi).

Further to this we might easily have a new war coming from the East again!?

On the other hand, citizenship is usually regulated by the law.

By-the-way, there is also a theory that all the Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosniaks as they call themselves nowadays) are converted Serbs!

WHAT CRAP HAAOn the other hand proof shows 80-90% Bosnians are Croats before converting to Muslims when the Turks came.....i have never heard Bosnians being Serb....in fact if you ask them they will tell you they feel more Cro than Serb.after all they know who they are Bosniaks are Croat in originunless a Serb wrote the book BE FAIR PEOPLE, DONT LIE--------

WE ALL KNOW THAT BOSNIANS HAVE A LINK WITH CROATIA JUST LIKE THE SERBS HAVE WITH MONTE NEGRO - SAME PEOPLE UNDER A DIFFERENT TRIBE NAME - CROATS SETTLED BOSNIA

But, there are ethnic Serbs or ethnic Muslims (Bosniaks) having Croatian citizenship, and also ethnic Croats having Yugoslavian, now Serbian or Montenegrian citizenship. There are ethnic Hungarians in Romania and Croatia as there are ethnic Croats in Austria (Gradišćanski Hrvati).

Has any one heard of Serbian Jesuit or a Jesuit Serb, or even an Orthodox Jesuit!?

Nationality or ethnicity is defined at birth by parents. It might change when a person gets older and matures enough to decide by himself/herself. 99,99 % do not change and remain what their parents told them, learned them and registered them.

During censuses, conducted every 10 years, you are nowadays allowed to express your nationality or ethnicity freely. You can even be an Eskimo. But it is private and should remain confidential. If you don't publicly announce what you are than other after you path away should be entitled to derive it for various reasons such as this one, judging by all available means according to common sense, healthy reasoning and priorities accepted in certain cultures or milieu.

Ivo Andrić is by all means an ethnic Croat taking into account his birth but for various profane reasons (position in diplomacy in Belgrade, earnings, other benefits etc) he finally expressed himself as a Serb, so it be. He died as a Serb because it was his decision.

--Martinis 15:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

user:Zmaj edited the article without explaination. HolyRomanEmperor 18:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I wonder if anyone can tell what does it mean without explanation and what exactly has been edited here.
--195.172.110.172 05:59, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

That souns like fascism, Martinis. HolyRomanEmperor 18:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

One really has to know meaning of words before using them! --Martinis 11:22, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Extremely small or vastly limited minority

Jimbo Wales, Wikipedia's founder, says:

If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not.
This is very dangerous and completely unscientific and, if you wish, extremely undemocratic approach. --Martinis 09:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Consider the theory of Nicolaus Copernicus, Polish astronomer and mathematician, about the Sun as the centre of the Universe, and opposed to the traditional geocentric theory that placed Earth at the centre. He ended his life for such ideas by being burned in a cathedral since he wouldn’t revoke the theory.--Martinis 09:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
For instance, Giordano Bruno who was an Italian philosopher and astronomer has even been executed as a heretic because of his ideas against the Church doctrine on what was the centre of the Universe at that time. He was tricked and brought to the Venice and torched by the Inquisition.--Martinis 09:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
So much about an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority .... --Martinis 09:57, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

(quoted from Wikipedia:No original research)--Zmaj 08:00, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The Croatian part should be removed then, since far less people believe of his Croatian ethnicity :) HolyRomanEmperor 14:39, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Nikola Smolenski, Wikipedia's editor says:

I believe that most Serbs believe that Ivan was Serb. Ten million people is hardly extremely small or vastly limited.

Same applies for Rudjer. Nikola 14:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Observatory and streets

The page of the Belgrade astronomical society (which _is_ named after Bošković, as stated in the article) gives the name of the observatory as "Narodna opservatorija": here.

Generally, information about particular streets which are named after a person is not significant enough to merit inclusion in Wikipedia articles about the person. If it weren't so, we would have long lists of streets/cities in most articles. --Elephantus 12:28, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, however the observatory (or rather, the society) should be in. Nikola 21:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

For your information; I was at the obsrvatory; it says RUDJER BOSKOVIC. Additionally; I see no point to pu then the Croatian dinar, if you won't count streets honoured to him... And why change the languages to a worse version? HolyRomanEmperor 14:23, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm agree with HolyRomanEmperor.--200.126.135.15 16:10, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

User:Elephantus is vandalising the language section..... HolyRomanEmperor 13:14, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

what are the administrator doing? MAKE ORDER! You have to interview... and decide who have the reason!!!--200.126.135.15 16:25, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

To User:Martinis: 1) What are you talking about? and 2) are you Mladen Martinis of the Boskovic institute? HolyRomanEmperor 18:05, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

What I find most interesting is that the fact that Nikola Bošković was born Orthodox was strangely lost during this edit war... :))) HolyRomanEmperor 12:45, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Some links about the Orthodox Christianity of Rudjer's father (mysteriously deleted): Virtual library and very carefully described: Ancestry of Ruggero Boskovic. Plenty of other sources both mentioned and not mentioned previously are awaiting... HolyRomanEmperor 13:37, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Elephantus, could you please answer me just this: how the heck can you know who was inhabiting Orahov Do in 17th century? You are following anon's nonsense like it is a Holy Scripture. Nikola 07:15, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

OK Holy, now how do YOU know who was inhabiting Orahov Do in 17th century? And where have you found a reference that Boskovici were a Croatian family - a Croatian family from Rovci in Montenegro? Nikola 08:59, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

== What a joke...how can a Josip Boskovic be a Serb, so funny == maybe hes real name was Jovan hahhahahahahahahha.........some Serbs are so funny

////////////////////////////////////////// i just cant understand that Serbs want to claim a last name Boscovich (Boskovic) which is a well known Croat last name and cant be found in Serbia (unless migrating from Cro) ...........Serbs are so funny , imagine a Serb Called Josip, its just stupid to even think that.... i think under Yugoslavia he was called Yugo so in Belgrade he was honoured as that was the capital....most Serbs would admit that he is Croatian by his father and Italian by his mother....its a shame Serbs find that important .... but i guess its embarissing to have buildings named after Croats in Belgrade... I have seen this type od serbanising Croats on on websites , they have tried with John Malkovich and others ..i just dont know what they get out of it.......... ......whats next........Serbs should stop vandelising this website Relgion as proof of what origin someone is a stupid idea, Richard Gere is Jew but is a budist, he converted etc.......

[edit] User:Nikola Smolenski's edits

User:Nikola Smolenski seems to think that dubious claims can somehow be made less dubious by adding 20-30 "reference" links to argumentative articles which don't actually bother to prove any of their claims and stick instead to the "A is B because A is B" logic of explanation. Such unproven and unprovable claims are all too familiar to anyone who has bothered to read some of the Serbian propaganda in the recent history. After the claims about "Rudjer as a Serbian Catholic" of the early 1990's became too unconvincing even in the eyes of those who made them (Mitrović, Atlagić etc.) it apparently became necessary to create a fiction of a father "who had to convert to Catholicism" to marry a Catholic. That no historical source exists to verify that claim, or even the claim that Nikola Bošković was ever an Orthodox doesn't seem to bother those who think that by repeating the claim forcefully they will make it "more true". Credible sources are credible because they attempt to prove their claims, address opposite views etc. Dubrovnik wasn't a Neolithic settlement in the 17th and 18th century, so if there are documents to prove the claims made by Serbs, they should at least be described, or quoted in the works which purport to confirm his Serbian ethnicity. All the works quoted here noticeably avoid getting into any details of the "conversion", choosing instead simply to repeat it several times, just to make sure that reader has seen it. --Elephantus 13:30, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

You've both had messages from me on your talk pages, and I'm a little disappointed that you've ignored me, Elephantus; Nikola has not — he has emailed me, and others have replied to me on my talk page. However, I'm going to work with you and Nikola to arrange things on this article in a manner you are both less unhappy with.
So we have to work through this carefully. I want some ground rules here, and they are going to hinge on references. The key criteria for references are that we can simply repeat what they say. We do not have to agree with what they say. If they come from sources that are not completely maverick, then reporting what they say is ok. We can easily have sentences that do things like "Source A says X, however, Source B say Y instead". That's the key to NPOV and verifiability. We do not interpret, we do not extend, we merely report, neutrally. The best way to be neutral is to say only what is said in the source. So here is how I think we should begin: we'll start with the paragraph that Elephantus has removed in this diff, specifically the Family history section. I reproduce it here for discussion:
Boscovich (Bošković) was a Serbian[1][2] family which settled in Orahov Do in Herzegovina and spread from there under name Bošković[3], probably after Boško Stanišin Šćepanović from Rovci in Montenegro, Ruđer's great-great-grandfather[4][5]. The family used last name[1][3][6] and coat-of-arms[1][7] of noble Pokrajčić family, and so have and are considered to be a branch of Pokrajčićs[1][3]. Boscovichs maybe gained nobility on April 15, 1718, though it is possible that this is a reference to another family of the same name[1].
Now, the onus is on the person making the edit and Nikola provides sources. Clearly, Elephantus disagrees with those sources. Bearing in mind the ground rules given above, I'd invite Elephantus to list, carefully, the assertions in the article that are not backed up by the source referenced for them, and those that have no source. Note that simply disagreeing with a source's conclusions doesn't matter, since we're trying to get to neutral ground here. Elephantus, you can also, if you like, offer your own sources that disagree with the above, write some text here, on the talk page, that goes with them, of about the same length as the section removed, and then we can write a unified section presenting both points of view. Nikola, I'd appreciate it if you'd check the sources in the above to be sure they do say as you assert, and, when Elephantus writes a preferred version here, to do the same as I just described for Elephantus.
I'd like you both to not revert the article in the meantime. Doing so with a good discussion here is not the way ahead. Thanks. -Splashtalk 03:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Here is my detailed explanation of the paragraph and the references used:

Here is a translation and further explanation of used references.

Boscovich (Bošković) was a Serbian[1][2] family

[1]: Atlagic is a professor at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Pristina, and this is a work published in the faculty's magazine. In it, he says that:

Boškovići su srpska plemićka porodica čije je porijeklo iz Hercegovine - Orahov Do.[10]
Boskovics are Serbian noble family whose origin is from Herzegovina - Orahov Do.[10]

whereas [10] is:

Arhiv Srpske akademije nauka i umetnosti (ASNAU). Rukopisne knjige, br. 38, Reipublicae Ragusinae cijiusljue optimatum insigniae, str. 19. Don Josip Zovko, Bošković u selu Orahov Do, Vrela i prinosi, br. 8, Sarajevo, 1938, str. 83.

So, he has two references for the claim, the first published by SANU, but the second published in Sarajevo in 1938. Clearly, that one can't be described as a product of Serbian nationalism in the 1990s.

[2]: I don't know who Nikolis is, but he is especially interesting because he views the claims to Boskovic being a Serb negatively:

It must be admitted however, that there is one factor which proves Boskovic's Serbian roots, it is the only one, and as such it is not very convincing. Boskovic's father Nikola Boskovic was a Serb from Herzegovina. He lived in Dubrovnik. He was a rich merchant who converted to Catholicism when he married an Italian. It turns out that Boskovic is a Serb only genetically. Can genetic roots be considered a decisive factor in determining the national orientation and essence of a man, while at the same time disregarding the much stronger sociological, cultural and other nongenetic aspects?

So, he doesn't dispute at the slightest that Boskovics are a Serb family, but he maintains that Boskovic can't be called Serb because of that.

which settled in Orahov Do in Herzegovina and spread from there under name Bošković[3]

[3]: Mitrovic was a historian, who worked as assistent of history at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade, and later in the Bibliographic institute of Belgrade and in the National library of Serbia. He says that:

Преци Руђера Бошковића прво су као властела носили презиме Подкравићи односно Покрајчићи. Рано су се спустили у Попово поље, у село Орахов До или Орахово, где су се размножили као Бошковићи.
Ancestors of Rudjer Boskovic have as nobility wear surname Podkravics or Pokrajcics. They have early descended to Popovo Polje, in the village of Orahov Do or Orahovo, where they multiplied as Boskovics.

He doesn't give exact references though. He uses 210 references otherwhere in the book.

, probably after Boško Stanišin Šćepanović from Rovci in Montenegro, Ruđer's great-great-grandfather[4][5]

[4][5]: I haven't read referenced books, however they are referenced directly by Pejasinovic. He says:

Трагајући даље, Слободан Шћепановић је, на основу докумената из дубровачког архива, раније писаних дјела и сачуване усмене традиције, дошао до закључка да је Руђеров чукундједа, у ствари, Бошко Станишин Шћепановић из Роваца у Црној Гори**.
**То потврђује и В. М. Булатовић у веома исцрпној и богатој студији о Ровцима и Ровчанима.
Searching further, Slobodan Scepanovic did, based on documents from Dubrovnik archive, earlier written works and collected oral tradition, came to conclusion that Rudjer's great-great-grandfather was, actually, Bosko Stanisin Scepanovic from Rovci in Montenegro**.
**That confirms V. M. Bulatovic in his very in-depth and rich study of Rovci and Rovcans.

Montenegrins can get carried away when researching family history, but I did wrote "probably".

The family used last name[1][3][6]

[1]:

Preci čuvenog srpskog naučnika Ruđera su nosili prezime Potkravići, odnosno Potkrajčići, koji su se rano doselili u Orahov Do,[12]
Ancestors of famous Serbian scientist Rudjer, who have settled in Orahov Do early, wore last name Potkravic, or, Potkrajcic[12]

where [12] is:

[12] Hrvatski biografski leksikon, br. 2, Zagreb, 1989, str. 195; Jeremija D. Mitrović, Srpstvo Dubrovnika, Beograd, 1992, str. 124-126.

The second source is Mitrovic, however the first is clearly a product of Serbian nationalism in the 1990s - Croatian Biographical Lexicon, published in Zagreb in 1989.

[3]: this sentence I already mentioned: "Ancestors of Rudjer Boskovic have as nobility wear surname Podkravics or Pokrajcics."

[6]: Pejasinovic is a professor of history, he doesn't say where though. He writes that:

Марко Атлагић мишљење поткрепљује и тврдњом да се ''неко вријеме Руђер Бошковић, син Николин, служио печатом за печаћење својих писама на којему је био грб Покрајчића''. Атлагић се, у ствари, наслања на тврдње које је изнио најстарији Руђеров брат Божо, по којима су Бошковићи у сродству са дубровачком племићком породицом Покрајчић, чији је грб сачуван до данас. Родоначелник те српске породице, извјесни Покрајац, био је, наводно, у служби код чувеног војводе Сандаља Хранића Косаче (1392-1435), синовца и насљедника војводе Влатка Вуковића, саборца кнеза Лазара у Косовској бици. Посебно свјетло на ову причу бацају тезе по којима су се новопридошли Бошковићи у аристократском Дубровнику осјећали инфериорно, јер су их због пучког поријекла погрдно називали ''власима'' и ''влашком опутином'', те да је Руђер ''носио те трауме из дјетињства и ране младости'', па је, касније, из Италије, у ''циљу прибављања доказа о свом племићком поријеклу'', тражио од брата Боже да то питање истражи, што је овај и учинио и резултате објавио у посебној брошури на латинском језику (Pauca de familia nostra). Осим тога, било је и оних који су у, духу нациналног романтизма, потпуно неосновано за Руђера говорили да је потомак Ђурђа Бранковића или Југ Богдана и Бошка Југовића (?!).
Marko Atlagic reinforces his opinion by the claim that "for a while Rudjer Boskovic, son of Nikola, was using a seal with Pokrajcic coat-of-arms to seal his letters". Atlagic, actually, leans onto claims by the oldest Rudjer's brother Bozo, after which Boskovics are related to Dubrovnik noble family Pokrajcic, whose coat-of-arms is preserved until today. The forefather of that Serbian family, certain Pokrajac, was, supposedly, in the service of famous duke Sandalj Hranic Kosaca (1392-1435), nephew and heir of duke Vlatko Vukovic, co-fighter with Prince Lazar in the Battle of Kosovo. Special light on this story is thrown by thesis according to which newly settled Boskovics in aristocratic Dubrovnik felt inferior, as because of they common origin they were pejoratively called "Vlachs" and "Vlach [don't know how to translate]", and so Rudjer "had these traumas from his childhood and early youth", and so, later, from Italy, in the "goal of gaining evidence of his nobility", he asked his brother Bozo to explore that question, which he did and published his results in a special brochure in Latin language (Pauca de familia nostra). Except that, there were those who have, in the spirit of national romantism, completely unfoundedly claimed for Rudjer that he is descendant of Djuradj Brankovic or Jug Bogdan and Bosko Jugovic (?!).

He doesn't reference the source of this though he has 21 general references (including Atlagic and Mitrovic but they don't mention this). So, what is clear so far is that Boskovics had last name Potkravic or Potkrajcic before settling in Orahov Do; and that later they themselves claimed that they are the same Pokrajcics as the Dubrovnik noble family. Even if they were not correct in regard to this, it is undisputed all the time that the family claimed that it has Serbian roots.

and coat-of-arms[1][7] of noble Pokrajčić family

[1]:

Što se tiče grba Boškovića, najvjerovatnije je da su se u početku služili grbom Pokrajčića, s njim se vjerovatno služio Božo Pokrajčić, otac Nikolin.[15]
As for the coat-of-arms of Boskovics, it is most probable that in the beginning they used coat-of-arms of Pokrajcic, it was most probably used by Bozo Pokrajcic, Nikola's father.[15]
[15] Željko Marković, Ruđer Bošković, Zagreb, 1968, str. 14. Neko vrijeme se Ruđer Bošković, sin Nikolin, služio pečatom za pečaćenje svojih pisama na kojemu je bio grb Pokrajčića.
Željko Marković, Ruđer Bošković, Zagreb, 1968, pg. 14. For a while Rudjer Boskovic, son of Nikola, was using a seal with Pokrajcic coat-of-arms to seal his letters.

[7] is the reference used by Atlagic, so I referenced it directly, as well as Atlagic's commentary on it.

and so have and are considered to be a branch of Pokrajčićs[1][3].

I already mentioned this.

Boscovichs maybe gained nobility on April 15, 1718, though it is possible that this is a reference to another family of the same name[1].

[1]:

Kada su stvarno Boško-vići dobili plemstvo, teško je utvrditi, najvjerovatnije da su ga kao Pokrajčići dobili 1595. godine, pa i ranije,[16] i da je na osnovu toga plemstvo i grb dobila porodica Bošković 15.4.1718. godine. Ta podjela plemstva upisana je u LIBER REGIUS, br. 27, str. 49.[17] Teško je pak reći na kojeg se Boškovića taj podatak odnosi, i da li se uopšte odnosi na ovu porodicu Bošković.
When exactly have Boskovics gained nobility is hard to determine, most probably as Pokrajcics they got it in 1959, or even earlier,[16] and that on the basis of that nobility and coat was got by the Boskovic family on April 15 1718. That gain of nobility is written in LIBER REGIUS, no. 27, pg. 49.[17] It is hard to say to which Boskovic that data applies, and is it this Boskovic family.

Reference [16] and footnote [17] are:

[16] Ivan pl. Bojničić, Der Adel, 149.
[17] Bojničić navodi da je plemstvo podjeljeno Georgu Boškoviću (možda Đuri - Ruđeru). Teško je utvrditi na kojeg se Boškovića to odnosi.
[17] Bojnicic says that nobility is given to Georg Boskovic (maybe Djura - Rudjer). It is hard to determine to which Boskovic this refers to.

If Atlagic is some mythomaniac, he would likely accept the data about Boskovic's nobility uncritically. Yet he doesn't.

Rudjer's father Nikola Bošković came from Orahov Do to Dubrovnik at the end of 18th century as a trader[3]

[3]:

Из овог херцеговачког српског села крајем XVIII века дошао је у Дубровник ради трговине и Руђеров отац Никола, син Бошка Бошковића и Дамјане. Као трговац брзо се истакао, у Дубровнику се оженио Италијанком по оцу досељеном из Италије, са којом је изродио више деце.
From this Serbian village in Herzegovina at the end of XVIII century came to Dubrovnik for trade Rudjer's father Nikola, son of Bosko Boskovic and Damjana. As a trader he quickly excelled, in Dubrovnik he married an Italian by father settled from Italy, with whom he had several children.
where he converted to Roman Catholicism[6][8]

[6] (by the way, I have just now noticed that Pejasinovic also says that his mother was noble too):

Руђеров отац се морао одрећи вјере предака и, ''према устаљеним обичајима'', прећи на католички обред
Rudjer's father had to give up his ancestors' faith and, "after the common custom", convert to catholic rite.

[8]: Aleksandar Tomić is an astrophysicist, who researches on Boskovic for more than 30 years and has published five works on him. This is his answer to a reader's letter, and it is interesting because he, similar to Nikolis, doesn't dispute at all Boskovic's Serbian origin, but concludes that "Rudjer Boskovic is a citizen of Europe"; clearly, he is no Serbian nationalist.

Otac Ruđera Boškovića se morao pokrstiti (pokatoličiti) u Dubrovniku da bi imao pravo da bude samostalni trgovac.
Father of Rudjer Boskovic had to baptise (catholicise) himself in Dubrovnik so that he would have the right to be an independent trader.

I shall also translate his introductory paragraph:

Na Vaše pitanje povodom nepotpisanog (!) komentara teksta kojim se prebacuje gospodinu Dragi I. Dragoviću pripisivanje nepostojeće nacionalnosti Srbo-Hrvat Ruđeru Boškoviću, mogao bih kratko odgovoriti rečima Ernesta STIPANIĆA, mog prijatelja i velikog poznavaoca života i dela Ruđera Boškovića, čiju knjigu inače citira g. Dragović, izrečenih na promociji zbornika “Filozofija znanosti Ruđera Boškovića”, odrzanoj 17. XII 1987. u Beogradu, u dvorani “Bartol Kasic”. Izrečene su kao zamerka hrvatskim kolegama istraživačima dela R. Boškovića, a glase: “Zašto insistirate da je Ruđer Bošković Hrvat, kada je on Srbin katolik, kao što sam to i ja.?“
To your question regarding unsigned (!) comment of the text which [the comment] is shunning mister Drago I. Dragovic for subscribing inexistant nationality Serbo-Croat to Rudjer Boskovic, I could answer shortly with words of Ernest Stipanic, my friend and great researcher of life and work of Rudjer Boskovic, whose book is cited by mr. Dragovic, which were said at the promotion of the collection "Philosophy of science of Rudjer Boskovic", which took place on December 17 1987 in Belgrade, in the hall "Bartol Kasic". They were said as a complaint to Croatian colleagues who research the work of R. Boskovic, and they are: "Why do you insist that Rudjer Boskovic is a Croat, when he is Serb Catholic, as I am?"
and married Paula Bettera from Italy[3].

[3]: already mentioned. Nikola 08:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Nikola. So, Elephantus, what you should do now, I think, is say where the things Nikola claims can be cited from these sources cannot be either because of (a)factual inaccuracy in quoting the source or (b)the text of the source does not back the claim made about what the source says. We must stay away from judging whether what the source says is something we agree with or not. We may need to recast the paragraph in terms of "Source A says that the family is noble [ref]". Do you see what I mean. I'm glad there've been no reversion on the article today. -Splashtalk 00:21, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
First, I'd like to remind you of the following paragraph in Wikipedia:Verifiability:
Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. For academic subjects, the sources should preferably be peer-reviewed. Sources should also be appropriate to the claims made: outlandish claims beg strong sources.
The problems with the sources Mr. Smolenski uses here may not be obvious at first glance, but a more throrough examination reveals some:
  • Marko Atlagic, whose "paper" on heraldry of several "Serbian" noble families of Dubrovnik is one of the key sources relied upon by Mr Smolenski is, besides being a historian by profession (and a "university professor of history"), also a Serbian politician, a member or a sympathizer of the nationalist Serbian Radical Party and an active participant in the Serbian-Croatian war of the early 1990's. He was a minister in the government of the Serbian breakaway statelet of "Krajina" (Republic of Serbian Krajina which tried to secede from Croatia) and is also a "minister" in the recently formed "Government of Serbian Krajina in exile". The "University of Pristina" of which Mr Atlagic is and was a professor wasn't really known for its high academic standards, but was somewhat infamous for the fact that Albanians, who made up more than 80% of the population of Pristina and the province of Kosovo, boycotted the University and that most of the Albanian staff was driven out or left in the early 1990's. The work itself fails to address or even acknowledge the fact that none of the "Serbian families" it mentions were ever considered Serbian before its publication, being usually thought of as Dubrovnik families (except in the works of extreme nationalists, like Jeremija D. Mitrović below). I have checked the reference to Don Josip Zovko's 1938 article and it simply mentions the Boskovic's origins in the village of Orahovi Do, without mentioning their "Serbdom" in any way.
  • A small article by Gojko Nikolis cited here by Mr. Smolenski is in fact a _book review_ (the book itself, "One Hundred Most Famous Serbs" is known for unselectively including several Croats and Bosniaks under "Serbs"). It is clear from the context of the article that Nikolis is simply paraphrasing the book and giving a comment on its contents, not endorsing the claims it makes or confirming their merit.
  • Jeremija D. Mitrovic's work "The Serbdom of Dubrovnik" which Mr Smolenski cites here includes passages like: "Srbi kao celina danas nemaju preči problem od problema suzbijanja velikohrvatske genocidne pomame: oni nipošto ne smeju da dočekaju novu buru bez dobrog osiguranja od tog velikohrvatskog naleta u znaku smrti za Srbe." (Serbs as a whole have no more pressing problem today than suppresing the Greater Croatian genocidal lust: they must not face the new storm without securing themselves against that Greater Croatian onslaught which is marked by the death it brings to Serbs.). The whole work is marked by anti-Croatian sentiment which borders on paranoia. It is clearly not suitable as a source.
  • Work by Zoran Pejasinovic, a high-school teacher of history in Banja Luka, published on the web site of "Arhimed - The society for popularization of science" with the seat in the Banja Luka high-school could hardly be called a reliable source. It also fails to give a specific source for the "conversion to Catholicism" story, a recent invention.
  • Mr Aleksandar Tomic may be a noted astrophysicist who studied Boskovic's scientific work but his credibility on the topic of Boscovic's ethnicity is called into question when one reads his mentioning of "Serbian Catholics" in the reply referenced by Mr. Smolenski. "Some Croats are in fact Serbian Catholics" was and is a watchword of many extreme Serbian nationalists, most notably Vojislav Šešelj, the leader of Serbian Radical Party, currently in detention of the Hague tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. Also, Mr Tomic's somewhat angry reply was published in the Q&A section of a web site which could hardly be considered a reliable reference. Like Pejasinovic, Mr Tomic doesn't care to elaborate on his key argument, that of the alleged "conversion into Catholicism", choosing instead to simply repeat it as if it weren't an invention of the 1990's but a well established fact not needing explanations.
--Elephantus 01:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Elephantus' response consists almost entirely of ad hominems directed towards authors of sources I used, and even so, doesn't disclaim them all (especially those about his origin from Rovci). Furthermore, he doesn't provide any reference to back his claims that Boskovic's Serbian origin is product of Serbian nationalism in the 1990s, or any alternative views on his origin (while many Croatian sources will say with ease that Boskovic is great Croatian astronomer/mathematician, I have never encountered any which details his origin).

  • While University of Pristina really isn't known for its high standards, the fact that Atlagic is a minister in the Government of RSK only proves his capability. Additionally, we see that in his paper he has critical attitude towards references he uses and doesn't accept them outright. It is not true at all that none of the families it mentions were ever considered Serbian before its publication: they were commonly considered Serbian, by Serbian and foreign sources; as examples I can show article on Ivan Gundulic in 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica and the book Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations (New York, 1850), and neither of them is work of a Serbian nationalist or a Serb at all.
  • The article isn't particulary small and, luckily, is in English, and so everyone can read it and see that Nikolis is not paraphrasing the book in it. He simply criticises authors for have included Boskovic solely on the criteria of his origin - apparently, book authors had different criteria than Nikolis or Elephantus.
  • Mitrovic's book was published in 1992; three years later, in 1995, practically all Serbs who lived in Croatia were ethnically cleansed from it during Operation Storm. It turns out that Mitrovic's warning was justified.
  • Even if Pejasinovic would be a highschool teacher (and he's not, he's professor) of history, that makes him more qualified to write about history than Elephantus or me. His work doesn't give a specific source for anything it claims, but that is because it lists used references at the bottom. Elephantus fails to give any reference that conversion of Rudjer's father to catholicism is a story, or a recent invention.
  • Vojislav Seselj also said that the sky is blue, yet I don't see Elephantus rewriting article on sky to point out that it is, in fact, red. Serbian Catholics have existed and do exist, as we see in this article where Tomic quotes one of them self-identifying as such (and, logically, some Croats are Serbian Catholics by origin, as likely are some Americans). Tomic doesn't elaborate on any of his arguments, which is understandable for an answer to a reader's comment (which is neither angry nor in Q&A section of a web site; Astronomija is a magazine devoted to Astronomy, and astronomija.co.yu is the website of the magazine, and this is an article from the on-line archive of the magazine, in the section "discussions"). While Tomic's primary occupation is astrophysics, his obviously great interest in Boskovic makes him a reliable authority, and this is further strengthened by the fact that he is not nationalist, as his conclusion that Boskovic should be considered as "Citizen of Europe".

Nikola 07:49, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I recommend to Mr Smolenski a trip to a well-stocked library. Especially worthy is a two-volume biography of Bošković, "Ruđe Bošković" by Željko Marković, Zagreb 1968. Don Josip Zovko's 1938 work indirectly cited by Mr Smolenski himself is also a valuable read. Another book which deserves Mr Smolenski's attention is "Proceedings of the International Symposium on Ruđer Bošković, Dubrovnik, 5th-7th October 1987", in particular the two papers dealing with Bošković's genealogy, by J. V. Velnić and M. Sivrić & N. Vekarić. One should also acquire, when wishing to contribute seriously to Wikipedia, an ability to distinguish between works of propaganda intended primarily for "domestic consumption" of the target audience, and serious scholarly work. It's not very difficult and serves one very well when contributing to controversial topics. Sadly, it's a skill some Wikipedians sorely lack. --Elephantus 08:31, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Elephantus, you seem mainly to be being critical of Nikola Smolenski's intelligence. Stay away from such commentary, please. Do you have on offer an alternative version of the disputed material, based on the sources you offer above? Simply reverting (with a misleading edit summary) doesn't count as constructive dialogue. Next time anyone does so, I am going to hand them a block, so I'd like very much to see useful dialogue here. I had hoped that, once things got started, they would carry themselves. Clearly, that is not really the will of the parties here. You've clearly got some good sources in the paragraphs above. How would they justify writing the disputed material, including citations? It is hard for me to guess their contents. I'd encourage to write a paragraph or two that tries, in good-faith, to present both points of view neutrally by simply saying who says what in which source. -Splashtalk 13:40, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
The National library of Serbia doesn't have any of the books, so I doubt that any library accessible to me would have. However, if they say that claims of Boskovic's Serbian origin start with Vojislav Seselj, perhaps I shouldn't bother anyway.
I'll try to contact Pejasinovic himself and see if he could shed some additional light upon this. Nikola 09:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, here's the summary of what I read about Bošković's paternal ancestors (which is the main point of dispute here):

Bošković's paternal ancestors' home was the village of Orahovi Do, on the western edge of Popovo polje in southeastern Herzegovina, a few kilometers from the border of the Dubrovnik (Ragusan) Republic. In the period concerned (17th and 18th century) the village was in the territory of the Ottoman Empire. The villagers were exclusively Roman Catholic throughout its known history (it belonged to the Roman Catholic parish of the neigbouring larger settlement of Ravno, which was in turn a part of the R-C Trebinje-Mrkan diocese). Several Ottoman censuses and diocesan visitation reports confirm that all of its inhabitants remained R-C during the Turkish reign. The family name Bošković is first mentioned in the area in the midle of the 16th century and the family was apparently one of the more numerous in Orahovi Do, with several local land features (valleys, fields) named after it. Contrary to what most Serbian sources claim, Ruđer's paternal grandfather Boško had the same surname as his son and Ruđer's father Nikola (Bošković) and there are no historical records of him being a recent immigrant to the village or changing religions, or of his son Nikola changing his surname to the patronymic Bošković. A legal document composed by a Dubrovnik notary public in 1690 in which Boško Bošković grants his son Nikola Bošković formal legal independence (required for marriage) survives to this day.

Ruđer's father Nikola was apprenticed to a Dubrovnik trader (Rado Gleđević) at an early age. This means that Nikola wasn't the first son of Boško, or he would have stayed in Orahovi Do and worked the family plot. Indeed, historical sources suggest (but don't definitely confirm) that Boško had five sons and that Nikola was the fourth. The fifth brother may have later become a Catholic priest in Orahovi Do (Ilija Bošković).

The young trader Nikola Bošković, like most Dubrovnik traders, frequently traveled inland to Novi Pazar and its wider surroundings in what is today southwestern Serbia, northern Montenegro and western Kosovo. He dictated an account of these travels to an Italian Jesuit, Filippo Riceputi, who was collecting sources for what would latter become the history of the Catholic (and Christian in general) Church in Illyricum, "Illyricum Sacrum". In his story, told in the first person, (quoted extensively in the work "Ruđe Bošković" by Željko Marković, mentioned above) Nikola describes palaces and monasteries of the old Rascian state and their contemporary condition. He says that most of the churches there are deserted or run by "schismatic" priests (Orthodox). He also laments on the sorry state of the Catholic ecclesiastical network in the area, mentioning that the few Catholic churches remaining in the province are those built by the Hungarian king Janos Hunyadi several centuries before. He describes the religious practices of the local Slavic population saying that they revere St. Sava (the most well-known Serbian saint today) whom they consider a saint, but that Sava's sainthood is rejected by the "Greeks of that same faith", and Nikola himself says that Sava "apparently wasn't a saint". Nikola also describes some of his shopping, saying that he bought two relics from an Ottoman official who had plundered an Orthodox church: a piece of the True Cross and an alleged finger of St. Sava, but also notes that he discarded the finger as worthless (the piece of the Cross was later found in the heritage of Ruđer's eldest brother Božo and donated by his sister Anica to the Jesuit monastery in Dubrovnik).

One year before his marriage to Paula Bettera Nikola is invited to join the notable Dubrovnik Lazarine brotherhood (vote was 17-8) which indirectly proves that he was a Catholic of good standing at the time. On several occasions during his travels he performed some public services for the Republic, also an indirect proof that he could have hardly been anything else other than a Catholic.

After his marriage to Paula Bettera (no historical sources on any alleged "conversion" exist) Nikola settled down in Dubrovnik. He suffered from health problems for much of his married life and the family's financial condition wasn't particulary good (but it wasn't too bad either, witnessed by the fact that Nikola bought a nice house in town and another fine villa in the vicinity of Dubrovnik for the family to spend summers in). He was buried in the Dubrovnik's Franciscan Church, another sign of his close ties to the Catholic hierarchy.

Much was made by the Serbs of Ruđer Bošković's alleged noble ancestors, the Pokrajčićs (Podkravićs). Pokrajčićs were, according to the sources I checked, a medieval Bosnian family (thus, not Serbian) which held a royal fief in the Lašva valley in central Bosnia (villages Pokrajčići and Podkraj still exist there). Their nobility was recognized in Dubrovnik, where they had settled later. Boškovići of Orahovi Do apparently had a family legend of being descended from the central Bosnian Pokrajčići, and Ruđer himself, never being too modest, appropriated the family coat of the Dubrovnik Pokrajčići and used it as his own several times during European travels, something which he probably wouldn't have been allowed to do in his home-town. Ruđer wrote to his brother Božo several times asking him to try and find out more about this potential noble connection, hoping it could be helpful in gaining favour with the French king, but Božo failed to respond, stating finally in a letter that he had found no proof whatsoever of this family story being true.

A final mention of Orahovi Do in the life of the Bošković family happened in 1804, the year Ruđer's youngest sister Anica died, being the last of her family (all the brothers and sisters died unmarried or childless). In her testament she left a sum of money to "our cousin Nikola Bošković in Orahovi Do". --Elephantus 16:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

What Elephantus wrote is mostly true, and undisputed. But there are some things which are not.
Nikola Boskovic has indeed settled to Dubrovnik from Orahov Do. While I believe to Elephantus that the village probably was a part of Trebinje-Mrkan diocese, that alone doesn't tell us that is was Catholic; Recently, Catholic Church split Russia into dioceses, and I doubt that anyone will claim that Russia is a Catholic country. The village is considered Serbian because it was part of Hum, which was a Serbian state; additionally, it was settled from Montenegro; additionally, in the vicinity of the village is (was?) Orthodox monastery Zavada.
It seems that it is not true that Nikola's father was Bosko. According to S. Popovic, whom I am reading right now, that very same document actually says that Nikola's father's name was Matijas.
Why is this important? It is important because some Croatian historians have posited (which Elephantus doesn't) that Boskovics have took the last name after Nikola's father, and so the family did not have the last name Boskovic when it settled to Orahov Do, but some other last name. But I see that Elephantus agrees that Boskovics had that last name while living in Orahov Do so apparently exact name of Rudjer's grandfather is not the issue here.
And why is this important? It is important because, if the family had the last name Boskovic when it settled to Orahov Do, then other branches of Boskovics, who have not moved from Orahov Do to Dubrovnik, but to somewhere else, are branches of the same family, and not of some other family which has the same name.
And this is important because that family has family tradition according to which they ultimately originate from Montenegro and that tradition is considered reliable because there are branches of the family which are now completely separated but have the same tradition. Additionally, this is strengthened by tradition in Rovci in Montenegro which claims that some of them have moved to Popovo (in which is Orahov Do), in the period which is consistent with tradition of Boskovics themselves, and the fact that the families celebrate the same slava.
If Nikola was of Catholic faith, regardless of whether he was a recent convert or not, he would have to describe Orthodox priests as schismatics and denounce their saints, so that alone tells us nothing. It is not true that he discarded the finger, a Catholic priest to whom he gave it did. Popovic repeats that Nikola was Orthodox and converted, and quotes a secondary source which says so, but I couldn't find a reference to a primary source.
It is true that Boskovics claimed that they originate from Pokrajcics, apparently in an attempt to raise their family status, which indeed seems not to be true, though the families might be related.
However, while I believe to Elephantus that Rudjer's brother did wrote to Rudjer that he can't verify their origin, he did not wrote so to other people; as mentioned, he wrote a book in which he claims that the family originate from Pokrajcics; and in that book, according to S. Scepanovic, he wrote that "Our great-grandfather decided about our last name, by taking the father's name as the last name, as is customary in Serbian people." Nikola 09:02, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:3RR

I'd like to refer the main editors of this article to WP:3RR. Just a friendly heads up. Copysan 07:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Warring

The part that many Serbian nationalists claim that Rudjer Boskovic was a Serb requires a source. Also, it says that Vojislav Seselj had claimed that Rudjer was a Serb. It also requires a source. Finally, it deleted numerious links and information (not regarding his ethnicity). It removed a chunk of Rudjer's legacy and a lot of info on his early years.

I am reverted to the last sane version - long before the edit war of the two warring sides: User:Nikola_Smolenski and User:Elephantus. I wish to note that I do not support/endorse any of the two versions, but I suggest that the two leave the page as it is and work out everything at the talk page (here!) before making any rash changes. I hereby thank the two parties in advance and beg them not to make me ask for the page to be locked. --HolyRomanEmperor 13:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I already noted a discrepancy between your nationalistic edits and your "internationalistic" rhetoric and I'm glad to see I wasn't mistaken. --Elephantus 20:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Well... At least someone's talking... :S I give up... AMA incomming... --HolyRomanEmperor 21:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] some more sources

Now, will somebody say what is wrong with these three sources:

I don't understand why anyone views these sources as nationalistic? --HolyRomanEmperor 22:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and this one:

--HolyRomanEmperor 22:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

The art of fact checking has come a long way since 1911, as witnessed in the more recent editions of Britannica. Sadly, it hasn't spread to every corner of Southeastern Europe. --Elephantus 22:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I looked at an earlier version of Britannica. It as well mentions him Croatian. I guess they can't make a decision. :D
Besides, that's one. What about the other three? --HolyRomanEmperor 16:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
The art of fact checking has come a long way indeed if they can write that Boskovic is Serbo-Croatian astronomer, of Croatian father and Italian mother. Sadly, it is a long way backwards. Nikola 09:44, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

You can see diff between my previous version and this one at [1]. Photographs of relevant pages from referenced books are at [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6]. Nikola 14:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Genealogy"

As I see, Serbian users (and "users") are-as expected- obsessed with all things Croatian. This time a mathematician, physicist and astronomer Bošković. Let me repeat:

1. Bošković's activity had had nothing to do with anything Serbian-both in his times or later.

2. Bošković's national affiliation is hard to ascertain in modern terms, since during his life Dubrovnik was a city republic with predominantly "Slovin" or "Illyrian" quasi-national loyalties, which had two basic meanings: all-Slavic (so, ""Slovins" had been termed all Slavs from Czechs to Russians) and specifically Croatian (this appellation appears, for instance, before, during and after Bošković's life in numerous written works: dictionaries and poems, for instance: Mikalja's dictionary (1651.), which identifies "Illyrian, Slovin" with "Croatian (Hrrvat, Hrrivat"), poems of Mavro Vetranović in 1600s and Bernard Stulli's "Rječosložje" (1809.-1811.), an 80.000 words dictionary, where this Ragusan philologist again identifies "Illyrians" with "Croats"). In the 17th and the 18th century no one had "tied" Serbian ethnic affiliation to the city of Dubrovnik, Illyrian or Slovin name-until early Slavic philologists's efforts around 1800., which lead to the confusion that was clumsily (and temporarily) "resolved" with the Serbo-Croatian tribal ideology. This mess, artificially created in the 1st half of the 19th century, had been one of the foci of interest of the Slovene philologists Matija Murko, a professor at the Prague Charles university, who in his voluminous monograph on the Reformation in South Slavic lands, "Die Bedeutung der reformation...", 1924.,Prague, has admitted that all research on the meaning of the Illyrian name points that is was, along with Slovin, used interchangeably for Croatian ethnic affiliation-and no other national affiliation whatsoever. Since Bošković stems from the cultural milieu where "Slovin" and "Illyrian" was- when ethnicity, not a supra-national ideology is concerned-used to designate Croatian identity in the modern sense, there is no point in debating much further. Contemporary Croats could have borne the name of "Illyrians" (hence the name of the Croatian national awakening movement) or "Slovins"-and this would have changed nothing, since both terms encompass the same group of people.

3. as for folksy "genealogy"-there are no historical records that would seriously connect Bošković's ethnic background with Serbian identity as it existed in the 18th century. Here is another part of a slippery equation: if one is Eastern Orthodox "in these parts", he's of necessity Serbian; if one is a speaker of štokavian dialect-whatever the denomination-he's also Serbian. Both "equations" are incorrect. An Eastern Orthodox could have been Greek, Vlach, Romanian, Gypsy, Serbian, Montenegrin, Albanian,..., while the štokavian-dialect mess has been discussed elsewhere. More-there is no verifiable record that Bošković's father was ever an Eastern Orthodox adherent. Even more- if this had been so, it's hardly relevant to the national affiliation issue: for instance, Croatian writer August Šenoa was of German, Slovak and Czech extraction, with no Croatian ethnic roots whatever, and is solely and definitely Croatian, not any other nation's writer. Nationality is identity, not heredity. And in this case, heredity has been debated on and visibly distorted beyond recognition. Bošković's identity was Illyrian or Slovin, which in the case of national affiliation of the times, meant exclusively Croatian appellation. Mir Harven 09:43, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Trollitis serbica chronica

Serbian users (if they are not simply trolls) should try to prove their agenda on this page, if they had got arguments. Otherwise, the page can only be unceremoniously revereted. As for the folksy "genealogy" efforts re Bošković's nationality-this is a quasi-racial view based on unverified data. See above & comment if you got any arguments. Mir Harven 13:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

But can you give some sources? Elephantus wrote that part on Vojislav Seselj out of shere frustration because of his edit war. Could you provide sources that Vojislav Seselj ever said such a thing? Also, this version doesn't have sources, compared to the previous one... --HolyRomanEmperor 18:11, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

The source is: Vojislav Šešelj, "Ideologija srpskog nacionalizma: naučno i publicističko delo prof. dr Laze M. Kostića" ("Ideology of Serbian nationalism: the scientific and publicistic work of prof. dr Laza M. Kostić), published by Velika Srbija, Belgrade, 2002., ISBN 86-83451-22-4

I have reverted to my original version after digging through most of the published material on the matter in the last month or so (primarily that published before the nationalistic outbursts in 1991 and after). Nikola's version appears to include an almost verbatim translation of one of his sources (Šćepanović, apparently), who, instead of researching Bošković family history in a serious manner, chiefly concerns himself with folk tales, never bothering to cite historical sources to support his claims (a similar problem appears, sadly, in all Serbian works on this topic). There are many conflicting folk-tale accounts of the whole story of origins of Bošković. None of them is corroborated by serious historical evidence (indeed, such substantiation is not attempted by the authors). Wikipedia is a place for verifiable information. I repeat: there is not a iota of historical evidence for the Orthodox origins of Ruđer Bošković's paternal ancestors. There are volumes of evidence that his paternal ancestors were Catholic. This is acknowledged by serious fact-checking publications such as Encyclopedia Britannica, Great Soviet Encyclopedia and the rest. Sadly, Serbs as a collective apparently find it hard to relinquish some of their myths. --Elephantus 19:18, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah, excellent work, Elephantus! :-) We only now how to little NPOV-ise the article some more. --HolyRomanEmperor 19:57, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

No one can obviously make it correct. Elephantus, I beg you not to see everything so one-sided and POV. The sources were quoted, and you're only interested in biased statements of Vojislav Seselj. But what about the Virtual Library, those scanned pages of researches (long before the rise of Vojislav Seselj's movements). I saw that you inserted heavily biased sources on History of Bosnia and Herzegovina: the famous nationalist-biased Hercegbosna site.

Hmm...I'm not certain I understood this correctly. If this user refers to the site http://www.hercegbosna.org, it would be interesting to see the arguments purporting to corroborate his statement. The above referred Web page is the most comprehensive site on Bosnia and Herzegovina, literally packed with info from the most authoritative (and, internationally recognized) Croatian historians, linguists, ethnologists, culturologists, sociologists, geographers, writers etc. A few names will suffice: Radoslav Katičić, Nada Klaić, Neven Budak, Mladen Ančić, Ivan Aralica, Tomislav Raukar,Dominik Mandić,Miro Kačić, Slaven Letica, Eduard Hercigonja,Dušan Bilandžić, Lujo Margetić...I guess this is enough. Mir Harven 08:44, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

How can you judge even than in these cases? It seems like what you're saying is bluntly: Croatian means correct, Serbian means wrong.

I would ask you to follow a little more of wikipedia's policies of WP:NPOV. Please also read WP:POV.

I'm going to put a tag until someone can address this with proper care (maybe you, if you NPOV-ise yourself? (like I did a long time ago)). Cheers. --HolyRomanEmperor 18:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that a full-scale consensus is orchestrated between... say... User:Elephantus and User:Nikola_Smolenski. A mediation, if not possible, but the edit warring on this article is starting to infect the rest of good ol' wikipedia. --HolyRomanEmperor 18:34, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Nikola's version of the article is a nicely wrapped piece of Serbian nationalism. On the talk page of this article on the German Wikipedia I've found a list of English- and German-language reference books which mention Bošković's origin or ethnicity as wholly or partly Croatian:
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Der Grosse Brockhaus (Great Brockhaus, a well known German encyclopedia)
Diccionario historico de la Compania de Jesus. 4. Bd., Rome/Madrid 2001.
Baugert, W.: A History of the Society of Jesus. St Louis 1976.
MacDonnell, J.: Jesuit Geometers. St Louis 1989.
O'Malley, J.W. et al. (ed.): The Jesuits. Cultures, Sciences and the Arts, 1540-1773. Toronto 1999.
Whyte, L.L. (ed.): Roger John Boscovich SJ, FRS, 1711-1787. Studies of his Life and Work. 1961.
Gill, H. V.: Roger Boscovich SJ, Forerunner of Modern Physical Theories. Dublin 1941.
To this I can add the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (which says he was Croatian) and the Catholic Encyclopedia (Dalmatian). Add to this the fact that none of the Serbian "historians" have bothered to substantiate their claims of Bošković's origin with historical evidence, and the picture is, I think, pretty clear. --Elephantus 22:21, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

To which must be added: the falsity on Bošković's extraction is, even if it were the truth, a marginal issue, essentially a footnote. Nationality is not heredity. Probably those obsessed with genealogy should consult modern works on the national issues. Someone whose physics worldview ends with a steam-engine can hardly be considered an authority on lasers. Mir Harven 23:26, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Well then

Perhaps you're right, Mir. Nationality, after all, means nothing. The current descendents of the Kotromanić dynasty are ethnic Croats, while Tvrtko was proud of his Serbian ancestors.

Tvrtkovi "srpski predci" se svode na neku babu Nemanjićku koja se udala za hrvatskog kneza Kačića, koliko se sjećam. To je njegova srpska genealogija. Jedna baba. Tu je jedan od začetaka srpske tradicije u kojoj nam uvaljuju ženske (Starčević, Krleža, Tito, Krklec, ....). Ne postoji bez razloga pojam "srpski zet".Mir Harven 19:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Ustvari, imao je dvije babe srpkinje, ali ta koju si pomenuo je preko njegove hrvatske majke, i nije ona presudna. :D Zena Kotromanova i majka Stepana II Kotromanica je cerka Stefana Dragutina, Jelisaveta. No, ako je to covjeku dovoljno da se ponosi, pusti ga. --HolyRomanEmperor 00:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Neka mu je, čovjek voli svoje babe. Usput, provjerit ćemo te bapce. Mir Harven 12:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Ivo Andrić was an ethnic Croat, but a Serb, rather than Croat. The Montenegrin constitution & national anthem express Serbian ethnicity (as it did throughout the history), but they are now (partly) Montenegrins. And I do not want even to get near the controversies over Muslims by nationality/Bosniaks.

Elephantus, what does the Catholic encyclopedia have to do with that if it calls him Dalmatian? I agree that Nikola's version is NPOV, but the problem is that so is yours.

Mir, the only reason why I reacted like this is because I can't understand why is this so much cherished in Serbia.

Pa, vole ga Srbi, šta ti ga ja znam...Mir Harven 19:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Ne, ne, ne, vola ga SrbiJANCI. --HolyRomanEmperor 00:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

One time I was visiting Belgrade and saw almost 50 of research by the heirs of the practical "Cult of Rudjer Josif Boskovic". I'm just trying to say that Serbian Astronomy didn't exist before him, and he was it's conceiver.

Ne vjerujem da on ima izravne veze s tim. To je dovedeno u vezu s njim post festum. Mir Harven 19:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Ali kako objasnjujes cinjenicu da je Astronomija kod Srba prije njega bila nepostojeca? --HolyRomanEmperor 00:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Bila je i s njim nepostojeća. Ljudi su imali prječega posla u pregananju s Turcima. Kakva astronomija, kakvi bakrači. Mir Harven 12:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

For the Serbian history of science that evolved through almost 200 years, culminating with Rudjer, then Stevan P. Bošković, Milan Popović, Svetimir Ristić, Đorđe P. Natošević, Jan Dubovi, Ivan and Ilija Milošević, Tatomir P. Anđelić, Milan Nedeljković and Vojislav V. Mišković.

Ne vidim da je Ruđer Bošković utemeljitelj astronomije kod Srba, jer u 19. stoljeću oni razvijaju astronomiju po njemačkim i francuskim uzorima. A da i jest-Hrvat Josip/f Pančić je prvi predsjednik SKA (Akademije), pa što to znači ? Da je time automatski Srbin ?Mir Harven 19:43, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Jest, ali on je dao onaj kljucni push. ;) --HolyRomanEmperor 00:37, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
To bi morao argumentirati prikazom povijesti astronomije kod Srba, ali ne politizirane. Da vidimo tko je počeo, kako, pod čijim utjecajem itd. Mir Harven 12:55, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
Mada, los ti je primjer. Odabrao si pravog Srbina. :-D --HolyRomanEmperor 00:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
I cannot believe that thurrow studies like the Development of Astronomy among Serbs II, Edited by M. S. Dimitrijević, Publications of the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade, Belgrade April 2002 or any whatsoever similiar (I have many) can be connected by nationalists like Vojislav Seselj. It simply doesn't seem right (as it's not historically overlapping, neither commulative).
I have invited Nikola to finish his consensus with Elephantus, only two can argue and I have called User:Joy to put a final word. Until then, the tag must stay; I think all will agree.

Regards. --HolyRomanEmperor 15:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tag removed

An article such as Dalmatian Kristallnacht doesn't deserve any tag, but this one does? I think we should put things into a perspective and stop overdramatizing. EurowikiJ 17:53, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

That article's POV. It needs most definately a tag. --HolyRomanEmperor 12:50, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
Which part of article is POV? Btw, I learned from you and other wiki users this is acceptable way of conflict resolving so I did not remove tag without consultations (like somebody put it - twice). Jakiša Tomić 15:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
Knock yourself out and read the whole talk page. --HolyRomanEmperor 16:06, 9 April 2006 (UTC)
You are partialy right. I should read whole talk page and put my comment on "Well then" section. Jakiša Tomić 10:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
Yep. Just differ my posts from my brother's. :) --HolyRomanEmperor 21:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hercegbosna

Well, yeah, sure. Remember the Rastko Organization? (it's actually richer, larger and a little more aestheticly beautiful than Hercegbosna). Even it contains the most biased of works. I mean, I saw that Hercegbosna had some really dubious claims, such as that the Serbs ruled Zahumlje only for 100 years. The weirdest of them all is that it says that Miroslav might've not been the brother of Stefan Nemanja. Regarding to some well-known, ofcourse it sources everything & good writers; but when refering to some uknown to the world inconsistencies, there's no source whatsoever, nor any deeper explaination.

The thing that amazed me the most is the categorizing of Miroslav's Gospel from the 12th century under Croatian heritage items... --HolyRomanEmperor 20:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] One more source

From Serb Cultural History:

Rudjer Boskovic. Rodger Joseph Boscovich (Rudjer Josif Boskovic, as he signed himself, or Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, in Italian) was born in Dubrovnik in 1711 and died in Milan 1787. His father, Nikola Boskovic, a wealthy Serb trader from the nearby town of Trebinje, married a Ragusan girl of Italian origin, Pavica Betere, and moved to Dubrovnik where he converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism in order continue in commerce. Rudjer went to Jesuit schools in Dubrovnik, and later studied in Italy. He made valuable scientific contributions in the field of the movement of planetary bodies. His main work was "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" ("The Theory of Natural Philosophy"). Werner Heisenberg (winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1932) wrote of his work: ' "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" put forward hypotheses which were confirmed only in the course of last fifty years'. He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a member of St.Petersburg Academy, a "membre correspondant" of the French Academie Royale des Sciences, and an honorary professor of many European universities. Very delicate work on repairing the cupola of St. Peter's church in Vatican was entrusted to Boskovic. ** Marin Getaldic was also a Ragusan physicsist and mathematician of the 16-17th centuries. Franciscus Bosniensis is a medieval composer from Bosnia. Giordano Bruno was Italian astronomer.


Where do these Serbs come up with this stuff???? = ""Serb Cultural History 2006.""hhahaa Preaching "Were all Serbs and Serbs are everywhere" and "all Croats are Serb origin" This sort of stuff makes you wander why some very small minority of Serbs visit these web pages and post rubbish...making all famous Croats now Serb origin must be a new religion.... Get over it........... ..leave Serb POV at the door....Boscovich said he was Croatian-Italian...end of story...to say he is Serb after all these years is a bit of a joke......He never mentioned it...why even talk about it being possible....what next????? Donald Duck is Serb too

Nor did he ever say that he was Croatian. :))) --HolyRomanEmperor 19:57, 21 April 2006 (UTC)
He never said he is Croatian. Lujo Vojnovic stated he is Serb. But to be more NPOV lets find measure and write it Yugoslav.--Medule 22:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Please present sources for all of your arguements. Please read Wikipedia:Verifiability. Regards. --HolyRomanEmperor 10:10, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The current edit war

I don't really now what to think. The claims protrayed by one side of this Edit War are sourced, however that version of the article seems POV (correct me if I am wrong), while the other party is just removing contents of the article. This is more than just a content dispute. --HolyRomanEmperor 19:48, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

TO THE HOLY MAN ____Please note if you say Nikola Tesla is Serbian American on the wikipedia website you should leave Ivo Andric as Bosnian Croat or just Croat ...and Rudjer Boscovich as Croat-Italian..... no need to mention Serbian for those two guys..This would be fair...you can list your views on Serbian origin on Discussion...not in the main article. I think the view that Andric and Boscovich are Serbs is so far fethched it makes my blood boil, yet Tesla who also said he was a proud Croat is only listed as Serb. Get the Serb bias and edits...so wrong and unfair. If we have left Tesla as Serb please leave Andric and Boscovich as Croats.THATS ALL OK. If you can help put a stop to this Serb POV please do.

Evergreen

[edit] And again...

Smolenski additions, although verbose and "well-sourced" are deeply flawed. The sources they rely on are little more than pamphlets - their topic is not Ruđer Bošković himself but speculations on the surname Bošković in general, using _folk tales_ as proof and unabashedly saying so, and spicing it all up with occasional outbursts of Serbian nationalism. They don't really bring anything new into the Bošković discussion (like referencing real historical sources etc.). So, giving them this prominence is about as outlandish as possible. --Elephantus 11:15, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Generally agree. However, those pictures that he scanned seem very interesting - and they're his main source. None mention Rudjer as a "Serb", but go very deep into his origins - and I don't think that it's based on nationalism. --HolyRomanEmperor 10:04, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

- this reasoning about who/what he was, that it is defined by his genealogy could lead to ultimately him being an african - as it's a craddle of civilization. So, I suggest let's make all of people in wiki pages of african origin and leave it at that.. funny serb ideas, really funny dudes - now get serious and put this nonesense to rest. He was Croatian origin, and you know it - your sources know it too. Google it if you will, look in Britannica, all of other encyclopedias.. visit croatia, spend some local money on one of our beaches - you might notice Ruđer Bošković on our money too. Among other things. I have nothing against serbs per se (I have some serb origin too, my grandmother is serb - that doesn't make me serb though, I'm Croatian).. this is all well too known among serbs, distorting facts and making your own - because repating a lie three times makes it come true? I've browsed through references, and all I can see they reference each other - like lemmings.. what sort of credibility is this? Same thing with Tesla.. dude himself, yes read it again - himself said I'm proud to be Croat with Serb heritage.. and they've distorted that too. So, I'd recommend sticking to whatever most of other relevant encyclopedia sources say - Britannica etc. and restrain yourself from .yu domain sources - and lock the entry -- Ruđer Bošković, Croat 08:06, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

bravo bravo this is fair..we all know the facts no point trying to tell lies. Tesla was Serb Vlah..Boscovich Croat Italian and Andric Bosnian Croat. Leave it at that...this is the truth which is known and has been listed for many years. No point trying to change history now. Some say the Serbs and Croats are mixed and might even be of the same origin which makes this discussion so stupid. Were all the same Africans Iranians and Slavs.

Not some, but most - the seperation of the Serbo-Croatian language was only politicly accepted and not seriously at all if anyone views any contemporary encyclopedia (LaRousse, Brockhaus, Britannica - French, German, English, ...). The same is with the Serbo-Croat people. --HolyRomanEmperor 11:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
HRM, the attempt to unify the Croatian & Serbian languages during the time of both Jugoslavias was political. It was a precursor to stating that the Serbs & Croats are one people & thus justify one state which under hegemonic pressure would assimilate towards the dominant ethnic / cultural influence - @ the time it was Serbian i.e. a greater Serbia would evolve.
The Serbs & the Croats are not one people & never will be - just as the Scandinavians aren't one people, the Walloon & the French, the Spanish & the Portugese etc etc. Anybody that claims they are one people just have to get over the internationalist left wet dream that was Jugoslavia - just get over it. Such claims are the hallmark of arrogant fools pontificating from their ivory towers - how many Srbe na vrbe, Omarksas, Srebrenicas does it take for people to realise that denying national & democratic rights (including language differences) always ends in tragic violence. Let democracy reign and allow people to choose their identity rather than having an artificial one imposed on them.

croatian_quoll 10:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aricle NPOV

The nationality of Boscovich (if it exists), it is discussed, as is evident in the above dicussions (it's claimed by Croats, Serbs and Italians).

In the article Boscovich is presented as "Croat", and this is a non neutral poin of view.

Furthermore the name is not correct, because Boscovich is internationally know as "Ruggero Boscovich", and with this name he signed many of his books.

Boscovich should me rembered simply as "ragusean", because Ragusa was a multiethnic city, slavic and italian, and not simply "Croat". All the different points of view about the nationality should have the same evidence in proper sections. --Giovanni Giove 12:56, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

  1. Find references
  2. Change the article and give references
  3. If edit war breaks out, you can return the {{NPOV}}.

That't the rules. Not mine, wikipedia's. --Ante Perkovic 13:20, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Categories, streets

Categories

I don't see how Boskovic can be considered Italian. He was born in Dubrovnik and worked throughout the Europe.

Streets Mentioning street names as a prove that Boskovic can be considered italian is pitty. As I wrote, there is a George Washington street where I live, but that doesn't make him a croat.

--Ante Perkovic 01:31, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Also, I don't see how serbian categories apply here. We are still waiting for any valid proofs of his families relation to Serbs. Until proof is given, please keep serbian categories out of the article. --Ante Perkovic 01:35, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course, Boscovich shall not be considered Italian because of some streets, as the father shall not be considered Croat because a single Britannica's citation, in which (by the way) it's wrotten Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich (funny name for a "real" Croat....).

I've inserted a citation. It's not an evil-italian-fascist-irredentisc-sciovinistic citation. It is an article from a Croatian newspaper of Rijeka (Fiume). "La Voce del Popolo", former communist paper, wrotten in Italian. It's wrotten that the modern sense of nationality was created in XIX century and it is a often a nonsense attribute modern nationalities to the people of the past. Boscovich was from the Republic of Ragusa, that was not (as it was never) a Croatian state. Ragusa was born as a Romance entity, that later has included a slavic presence. So it was a mixed country, with a bilingual population. Italian was the official language. The cultural language was Italian too. Culturally it was connected with the Italian peninsula, and not with Pannonic Croatia (just read the biographies of important Ragusans). So... it's on you to demonstrate that 'Boskovic' was a real Croat and only Croat. My idea is that it's not possible to attribute a single nationality. By the way.... I heard that the slavic name appears only after the death of Boscovich. He always signed "Ruggiero Giovanni Boscovich". I can find a report in which he became angry because he find his name wrotten "Boskovich" and not "Boscovich". Greetings. By the way... it's seem that Boscovich never used the name "Rudjer" in all his life.... can anybody post an evidence that "Rudjer" was used before the XIX century?? Also in Britannica is called "Ruggiero"...... --Giovanni Giove 10:37, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not Boskovic can be considered a Croatian, Italian is not up to you to judge. What you can do is provide a reputable, peer-revied source to support your claim. Until now, you have failed to do so. It is ridiculous, to say the least, to question Britannica Encyclopaedia, while at the same time citing an article from some obscure Italian minority language publication. As for the rest of your claims and "ideas", I remind you that Wikipedia prohibits original research. 83.131.1.242 10:20, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Boskovic's names in the intro

As someone who was born in an indisputably Croatian city of Dubrovnik, this guy of Croatian stock deserves his name to cited in Croatian first, and then in Italian. As for Serbian name (which bears no difference to the Croatian original) it has no place here, let alone a position that would preceed other versions of the name. 83.131.1.242 10:05, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics

For those interested, just do a google search or Roger Boskovic Croatian, Roger Boskovic Italian, Roger Boskovic Serbian, the results are surprising:

Roger Boskovic Croatian - 33,150 hits - 3 for the wiki occurances Roger Boskovic Italian - 653 - 3 for the wiki occurances Roger Boskovic Serbian - 707 - 3 for the wiki occurnaces

If this is not sufficient proof then what is ? If the disputes are taken about XIX century, they on the account that Roger is Italian fail, as the Italian nation did not exist when he was alive, because Italy as a nation state happened in XIX century.

Vodomar 00:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Vodomar, please run the same search on a Russian or Chinese search engine and you will get surprisingly opposite results. Reasons are obvious - no one but Serbs or Croats care for the proleptic nationality of this man - others quote sources that are to them "culturally and politicaly close." Should use Slavic for father, Orthodox Slavic perhaps as that was their religion, since there is no confirmation that Nikola ever referred to himself as Serb or Croat. Useless discussion nonetheless. The Britannica reference quoted below is from a Croatian paper, and cannot be taken seriously. I am sure that there are professors doing their theses on the Boskovic family in Zagreb and Belgrade and each will throw up a dubious claim... For Wikipedia's purposes we must use, in this case, as in most cases of non-existent nations, a historical approximant. Slav is the best solution. Perhaps Slav from Herzegovina. How about Herzegovinian??? Boismortier

[edit] Solution

Boskovic's father's side ought to be called what it was during his own life - Slavic... Thus, changed the entry to "born to a Slav" and an Italian mother. Xanthippus

I appreciate your two cents, but this is an encyclopaedia. Reference from a high-quality source such as Encyclopaedia Britannica is more than sufficient. Noneedforthis 08:39, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
Not necessarily. Please refer to the refernce that Britannica is using, a Croatian historian, Matrusic, 1994 - hence once could throw into question the subjectivity or the objectivity of this change. A number of other encycolpaediae, including the an online Chinese and an online Russian source refer to him as Serb, but these quote Serb sources. I personally have no patience for Serbo-Croat conflicts over irrelevant things such as dubious pedigrees of great men/women who were born before these countries were nationally formed. I have reverted the entry back to Slavic. This issue is not resolved.

Also please note that Britannica, according to the Nature survey, is in no way more accurate than Wikipedia. Britannica's staff has accused Nature of being biased and has accused Wikipedia of being sub-par. I think that it is exactly this open format of Wikipedia and the ability to consult more than just one or two referees that allows us the dynamism which Britannica does not possess. Boismortier


Thank you for your thoughts on Encyclopaedia Britannica. Unfortunately (for you), Wikipedia standards call for English-speaking peer-reviewed high quality references. Britannica has been recognized as being one of them. Your concerns regarding the quality of its articles should be addressed to its board of editors as this is hardly a place to establish the veracity of your claims. As for Wikipedia, even a casual glance at its (more obscure) articles, reveals huge errors, bias, blatant propaganda etc. Does Nature survey that tested some 40 scientific articles out of total of 1,3 million articles in this encyclopaedia prove anything? I think not. Nonetheless, we can all be grateful that Nature did not stumble accross an article about John Seigenthaler, Sr. who, according to Wikipedia, was involved in Kennedy's assasination.
I have, of course, reverted the entry back to Croatian. When you provide an actual English-speaking, peer-reviewed high-quality reference, please leave a message here. In the meantime, refrain from reverting to the version with unsubstantiated Slavic claim of Boskovic's origin, lest others might loose patience with you. Your thoughts are truly interesting, but unless they evolve into something more than mere personal thoughts on the plights of this world, they are best left on your own personal page. Noneedforthis 15:20, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I am not certain that Wikipedia will only consider English speaking articles as determinants of proper sources. Unfortunately for you, sir, the world speaks quite a few more idioms, all of which must be considered in this cataloguing quest. I will not change this article for now. I will leave it as Croat (as I have some etiquette), and as it has a Britannica reference next to it, which is by the way, referring to a Croatian-published biography on the scientist and must be suspect due to, exactly as your behaviour suggests, either Croatian or Serb nationalism. Shortly, however, I will list a number of references, not all of which will be in English, but none of which will be based on Serbian or Croat historicity, and will then change back the origin of the poor scientist's father to Slavic. By the by, if you are so concerned about Britannica and its superiority to Wikipedia, please go on and apply to edit their pages. I am sure they would love to have another fact-auditor who decides to take "a one reference per factum approach," and thereafter call it quits. Boismortier

Just changed Nikola Boskovic's ethnicty to "disputed." Referenced Britannica, Catholic Encyclopedia, Boskovic biographers by P Bursill-Hall (ed.), R J Boscovich : Vita e attività scientifica : His life and scientific work (Rome, 1993) AND L L Whyte (ed.), Roger Joseph Boscovich (Fordham Press, London, 1961). Each book is available in your local library if you wish to go on a perusal of its detailed study of his life. If you wish to change back to Croat only, please list a detailed biography BY A THIRD PARTY (not Serb or Croat PLEASE!) lest others LOSE patience with you. Boismortier

I *totally* agree with Boismortier.--Giovanni Giove 22:02, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

It is shame Boismortier that you are increasingly intent on taking this debate to a personal level. Perhaps your etiquette needs brushing up. In any case I am not concerned about Encyclopaedia Britannica's superiority over Wikipedia. After all, and I think you will agree that whatever your personal feelings or intimate knowledge of the subject are, that the former would never include an unreferenced biography of some obscure Bosnian Serb self-proclaimed writter... Although I find Pavlovic's biography increasengly interesting and am thinking about creating a section about his interests and thoughts on nationalism, I still think that no serious publication, written or electronic, would ever include his "biography"... BTW is it just me or do you also agree that this is a fitting end to your thoughts about "Croatian or Serb nationalism"?

Onto this subject, I have removed the entry (from Catholic Encyclopaedia) that purported to contain a reference to Slavic background of Boskovic's father as it doesn't. Although that leaves with me with grave doubts about the claims related to the other reference provided, I will assume good faith for now. Noneedforthis 09:51, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

As per Noneofthis comments which were quite right - the Encyclopedia refers to Boskovic himself as Dalmatian and not his father, I have changed the Dalmatian entry to the original source - the exhaustive bibliography, also quoted as source by the Catholic Encyclopedia for the entire article - please scroll to the end of page - (Vitae Italorum, Auctorae Angelo Fabronio, Academiae Pisanae curatore (Pisa, 1789), XIV;), again, Noneofthis, you are more the welcome and SHOULD for your own edification read all the sources cites, and not just the first paragraph AVAILABLE for free online from the Encyclopedia Britannica... But I do have to admit, good catch, my initial entry classifying Nikola as Dalmatian was inaccurate - the article in New Advent refers to his son, the subject of our discussion really, as Dalmatian... Notice not Croatian. Alas.

I am in no way, my good sir, taking this debate to a personal level. I do not even know what a colleague of mine, whose entry I have completed and who is not a Bosnian Serb but rather I believe a Croat (but should that matter? Is one or the other a bad thing in your eyes? Is it? If you think that an ethinicity is a bad thing per se, then we must really be concerened about the good nature of your entries.) and who is actually a Canadian author and writes only in English, ought to have with MY interest in Balkan history... You never asked me about my own ethnicity, which should be a much closer predeterminant, in your eyes, of my political views, n'est-ce pas? I assume that my other entries on German-born Canadian authors or Italian-born Canadian authors, or baroque composers ought to disqualify me from writing anything on Leibnitz's ethnic background? I think that you ought to read Pavlovic's book and you may understand your behaviour a bit better - as he has truly captured this sort of Balkan nationalism to the tee. (There, I'm even advertising - it's freely available in a few bookstores here in Canada, so please come).

So, Noneofthis, for now please go on and verify the sources. Also, I would more than welcome if you can produce a THIRD PARTY source, again NOT Croatian or Serb, that will disprove the sources here quoted on the questionable heritage of Boskovic. I would also implore you to produce the SOURCE references within Britannica's article on Boskovic which are not Croat-written. In the end it doesn't matter whether Nikola was a Croat or a Slav or a Serb, but it does matter when nationalists like you try to forge history for their own ends. Also, THERE ARE MANY Croat and Serb scientists and historians who are trying to classify the mess of their common history fairly, to discuss the issue of Tesla's background and Adric's and so many others, within the current context poisoned by nationalism. But they are obfuscated by so many who have created and worked under the aegis of their own partisan interests, which is why, I am asking for non-Serb/Croat sources. I am so very tired of arguing this, and so many other Balkans related issues with Serbs/Croats/Muslims etc etc... So tired, really... As you have surmised rightly, I am also from there, but do not fit into either camp neatly due to ethnic libertinism of my ancestors, I suppose, and maybe this has made me bitter, or frustrated or just annnoyed. In my spare time I have nothing better to do it seems than to clean up history where it is messy. Don't worry, I'm sure there is right now a discussion page somewhere on this site where a Serb is berating me on claiming Branislav Nusic's ethnic background as Wallachian... The Balkan cycle goes on. Now its your turn to fire at me, and so on and so on... Boismortier

Standig ovation--Giovanni Giove 15:38, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions about the Nationality dispute

I suggest to move the problem of Nikola Boscovich nationality, into the paragraph "nationality". There is a dispute about it, as well as the nationality of Roger. It should be important to point out that the modern concept of nationality is born only in the 19th century, as a consequence of the French Revolution (see Romantic Nationalism. It's no correct to project this concepts in a past where they did not already existed. I don't think that Nikola ever wonder if he was a Serbian or a Croat. The concepts of Serbian or Croatian 'nations' were not already developed.... In any case all the points of wiev should be reported, that the rule for disputed items. --Giovanni Giove 15:49, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree Giovanni. I even invite Noneofthis to join in cracking open the texts and truly get to the bottom of it. Now, we can also agree on the following approach. Herein is my explanation firstly and thereafter the suggestion:
It is genereally accepted that CERTAIN areas of the Balkans did not have a national consciousness until the 19th century. While Nikola Tesla, Krleza, Andric came later, and they did indeed identify themselves with a supra-nationality (herein I include Serb and Croat) there are a few problematic areas and TIMEPERIODS in the Balkans which you, Giovanni, as an Italian (I assume) would not find in your country's history but may find in your countries' islands (Sicily, Sardinia or the north). By this I mean that until post-Napoleonic time in what was then called Illyiria among Western European elites, there were two KERNELS of nationhood - Serbdom lets call it and Croatdom. Serbdom spread mostly in Inner-Serbia, Old Serbia (now Kosovo, but by then largely empty of Serbs), and mostly in the 18th century in Vojvodina. Croatdom spread further north, around Zagorje, around Zagreb and further north into Pressburg in Austria proper.
For example, currently I am amassing a number of books and references and will soon upset many a German on the Joseph Haydn page. I will dispute his heritage and claim that he was ethnically Croat from his father's side, in the true sense of the word, as there are a number of primary sources (not Croat or Serb nota bene) that do confirm that the Hajdin last name was that of a Croat family who lived in a Croat colony in Pressburg. From his mother's side he was an Austrian or Carinthian Slav, last name Koller or Kollar. This will of course earn me the beratement of many people there, as I already expect it, but it has to get done.
Why do I wax so animated here? Because, we are now getting into the Middle Ground, the so called non-Serbdom or Croatdom lands which spread along Dalmatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Hum etc who were populated by people that were indeed descendants of Serbs and Croats but also, in Slavonia, other smaller Slavic tribes, and who identified themselves with a linguistic but not a national KERNEL that either existed to the West or the East. Herein I am not expounding the Bosniak theory of a Bosniak nation pre 20C, that did not exist. However, the Slavs that populated the middle-ground, within them Boscovic, Tartini, Gundulic, early Petrovic family in Montenegro, and so on, cannot be fit properly into what we know of today as Croat as Serb, for, as you said, the Croatdom and Serbdom supranationalities had only spread into the consciousness of those people fully toward the end of the 19C. This is not to say that there are no references of Serbs and Croats say in Bosnia in the 14C, 15C, 18C etc - naturally there are. People moved about carrying forth ideas of belonging and identity, something that they had seen existing among their Slavic brethren to the east, west and north and what they also saw existing among their Italian or Germanic or even Turkish overlords.
Thus, perhaps we can agree that those greats who come from these middle-lands and who had the fortune or misfortune of being born prior to the national awakenings, also, who themselves did not identify with one kernel or the other in primary sources, and who are only put into one group or the other subsequent to the nationalist revival of the 19C be classified as South-Slavic, Illyrian Slavic, disputed, etc. Or, we can agree to call Boskovic a Dubrovnik-born scientist, now in Croatia?
The sad part is that there are so many other things that I need to add and correct on this page that have nothing to do with his ETHNICITY, but deal with his life, his interaction with his contemporaries, his science, yet I've spent days what team old Nikola Boscovic would have cheered for had he lived long enough to watch this year's World Cup... Boismortier

For Noneofthis: another reference by J Smolka, The role of the works of R J Boscovich in Bohemian lands (Czech), Acta Hist. Rerum Natur. Nec Non Tech. 11 (1967), 117-133. that refers to Roger Boscovic himself as Croat. So you can't accuse me being biased... We can add this one to your claim. The research continues... We will however, in the end, need a way to classify this man properly, please see above my extrapolation about Croat/Serb ethnicity issues prior to 19C, especially in Dalmatia, Dubrovnik, Bosnia, Montenegro etc. Boismortier

I've just found a pretty extensive reference list on Boscovic and his life on the net as part of someone's PhD project on this man. I suggest that those who are interested in this topic volunteer and we divy up the references and start checking which one supports which side of the ethnicity argument, and hopefully we learn more relevant things as well ;) Here it is: Boismortier

Biography in Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York 1970-1990).

Biography in Encyclopaedia Britannica. [Available on the Web]

Books:


Boskovic, The Encyclopedia of Yugoslavia (Zagreb, 1956).

P Bursill-Hall (ed.), R J Boscovich : Vita e attività scientifica : His life and scientific work (Rome, 1993).

L L Whyte (ed.), Roger Joseph Boscovich (Fordham Press, London, 1961).

Articles:


G Arrighi, Two unpublished letters of Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich in debate with Francesco Maria Zanotti (Italian), Physis - Riv. Internaz. Storia Sci. 26 (3) (1984), 373-432.

U Baldini, Boscovich and the Jesuit tradition in natural philosophy : continuity and change (Italian), Nuncius Ann. Storia Sci. 7 (2) (1992), 3-68.

G Boistel, Documents inédits des pères jésuites R J Boscovich et Esprit Pezenas sur les longitudes en mer, Rev. Histoire Sci. 54 (3) (2001), 383-397.

M Capek, Two critics of Newton prior to Mach : Boscovich and Stallo, in 1971 Actes XIIe Congrès Internat. d'Histoire des Sciences IV (Paris, 1971), 35-37.

M Carrier, Rudjer Boscovich und die induktive Logik, Z. Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 16 (2) (1985), 201-212. P Casini, R G Boscovich and Newton's 'Opticks', in Newton and the Enlightenment, Proc. Internat. Sympos., Cagliari, 1977, Vistas Astronom. 22 (4) (1978), 451-452.

C Eisenhart, Boscovich and the combination of observations, in M G Kendall and R L Plackett (eds.), Studies in the History of Statistics and Probability II (London, 1977), 88-100.

R W Farebrother, Studies in the history of probability and statistics XLII. Further details of contacts between Boscovich and Simpson in June 1760, Biometrika 77 (2) (1990), 397-400.

J F Fuertes Martinez and J Lopez Garcia, Roger Boscovich : precursor of field theory? (Spanish), Theory, history and foundations of the natural and social sciences, Theoria (San Sebastián) (2) 7 (16-18) (1992), B, 687-701.

M D Grmek, La méthodologie de Boscovich, Rev. Histoire Sci. 49 (4) (1996), 379-400.

N Guicciardini, Stars and gravitation in eighteenth century Newtonian astronomy: the hypotheses of Benjamin Worster, Nicholas Saunderson, Gowin Knight, Roger Boscovich and William Herschel, in Copernicus and the Copernican question in Italy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, Ferrara, 1993 (Olschki, Florence, 1996), 263-280.

F A Homann, Boscovich's philosophy of mathematics, Synth. Philos. 4 (2) (1989), 557-571.

A C Lewis, The influence of Roger Boscovich on Bertrand Russell's early philosophy of physics, Synth. Philos. 4 (2) (1989), 649-658.

C F Manara, Philosophical problems of geometry in the works of Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich (Italian), Istit. Lombardo Accad. Sci. Lett. Rend. A 123 (1989), 215-236.

C F Manara and M Spoglianti, R G Boscovich and the precursors of V Poncelet (Italian), Proceedings of the Brescia Mathematical Seminar 3 (Milan, 1979), 142-180.

J Pappas, Documents inédits sur les relations de Boscovich avec la France, Physis - Riv. Internaz. Storia Sci. (N.S.) 28 (1) (1991), 163-198.

J Pappas, R J Boscovich et l'Académie des sciences de Paris, Rev. Histoire Sci. 49 (4) (1996), 401-414.

K M Pedersen, Roger Joseph Boscovich and John Robison on terrestrial aberration, Centaurus 24 (1980), 335-345.

A Prince, The phenomenalism of Newton and Boscovich : a comparative study, Synth. Philos. 4 (2) (1989), 591-618.

E Proverbio, R G Boscovich's Determination of Instrumental Errors in Observation, Archive for History of Exact Science 38 (2) (1988), 135-152.

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Thanks Boismortier

To Giovanni Giove - not sure that the Serbian claim of his father's Serbian ancestry is anywhere confirmed through NON SERB sources. There is, as per my earlier long rant, no proof that either Boskovic or his father ever referred to themselves as Serb or Croat. In addition, his Slavic origin is mentioned in non Serb/Croat third party sources, but not his Serb origin. Primary sources cite his father only as an Illyrian or Slav or Wallachian (but this was a typical reference to Slavs from the hills above Dubrovnik by Ragusans themselves). I have reworded the Serbian "claim" on Boskovic to religious only. Boismortier
Boismortier, I see your refusal to accept local sources as bordering on chauvinism. International sources must use local primary sources so you are achieving nothing by using them anyway. Could you take a look at [7] and tell what is wrong with it? By the way, Nusic wasn't Wallachian but a Cincar. Nikola 20:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Local Croat source make a stronger claim that he is Croat. Herein lies the problem. The other problem is that much of the Serbian sources quoted are characterised by a zeal to prove he is Serbian rather than approached from a methodlogically sound research design. Boismortier isn't being chavaunist, but I suspect he is just acknowledging the fact that the approach of much of the Serbian work in this field is prejudiced by the politicised and nationalist atmosphere of the region, and by design that contains inherent bias. iruka 14:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] i wonder...

Why wasn't my mediated solution accepted. I even asked Ante Perkovic - but he gave no response... well, very well if you want to edit war al the time. :S --HolyRomanEmperor 18:01, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree. I suggested a solution above. Hopefully all will be ok now. Boismortier
I agree with you - however, Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911 says: After Gyorgyich the Servian literature of Ragusa and Dalmatia during the 18th century has no great name to show, except that of the mathematician, Ruggiero Boshkovich (see Boscovicu). His two brothers and his sister Anitsa Boshkovich were known in their time as poets. But on the whole Servian literature on the Adriatic coast showed little originality in the 18th century; its writers were content to produce good translations of Latin, Italian and French works. Aside from that, there are other sources that are international that I could search and find. It appears that (either errorously or generally) he was viewed officially as a Serbian. However, that changed. --HolyRomanEmperor 22:42, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] My edit

I have made some fair edits to Rudjer Boscovich. I think we can all agree that he was known and is still known as a Croat/Italian. The Serbian theory although sounding like Serb Propaganda can be mentioned to keep the pease and stop the edit war. Hope this is ok/// Jagoda 1 23:20, 2 October 2006 (UTC) Early Years edit...no point to mention Hecegovina as his fathers origin as this has never been proven nor that it was Serbian settled...it's just Serbian POV...but i have left it under his Origin theory down the page to be fair. Anything is possible but we need to be fair he was known as Croat/Italian first with possible Serb origin ..and i mean possible neber proven..

Jagoda 1 23:30, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Serb Pov

Can somebody please stop placing Serbian ahead of Croat. Josip Boskovic was known as a Croat, his father was known as a Dalmatian Croat. The family being Serbian is a theory without actual proof. I think we have been fair to the Serbian users by leaving his possible Serb origin in the article, but i can't be stated before Croatian. Let's be fair and discuss without making silly edits. We need to draw a line somewhere and stop editing the article into Serb Pov. Jagoda 1 22:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

No. There are a lot of proofs that his father was Serb, and few proofs that he was Croat. Nikola 20:48, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
Name them, Nikola. Don't just say "a lot of proofs". --Ante Perkovic 04:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
There aren't "a lot" of proofs. There is an abundance of minor incinuations and several good sources; you can view them by knocking yourself out & reading this page. --PaxEquilibrium 20:24, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

There is no proof only Serbian propaganda. This needs to stop here. Jagoda 1 23:00, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Why change history now???

Rudjer Boscovich had a Croat father and Italian mother. He was born in Croat occupied Dubrovnik. To say he was Serb is not correct. Why do some people keep changing history as we all know it.

-PS- You can write a small paragraph showing your Serb POV if you like, but the top half of the aticle must list him as Croat/Italian. Jagoda 1 22:51, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What's the matter?

If Ruggero's father was Croatian and his mather Italian he was both Italian and Croatian, what is the matter? Carlo 12/Oct/06 11:17


[edit] name in Serbian

I have removed his name in Serbian as he never lived in Serbia nor is there a need to write his name in Serbian on a English Wiki. I don't understand why people continue to argue his nationhood. He was known as Slav, Ragusan, Dalmatian and Croatian...all these names are used for Croats in history. There was never any metion of him being Serb. Please leave article as is.

Please don't claim "there was never any mention of him being Serbs" if you haven't read the article. It has already been discussed before. --PaxEquilibrium 20:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

In all fairness making him out to have Serbian roots is wrong and can't be proven.

1.I very much doubt a Serb even exists today or even in those times with a name of JOSIP.

Was his name Josip? All we know is that he was "Josepho" (e. g. in Serbo-Croat "Jozefo"). The correct translation of Franz Joseph in Serbo-Croat is "Franjo Josip". --PaxEquilibrium 20:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

2.If his father was from Hercegovina, from what i know Croats have always outnumbered Serbs there...so you would think he was a Croat from Hercegovina.

Well, not always; historicly it was an Orthodox-populated region. Besides, problem is that he comes from east Herzegovina (which is today mostly Republika Srpska). --PaxEquilibrium 20:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
PaxEquilibrium, I have family in East Herzegovina - we were catholic way back - in fact that is how we got our surname (on mothers side) because they did not want to convert to Orthodox faith and left Crna Gora and settled in Eastern Herzegovina centuries ago.
That aside, there are regions with significant populations, especially around Popovo polje which was ethnically cleansed by Seslj's militia and JNA (village of Ravno etc). I believe the part around Popovo Polje, Stolac, Neum, Capljina are all part of Eastern Herzegovina that is Croat dominated, within the FBiH and is the area that is pertinent to discussion. iruka 14:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

3. Religion isn't the way to tell who is Serb or Croat...both sides converted and took up new religion over time.

Well, the main reason to consider him a Croat is his religion - Catholicism - so I think that it is relevant. --PaxEquilibrium 20:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The main reason to believe he is Croat is because his father came from a Croat dominated mixed region in Herzegovina, and his own proclamations of affiliation with Croat troops and not forgeting his Croatian language. It is also reinforced by the fact that he lived in Dubrovnik, a town affiliated with the Croat cultural corpus (despite sites like Sprstvo Dubrovnik attempts to prove otherwise. Incidently it seems to be a propaganda site b/c of the self referencing nature of all the sources most of which are Serbian. Also the name seems to be a giveaway - sounds like it is trying hard to stake a claim, just like the communist nations that preface the country name with Democratic - but I digress). iruka 14:27, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

4. Boskovic is a WELL known Croatian last name. If you check Geonolgy pages on the net you will find the name listed as Croatian not Serbian. Today the last name is still very popular in Croatia, Hercegovina and abroad.

Ironically, there are a lot of Serbs with this name. I repeat what one user said discussing this "The only reason why some consider him Serbian is his Serbian-sounding surname". --PaxEquilibrium 20:15, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Jagoda 1 22:45, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name in Different Languages

Due to the controversy over ethnic affiliation;

  • I have reordered the names according to alphabetical order;
  • It is clear that it is in alphebitical order so no preference can be construed as to ethnic affiliation;
  • What was there before had Serbian first, which gives the impression that he is Serbian, which does not reflect the controversy over identity. Also considering that Serbian claim is not based on proclamations by Boskovich, but a interpretation based on perception of alleged religious affiliation as some sign of ethnic affiliation, it certainly gives undue weight to what is on the surface, the weakest claim;

For the same reason (ethnic identity dispute), I have taken out the assertionthat the father was Serb. Such a claim is also misleading b/c it is based on a flawed logic and leap of faith i.e. alledged religious affiliation is automatically equated, to ethnic affiliation.

Given the controversy, and to facilitate NPOV, any ethnic reference should be avoided in the introduction, :as it prejudices the article before the issue is covered in depth within the body of the article. iruka 14:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

User Svetislav Jovanović, your comment "Reverting user that removed a bunch of stuff from the article - THAT IS CONSIDERED VANDALISM, u know)" is misleading and without substance. That is:
  • there were only three small elements in the edit:
1. Reordering (i.e. not removing) the name in different languages in alphabetical order b/c previous steup gave undue preference in light of the dispute over nationality;
2. Related to the first point, reorder the country reference in te nationality section - although I left Italy out of order as I didn't understand the reference formatting associated with Italy, as evidence in my first change. Have since figured it out and corrected.
3. The only thing removed was the reference to Boskovic's father as Serb, one word in the article (two if you consider the link) - b/c of the controversy over nationality and the fact that it prejudices the article before the issue is discussed in detail under the relevant section (refer above discussion of issue);
  • all changes were explained in the edit summary - have since elaborated in discussion page;
Considering the insignificance, small size of the change, the well founded reasoning & justification of the edit - to label it vandalism is unfounded & veils the absence of reasoned debate, or a justification for the revert.
Pls refrain from such tactics, and engage in polite discussion.
Thank you, iruka 14:08, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
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