Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Battle of Grobnik field

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Consensus appears to be for retaining the article. Arguments that the battle might not have happened are not so relevant for things which are legend or myth if the article and sources describe the dubiousness regarding the historical accuracy. Hence, they do not directly relate to the verifiability policy. Sjakkalle (Check!) 09:15, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Battle of Grobnik field

Battle of Grobnik field (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

No historical evidence for battle (see Talk page of article), seems to be a case of WP:SYNand WP:OR by editor combining a 19th century poem (not in English) with known conflict at the time - editor has just created Battle of Uruk which has no references anywhere Doug Weller (talk) 08:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep The battle not sourced on a poem, but historical fact that is backed up by references. A poet used this battle as an inspiration for his work. THE FACTS WRITTEN IN THE ARTICLE are not connected with A poem.Egyptzo (talk) 08:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the lists of History- , Military- and Croatia-related deletion discussions. —Ev (talk) 08:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete There seems to be no solid evidence for such a battle. A Google search, for instance, shows only 15 hits, all from Wikipedia or its mirrors. Madman (talk) 11:56, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment This is exactly the reason why Wikipedia needs such articles, so that the things not known to people, writing blogs and unscientific sources on the net, can be accesable. This is why Wikipedia is an encyclopedia- place where you can find all information. On the net you can find very little information even about the Grobnik field and Geography of Croatia.[1]Egyptzo (talk) 13:16, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

THE SEARCH ON NONENGLISH LANGUAGES GIVES MUCH MORE INFORMATION AND MANY HINTS[2] [3] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Egyptzo (talk • contribs) 13:19, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Delete. This seems particularly damning. There may be a case for the battle as a fictional/mythical entity. Leithp 13:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Since the article as it stands is now about the legend, my comment is no longer applicable. Leithp 15:26, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment I just hit an edit conflict so I'll post what I intended to post anyway, although it includes Leithp's source. There may well be a legend on it, but I can't find concrete information about the legend. Egyptzo is correct that you find more hits when you don't use English, although a lot of those are Usenet and others are just speculation -- I don't know how many are about the car and motorbike racing and parachute events at Grobnik, but quite a lot of them seem to be, so I'm not sure we should consider them Ghits on the battle. Interestingly, I found this in his search: [4] which says, translated by Google, "It is a myth about the defeat of Mongola Grobnik field. This myth, however, is mentioned less and less, because the povjesničarima aware that this is being alleged to Grobnik field is not mentioned in any historical document from that time. And therefore concludes that this battle has never even played. There is, however, among sociolozima, social antropolozima and other experts for social sciences and the opinion that national myths play a positive role in the life and the very survival of social group". By coincidence I found that just after I found a categorical comment by a Professor of History at the University of Zagreb that the battle never took place. [5] - this talks about the use of history in the Yugoslav area for political purposes by historians, and I quote "it was said that the Croats defeated the Turks on the battlefield at Grobnik in 1242, which also never happened." That quote is from Professor of History Ivo Goldstein at the University of Zagreb. So yes, you will find people writing in the 19th and 20th centuries referring briefly to it, but it seems to have no historical reality. Doug Weller (talk) 13:43, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Keep - I have no idea if the battle is fictional or not, but even if it is, I see no reason for deletion. Should we aldo delete article on Noah because someone says it is fictional character? Maybe it is, maybe it isn'y. Feel free to include both opinions in the article. But, to delete the article because someone says it is fictional - this is one of funiest things I red recently. --Ante Perkovic (talk) 13:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, if battle is indeed fictional, and many people believe it is real, how do you expect them to find out that it is fictional (if it is indeed fictional)? I thought that is why we have wikipedia. Don't you think so??? --Ante Perkovic (talk) 13:55, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep - The battle is described as legendary not fictional. WP is not an academic medium in which to argue out whether it did or did not happen. The fact that people have said it did happen makes it the legitimate subject for an article. If there is a legitimate scholastic view that it did not happen, then that is a subject that ought to be mentioned in the article. We have articles on works of fiction, and we have articles on legends, so why not on this battle. The solution is to tag it for attention, as lacking neutrality, not to delete it. I do not speak Croat, and am not qualified to know what sources there are on its history at that period. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:42, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Delete Leithp's comments are damning enough. Ivo Goldstein IS a Croatian, not a Serbian, scholar from the University of Zagreb [6] and he pointedly says Grobnik never happened and is a modern day invention. I googled "Grobnik, Battle and Mongols" but found nothing definitive on this battle except one or two references from a blog site which is not a reliable source. I did consult Tim Newark's 1996 book "Warlords: Ancient-Celtic-Medieval" by Brockhampton Press. Newark says on page 138 that after the Mongol's conquest of Central Europe and defeat of Hungary, Mongols raiders rode into "the Balkans, pursuing the Hungarian King Bela [IV]" in the winter of 1241 when news of the great Khan's death reached them and the local Mongol leader Batu Khan called off his campaign into Europe. Its not easy to see the Mongols fighting a battle against the Croats in 1242 when they had to retreat home. There are several WP:N and WP:V problems concerning this article. I personally think Grobnik is a myth but the article claims it was a historical event from 1242. Leoboudv (talk) 22:20, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - the question of fictional vs. non-fictional is NOT relevant. There are many accounts of mythical battles throughout history and Wikipedia. The Illiad is a fictional war, with arguments still raging to this day regarding its actual occurrence. However, the Illiad is still considered a WP worthy topic. In this matter it is really a question of citation to avoid the WP:OR claim (I don't agree with the WP:SYN nomination, though I understand why it was brought up). Unfortunately, the sources provided for this article are not apparently in English. However, this has not stopped many other articles from making it into WP. Since I can't read those sources personally, I am forced to assume good faith and hope they are legitimate sources with relevant information. If anyone can disprove that, I'll change my opinion. In the meantime, there is no reason to delete this just because somebody couldn't find a Google hit. Google doesn't know everything! Trippz (talk) 02:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
• Keep legendary is fine, if there's major works written about it. seems there are. It doesnt have to be historical, just to make the historical status clear.DGG (talk) 02:28, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • CommentThe problem is that so far the editor steadfastly insists it is historical, that so far no one has found 'major works' about this at all, and that the editor tells me himself (see my talk page) that he "will try to make references as much as possible, but this would be hard since most of my knowledge comes from documentaries and travel" and "I have read many, many books but there were so many that I do not know were to start and search because much time had passed and you come to think that some facts you just happen to have read somewhere in some book but you can find wich one." I don't mind having an article on 'Legend of the Battle of Grobnik' but it needs sources for the legend, and we just don't have those. So what do we do if we don't have sources? We can't just shrug our shoulders and say they must be out there somewhere. This isn't at all like the Illiad. We have a Classical source for that. In this case, the 'historical documents' mentioned in the lead just don't exist. The article's creator couldn't find them, his source Hitrec evidently doesn't mention any, a Croatian professsor presumably knows of none, etc. Doug Weller (talk) 07:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment The editor knows wery well things that he writes about, in contrast to some other users.Egyptzo (talk) 11:58, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment User:Egyptzo also added the comment above in an edit summary, he is referring to me. I feel deeply wounded, I shall go lie down. Seriously, this doesn't help with the problem about sources. Knowledge is nice, but Wikipedia wants reliable and verifiable sources. If they can be provided, great.--Doug Weller (talk) 12:07, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• • • Those are understandable problems but they are problems for a kept article. I have added Template:accuracy and template:more sources because the article has problems... but they can be fixed. If one editor is a problem you can always get outside input. gren グレン 10:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment

The greatest problem here is that some users in Wikipedia are more concerned on deleting or removing articles than creating or improving them. If someone finds a relevent source that claims that the battle is not real, but fictional, he should create a new paragraph in the article about this battle and name that paragraph controversy. If we are going to remove such articles, then for example, the whole article about Mycenaeis should be revised and the articles about the Presegonid and Atreid dynstyes deleted, which would be a stupid move. Egyptzo (talk) 11:53, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment -- What about the current sources (I see two)? Again, I'm not familiar with those sources and probably couldn't read them if I was (Which is not really a requirement for WP). Are they verifiable at least? Again, from my standpoint and not knowing anything of this subject, what I see is an article with limited citation but I would have to assume good faith on the part of the contributor. I agree we shouldn't just shrug, but there are two sources in the article, that is, unless I'm missing something. There are some notable problems with the article that smack of WP:OR, mostly in the overview section and they should be rewritten to remove POV terms like "Unfortunately" and "so important", but those are easy fixes. The Template:accuracy was a good call, but perhaps someone can also extend a hand out to some of the non-English wikipedia projects and we could get something more from them on this topic (if there is anything to be got), since this is from a non-english place of origin and apparently a fairly localized tradition. My invoking of The Illiad was simply to point out that the fictional vs. non-fictional argument in unimportant and should not be a consideration for nomination of deletion. As for source from poem it could be compared to The Song of Roland, a poem which is also of dubious historical accuracy considering the date of its origin. I agree that there should be sources of some type to validate this folktale/history/legend, but as I said, I see two cites already there. It seems this may be a localized traditional story. Clarifying its status in the article is important. That however, does not mean it is not notable enough for WP. The article requires more verification for improvement, but I'm not sure a delete is required based upon the "No historical evidence for battle.." nomination. Finally, contributors should never take AfD too personally, the article is a bit weak and needs work. Please limit the personal attacks. Ultimately, as for the article, I don't think it should be axed if it can be saved. Trippz (talk) 12:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment. Given that the consensus is "Keep, with a focus on the legend", I have edited the article, removing some of the opinion-ish sentences, and adding a reference that at least one scholar feels that the battle "never happened". Madman (talk) 13:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment. Battle is fictional [7] but for Croats it has become real. First "sources" about battle are from 16 century when Frankopan nobles has given many Croatian viceroys and heros in battle with Turks. During this time Ivan Tomašić and Antun Vramec has started to write how Frankopan family has been important in 13 century (which is historical revisionism). In 19 century Dimitrija Demeter has used data from 4 historical "sources" from 16 and 17 century to write myth about battle. --Rjecina (talk) 15:30, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• CommentI think it is now much better and if left with the focus it now has, and no more mention of historical documents without clear proof, etc -- that is, if Egyptzo is happy to leave it as a legendary battle, I'll be happy. One other issue though is the infobox and the categories, as they imply that it was a real battle. Rjecina's comments are pretty convincing, thanks for those. Maybe a bit like the British King Arthur, only this is a battle not a person?.--Doug Weller (talk) 15:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I am satisfied, although the battle was mentioned as early the 14th century, just a century after the battle and not in connection with Frankopani. But never mind that. The only problem is that those people referenced, who claim that the battle is just a myth tend to throw away the old, even historical battles, classify them as just a myth, and claim that Domovinski rat was the only very heroic act in Croatian history(sadly). It was long believed that the Siege of Troy was just a myth, but then recent archaeological excavations had revealed that the city was indeed under siege in the time told by Homer. The Mycenaen kings Atreus and his son Agamemnon were also treated as mythical caracters, and still are, although the Hittite records mention them. Piramesses was also by some believed to be a creation of utopian imagination, but this was deproved, and is known that the city was real. Probably future discoveries will finaly reveal that the battle happened, but until then, unfortunately, many people can indeed say, that it is just a legend.Egyptzo (talk) 19:05, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that it is wrong place for this discussion but.. In 1241 Mongols has defeated German and Polish forces. In 1242 they have defeated Hungarian forces, but if we believe that battle is history not myth they have been defeated by Croats. It is important to notice that this first victory against Mongols nobody in 13 century Europe has noticed !!!

For creation of myth I have used data from Croatian wiki which clearly state that Dimitrija Demeter has used sources from 1582, 1588, 1696 and 1760 to create story about Battle of Grobnik field. I know 1 "older source" (14 century) but he is not used for creation of myth and even this sources is POV because it is writen by person which has worked or recieved gifts from Frankopan nobles. --Rjecina (talk) 19:54, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

CommentIt is now much better, but the citation requests need to stay about the 14th century documents, etc until sources are provided, and if none can be provided within a reasonable amount of time unsourced claims about documents need to be removed. And I'm not quite sure about "Despite all controversies, many people do believe that the battle indeed happened and those who constantly claim that it was just a myth, were, and still are, unable to prove it as such." I appreciate the new text on the infobox.Doug Weller (talk) 20:00, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I have to agree with that. That particular statement is worded as if to prove a negative. I suggest removing the second part of that sentence and leaving it as: "Despite all controversies, many people do believe that the battle indeed happened." -- Trippz (talk) 00:52, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• Keep per changes in the article and help from other editors, convincing me that although I do not believe there was such a battle, and I'm not sure what the article's creator will do when he returns, there clearly are 2 poems and a legend -- I think we need some more details of the legend and some quotes from the poems, but that's no reason not to keep the article, nor are my concerns about any future actions of the article's creator. So I withdraw the nomination and thank the other editors for their help and patience both with this AfD and editing the article.--Doug Weller (talk) 20:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

.Comment I think User:Egyptzo may have returned as User:78.2.119.108 and edited the article, including deleting the AFD template. Which is now replaced by User:Madman, thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 16:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• Keep. If a legend or supposed battle has received the necessary level of attention from sources to qualify for inclusion, then there's no grounds for deleting it. It just needs to be accurate and not overstate the case for the battle's existence. Everyking (talk) 21:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

• Comment User:Egyptzo again removed the AfD template and edited the article in a way that seems once again to be overstating the evidence for the battle's existence. Doug Weller (talk) 06:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

• • Comment I should have looked at the talk page first, as I see User:Egyptzo says "The consensus is that it was legendary, not that it never happened, although bsome scolars are persistant in their negative claims. I do not see a point of discussing it any further." Doug Weller (talk) 06:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.