Talk:Finnish-Novgorodian wars

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Good article Finnish-Novgorodian wars was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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[edit] The term is a neologism

The term is a neologism; it has no usage in scholarly literature. There was no Finnish state at the period, so apply the term "war" to the conflicts in question is rather misleading. --Ghirla-трёп- 16:49, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Finns did not form a unified "state" back then, but Novgorodians considered them as a single entity to fight with. How Finns organized their defences or attacks, is unknown. Wikipedia's definition of war is "prolonged state of violent, large-scale conflict involving two or more groups of people", which pretty much applies. As for the comment that it has "no usage in scholarly literature", it surely has usage in Finnish history, which is however largely written in Finnish for Finns themselves. --Drieakko 22:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
I hope there is no objection to moving the page, so as to underscore the unilateral character of these conflicts. We may call them "wars" in the text. --Ghirla-трёп- 08:26, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Kindly discuss the moves before doing them. I object this move. Attacks were not just Novgorodians against Finns, but Finns equally against Novgorod. Your new name "Novgorodian raids into Finland" is misleading. --Drieakko 08:42, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Furthermore, there was no "Finland" at the time and Russian sources never mention that name. --Drieakko 08:52, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
I see that you are as stubborn as ever. Well, I don't care about the history of Finladn and I see no point in wasting my time on pointless bickering with you. I know from experience that may go on for days if not months. Bye, Ghirla-трёп- 08:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for your kind words. If you don't care about the history of Finland, it does not mean that it has no value. Personal commenting aside, criticizing your strange claim that the attacks were "unilateral" when the best described of these conflicts is a Finnish attack against Novgorod, is not "pointless bickering". --Drieakko 09:03, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Summary about Russian chronicles for the readers confused about this discussion:
* Novgorodians attacked Finns 4 times (5, if the 1042 attack was really against Finns)
* Karelians attacked Finns 1 time
* Finns attacked Novgorodians 3 times
It can be assumed that many more attacks took place, but this is what the Russian chroniclers considered worth writing down. --Drieakko 09:20, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
Some reiteration to my previous post. Just two of the chronicle entries tell about a Russian attack against the "country of the Finns", presumably Finland, that is. Three other entries (including the 1042 entry) leave the physical location of the war open, just mentioning that Novgorodian troops were at war with Finns, not revealing if that was defensive or offensive. So we have:
* Novgorodians attacked Finland 2 times
* Finns attacked Novgorodian area 3 times
* Novgorodians were at war with Finns 3 times, location open
* Karelians were at war with Finns 1 time, location open
At the end of the day, the sources are pretty open for an interpretation, that the more offensive party where the Finns, not Novgorod. --Drieakko 06:19, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
If you don't care about the history of Finland then why are you editing an article about the history of Finland? Jus so you could spread your biased Russophile lies? --88.114.235.214 14:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There wasn't a Russian state at this time neither. Still the Novgorodians were Russians. Since when has an independent state been needed for a people to exist? --88.114.235.214 14:15, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Finnish - Novgorodian War 1042

Hehee, was there any Novgorodian State in 1042? I suggest Ghirla to take also little better study to history. Novgorod was in 1042 only one Principality (merely a declining "town") under Kywa (Kijev) Rosh. One quite reliable source list this war against Jems as a robbery expedition against the Finno Ugrian tribe living in the upper sources of Vienajoki. Thus, it could also have been the first fur robbery raid against Perma or Syrjäns (Komis). Just for your knowledge, Syrjääni (People living far away in the edge) meant originally Syrjässä asuvat or Syrjäläiset ( taken from Hämes side living in land which was far away from Vienajoki). If they would have attacked against the Baltic Finnish tribe in Häme located in the Peninsula of Suomi (Finland), they would have had attacked against Karelians at first even to get closer battle with the Häme tribe. Where is a mention in old Russian sources, written later, of war between Kywa Rosh and Karelians in 1042?

The first Orthodox Archbishop in Rostov, Leontij, mentions the tribes which spoke Russian as follows:

- Poljans

- Dreuljans

- Polotshans

- Dregovitshes

- Severjans

- Buzhans

- Novgorodians

All other spoke other languages than Russian (Old Slavonic).

Where there any Russian State at that moment? Only small Principalities, all smashed by Batu in 1237 - 1240. Then more than 200 years "Vassal Principalities" under Mongol - Tatars. The first Russian State can be said to have born with Romanovs in 1613. Please use Principalities for all other feodal Principalities and Commercial Republic of Novgorod when it exsisted. The Imperial Russian State 1613 - 1917. Sorry, but without knowledge of Finno Ugrian history you cannot write the history of Slavonic Russia.

JN

[edit] Finns

I don't want to open a can of worms, and it is not a big deal, so I won't change it in the article, but isn't Finn a bit ambiguous in this time and place? West Norse sources, and probably the Swedish rune stones as well, use Finn and Finland in the meaning Saami, and the place called Finland during the Middle Ages was the province of Varsinais-Suomi.--Berig 09:25, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for comments. This discussion needs some wandering on the unrelated territory, so please excuse me. By the early Middle Ages, the usage of the word "finn" seems to have separated to two different meanings. On one hand, Norwegians called the Sami people as "finns" and apparently Finns as "kvens". On the other hand, Swedes called Finns as "finns" and the Sami people as "scridifinns" or "lapps", which became the dominant Swedish term later on. Separation of Finns and Sami people in Swedish sources is meaningful only from the 5-6th century onwards, when a specifically "Finnish" culture is detectable from archaeological finds. The then population of "Finland" seems to be a fusion of Swedish settlers (1st to 4th centuries) and the original coastal population. They lived mainly from cattle and farming, which clearly separated them from the wandering Sami people, living from gathering and herding of reindeers. The term "lapp" was loaned from Finnish, roughly meaning "outlying district" and its inhabitants. This division of terms remained dominant until the 20th century.
So, it seems rather certain that both Finns and the Sami people were originally called as "finns" by the Germanic people. Furthermore, both Finns and Sami people (or the people from which the later groups developed from) used a Baltic word *zeme ("earth") about themselves, which later on developed to indigenous nomenclatures "suomi" (Finn) and "sápmi" (Sami). Internally and externally, the forefathers of Finns and the Sami people seem to have been considered as a unified group of people.
In the Middle Ages (latest from the 11th century onwards), the word "finn" was already used about Finns outside the Norwegian/Icelandic cultural environment, which kept using "kven" for Finns and "finn" for the Sami people.
The word "Finland" seems to have meant the current southwestern Finland right from the beginning. The respective term for the Sami area was "Finnmark" (meaning exactly the same as Finland!) which developed in Swedish first to Lappmark and then to Lappland, but kept its old form in Norwegian.
Then to the terminology in this article. The Russian sources use the word "yem" about their opponents, which until the mid-13th century was the only label about the inhabitants living in today's Finland. From then on, "yem" started to mean specifically Tavastians and the word "sum" emerged in the meaning of southwestern Finns ("suomi"). This separation was apparently due to the establishment of the Catholic church and Swedish dominance in the southwestern part of today's Finland, while Tavastians still remained free.
The words "Finn" and "Finland" are already available in contemporary Catholic sources in their later medieval meanings, so using them about the Russians' opponents in general and about the country in which they lived, seems to me the closest meaningful approximation. --Drieakko 10:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
One thing: the Swedish immigrants probably came to Finland beginning from the 13th century or maybe some came a couple of centuries earlier (with Ahvenanmaa being colonized by Swedes maybe in the 9th century or so). --88.114.235.214 14:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yam and Yem

Dispute whether the Yam were the same as the Yem requires a reference (will get it as I remember where I got that info). The dispute itself is not difficult to come in terms with as it stems from the following facts:

  • Year 1042 sounds way too early for a Finnish-Novgorodian conflict
  • Primary Chronicle's list of tributary people does not mention Karelians at all. This makes Yam as Finns sound strange, since Karelians lived closer to Novgorod than Finns
  • Prince Vladimir Yaroslavich was leading a fleet against the Byzantine Empire in 1043. In this context, it would sound awfully strange that a man of this kind of ambitions was personally fighting on the other side of the continent only a year before, wasting his time against a meaningless opponent.

Based on this, it has been speculated that the Yam were an altogether different people somewhere in the southern plains of Russia. And a reference would be nice. --Drieakko 15:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

To continue the previous post, Izhorians, another Finnic people living in between the Novgorodian area and Finns, are also omitted from the Primary Chronicle. The probable reason why Novgorod had not yet been able to spread its influence on the areas of Karelians and Izhorians was the fact that the strategic fortress of Staraya Ladoga was still in Swedish possession, which ended only sometime later in the 11th century. Tensions between Finns and Novgorod seem to have escalated to war around the same time that the Swedish-Novgorodian relations soured and Novgorod took over rivers flowing in and out of Lake Ladoga latest in the early 12th century. --Drieakko 11:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GAC passed

I am pleased to inform you that this article has passed it's GA candidancy. I think that the article meets the GA criteria. However, there are a few things that could use improvement like the lead section needs expansion and there are some un cited paragrahphs that need to be cited. So congratulations and I hope this article can improve more. Kyriakos 02:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for spending time with the article! --Drieakko 04:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of primary sources

The article is based mostly on primary sources (like Novgorod chronicle). it's against original research rule, Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources --ML 15:16, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

No, it is not against the rule. Usage of primary sources is just required to be done with care. The sources are all well known and the article only summarizes their content. If there is original research somewhere, please point out the exact place. --Drieakko 17:35, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't think primary sources are used with care here where most of stuff is referenced only by primary sources. Rule says: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source.". Even if using primary sources is not itself original research, there are some real original research too: chronicle word "Yam" is translated as "Finn", while mainstream historians translate it "Tavastian". This shows dangers of using primary sources: if article was based in secondary or tertiary sources instead, one couldn't bring his own research translation "Yam = Finn" to it. --ML 18:17, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Reference what is the meaning of "Yem" is given: "About the association of the term Yem with Finns, see Suomen varhaiskeskiajan lähteitä. Historian aitta XXI. Gummerus kirjapaino Oy. Jyväskylä 1989. ISBN 951-96006-1-2." --Drieakko 18:21, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
Didn't notice that. Newer book (Itärajan vartijat I, 2004) uses anyway translation "Tavastian". What your source says exactly? --ML 18:29, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
The betterness of two sources is not decided on the base of mere 15 years. --88.114.235.214 19:48, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
No shit? --ML 10:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
I am aware that there is a dispute how to properly translate the word "Yem". The reference I decided to pick has IMHO the most reasonable rationale. It can be summed as follows:
  • Prior to 1240, no Russian source separates Finns and Tavastians, just the term "Yem" appears in the sources.
  • From 1240 (or more securely, 1256), Russian sources separate coastal Finns (Sum) and "inland Finns", Tavastians, (Yem) from each other. This seems to have happened at the same time when Sweden took over southwest:::ern Finland, the "Finland Proper".
  • Based on this, the Historian aitta proposes that the word "Yem" generally meant all Finnish tribes before the Swedish conquest as there was no purpose to separate them from each other earlier. This division did not last long, since Sweden soon took over inland as well, and by the end of 14th century most of present-day Finland was under Swedish rule and all Finnish tribes were referred to as Finns.
The dispute about the right translation can be summed up in references, if there is a point in that. For an English reader, it is rather irrelevant what regional Finnish group was in question, as English language literature generally refers to Finns and Finland when they very briefly mention the Novgorodian conflicts with the Finnish tribes. --Drieakko 18:43, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
As a side note, the first time Western sources use the term "Tavastian" is in 1237, very much around the same time that Russian sources separated them from the coastal Finns. For a reason or another, Tavastians' status was briefly promoted both in the east and in the west in the mid-13th century. --Drieakko 21:11, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
"I am aware that there is a dispute how to properly translate the word "Yem"." If there's dispute, it's not acceptable to translate it "Finn" in the text, especially when "Tavastian" seems to be more common translation even in new sources. Finnish article now uses "Yem" instead of "Finn" or "Tavastian" and tells it may mean both. That seems proper solution. English readers probably aren't interested in Tavastian vs. Finn-dicotomy, but that is not reason to decrease accuracy (after all, English readers aren't interested in subject at all :-)) . --ML 10:02, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Are you seriously claiming that Tavastians would not have been counted in as Finns? The term "Tavastian" came up very late, and was used only regionally. Not a single Western source presents Tavastians and Finns as separate people, or at least I am not aware of any. The term "Finn" pretty much covers all the Finnish "tribes", if there even were such tribes at all. What exactly Russian sources meant with "Yems" and "Sums" remains unknown, as remains the reason for the short-lived parallel usage of the terms. If you want to specifically separate the coastal Finns from the inland Finns, using the English term "Finn" just for the coastal population is IMHO incorrect. --Drieakko 11:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
In pre-Swedish rule medieval context, Finns and Tavastians mean different peoples. I don't understand why we shouldn't be as accurate as possible here, regardless if other English sources are not. Btw. Finnish sources are not "Western sources"? --ML 12:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
What is the "pre-Swedish rule medieval context"? Tavastians are mentioned in sources only once before the Swedish rule was cemented, and that source (a papal letter giving second-hand information on them) does not have anything to do with their separation from Finns. --Drieakko 12:26, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Many modern books concerning these times makes differ between Finns, Tavastians and Karelians. For example "Itärajan vartijat": "...aika luonnollinen lähtökohta on, ettei Suomen heimoilla, suomalaisilla, hämäläisillä ja karjalaisilla ollut mitään omaa vahvaa yhteiskuntajärjestystä. ... Vuonna 1123 ruhtinas Vsevolod ryhtyi sotimaan hämäläisiä vastaan vaikeissa oloissa". Is this aspect really totally unknown to you? --ML 23:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
You are now directly assuming that dialectal terms used internally by Finns were also 1:1 applicable to the terms used by other peoples. Translating "suomalainen" as a "Finn" and excluding other early medieval Finnish "tribes" from the meaning of the word is based on much later developments. Almost all sources refer to the Finns as one people. The word "Finn" had been in usage for a long time for Finno-Ugric people of Fennoscandia, and not just about Finns but also about the Sami people who were still called as Finns by Norwegians in the early 20th century. Only occasionally some regional group, like Tavastians, are mentioned separately, but Finns were otherwise referred to as a single entity. The whole "tribal" concept was largely developed in the 19th century by national-romanticist historians who wanted to support the view that Finns were organized into larger entities before the Swedish era. About the word "Tavastian", its origin is completely unknown and whether it already before the Swedish era was equivalent to "hämäläinen" is just a guess. --Drieakko 04:10, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps Review: On Hold

As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Conflicts, battles and military exercises" articles. I believe the article currently meets the majority of the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed. I have made minor corrections and have included several points below that need to be addressed for the article to remain a GA. Please address them within seven days and the article will maintain its GA status. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted. If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Here are the points that need to be addressed:

  1. The lead needs to be expanded more to better summarize the article, see WP:LEAD for assistance.
  2. Single sentences shouldn't stand alone, so statements like "Conflicts certainly got started in the early 12th century, however information on them remaining very scarce." either needs to be expanded on or incorporated into another paragraph.
  3. "It is disputed[Who?] whether "Yam" was an earlier form of "Yem" or altogether different people." The tag needs to be addressed, it appears it has been there near the same time as the GA nomination.
  4. "or probably the market place in Koroinen a few kilometers along the Aura River inland" Address the citation needed tag.
  5. Image:Nevsky.jpg needs a fair use rationale.
  6. "However, a later chronicle entry from the mid-1220s said that Russian princes had not been able to dwell in Finland." Add a source for this statement.

If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 21:07, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA delisted

I have delisted the article as a GA at this time since the above issues were not addressed. If they are fixed at some point, please renominate the article again at WP:GAN, it should have little problems passing. If you disagree with this review you can seek an alternate assessment at Good article reassessment. If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page. I have modified the page history to reflect this review. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 22:45, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Nevsky.jpg

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BetacommandBot (talk) 21:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)