Talk:Guberniya

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russia Portal
Guberniya is part of the WikiProject Russian history, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Russian history. If you would like to participate, you can visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Former Countries, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's coverage of now-defunct states and territories (and their subdivisions). If you would like to participate, please join the project.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale. (FAQ).Add comments

What is the proper plural form of Governorate General? Is it Governorates General? Governorate Generals? Governorates Generals?--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:32, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

"Governorates General". It is French-style naming, "general" being an adjective. BTW it needs to be clarified how the notions "gubernator" and "general-gubernator" (and "guberniya" and "general-gubernatorstvo") were related." Mikkalai 19:07, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. As for the difference between "gubernator" and "general-gubernator", maybe I'll add it later, unless you already have something to add.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 19:15, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Governorate-General

The usual English term is in fact "Governor-Generalship", and in the Russian Empire at least it is not the same thing as a Губерния. A Guberniya is a province (normally known as an Oblast in the outlying regions of the Empire), and a Governor-General had authority over several provinces. In Turkestan, for instance, The Governor General had authority over the Syr-Darya, Ferghana, Samarkand and Transcaspian provinces. Sikandarji 14:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

With the English term may be right, but as to the rest you a right only partially. You probably didn't read the article carefully how the meaning of the term Governor General changed over the history. Mikkalai 19:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
Fair Enough - although I had always thought that as military rulers they were in some ways the successors of the pre-Petrine Voevody. Try not to use 'Governorate General' though as it looks abominable in English.Sikandarji 08:16, 3 May 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Russian Governor Generals of estonia

Has anywone got any info on the governor generals of russian estonia? --Dahlis 23:00, 2005 September 2 (UTC)

If no one answers you, I'll try to dig something up for you after I return on 9/20. Can't promise I'll find this exact info, though.—Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 01:03, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Governorate?

Why are we translating this as "Governorate?" The 1911 Britannica uses "Government" as its term for divisions of Russia, or alternately "Province." This would point to what the usage was at the time these things actually existed. Can we point to usage of "Governorate"? john k 17:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I guess the term came about in order to avoid using "guberniya", which is the direct transliteration from Russian and is unintuitive to the general English-speaking public. "Government" is too ambiguous (just try describing the history of the government of Smolensk Government and its differences from the government of Smolensk :)), and "province" is unacceptable because guberniyas themselves were administratively divided into provinces. "Governorate" seems to be the best adequate translation of the Russian "guberniya". With all due respect to Britannica (both 1911 and modern), the scope of their articles dealing with guberniyas is pretty limited, so they never ran into the problems we did. They also invented the term "sector" to refer to Russian raions, so I'd take whatever terminology they are using with a grain of salt.
That said, if you have a better solution, please voice it here. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I would say that we should use "government" in this article, because it is not ambiguous. In any other articles we can say "government (guberniya)". Thus, the Government (Guberniya) of Smolensk. Britannica 1911 has articles on most Russian guberniya, so I don't see the idea that the scope of their articles is especially limited. john k 19:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
All we have to do to use government, at any rate, is to say that Tsarist Russia was divided into "provinces called Governments (Guberniya)" or else "provinces called Guberniya ("governments")". Lots of words have multiple meanings. There is absolutely no reason not to use "government" a proper English word. There are other similar uses - the French military provinces in 1789 were Gouvernements. john k 19:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
If you are willing to do all the work that needs to be done to introduce such a change, go right ahead. You will need to start with History of the administrative division of Russia and its subarticles, change every instance of "Governorate" to "Government" or "Government (guberniya)", make sure all double redirects are fixed, verify that all backlinks are linked properly, and that all existing references to "governorates" are straightened out. You will also need to revise some of the narrative to make sure there are no "government" vs. "Government" ambiguities (I suggest you practice with my Smolensk example above first, writing a few paragraphs on the differences between the government of Smolensk and the government of Government of Smolensk; your practice passage doesn't need to be factual, just coherent). Once you do all that, I promise you (or any other editor who embarks on and finishes this tremendous endeavor) a barnstar or any other award of your (their) choosing.
I beg your pardon if I sounded a little sarcastic, but my point is that the expected final outcome simply does not justify the amount of work involved. It's one thing to mention that "Russia was divided into provinces called Governments/guberniyas" in the lead section of the guberniya article (which is a fine suggestion, although not terribly superior to what the lead is already saying now); it's a completely different matter to correct the whole naming scheme, hopefully without screwing things up. The value added by using what's arguably a better term, in my view, is quite marginal. If you are willing to spend your time on that, I have no problem with it, but please make sure that when you are done things are in the same or better condition than they are now.
As for the existence of lots of words with multiple meanings, that is, of course, true. It is also true that one usually seeks synonyms when two such words collide in one sentence in order for one's writing to be coherent. "Governorate" is just such a synonym in this case (one can imagine that due to the nature of the topic the meanings of "government" as "a governing body" and "an administrative unit" are bound to collide quite often). Unless you can show that "governorate" is an entirely incorrect term to use, I am not convinced that this whole correction thing is anything more than a fool's errand. Thanks.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Fair enough, and you have called my bluff - I don't think I'm up to the task of changing the whole wide variety of articles. I tend to dislike neologism translations, but it's probably not worth the effort. john k 22:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks; however, please note the section I added below. The term is far from being a neologism. If it were, I myself would be doing all the activities I so helpfully outlined to you above :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with John that "government" (guberniya) would be a better term to use than governorate, as my searches through Google Books have brought up significantly fewer instances of the latter. Using some Baltic provinces as examples, guberniya is used occasionally, while usage of governorate is practically non-existent (Courland: government vs. governorate vs. guberniya; Livonia: government vs. governorate vs. guberniya). Unfortunately, the number of articles that would be changed does present a quandary. Olessi (talk) 02:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

However, I think "government" implies sovereignty, where as "governorate" implies an imperial province ruled by an appointed "governor". See the definition of "governorate" on dictionary.com [1] Martintg (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
IMO, we should use the terminology most commonly used in English, which, indicated to me by Google Books and Britannica,[2] is government. I agree with John's rationale and suggested phrasing of how to deal with the ambiguity of "Government". Unfortunately, I think a prospective change would be moot at the moment because of the scope of the changes. Olessi (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, when I started working on this topic back in 2004-2005, the choice of terminology was one of the first things I considered. I specifically chose "governorate", because, while it seems to be less commonly used than "government", it is still a correct English usage (both inside and outside the scope of the Russian Empire), and, as noted above, does not suffer from the ambiguity problem (once you start writing about the "government of Foo Government" or the "governor of the Government", you'll understand what I mean). Judging from how the term proliferated without being questioned much by native English speakers, I'd say the choice was not poor after all. We don't have to go for the "most commonly used English term"; the fact that the term is correct in English is good enough, especially if there are other good reasons to use it. Remember that Wikipedia has more information on Russian governorates and thus is in greater need to organize and cross-reference it efficiently than any other English-language source out there. What works for Britannica, which only covers a handful of Russian governorates, does not necessarily work for us.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I think it would be a good idea to mention that "government" is an alternative English designation for the units, at least. Olessi (talk) 01:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, I, for some reason, was under impression it had already been listed. Fixed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 01:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that update. In a little bit, I'll add also known as the "Government of Foo" to the individual articles and create redirects for them. Olessi (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that—it's a tedious task. I'm glad I don't have to do it now :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] For reference

Lest you still have doubts, a google books search shows that the terms "governorate" and "governorate general" are valid. "Governorship" is also used, although a good portion of the hits refers to the post of the Governor, not the administrative unit.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Page move

Judging from the above discussion and looking into the page "Governorate", I would propose to move this page to Governorates of Russia. `'Míkka>t 04:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Neutral. I don't really feel that much is going to be gained by such a move, but I don't really have anything against it either. Governorates of Russia, however, seems to work better as a title of a list of all guberniyas, while guberniya (or governorate (Russia)) would be where the actual encyclopedic information about the term is located.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
What is to be gained? An act of cleanup. My suggestion was based on precedent, as explained. See Governorates of Syria for comparison. "Guberniya" is not English. There long exist Endglish direct translations. It is reasonable to abandon the term "government" as confusing, so we are left with "governorate". List of gubernias belongs to List of governorates of Russia. `'Míkka>t 16:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, guberniya, being listed in larger English dictionaries and all, can be considered an English word as well. It is certainly a more precise term than "governorate", and folks interested in this subject will recognize it just as easily as they would "governorate". The downside, of course, is that it is not easily recognizable by folks who happen to see it in some other article mentioning guberniyas. But anyway, like I said, I am not going to oppose to the move if it is supported. I would, however, recommend, to first gain a consensus on a term dealing with "наместничества". So far I've seen namestnichestvo, vice-royalty, and governorate used interchangeably, and the clash with "governorate" is considerable, which may murk the distinction even further.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map

For those interested, this rather large (over 9 MB) map nicely depicts the Russian Empire's subdivisions in European Russia.[3] Olessi (talk) 03:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)