Talk:Klaipėda

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Klaipėda is within the scope of WikiProject Lithuania, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Lithuania on Wikipedia. To participate simply edit the article or see our to-do list. On the project page we have some tools to help you out. Don't hesitate to ask questions!
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the importance scale.
Comments nothing but history. Renata 18:00, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
Middle Ages Icon
Middle Ages Portal
Klaipėda is part of WikiProject Middle Ages, a project for the community of Wikipedians who are interested in the Middle Ages. For more information, see the project page and the newest articles.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.

Article Grading:
The article has not been rated for quality and/or importance yet. Please rate the article and then leave comments here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
Crusades task force
WikiProject Middle Ages To do:

Contents

[edit] Translation of the Week

Note: Klaipeda is the current Translation of the week

  • "Klaipėda ... is Lithuania's only seaport on the Baltic Sea." Probably true, but isn't "Klaipėda ... is Lithuania's only seaport, on the Baltic Sea." more valid?
  • "Klaipeda was founded by Baltic tribes in the 12th century. ... This Baltic Sea harbor city was founded by the Teutonic Knights in 1252 ...". Are these contradictory or incomplete?
  • Shouldn't Kurland be somewhere in the early history?

Aliter 22:21, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

founded ... in the 12th century ... harbor city was founded ... in 1252 — When I was translating it, it seemed like, in this instance and a couple others, the writer was trying to create a distinction between the port and the city, which isn't entirely upheld throughout the article. —Muke Tever 05:03, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I am just wondering why polish name of the city is given as if Poland and Poles had something to do with this city. This polish name then passed to all other translations:( It is as strange as to provide Lithuanian name for Riga or Tallinn in the articles about these cities Dirgela 14:24, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is probably because Klaipeda was a city in the polish province of Ducal Prussia from 1525(1466) to 1660. Space Cadet 16:05, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It was called Memel at that time, the polish version of the name Klaipeda came into use somewhere in the 30ties or 50ties. Btw. following that logic we are missing the swedish and russian versions here, because both ruled the city for some time. I have nothing against poles, I just find it simply strange. It seems to me that the first version from which all "translation of the week" articles were translated was polish, therefore the polish name. Dirgela 06:24, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This has been an ongoing problem with Baltic articles: cities like Klaipeda/Memel, Kaunas/Kauno/Kovno, Gdansk/Danzig, Konigsberg/Kaliningrad etc. have legitimate recent-history long-term variants that were widely used. Some editors (usually mimicking what they were taught in local schools) then go back and apply arcane names used for a century 500 years ago to the primary list (or names used by a partner in a dual monsrachy, like Poland-Lithuania), which is confusing rather than clarifying.
We need to counsel people that examples should meet the criteria of the examples I named above, where the current name (e.g. Kaliningrad) and a name used for centuries (in this case, Konigsberg) should both be present, but all the other names used by countries that briefly ruled the city or aspired to rule it should not be present. Almost every major city east of the Oder-Neisse and west of Moscow has been under two or three different flags for a long period in the last 500 years... but not 10 flags. This case is part of the "Polish names added to Lithuanian cities" over-activity, but you can find lots of other cases where the nationalities change but the problem is the same. Coll7 23:55, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Did Someone Use A Bad Translator?

The last two paragraphs are awful, they don't even follow basic English grammar. I will have to change this.

[edit] Translation of the century

These words were actually in the article itself, but I thought Talk would be a more fitting place for them. Kelisi 20:02, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Please correct the grammar of the following sentences:
The occurrence of building, subsequent nationalization and the conviction of initiators of this building of the Maria, Queen of Peace, Catholic Church in 1957–1962, made a noise in Lithuania, argues for it. A cultural activity was leaven by attempts of the town administration in 1971–1975 with foundation of affiliated societies of the Pedagogical University of Šiauliai and the National Conservatory of Lithuania in Klaipėda. This undertaking formed the stratum of humanitarian clerisy, injected citified self-immanence, so necessary for technological Klaipėda. These faculties became a basis for establishing the University of Klaipėda in 1991.

I've just done some rather difficult grammar and syntax repair, but these lines have got me. Anyone?

[edit] How's the weather?

Better than the rest of the country? Mithridates 19:30, 23 January 2006 (UTC) No, and there storms from Baltic sea.its more temperate and humid.Rain/snow is common. High average 27 C in July? Maybe in milan, not in Klaipeda.

[edit] References

In making some changes to this article I have relied on several English language books. English historians by and large tend not to entertain the chronic nationalistic tendancies (and 'revisions') of the Poles and Lithuanians and so we gather a more balanced factual view. It was stated that Memel, as we know it, was founded by the Livonian Order but this is not so. Several history books, notably professor Eric Christiansen's brilliant The Northern Crusades - The Baltic and the Catholic Frontier 1100-1525, make it quite clear that the fortresses at both Georgenburg and Memel were founded alone by the Teutonic Knights of Prussia, not the Brothers of The Sword. Moreover, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia (or Henricus Lettus) doesn't mention Memel at all. According to countless atlases and maps I have looked at there is no mention of something called the "Curonian Spit", only the Kurische Nehrung, described by the great Baedeker as "a narrow strip of sand, separating the Kurische Haff from the Baltic and extending to Memel". Given that all the atlases also say that, and given that this territory was German (in some form or another)from 1252 to 1922 and again from 1939-45, how can the rest of the world be expected to identify it from an unknown name? This is the sort of problem we have with places like Danzig and Stettin, known by those names in Britain since the Dark Ages, and now with unrecognisable and unpronouncable names. It seems to me that cartographers must adopt the old concept of putting the historic names in brackets if history students are able to make any sense of what they are studying. It also seems to me that if articles such as this are speaking historically they should have the historic name in the article, not the new name. (I am inclined to laugh slightly, as it would appear that Kurland or Courland is a name given by the Knights also). It is also just laughable to speak of an "army" of the scattered tribes in Samland, whose numbers in total were minute. 213.122.49.13 15:27, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I broke the history section up into relevant subheaders because it was unwieldy before. I moved the names paragraph to its own subheader, which other articles already have (Gdańsk, Toruń). I removed the date range of German ownership from the introduction, as it is unnecessary and lacked the Lithuanian years.
"Curonian Spit" is the currently accepted English name for Kurische Nehrung, and Wikipedia rules say to use English. If you feel that Wikipedia should use Kurische Nehrung instead of Curonian Spit, you should address that at its own article, not here.
Christiansen does not mention the Livonians being in Memel, but William Urban does in The Teutonic Knights: A Military History. Discussing the 1328 campaign by Grand Master Werner von Orseln, Urban writes, "Not realising what he had taken on, Werner proceeded with plans to transfer his forces east for an advance into Samogitia. Replacing the garrison of Livonian knights in Memel with Prussian knights gave the Livonian master additional troops for his siege of Riga; also, it made it easier for the Prussian marshal to co-ordinate operations up the Nemunas River" (p. 121). This link mentions them, sourced by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Memellandkreise e.V. This link also mentions them. Olessi 19:51, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
The German-language version of Klaipeda's website also mentions the Livonians.[1] Olessi 20:36, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

An interesting discussion. Christiansen is a Fellow of Oxford University and considered an expert in this subject. His research is magnificent. Not sure who William Urban actually is, although his account of the Livonian wars in The Baltic Crusade is a good read. But Krollmann's The Teutonic Order in Prussia (Elbing, 1938) states categorically that Memel is a Teutonic Knights foundation (as does von Treitschke). The preamble to the Versaille discussions states that "Memel was founded in 1252 by the Teutonic Knights" (refer: The Peace Settlement in the Polish-German Borderlands, Professor Ian F.D.Morrow, 1936). Given the degrees of cop-operation between the two, related, Orders it is probable that the northern Order may have garrisoned Memel from time to time in order to release Teutonic Knights for crusades against the Lithuanians and Pskovians. But it was a Teutonic Knights castle.

Whilst this may indeed be the English-language Wikipedia there are a great many foreign names which have never been changed into an English equivalent. "Curonian" is definitely NOT English, but an invention. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (A & C Black, London) produced a huge set of finely detailed maps in 1903, and whilst they refer to a great many foreign names (such as East Prussia instead of Ost Preussen), Konigsberg, for instance, was never changed from its German name. This also applies to the Kurische Nehrung peninsular which, since the middle of the 13th century has been called that in all atlases in Britain, including even our Robinson's Atlas of 1939. The simple fact is that you cannot hope to erase almost 700 years of German culture from this region in this silly way. Its time to grow up. I'm 100% behind our anonymous friend, above. Christchurch 09:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

By 1252 the Livonian Order had been absorbed into the Teutonic Knights, so the aforementioned authors are correct in Memel being founded by the "Teutonic Knights", (although initially garrisoned by members of the Livonian branch instead of Prussian branch). Regarding geographic names, if you feel that "Curonian Spit" should be at "Kurische Nehrung" instead, feel free to raise that suggestion at Talk:Curonian Spit. However, until it were to change, articles referencing the peninsula should use its current spelling, Curonian Spit.Olessi 16:35, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hahaha. our anonymous friend. I shall play that game as well. The chronic German revisionism that is rampant throughout Wikipedia and elsewhere is pitiful, *especially* when you go around making accusations against others. Your projection of your modern jingoist views onto history is so sad. If you read Goebbels' propaganda tactics, the similarities are outstanding. And what is this '700 years of German culture'? If that's not a laughably sad Bismarkian/Hitlerian mischaracterisation, I don't know what is. I think you better hurry . You are late to your SdP meeting. Also, while you'd hope for an impartial view from a British historian, you will sometime painfully see the prussophilia/Brussells agenda shining right through. Your friend, Anonymous II

[edit] Lithuanian / German

It's valid that this article makes clear that Memel/Klaipeda was indeed a largely German city ethnically for most of its history. I've been there and seen the remnants of its German history. However, the article fails to mention that the city of Memel and the Memelland had a mixed German/Lithuanian population. Although most of the "Preussisch Litauisch" (Lithuanian-Prussian) inhabitants were to some extent culturally Germanized, i.e. Protestant, they continued to speak Lithuanian in their homes and maintained an identity distinct from the Prussians across the Memel/Neman River. After WWII, a number of them returned to their homes and were accepted as Lithuanian citizens. Cf. "Paradiesstrasse," by Ulla Lachauer.

Also, Klaipeda today has a large container port that is vital to Lithuania's foreign trade.

Sca 00:24, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Memel town?

Why should there be a disclaimer for "Memel town"? The primary meaning of "Memel" in English is the city, and hence should redirect to Klaipėda. Situations like this are why Template:Redirect was created in the first place. Olessi 20:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Memel currently redirects to Memel (disambiguation), which is against the Manual of Style. Either "Memel" should be the disambiguation page, or Memel should redirect to Klaipėda and an Other Uses Template should be included. My preference is for the latter. Olessi 18:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Anyone? Olessi 15:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
As discussed before at Talk:Memel (disambiguation), Memel needs to be an article that discusses the various meanings, see also EB which has 5 different articles. Philip Baird Shearer had moved Memel to Memel (disambiguation). It should not be a simple dab-page, though, and certainly not be "buried" as redirect to Klaipeda only, which is simply wrong. --Matthead 18:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
You've mentioned that before, and it seems Philip and I have agreed to disagree with you. Memel (disambiguation) would not be "buried" as a redirect on Klaipeda; it would be prominently displayed at the top of the article. However, if "Memel" is NOT a redirect to Klaipeda, then "Memel" should be the disambiguation page, not "Memel (disambiguation)". I see no reason to have "disambiguation" as part of the namespace title when it is not actually disambiguating from "Memel". Very few people are going to search for "Memel town", making the current disclaimer atop Klaipeda look awkward. Olessi 20:09, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe Memel should simply redirect to Klaipeda and then Klaipeda should have that template "Memel redirects here. For other uses see here." Renata 21:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

The population shrank from 207,100 in 1992 to 187,442 inhabitants in 2005. — Why?

— "Inhabitants" is superfluous.

"Framework architecture" is generally known in English as "half-timbered construction."

Sca 22:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about the Jews?

My grandfather's family fled Memel in December 1939 to escape the Nazis. From what he's told me, the Jewish students were expelled from the schools about a year before that, and most of the Jews in the area fled around this time. I don't know enough details to write the history of this period, but it would be nice if someone could include a bit about it here.

[edit] Adolf

I had to laugh when I read that "Chancellor" Adolf Hitler visited in '39! Hitler, one need hardly mention, is one of the most widely known figures in recent history; we don't need to identify him by one of his titles (later superseded by Führer), much less dignify him by making him sound like some ordinary government official. We wouldn't write about "General Secretary" Stalin, either, except perhaps in the context of a discussion of CPSU history. Deleted.

Sca 17:38, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I've merged Akropolis (Mall) to Klaipėda, per WP:LOCAL. —Quarl (talk) 2006-12-30 08:26Z

[edit] Names in soviet times

In soviet times russian name of Klaipeda - Клайпеда was simultaneously used and this is a fact. And I wonder why User:Iulius deletes this. Every street name was doubled in russian name, inscripts in road signs were in russian, because in Lithuanian SSR both languages lithuanian and russian were used. Is this so uncomfartable to admit?

[edit] Mayor's missing in the infobox

Is someone aware that mayor's name is missing in the infobox? NoTime 12:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation

The audio file says something like /kleɪpɛdə/ while the text says /klaɪpɛdə/. Anybody know which is right? Are both used? Is one English, the other Lithuanian? Elphion (talk) 01:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)