Talk:Nobel Prize in Literature

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[edit] Henryk Sienkiewicz's Citizenship

79.126.22.44 (talk) 11:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC) Alex

I'm sorry, this Nobel prize winner was a citizen of the Russian empire, not Poland Off course, the Great Principality of Poland existed but it was a part of the Russian empire. That's why pan Sienkiewicz was a Polish-speaker Russian writer!!☺ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.126.22.44 (talk • contribs) 11:34, 1 April 2008

I've changed Henryk Sienkiewicz's nationality back to Poland for the same reason that Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1903 laureate) is listed with Norway instead of Sweden, even though Norway was a part of Sweden in 1903. Poland may have been part of the Russian empire in 1905 but it was also a personal union. –panda (talk) 15:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
From what I understand, Norway was not part of Sweden, but both countries were forming a union. A current example would be: Northern Ireland is not part of England, but both are members of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. --Itub (talk) 13:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Norway was given to Sweden after Denmark-Norway lost the Napoleonic wars, via the Treaty of Kiel. There's more details in Norway in 1814 and 1814 in Norway. During 1814, when Norway was to be ceded to Sweden, Norway attempted to declare its independence but Sweden then attacked Norway. To avoid a continued war with Sweden, Norway agreed to form a union with Sweden and did not became independent from Sweden until 1905. Norway could not dissolved the union on its own, Sweden had to first acknowledge it, which in practical terms meant that Norway was a part of Sweden until Sweden agreed otherwise.
I'm unfamiliar with why Great Britain and Northern Ireland are in a union. This isn't any different from listing Austria instead of Austria-Hungary for Robert Bárány (1914 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). If Poland should be replaced with "Russian Empire", then Norway should be replaced with "Union of Sweden and Norway" and Austria with "Austria-Hungary", but they're not currently so. The question of Henryk Sienkiewicz's nationality should also be taken up in his article with the editors who listed his nationality as Polish, not Russian.
On a side note to 79.126.xx.xx, Wikipedia should not be used as a reference for itself. –panda (talk) 16:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

<undent>Sienkiewicz was born in Podlachia, could we use that? Otherwise his nationality is listed as Polish on his wikipage, he wrote in Polish, he called himself the 'son of Poland' in his Nobel acceptance speech, thought of himself as Polish, his ashes were repatriated to Poland, Congress Poland was a puppet state of Russia, but a puppet state is still not the main state (i.e. even though Russia ruled, it allowed Poland the political appearance of independence). Sienkiewicz was born into Congress Poland and died when it became the Kingdom of Poland, puppet state of Germany (going by the wikipages on history of Poland). So, I say Polish. Better yet would be a convention for things like this, anyone know of any guidelines in this area? WLU (talk) 17:06, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I support the entry for Poland (and the many good reasons why have been listed above). I'd like to remind everyone that editors of this page have largely agreed (after much discussion, recently deleted by WLU) to abide by the listing on the Nobel website for a final authority (in this case, he is listed under Poland). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Irregulargalaxies (talk • contribs)
Do you mean deleted, or archived, linked to in the archive box at the top of the page (here)? I very, very briefly searched the previous page for guidance on this and couldn't find any, but if there was previous discussion we should link to it. No sense re-inventing the wheel. WLU (talk) 20:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah - archived, then. My mistake - thank you.
After soliciting opinions from a variety of sources in the Wikipedia community (moderated by panda), it was decided to go by the book (in this case, the Nobel foundation and the book Nobel: The Man and his Prizes). This is located in the archived talk page under RFC: Country data in Nobel lists and applies to all the Nobel sites, not just literature. I'll note that the site does not subscribe rigorously to those rules currently, as countries in which authors held/hold citizenship (as verified by a reliable source) are also currently listed in the same column. Irregulargalaxies (talk) 02:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
The relevant links would be Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#RFC: Country data in Nobel lists and Talk:Nobel Prize in Chemistry#Closing comments. Looking at the closing comments, it wasn't really decided which countries to keep in the list, but it was decided to use the common name for all countries/nationalities. There have been other related discussions in the archive here for various laureates. –panda (talk) 05:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Non-laureates and controversies.

The author of the article states that in 1976 on Americans were awarded Prizes, in honor of the Bicentennial. This is not true, the Peace Prize in 1976 was awarded to two women from the UK for their work in Northern Ireland. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/1976.html Scotty4536 (talk) 07:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Corrected the problem mentioned above (deleted unsourced parenthetical comment) and corrected some errors in related source citations. --NYScholar (talk) 23:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)