Talk:Mykola Sumtsov

Article title

Hi, user:Ушкуйник. Please don’t edit-war over the the article title, but respect the WP:BRD sequence. A quick search indicates that the long-stable title Mykola Sumtsov is also currently used in a clear majority of reliable English-language sources.

• Google Books search, 21st century: “Mykola Sumtsov” OR “Nikolai Sumtsov” OR “Nikolay Sumtsov”
• Google Scholar search, since 2016: “Mykola Sumtsov” OR “Nikolai Sumtsov” OR “Nikolay Sumtsov”

 —Michael Z. 20:03, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

• • Hi, Michael Z.. I don't want to take a part in edit-war with you, but it seems to me that your contribution has a strong negative influence on the content of the article about Sumtsov.
  • I would be glad to explain my position:
  • 1) The spelling of his name Nikolay Sumtsov is a transliteration from Russian. This transliteration is used in a number of reliable sources, references to which are easy to find. Since ca. 90 percent of Sumtsov's papers are written in Russian language, and the most part of his life he flourished in Russian Empire, it seems logical to use this transliteration as the first one. At the same time, there is no doubt that Sumtsov was a representative of Ukrainian culture as well and he chose the Ukrainian side after the revolution 1917. For that reason the transliteration Mykola Sumtsov from Ukrainian is correct too, but (sic!) with respect to the latest period of his life in 20th Century. In fact both transliterations are used in reliable sources, but with respect to two different research areas. The form Nikolay Sumtsov is prevalent in the research literature on the history of Russian Empire, while the form Mykola Sumtsov in the literature on the history of Ukraine from 1918 to 1922. You have changed the order of the transliterations and it leads to a chronological discrepancy.
  • 2) You deleted a great part of important information from the article. Compare for example the part of the article "Literary works" in your actual version and mine [1]. You deleted all the information about the works on Vladimir Odoyevsky, Nikolay Nekrasov, Nikolay Gogol, Leo Tolstoy, Vasily Zhukovsky and Alexander Pushkin, which I substantiated through the English-language source [2]. Now the essay looks like Sumtsov only wrote about Ukraine: the majority of his 19th century writings are left unmentioned in the essay, since you deleted all the information about them.
  • 3) The references to the modern states (Russia and Ukraine) instead of the historical Russian Empire and Ukrainian SSR are just not correct. It is anachronism.
  • 4) The using of such forms like the "2nd Kharkiv Boys Gymnasium" with respect to the history of Russian Empire is anachronism. This problem was already discussed with Users Yulia Romero • Talk to me! and Ymblanter. Sic! I don't have anything against putting modern Ukrainian spelling of the city in brackets (for example: "Kharkov (present-day Kharkiv, Ukraine)"), since cities like Kharkov/Kharkiv are Ukrainian today, but the spelling Kharkiv could not be used as prevalent with respect to the administraitive division of the 19th century Russian Empire and it's historical institutions like the 2nd Boys Gymnasium.
  • 5) In part of the article about Ivan Vishensky, Lazar Baranovych, Ioanikii Galiatovsky you deleted the title of Sumtsov's work "On the history of literature in Southern Russia of the 17th century".
  • 6) Your thesis in the preamble: "Sumtsov was a Ukrainian ethnographer", instead of "Sumtsov was a Russian Imperial and Ukrainian Soviet ethnographer" is artificial simplification of the historical information. And even here you deleted the sources.
  • In summary, I find your version to be a falsification of the history and refusal of a part of Sumtsov's legacy. If my opinion is wrong, I apologize. Ушкуйник (talk) 22:46, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Hi. You knowingly launched a move and revert war and mixed it up with some apparently good content, but also some carelessly chosen and worthless references to support your disputed changes, like foreign-language sources used to justify an English name. I not only moved the article back, and reverted again, as you might have expected, but took the effort to restore your additions. Sorry if I missed something. I suggest you don’t mix valuable edits up with ones you already know are disputed.

Regarding article title and primary name used in the text, please become familiar with the relevant guidelines, starting with WP:TITLE. The common name in WP:RELIBLE SOURCES in English is one important determiner of our title. —Michael Z. 02:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Well, there is no edit-war from my side: I have explained my position to you in full detail. The title of the article is not so important. We can also keep the form of his name Mykola Sumtsov since it can be found in a number of the research works. If you don't mind, I would paste back the deleted information on his works about Tolstoy, Pushkin etc. I would also suggest to come back to my version of preamble "Sumtsov was a Russian Imperial and Ukrainian Soviet ethnographer". Best regards, Ушкуйник (talk) 14:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Sure, about his other works. I think the description could be improved. Perhaps “Ukrainian ethnographer in the Russian Empire, Ukrainian People’s Republic, and Soviet Ukraine” is more accurate and much clearer. —Michael Z. 14:48, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I must say at arrived at this talk page after my edits, for which I apologise. I believe it's perfectly fine to note his undeniable and lasting contributions to the development of Ukrainian culture and language, but to use the modern (read: Ukrainian) name and transliteration for cities instead of the "historical" one (read: Russian) is an unfortunate anachronism (especially since Sumtsov is remarkable for trying to promote the use of Ukrainian when everything was done in Russian). I also agree with the Wikipedian suggesting the Russian transliteration of his name as the title of the article, with it being not only his birth name, his name in his native language and the one he used for most of his life, but also the one on most of his works, but since he also used his Ukrainian name in his few (comparatively, of course, as his ouvre is massive) works in Ukrainian it's not that big of a deal. Ostalgia (talk) 21:01, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

I don’t agree with most of that. Please get consensus before Russifying article text. —Michael Z. 15:39, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

First of all allow me to point out that I resent the implications of your accusation of "russification" and would appreciate an apology. Secondly, the points raised by the previous user with whom you seem to have edit-warred are valid. We're talking about a man who was born in the capital of the Russian Empire, who was a native speaker of Russian, who went by the name Николай Сумцов (i.e. Nikolai/Nikolay Sumtsov) for the overwhelming majority of his life (the alternative, Ukrainian version, was only used for the final years of his life and in parallel with his "original" name, not replacing it), who is, as noted by the previous user, often referred to as Nikolai or Nikolay Sumtsov in academic literature (something that's reinforced by the aforementioned fact that the vast majority of his works were published under the name Nikolai/Nikolay Sumtsov), none of which denies his important to the Ukrainian language and Ukraine's culture, but all of which do suggest that accusing someone of "Russifying" an article about this person is way off the mark.

Furthermore, and more importantly, for all but the 5 final years of his life he lived in a country where Russian was the official language (something that, as I mentioned, he tried to change by making it at least more flexible with regards to the use of Ukrainian). In that country and period, the city where he lived was called Харьков, i.e. Kharkov, not Харкiв/Kharkiv, the university where he worked was not "Kharkiv University" but (officially) the Imperial Kharkov University, etc. Keeping consistency with the current name might be OK for an article about the city of Kharkiv itself (whcih does, however, contain references to Kharkov that I do not disagree with), or about Ukraine, but unless there's a single, well-established English name for a place, using the historical name for a city for historical articles is a principle respected by most serious publications and widely supported in Wikipedia. Not doing so would result in bizarre anachronisms such as using Rijeka instead of Fiume before the 1920s, Gorizia instead of Görz during Austrian rule, referring to Danzig as Gdańsk during the time when it was ruled by Prussia, Austrian Lemberg as Lviv, or even to Londinium as London, Tenochtitlan as Mexico, or Königsberg as Kaliningrad, and I'm pretty sure we wouldn't want that. I'm deliberately providing both examples of cities with current and past names having the exact same meaning in different languages, or at least the same root, and of two completely different names for the same place. I think what I'm sugesting is not even remotely controversial from an editorial standpoint. Ostalgia (talk) 08:38, 11 August 2022 (UTC)