Talk:Pan Michael

The Sobieski, Stuart Connection

I have just been watching Michael Portillo's Great Railway Journeys and, travelling in the Highlands, he investigates the history of tartan and two brothers, English frauds posing as Sobieski Stuarts, claimed to have an old book on Scottish tartans which was used to reintroduce them after they were banned after the Battle of Culloden. As it turns out, this book was fake.

I decided to investigate this Polish-Scottish connection, dating back to Bonnie Prince Charlie as it seems a very interesting one. He was the son of the Old Pretender, Prince James, son of exiled Stuart King, James II & VII and his wife Maria Clementina Sobieska and great-grandson of John III Sobieski, most famous for the victory over the Ottoman Turks in the 1683 Battle of Vienna. It is John Sobieski who features as the grand hetman in this novel and who makes his dramatic entrance at the end of the book to attend the funeral of Michał Wołodyjowski. Ivankinsman (talk) 18:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

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• Pan Wołodyjowski - okładka książki.jpg

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Pan Wołodyjowski

copied from my talk page to a more relevant place --Piotrus I see unusual title for the novel/film: Colonel Wolodyjowski and Colonel Wolodyjowski (film). I do not see any reliable refs that any of film/literary critics used "colonel". I see the title Fire in the Steppe for the translation of the novel. but I see no English-languaeg film releases. Any iea what to do with the titles? --Altenmann >talk 08:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

@Altenmann Huh. I'll also ping @Nihil novi , @Volunteer Marek and @Marcelus as they may find this discussion interesting. Here are my thoughts based on initial look into the sources (and, sigh, our articles about those classic books are terrible, I'll add them to my to-do list for improvements).

IMDb uses that title, although we know it is not very reliable (it is possible they copied the name from us).

In this scholarly article (also on JSTOR, seems free access thereat least to me) there is "In Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword, 1884) and Pan Wołodyjowski (Colonel Wolodyjowski, although the translation of the book is called Fire in the Steppe, 1888) he opposes this" which suggests this is a valid name for the novel in English (the article is about the novels, not movies). Later the article states, this time about the movies, "Thus, he began in 1969 with Fire in the Steppe (Colonel Wolodyjowski) and finished with With Fire and Sword in 1999", here the author seems to prefer the other title - however, later the article uses Colonel Wolodyjowski to refer to the movies, not Fire... ("Two significant political events preceded the filming of Colonel Wolodyjowski: the student riots" and in several other places), while he seems to use Fire... to refer to the novel. The article never dwell on the names nor makes justification for why the author chose Colonel... to refer to the movie.

I see the name Colonel... used in a number of English academic works. This one mentions all three name variants "Pan Wołodyjowski [Fire in the Steppe/Sir Michael/Colonel Wolodyjowski]”" in context of the book.

In this (accessible through Wikipedia Library), the author refers to the novel as Pan Michael, although then he uses Fire in the Steppe.

Here, the novel is called "Pan Wołodyjowski (Sir Wołodyjowski, 1888; also published in English under the title Fire in the Steppe)". Here, "The final novel, Pan Wolodyjowski (variously translated into English as Pan Michael or Fire in the Steppe)".

Going back to the movie, here we have another use of colonel: "The leading example here is the screening of Colonel Wolodyjowski [Pan Wołodyjowski] (by J. Hoffman, 1969) based on Henryk Sienkiewicz’s novel."

Oh, and then there are some works which, for the movie, don't translate the title. Consider: here, "dispute arose over the ideological side of Pan Wolodyjowski (1969) by Jerzy Hoffman, a loose screen version of" or here " Pan Wolodyjowski (1969) and Potop (Flood, 1974);"

So it seems that there are various titles. The 1992 translation of the book used the title is Fire in the Steppe, but the first one probably was 1893, according to this (oa mirror): " Pan Wołodyjowski (Colonel Wolodyjowski, 1888, Eng. translations Pan Michael, 1893, and Fire in the Steppe, 1992)", with bibliographic entry "Sienkiewicz, Henryk. 1893. Pan Michael: An Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey. Trans. by Jeremiah Curtin. Boston: Parkhill." although there are other more or less common titles (Colonel Wolodyjowski, Sir Wolodyjowski, Sir Michael, Pan Michael and possibly some other variants). So the official name for the book until 1992 would be Pan Michael, since then, Fire in the Steppe. Google Scholar title comparison suggests that Pan Michael is more common, although I don't have time right now to be 100% sure, the search results are a bit iffy (I am using Sienkiewicz to control for false results, and for some reason it limits the hits...). Oh, and I am mildly curious who came up with the translation of Pan to Colonel, which does not seem to be "official" but certainly is popular... maybe when I dig into the sources more I'll be able to answer that.

The film never had an "official" English name, and likewise, it is referred to in various ways.

In both cases I think we should use some tools (google count?) to establish what is the WP:COMMONNAME. The novel, which has an official English translation, surely should use an English title. The film, perhaps, could use the original Polish title, if we cannot establish a common name?

_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:00, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

• Based on previous discussions, I was thinking exactly as Piotrus: the novel, which has an official English translation, should use an English title. The film must use the original Polish title, with occasional translations mentioned. (to put an occasional translation into article title would be WP:UNDUE. Especially keeping in mind that translations "Pan" as "Colonel" or "Sir" sound really weird to me. --Altenmann >talk 05:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

PS. A comment on common name from [1] (1991) "Pan Wołodyjowski (usually translated into English as Pan Michael)". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:23, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Google Ngram appears to confirm this. --Altenmann >talk 00:17, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Although Sir Michael seems to be even more popular - but it might be picking up various real Sir Michaels not related to this novel/character.

From GS:

• "Sienkiewicz "Pan Wolodyjowski" polish" (added Polish to remove Polish results): 432 results (791 w/out Polish control)
• Sienkiewicz "Pan Michael": 184 results
• Sienkiewicz "Sir Michael": 46 results
• Sienkiewicz "Sir Wolodyjowski": 8 results
• Sienkiewicz "Colonel Wolodyjowski": 38 results
• Sienkiewicz "Fire in the Steppe": 1 result (some error? misses some hits that come up in other searches); "Fire in the Steppe" has 143 hits but some false positives. Sienkiewicz "fire in the" has 343 hits and Sienkiewicz "in the Steppe" has 143, again (both have some false positives)

I have also tried Sir Michal, Mr. Michael, Mr. Michal and Mr. Wolodyjowski, they produced <20 results, most of which appeared to be false positives. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:54, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

PS. I tried controlling for pre- and post- 1991 results, but it is hard to judge this well due to the aforementioned borked search for "Fire in the Steppe" controlled with Sienkiewicz _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:08, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

@Altenmann Pan as Sir is, I think, a common translation - @Nihil novi may say more. I am surmised to find no pl wiki article discussing Slavic_honorifics#Usage_of_Pan _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 05:25, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I think so, but is sounds rather inept in historical context. In modern times pan is rendered as Mr. I would call you "Mr. Piotrus, dear Sir" for "Pan Piotrus, szanowny panie". But "Sir Soplica" would sound weird, even "sir Piłsudski". And of course "Mr. Soplica" will be even weirder. We have no problem to use the words "Señor" or "Monsieur" or "Herr" in English. So what is wrong with "Pan"? --Altenmann >talk 06:18, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

The Wikipedia "Sir" article adequately explains why "Sir Wołodyjowski" would, on all grounds, be an inappropriate title for either the novel or the film. Why not, indeed, stick with the original Polish title, Pan Wołodyjowski? There is no compelling necessity to alter the Polish title for English-language contexts. All the other renderings are artificial and arbitrary. (The titles of the other two novels in Henryk Sienkiewicz's Trilogy, on the other hand, are suitably, literally Englished as With Fire and Sword and The Deluge.) Nihil novi (talk) 19:47, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 29 August 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Reading Beans 05:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

---

Colonel Wolodyjowski → Pan Michael – Per discussion above, including ngram and cited academic source that states "Pan Wołodyjowski (usually translated into English as Pan Michael)". Note that "Pan Michael" is the name of the original translation from 1893, the new edition from 1992 for some reason chose a different title, "Fire in the Steppe", but that title does not appear to be very popular. That said, the original Polish title "Pan Wołodyjowski" is also often used in English, so this is a bit of a toss up between WP:USEENGLISH and WP:COMMONNAME, and I'd be fine with using "Pan Wołodyjowski" as well. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 04:04, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

• support - per my opinion Talk:Colonel_Wolodyjowski#Pan_Wołodyjowski in the discussion. --Altenmann >talk 05:03, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nomination and Altenmann. Updated reconsideration of this classic title's English form. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 22:33, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
• Support the "Pan Wołodyjowski" version, for both book and film. --Nihil novi (talk) 00:34, 30 August 2024 (UTC)

If English Wikipedia is ready to use the original form of this iconic title and name (Michał Wołodyjowski) in Polish literary history, I would certainly support the move of Colonel Wolodyjowski → Pan Wołodyjowski, including addition of the diacritic in "ł", which is another reason to move the main title header as it currently exists. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 15:47, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

<sigh> Much as I hate the existing English translations, in Wikipedia we cannot invent titles, especially when the official translations exist. --Altenmann >talk 18:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

What, in this case, is the "official translation"? Does the novel Pan Wołodyjowski have an "official translator"?

Nihil novi (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I meant the printed translation of the book title. --Altenmann >talk 21:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

• We should not rely on the very old translation by Jeremiah Curtin, which has many flaws that were already pointed out by his contemporaries. Much evidence suggests that Curtin was not very familiar with the Polish language and likely based his translation at least partly on the Russian version. This is evident from the names he used (Belaya Tserkoff, Vishnyevetski, Bogun, Lyubelsk, etc.). The title itself is a great example of this. Later, we had a translation by Samuel Augustus Binion (Pan Michael (Pan Volodiyovski): A Historical Tale), and finally, the one considered the best (though not without faults) by Wiesław S. Kuniczak (Fire in the Steppe). I believe we should use the title proposed by Kuniczak.

Marcelus (talk) 09:35, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

• I've seen much stupider title translations. To translate "Michał" as "Michael" is not that bad a sin. I am wondering how mocny pan is named in Fire in the Steppe. --Altenmann >talk 15:57, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

6 September 2024 moves

Today, 6 September 2024, "Colonel Wolodyjowski (film)" was moved to "Pan Wołodyjowski (film)", while Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel Pan Wołodyjowski -- on which the film was based -- was moved from "Colonel Wolodyjowski" to "Pan Michael".

Is it logical to thus move the film's title from a version of the novel's title to the actual title of the novel -- while moving a misspelling (Colonel Wolodyjowski) of the novel's actual title to an arbirarily made-up title (Pan Michael)?

Would it not make more sense to use the same title of the Sienkiewicz novel, Pan Wołodyjowski, for both the novel and the film?

Nihil novi (talk) 22:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I sympathise with your point of view, but wikipedia does have a number of rules which I wholeheartedly disagree with. For example Wikipedians insist that Sloboda is not a primary meaning, see Talk:Sloboda#Requested_move_24_August_2024, but <sigh> not much we can do about it. --Altenmann >talk 22:40, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Altenmann, I see your point.

I think Wikipedia should consider, in like cases, using the author's original title (Pan Wołodyjowski), with links from titles devised by other persons (Pan Michael, Fire in the Steppe, etc., etc.).

This would still provide readers with unimpeded access to an article, while preserving a book title that has no obvious literal translation (which both of Sienkiewicz's other two Trilogy novels, With Fire and Sword and The Deluge, possess).

Nihil novi (talk) 01:37, 7 September 2024 (UTC)