Cola 63

Recent edits at Igor Stagljar

Please give a justification for your recent edits at Igor Stagljar, in order to make a discussion possible in the first place. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 08:38, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I contacted Mr. Igor Stagljar. As you may know, Yugoslavia doesn’t exist since 1991 and, most importantly, Prof. Stagljar does not feel like Yugoslavian. In contrary, Prof. Stagljar feels embarrassed if someone calls him Yugoslavian since Yugoslavia caused terrible pain to him and his family members during the Croatian Independence War (1991-1995). For these reasons Prof. Stagljar insists that the first sentence on his english wiki starts with: Igor Stagljar is Croatian-Canadian molecular biologist. Cola 63 (talk) 18:57, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for responding after almost 4 months of edit-warring. However, I think biographical articles have to follow Wikipedia guidelines, rather than personal feelings of the people who they are about. As an example, some of my ancestors were - with good reason - ashamed of being born in the German Third Reich, but couldn't help about that. Clearly, Igor Stagljar was born in Yugoslavia, the country Zagreb belonged to in 1966. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 19:42, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

It is important to distinguish between two different terms: citizenship and nationality. Namely, people sometimes cannot choose their citizenship, but nationality is solely a matter of their personal choice. Since Mr. Stagljar does not feel like a Yugoslav, no one has the right to designate him as such. On the other hand, it is important to emphasize that Croatia was not created in the 1990s, it existed much before (since 927 after Christ), and in 1991 Croatia became independent state. It is also important to emphasize that Yugoslavia was a community of six states, and Croatia was one of these six states. In today's Croatia, generations born before 1991 declare exclusively Croatia as their country of birth. In Eastern Europe, there was a similar community (union) of states under the abbreviated name of the USSR, from which several states withdrew. Today, it is quite logical that for Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Ukrainians and other people born in the USSR, it is not necessary to state that their country of birth is USSR, and especially it is not necessary to state that their nationality is the USSR. For these reasons, it is clear that no one has the right to designate Igor Štagljar by Yugoslav nationality, nor to designate Yugoslavia as his country of birth. According to his personal choice, Igor Štagljar feels like a Croat by nationality, and his country of birth is Croatia. Cola 63 (talk) 18:59, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

@Jochen Burghardt: has asked for an outsider to have a look at this, per a request on this page. In my view, there are merits and demerits to both of your positions. Jochen Burghardt is correct to point out that Wikipedia relies upon consensus and policy to describe people, rather than their own self-identification (although, in some cases, the consensus/policy is that we defer to their self-identification, such as in the case of gender identity). It is not the case, as is suggested @Cola 63:, that a person's self-identification of citizenship or nationality must reflect how they are described on Wikipedia. In these circumstances, the question is how the majority of reliable sources in the article describe the person, as well as whether the subject has a preference one way or the other. See note A to the manual of style for biographies. Whether a person has a preference one way or the other must be determined by reference to verifiable material, it is not sufficient to have a private conversation with the subject which we cannot verify. Naturally, sources and self-identification two will often overlap, that is, a person's self-identification will usually (though not always) reflect how reliable sources describe them. From my quick review, it looks like he is generally described as "Croatian", rather than "Yugoslavian" in the sources I have seen. There may be others I have overlooked, I appreciate that you might take issue with that, Jochen Burghardt, but that seems to be the more apt term in the circumstances. Any further discussion of this issue is probably better placed on the article's talk page. I will add a note there, pointing out this discussion. Hopefully, this comment is of some help to both of you. Local Variable (talk) 13:52, 6 June 2022 (UTC)