Talk:Swedish War of Liberation

Name

Swedish War of Liberation is very POV reflecting the nationalist, anti-union tradition in Swedish history (there were some pro-union Swedes as well). The Swedish War of Secession is the academic and neutral English title. The article ought to be moved.--Orakologen (talk) 04:25, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Since Swedes are generally a non-nationalist people I have taken the liberty of moving the page without previous discussion.--Orakologen (talk) 17:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted this WP:BOLD move. If you still want to move it, please open a WP:RM discussion.

Before moving it back, I checked Google Books, excluding "Books, LLC" as recommended at WP:COMMONNAME. Here are the results:

1. "swedish war of liberation" -inauthor:"Books, LLC" — 166 hits
2. "swedish war of secession" -inauthor:"Books, LLC" — 6 hits

If Orakologen has any evidence in support of their assertion that "Swedish War of Secession is the standard (and neutral) English title", then please present it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:40, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Okay. I assumed the move was uncontroversial because - like I said - Swedes are generally a non-nationalist people (I would never have dared to move the title of a Serbian war ;-) ). The huge difference you get in your Google book comparison is because your search includes "a Swedish war of liberation" which is purely a description. If you type "The Swedish War of Liberation" vs. "The Swedish War of Secession" you get 10 to 6. Still a majority, but Encyclopaedia Britannica has Swedish War of Secession. To me EB sets the standard. Most of the "SW of L" titles are popular books and Liberation sounds cooler, so writers of popular history prefer that. That "War of Liberation" is not neutral should be self evident IMO. It implies that Gustav Vasa liberated an oppressed people, which is in line with the POV of traditionel Swedish history, but obviously not neutral. Secession on the other hand simply describes what actually happened. Sweden seceeded from the Kalmar Union. I would prefer that you and I could talk this through before opening an WP:RM since you may have some reasons I hadnt thought about. Why do you prefer War of Liberation?--Orakologen (talk) 22:13, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Orakologen, your opening assertion that "Swedes are generally a non-nationalist people" is an appalling basis for choosing a page name. An editor's personal view expressed as a sweeping generalisation about national character is no part of the naming process set out at WP:Article titles.

Your other assertion (that "Swedish War of Secession is the standard academic title") is clearly false. There are 6 hits for that title, and 4 of them are the Encylopedia Britannica. The other two are:

1. a general guide to Sweden, which doesn't look very scholarly
2. a scholarly work on parliaments

So "war of secession" is used by only two scholarly works.

OTOH, "war of liberation" is used by several scholarly works, including three uses in Britannica, and the Academic American Encyclopedia.

If you want to open a RM discussion on that basis, go ahead. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:52, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

That "Swedes are a non-nationalist people" is not part of my argument - I dont know why you tought that..?? It was merely an explanation of the reason why I tought this would be an uncontroversial move. AAE is a good source, I missed that. But you are missing the POV aspect of this issue. Even in Swedish wiki some people wanted Gustav Vasas uprising ("revolt") or The rebellion of Gustav Vasa. W of L is simply not neutral. W of S is. This is the essence of this matter. Based on my history studies, lectures by British historians on the subject and EB I tought W of S was standard. So maybe I jumped to conclusions, I am sorry for that. But the question of neutrality still exists and you havent adressed that. Why do you prefer the POV "liberation" to the objective secession? The Kalmar union was a recognized reality. Gustav Vasa rebelled succesfully against it and Sweden secedeed. This is a neutral description of the facts. W of L on the other hand insists that the Swedes were liberated from foreign oppression. This is the POV of the victorious Swedish nation state, but not the pro-union Swedes in the 16th Century, the Danes or a significant part of the 25% of the people in modern Sweden living in areas that were Danish/Norwegian at the time and became war ridden border areas after the dissolution of the union. Liberation indicates that the Kalmar union was a bad thing, which is a legitimate POV, but far from objective. So unless the scholars are close to unanimous in their preference for W of L, I think it should be changed. But first I would like your answer to the question: Why do you prefer W of L?--Orakologen (talk) 14:41, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Reply. You misunderstand the discussion: I do not "prefer" either name. I follow the policy WP:COMMONNAME, which supports the use of whatever name is most widely used in reliable sources. In this case that happens to be "Swedish War of Liberation".
For the purposes of choosing an article title, your account of the history is irrelevant: you are not a reliable source, and nor am I. The terminology you want is the preferred Danish title, and it's preposterous to claim that the Danish usage is "neutral" but the Swedish usage is "POV". Not so; there are two POVs here. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:42, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

It is incorrect that War of Secession is the preferred Danish title. It is not used in Denmark. Danish versions of Gustav Vasas Rebellion or - in older texts - the Dalcarlian Rebellion are the terms used. Often it is simply seen as the final phase of the Union Wars (Unionskrigene) and not given a separate name.--Batmacumba (talk) 06:58, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived 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. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: No consensus for move per WP:COMMONNAME. Darkness Shines (talk) 10:12, 20 March 2013 (UTC) Darkness Shines (talk) 10:12, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

---

Swedish War of Liberation → Swedish War of Secession or → Swedish War of Independence – The term "liberation" is too POV representing the nationalist tradition in Swedish history, whereas Swedish War of Secession is merely descriptive - the Kalmar Union was a reality and Sweden seceded from it. Swedish War of Secession is used by Encyclopaedia Britannica and other scholarly works so it is a legitimate and neutral alternative. Orakologen (talk) 14:18, 11 March 2013 (UTC)

• Weak oppose. While I find the two terms approximately equivalent, I don't find any Google hits indicating online use of the "Secession" version other than on Wikipedia, while I find several hits using the "Liberation" version. So from a WP:COMMONNAME point of view, I'd prefer the "Liberation" version. I could change my mind if I'm convinced that multiple reliable sources consistently use another version. Tomas e (talk) 12:50, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Thats strange. Encyclopaedia Britannica uses SW of S so that alone gives Google hits. Also why do you find them "equivalent"?. The Swedish War of Independence actually gets more hits. Can you accept that?--Orakologen (talk) 22:04, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

• Strong Support the current name is inherently biased. We should use neutral names in wikipedia. Thus it should be "Swedish War of Secession", which is neutral, not "Liberation", which is extremely POV-pushing.John Pack Lambert (talk) 02:42, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
  • JPL, "secession" is not a neutral term. It reflects the POV of the rulers of the state or entity which formerly ruled an area.
    here are about 30 Wikipedia articles whose title is "Fooian War of Independence". The countries from which the nations involved won independence would not like that word, so I suggest you go ahead and open a mass WP:RM discussion to rename them all to "Fooian War of Secession" instead of the WP:COMMONNAME. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:53, 16 March 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Swedish War of Liberation" is the more commonly-used title (see table below), and per WP:COMMONNAME we use the most common title. The arguments above assume that the word "secession" is neutral, which it isn't; it reflects the Danish POV.

	Google "Swedish War of Foo" - wikipedia	Google Books "Swedish War of Foo" -inauthor:"Books, LLC"	Google Scholar "Swedish War of Foo"
"Swedish War of Liberation"	75,400 hits	14 hits	2 hits
"Swedish War of Secession"	343 hits	7 hits	0 hits

As that table shows, "Swedish War of Liberation" is more widely used in all 3 types of search.

Note in particular that the apparent 7 Gbooks hits for "Swedish War of Secession" includes 5 separate entries for the Encyclopedia Britannica. The other two hits are:

1. a general guide to Sweden, which doesn't look very scholarly
2. a scholarly work on parliaments

So "war of secession" is used by only two scholarly works. I can't see any measure by which it meets WP:COMMONNAME. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:30, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Google books: Liberation=10 Seccession=7 Independence=2 Google scholar: Liberation=3 Secession=0 Independence=0, Swedish War of Liberation seems to fit WP:COMMONNAME best, and I don't see NPOV argument in this case strong enough to overrule it.--Staberinde (talk) 12:21, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Swedish War of Liberation - Befrielsekriget

I have lived in Sweden during all of my 50 years and I have never ever heard about this name. And a quick check in Swedish encyclopedas gives no support for the Swedish name. With that followes also the English translation. Please find safe sources. It's also wrong, since this was not a nation vs nation war, but sooner a Kalmar Union civil war, which where won by Gustav Vasa. Not the people, obviously not. There has never been a period in Swedish history that was so turbulent and violent as the beginning of Gustav Vasa's ruleing. From Dalarna to Småland. Boeing720 (talk) 06:03, 22 November 2014 (UTC) The irrelevant discussion above may be common at swWiki (?), but here we need relevant safe sources. Best would be two of each other independant historical authors (living or not) who uses the term "Befrielsekriget". You have a lot against You , since (like I've already stated) I can't find any article named "Befrielsekriget" in Swedish encyclopedias, not even in NE2000. It seem to me this article has been born at svWiki, and now put here aswell, without support for the name. Please proove me wrong Boeing720 (talk) 06:13, 22 November 2014 (UTC)

It seems that whatever the status is in Sweden Swedish War of Liberation has - regrettably - become the common name in English. I have added two others that are in use. But I agree that it needs to be properly sourced that Befrielseskriget is the Swedish term. It seems to be (mostly?) an invention by authors of popular history.--Batmacumba (talk) 00:18, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Nordisk familjebok refers to the war by the name befrielsekriget ("the liberation war"). It says "Som riksföreståndare hade G. ledt största delen af befrielsekriget; som konung afslöt han det." The term befrielsekriget is also used by, for example, Svenska folket genom tiderna by historian Ewert Wrangel, Gustaf Vasa ett 400-års-minne by historian Otto Sjögren, and the textbook Sveriges historia för folkskolan by historian Carl Grimberg. Note, I am not claiming that these are necessarily reputable sources regarding the war itself. I only mean to show that befrielsekriget is the common term used in Swedish. Also, note that the reason I'm citing these old sources is that because of their age they are no longer copyrighted and are thus available online. Gabbe (talk) 06:13, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Low quality sources

The four sources under "references" (two of the links are dead - so would that not make them "Literature"?) consists of one popular history book written by an economist, who wrote a number of (colourful) books on old wars (Sundberg) and may be the inventor of the term Befrielseskriget. One very short internet text, which is clearly not written by a historian (I think it should be removed as it is substandard), one text from a German exhibition about national myths (not a source for the article as it is now - could be used for a section on how the war has been portrayed in Swedish history and art) and a short chapter in a popular history book written by a journalist and poet (Henriksson). So no factual text written by a professional historian. I do not have the time right now, but someone ought to source this properly based on a modern history of Sweden written by an actual historian - preferably someone with a post-nationalist perspective.--Batmacumba (talk) 07:49, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

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Naval aspects

It seems strange that this article makes very limited mention of the naval aspects of the campaign that brought Gustav Vasa to power. A key ingredient of the help that came from Lubeck was a fleet of ships. These were state of the art vessels (at a time of rapidly developing maritime technology) and were instrumental in, for instance, the blockading of Stockholm in the winter of 1522-23, so allowing capture of the city.

A useful summary of the history, from a naval point of view, is in the historical preamble to a paper on the investigation of the wreck of one of the ships in this navy This and other sources may be useful in righting the deficit. ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 15:08, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

References