Talk:Vseslav of Polotsk

Article's name

A request to Rydel: Please don't change the Old East Slavic spelling of names (correctly transcribed to English as `Vseslav' and `Polotsk') by Modern Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese or any other spellings. Please see the Tale of Igor's Campaign if you need the correct Old East Slavic spellings - they are Всеславъ and Полотскъ, but not Usiaslau and Polatsk. You can also read the English translations of The Tale: http://www.stavacademy.co.uk/mimir/igorraid.htm or http://ruslib.com/NABOKOW/slovo.txt or http://faculty.washington.edu/dwaugh/rus/texts/igortxt2.htm . In these three different translations, the correct spelling `Vseslav' is used (can you find there your `Usiaslau'?). Do you have any arguments but your strange wish to immediately make English speakers to speak in Belarusian? And please don't say about russification (I'm from the Ukraine, BTW) or you have to explain how could these bloody Russian imperialists make their bloody russification on the ancient Old East Slavic texts written in XI century? And also explain me please why do you write in Belarusian `Віктар Юшчанка' whereas the correct spelling=pronunciation is `Віктор Ющенко' -- he is the Ukrainian `ruler', not the Belarusian one, so your logic has to work in the same way, don't it? I wonder what would you say if I would (using your strange logic) rename this article (on Yuschenko) in the Belarusian wiki? :) Ok, it was only a joke, I wouldn't like to make a religious war around this simple point. If you don't agree with my arguments, we can resolve this dispute in more constructive way then a stupid reverting of versions. V1adis1av 14:35, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

please stop moving articles around! Discuss!

A request to all! Please stop moving articles around arguing in edit summaries! Discuss the arguments from both sides first! For now, leave an article in its original location "Vseslav" and conduct all discussions at "Talk:Vseslav of Polotsk". Whoever moved article first without discussion and a vote, broke the WP consensus spirit. Whoever is moving it back and forth by cut'n'paste or revert destroys the history of the page. Please everyone, STOP! If one side doesn't want to discuss and wants to instist on moving as article, use a WP:RP listing for that! --Irpen 19:44, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Arguments for `Vseslav'

1. `Vseslav' is a traditional spelling in English for the name of this ruler. It can be proven by, for instance, the English translations of The Tale of Igor's Campaign (see the links above). I think that it also can be proven by some paper enciclopedia, but I don't have access to any at the moment -- can anybody look, please?

2. The negative argument of Czalex that `Usiasłaŭ was a king of Belarus, so the Belarusian name shall be kept in the article'. The claim that Vseslav was the king of Belarus is equivalent to that of Gaius Julius Caesar was a president of Italy. Moreover (let me continue this analogy), the name of Caesar in Italian is Gaio Giulio Cesare; but Italians do not change the title of the article in the English branch of Wikipedia, do they?

2a. By the way, the lands of Polotsk were later under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania for centuries. Should we spell our prince as Vseslavas? :)

Polack has never been part of Baltic-speaking what-we-now-call the "Republic of Lithuania".--Czalex 11:27, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, my 2a was not a serious point, it's just a joke.--V1adis1av 18:54, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

3. Let us look the original (Old East Slavic) version of The Tale. We find that Всеславъ and Полотскъ spellings are there. I don't have nothing about the modern Belarusian spelling in the article on the Belarusian town (if there will also exist the redirect from Polotsk). But the article on the Slavic prince should have a main title related to the spelling of these times (and, of course, redirect from Usiaslau). `Akanye' and `yakanye' (reduction of non-stressed vowels) has, in Belarusian as well as in Russian, appeared in XV century, and Ukrainian does not have such reduction at all, like the Old East Slavic language. So, for The Tale times, spelling=pronunciation, and the transcription from Old East Slavic to English as Vseslav of Polotsk is almost correct (if one don't take into account vowels ъ and ь). Moreover, the pronounciation of the name of the prince and the town is incorrect in modern Russian as well as in modern Belarusian. In Russian, you have to say /фс'ислаф/ и /полацк/, but, at least, the spelling is more or less appropriate. In Belarusian, because the spelling follows the pronunciation, you say what you see, but both what you see and what you say are far from the Slavic original. (The Ukrainian language is the closest to Old East Slavic, from this point of view). So, the English spelling of Vseslav of Polotsk (direct transcription from the Old Slavic name and toponym) is more appropriate then transcriptions via modern languages. Dixi.

OK, is it enough? :) V1adis1av 22:37, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

To this I would only add for now that the Empreror known as Marcus Aurelius has an article under this very name. The name for the guy in modern Italian is Marco Aurelio with the latter being an article about some soccer player. I haven't seen Italians trying to move the Emperor's article as of yet. --Irpen 22:46, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Vseslav - but Vytautas!?

BTW about Lithuania - if you are against calling Usiaslau Usiaslau, why do not we discuss the namings of Great Lithuanian Dukes - they were never called Vytautas, Mindaugas or Vaisvilkas until the end of 20th century. Historically their names have always been Vitovt, Mindowh, Vojselk etc. Am I right? I see a kind of double standards here. Either we name all historical figures with their historical names, or we name them with modern equivalents--Czalex 11:26, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it seems reasonable. But what is the most usual spelling of their names in English?--V1adis1av 18:51, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Article names for historical figures go by their most common name in English. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people). The dukes are usually referred to in English scholarly works by their Lithuanian names, which is why "Vitovt" is at Vytautas the Great etc. Olessi 20:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Russian imperial POV-pushing

It's April 2006. I can only applaud to User:Ghirlandajo's intelligence who gradually, over the course of two years, has finally [1] deleted all traces of important Belarusian content from this article. Bravo, Ghirla. The evil Russian empire has a very good representative in Wikipedia. --rydel 12:36, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

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