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Latest comment: 16 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
This is taken from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. I'm translating from Russian into English. Actually, the first and second editions of this are not copyrighted outside of Russia - the third edition was put together during a time when it possibly might fall under copyright. I suppose the English translation of this might be copyright by Macmillan, but I'm translating myself and not taking from them. Anyhow, happy to hear any comments about the copyright. Ruy Lopez 08:58, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Latest comment: 4 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
@Carabinieri:, and yet his page was called Jānis Bērziņš-Ziemelis for 4 years and no one took notice until I came along. The text clearly says, he "was the delegate of the Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party", not the Russian Social Democratic Workers' Party, thus it makes absolutely no sense to use the Russified form of his name. Just as it would be nonsense to call him Berzin in the page about Latvians in Russia. We have to be smart and make distinctions between the Latvian diplomat Jānis Bērziņš and the Soviet diplomat Jan Berzin. –Turaids (talk) 10:00, 31 August 2019 (UTC)Reply
We generally defer to sources on these kinds of issues. Most of the sources on the Zimmerwald Conference refer to him as Jan Berzin. I doubt he called himself Jānis Bērziņš, but even if he did it's not what the literature calls him. Even from a purely formal point of view, Latvia was part of the Russian Empire at the time (it only became briefly independent as a result of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk). Also, he wasn't a diplomat until after the Russian Revolution.--Carabinieri (talk) 01:37, 2 September 2019 (UTC)Reply
I'm assuming, the English literature in turn generally refers to Russian sources that had a notorious tendency of Russifiying virtually everything. Many prominent Latvians have lived in the Russian Empire, but that does not mean that Ādolfs Alunāns automatically becomes Adolf Petrovich Alunan, for example. Besides, Latvian Social Democratic Workers' Party wasn't just some small-time party operated by a bunch of exilées outside the territory of Latvia. –Turaids (talk) 19:30, 2 September 2019 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure they're only using Russian sources. Most of the primary sources are in French or German. In any case, most of the historians who wrote on this issue have concluded that calling him Berzin is appropriate. We generally should just follow their lead on issues like this, since they're better qualified to draw these kinds of conclusions. Just a small addendum: he was actually a member of the Social Democracy of the Latvian Territory, which was part of the Russian party. --Carabinieri (talk) 14:20, 4 September 2019 (UTC)Reply
Appropriate, but not necessarily accurate. Fair enough though. –Turaids (talk) 20:03, 5 September 2019 (UTC)Reply
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