Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted 06:16, 31 January 2007.

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Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria (3)

All right, you've got me, I'm totally desperate to get this one featured, and this time I really, really think it has to pass :)) I say every time that I believe it covers all requirements, and then I develop it even further, so it seems nothing can ever be absolutely complete and perfect, but I hope it's pretty close to perfect this time.

What has been improved from one month ago? (see the article then)

• addressed concerns about the number and variety of references by more than tripling the number of footnotes (from 23 to 67 71) and almost doubling the number of main references (6 to 10). Web-available refs have been added. This is in response to the concerns of Savidan (oppose vote) and Rlevse (comment).
• added comprehensive new section ("Culture and religion") covering that sphere of Ivan Alexander's rule, addressing the comprehensiveness concerns voiced by Hurricanehink (oppose vote). Abundance of refs, of course.
• "Family" section made an infobox, content not duplicated in the main infobox now. No family red links. Fixed the problems Smurrayinchester spotted (comment).
• split a "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat" section from "Relations with the Byzantine Empire", which was too long and not quite accurate
• some minor stuff like "See also" additions, further copyediting (British English instead of some American English word forms), etc.
• added media:
  • new self-made SVG map of the Bulgarian lands during the reign of Ivan Alexander
  • very useful quote about the tsar's rule by a contemporary of his
  • {{commonscat}} and a related Wikimedia Commons category

Is that enough? :) Todor→Bozhinov 13:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support, an excellent and very informative article. I can no longer see any areas for improvement, and the map is brilliant. A few references appear to be missing (in Bulgarian) tags, but other than that, I can't see any formating issues either. Laïka 17:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support looks good, --Vanka5 17:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support the article looks very good, with important and interesting information, nice pictures and map of the Empire. Great work : ) : ) : ) --Gligan 18:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support very good job, well done!:) and very informative article, by the way Hectorian 19:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. Is there any estimate when he was born, or how old he was when he took reign? There are a few redlinks in the infobox. Are they absolutely necessary, and if they are, shouldn't they have articles? For an article of that length, the lede should be longer. Generally, phrases in parenthesis should be avoided, IMO, as it doesn't seem like compelling prose. The two examples I am referring to are "(therefore, Ivan Alexander was his nephew)" and "(the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great)". Try rewriting so it doesn't need them. It seems a bit sudden for his rise to become an emperor. Is it supposed to seem that sudden? "...probably as a supporter of the claims" Probably isn't a good word to use. Is it of someone's opinion that he was? Try rewording. A few other places in the article don't seem particularly well-written; "called his bluff" and "Here his troops were defeated" (the reader is not at that location, should be there) for example. Co-rulers is pretty short. Should that be merged with Early Rule and placed in the appropriate place? Internal stability problems is short, as well. Another lookthrough by a copyeditor would be nice. Hurricanehink (talk) 18:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for the detailed comment! I've addressed the one-paragraph sections issue and removed the parentheses in these two occasions, tried to reword the "called his bluff" thing and substituted "here" with "there". In addition, I've expanded the lead section somewhat (but enough to divide it into three paragraphs).
• We don't have particularly much information about medieval Bulgarian rulers as to know if his accession really was so sudden. It may well not have been unexpected, because we know he was of royal descent, but we can only presume that. No contemporary source mentions a date or place of birth, although we can guess it was around the turn of the century — he ruled until 1371. This means he must have been crowned when he was still relatively young, but again, this is not backed by any sources from the period.
• As for "probably", this is according to the source. Would it really be necessary to reword as: "probably as a supporter of the claims of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan, according to John Fine"?, or perhaps add a footnote after "probably" with "According to Fine, Late Medieval Balkans, 274"? :* A copyedit... I've checked the article several times myself and I've used both Microsoft Word's and an online spellchecker, and it all seems fine. Where can I request a manual copyedit by another user? Todor→Bozhinov 19:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• I merged the first two paragraphs in the lede again. Looking at it again in relation to the article, its length is good. Given the time period, the article looks good, enough for me to Support. Not sure who could copyedit, but I suppose those things are fairly minor. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support, looks good. One minor point, though: can the "See also" section be eliminated? It shouldn't be too difficult to work those links into the body of the text. Kirill Lokshin 20:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• I was thinking about that too, whether the section was actually of use. I incorporated some of the links using {{see also}} in the other sections, and removed the others (which have already been linked from the text). Todor→Bozhinov 21:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: in your book citations, please insert "p." and "pp." prefixes before page numbers and page ranges, respectively. This will make your citations unambiguous; the reader will see that you're referring to page numbers, and not to chapters, years, etc. --Plek 23:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Done. --Cameltrader 06:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. It looks very nice.--Yannismarou 18:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support.   /FunkyFly.talk_  16:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Opposeall concerns addressed, see below, Ambiguous, unclear or confusing in too many places.
  • Too much sourcing of the summarized lead. Since there is thorough disagreement on this general topic (see Wikipedia talk:Lead section), I'll retract this if there are opposing opinions with relevant arguments.
  • The state Alexander warred against was not the Byzantine Empire. It was the Empire of Trebizond
    • Sorry! I though I'd deleted that one...
  • Are the diverging transliteration Petritsa/Petrica etc. linked to specific transliteration schemes? Specifying which ones seems pertinent.
  • "This precipitated a succession crisis exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines."—This had me much confused, since there is no clear reason for it. Although Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria sheds some light on this... sudden and unexplained development, it also contradict the article we are discussing.
    • I think the problem is that "succession crisis" implies that the king actually died, which is said not to be the case in the very next sentence. Wouldn't that Succession crisis rather stem from the coup d'état, whose sources are then the byzantine relations and invasion?.
  • "The threat from Serbia was neutralized by the deposition of Stefan Uroš III Dečanski by his son Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1331."—It is not clear how Alexander had a hand into this, if at all.
  • Why isn't Battle of Velbužd linked?
  • "The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander"—I thought they were disagreeing over "Bulgarian northeastern Thrace"?
  • "managed to see through his bluff"—What bluff? Up to then, there is no indication that Alexander is bluffing.
  • "Stability problems and external conflicts" as a header name does not make it clear enough that it continues the previous' sections historical progression.
  • The first paragraph under "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat" invert the chronological sequence and is thus very confusing.
  • "Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the danger posed by the introduction of his Turkish (by now mostly Ottoman) allies across the straits into the Balkan Peninsula"—Like others already mentioned, this sentence lacks context not to come as a confusing statement.
  • Theodora of Wallachia should have been mentioned at least as early as her father. And her article should be linked on its first instance (i.e., in "Stability problems and external conflicts")
    • discussed further below
  • Similarly, Sarah (Theodora) should be linked in the text, not only the side box (which is probably a bad idea of itself.
  • The last factlet under "Culture and religion" seems out of place, because the section does not appear to be written in a "legacy" outlook.
  • Awkward or ambiguous writing:
    • "rebelled in Vidin, probably as a supporter of the claims of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan." this phrasing is awkward.
    • Michael Asen IV is mentioned as co-emperor before his crowning is mentioned. This is confusing.
    • " There his troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines."—"there" being Adrianople, right? Which allies? Was Umur Beg involved?
    • "the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a second protracted civil war"—Since it's the first civil war mentioned in the article, the sentence should be reworded for clarity ("its second civil war since [...]"), or the word removed.
    • "The successes of Ivan Alexander began to unravel"—This use of "unravel" is ambiguous. It could justas much means "disentangle" as "disintegrate".
    • "Ivan Alexander's control was hardly stronger over other powerful vassals, like the rulers of Wallachia and Dobruja, who carried out their own relations with foreign powers."—Other than his son, or other than himself?
    • "Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin king Louis I of Hungary. The king of Hungary annexed Moravia"—Unneeded repetition. "Louis annexed Moravia"
    • "In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364, and when Emperor John V Palaiologos was returning from his trip through the west, the irate Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria in 1366."—Wrong verb tense of "pass", and poor placement of "in 1366."
      • Discussed below
    • "religous prosperity" means nothing.
    • "Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander evidence that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during the time"—Which time? "that period" is probably the expression you want.
    • "as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik according to a Hilandar monastery deed, among others."—this "amongst others" refers back to the monastery deed, not the monasteries. Reformulation is needed.
    • "Tthe Dragalevci and Kilifarevo monasteries was also [...]^{[[Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria# note-delev|]]} Literary activity also flourished [...]"—"Also" is used twice in as many sentences
    • "such as the Middle Bulgarian translation of the Manasses Chronicle (1344–1345), nowadays preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome" is it the Chronicle or its translation that are kept at the Vatican? Was the Chronicle or its translation written in 1344–1345? (as is, it's the chronicle) And these semicolons are totally superfluous; the list elements are not complex enough that commas wouldn't be clear
    • "condemning various sects"—"Who condemned"; Organizing the councils did not condemn anybody.

Circeus 17:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the detailed post! Please note I'm not a native speaker of English, and it's understandable I would sometimes mess things up without intending to :) I tried to correct most of the awkward-sounding sentences you mentioned, but I can't be sure I haven't further messed them up, so I'd ask you to check what I've done and help fix bad phrasing.

• Some other things:

• Indeed, there are different transliteration systems of Bulgarian. Would a <ref> note explaining things be OK? Such as "This article uses the United Nations system to transliterate Bulgarian Cyrillic. For details, see Romanization of Bulgarian."?
• "The threat from Serbia was neutralized by the deposition of Stefan Uroš III Dečanski by his son Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1331." Ivan Alexander had no hand in this, but it explains how the "external threats" mentioned in the lead were dealt with — the accession of Dušan is very important for the change in relations between Bulgaria and Serbia.
• the Battle of Velbužd is linked.
• "Stability problems and external conflicts"... any suggestions as to how to reword this to make it clear it continues from the previous' sections
• The first paragraph under "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat"... to me it looks OK chronologically, would you clarify?
• Theodora of Wallachia and Sarah-Theodora have been linked now, but I'm not sure how to mention the former one is Basarab's daughter in the first paragraph of Early rule, and I'm not convinced it's necessary. "Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab of Wallachia (whose daughter Theodora of Wallachia he would later marry)..."?
• Not sure how to deal with the last paragraph of "Culture and religion"... I was aware it doesn't fit perfectly there, but there's nowhere else to put it, and it's too important to just drop out.
• "In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364, and when Emperor John V Palaiologos was returning from his trip through the west, the irate Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria in 1366." What's wrong with "pass"?
• "such as the Middle Bulgarian translation of the Manasses Chronicle (1344–1345), nowadays preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome"... I moved the years just after "translation", but I have no idea how to specify the translation is in Rome, not the original, without totally destroying the whole sentence. Todor→Bozhinov 18:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Ah, and about the "contested cities" in Thrace: at the time control over most of the cities in Thrace changed rapidly between Bulgaria and Byzantium, and instead of suffering from prolonged sieges and destruction, the population would surrender to whoever of the two emperors came and claimed control. Todor→Bozhinov 18:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm impressed by your responsiveness!

• Transliteration: A footnote sounds okay. You might want to include a link to Romanization of Bulgarian, while at it.
• Serbian threat: On closer exmination, I realize it's the combination of that sentence with the previous sentence ("The new ruler set about solidifying his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire.") that implies that this is a consequence. Maybe something along the lines of "The deposition of Serbian king Stefan Uroš III Dečanski by his son Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1331 helped normalize the relations between Serbia and Bulgaria, previously antagonists over [...]."?
• Battle of Velbužd My bad. The link is discreet and I couldn't find it via text search. Battle of Velbužd, without intervening words, is more usual. Maybe "Ivan fought against the Serbs at the Battle of Velbužd"?
• "Stability problems and external conflicts" How about simply "End of reign" or something like that? It's what the section covers within the article, after all.
• Chronological sequence you first say that a "newly created Patriarch of Serbia" crowned theSerbian king, then that "Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan." (of course, writing "an independant Serbian Orthodox Church" would already help)
• the Theodoras Now that I think of it how about simply writing in his marriage with Theodora of Wallachia whenever it happens in the chronological sequence? I was only assuming it happened earlier, possibly before he became king. I also observe there is no year for his first marriage.
• "Culture and religion" paragraph Maybe a small historiography/legacy section? Other similar appearances can be included.
• "In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364, and when Emperor John V Palaiologos was returning from his trip through the west, the irate Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria in 1366." What's wrong with "pass"?
  • Oups! I meant "return." It would be better with "returned", in my opinion.
• Translation in the vatican Maybe these notes could be inserted inside the parentheses instead of within the enumeration?
• "contested cities" It's still strange, because in one case, you talk about a general area, and in the other, about specific cities. Your explanation, however, is hilarious—in a good way.

I'll work through my list and see what I can strike.Circeus 19:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the transliteration footnote, reworded the battle of Velbǎžd part to be more prominent, I changed to past perfect so that it's a little bit better chronologically in the beginning of "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat", I tried to include info about current location of the manuscripts in the parentheses (but I'm not quite satisfied by the way it looks and sounds when read), and I've reworded the Ottoman danger bit so that it doesn't require further clarification. It is not known when Ivan Alexander married the first Theodora, and we can only approximately state when he divorced her to marry Sarah-Theodora, so we can't possibly include this info in any chronological order. I'm a bit reluctant to create a new "Legacy" or "Portrayal in fiction" section because I have no other data about it but that one sentence. That means a tiny one-sentence paragraph, which is ugly and not advisable, particularly for an FA. Todor→Bozhinov 20:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Translit: The article actually uses official Bulgarian transliteration and gives the UN variants between parentheses...
• Manuscripts: My suspicion is that someone, somewhere will always be unhappy with how it looks anyway...
• Theodoras: Oh... Okay, I guess that makes sense. Maybe stating that the date of hois first is unknown in the article will make it clear why the information wasn't given earlier?
• Legacy: Oh well... I not so hung on it as to oppose over it, though. Just, maybe, drop the "in modern time" mention for dates of publications?
• Conditional support after the minor transliteration and legacy fixes.Circeus 18:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm sorry to sound mean, but it seems to me that this article comes nowhere near to fulfilling the criterion "Well written" means that the prose is compelling, even brilliant. I appreciate that the main editor is not a native English speaker, but this means in practice that the excellent work on researching an unusual and interesting subject is in my opinion not nearly matched by the writing, which is pedestrian, I fear, and certainly below the professional level to which we aspire. I've completed a light copy-edit; but the piece really needs a deep copy-edit, with each sentence taken out and given a good polish before reinsertion. Some ways to invigorate the prose might be to move subjects and main verbs closer to the beginnings of sentences, restrict sentences to one idea each, and to turn some of the many nominalisations into verbs, and passive constructions into active ones.

I also feel the article lacks a defining shape. Even now, after three readings, I have no overall picture of Ivan Alexander's reign imprinted on my mental retina. I would like to see this article tell a story. One premise might be to present Ivan's reign as a watershed in the evolution of a three-way struggle between forces that were to shape the future of the region: Christian Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Turks.

However, you seem to be doing well with the comments above, so my curmudgeonly view may prove superfluous. qp10qp 00:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh well, in practice the person who actually wrote most of the article is a University of Michigan Byzantinist, Ian Mladjov, but he has now left Wikipedia. I did a lot of work by adding references, notes, pictures, improving the formatting, checking the spelling, etc., but I find it very hard to improve the article the way suggested, although I'm absolutely willing to. As I said, I would appreciate a thorough copy-edit by a native speaker, be it you or someone else, it's just that if I try to do that it would have little actual result. I would deeply appreciate some help here :) Todor→Bozhinov 10:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Lets see if it passes first. My type of "deep" copyediting (basically a rewrite that keeps to the same facts) would take me a good week, and I'm heavily occupied somewhere else at the moment.

The copyediting advice above is relatively easy to accomplish, though time-consuming: here's an example, intended to sharpen up the following passage, which in my opinion is sapped by subordinate clauses.

The war ended with a meeting between Ivan Alexander and Andronikos III which established peace on the basis of the status quo. A marriage between Ivan Alexander's eldest son Michael Asen IV, who had been crowned co-emperor in about 1332, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family, and Maria (Eirene), daughter of Andronikos III, was planned to formalize the alliance, and finally took place in 1339.

I'd change that to something like:

Ivan Alexander met Andronikos after the war and agreed a peace based on the status quo. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirenne), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339.

(Some imprecision remains: a peace is not literally an alliance. To clarify that, I would need to know the terms of the treaty. And I would like "Ivan and Andronikos ended the war by signing a treaty...", but I don't know if it happened like that.)

I've reduced passives ("a marriage...was planned); I've moved a main verb from a delayed arrival in a sentence to the beginning ("was planned" moved forward as "he betrothed") and also removed a word bundle ("Ivan Alexander met Andronikos after the war ended and agreed a peace based on...") which suspends the point; I've denominalised "a marriage was planned" into the verb "betrothed"; and I've removed the material about Michael being crowned co-emperor because that introduces a different idea and interrupts the flow of the matter at hand. I'd probably relocate that information to the passage about the crowning of the younger sons, or get it out of the way before mentioning the peace and the betrothal. Changes like these can be made without being a native speaker, I think. The idea is to move the reader more quickly from one piece of information to the next, which is what I take "compelling" to mean in the context of an encyclopedia article. qp10qp 16:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this an improvement? :) Todor→Bozhinov 18:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say very much so. I would have understood it if you'd dismissed my comments as fusspotting, but I'm impressed. You've lifted those sentences considerably, in my opinion.qp10qp 20:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Support, looks like a great article. Kyriakos 22:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Support, nice, informative, concise. NikoSilver 23:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.