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Rus' Khaganate

Self-nom as the creator of this article, though User:Ghirlandajo and User:Beit Or contributed as much or more than I did. I think this is a very comprehensive coverage of a little-known period in Russian history. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 16:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree about the necessity to use Latin and not Cyrillic (or Greek for instance) script in the references. Since this is an English encyclopedia, this is the only choice.--Yannismarou 20:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
Latin letters are preferable, but if the latinised name is a transliteration where there might be several ways to do so (Peking/Beijing) it can be appropriate to include the original name in (parentheses). Also see WP:MOS - Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (use English) for reference. --Oden 23:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
In parenthesis, yes, but not only the original name.--Yannismarou 09:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Oppose.
    • This very interesting article is written so well and convincingly that a casual reader may take it for a solid, well-established state. In fact this is nothing but a reconstruction from scarse historical references, and pretty much recent one. This must be said more prominently in the introduction. In particular, is this theory taught in Russian school? So the remarks kinda "I never even knew of the existence of this state" are pretty much normal reaction.
    • Second, The article is not about some obscure lost island in New Guinea, it is part of the history of big chunk of land:
      • What was written about these lands/times in other history books?
      • What is the genesis of this theory?
Concluding, in the current state the article is rather misleading IMO. `'mikkanarxi 00:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I believe the sources speak for themselves, and all prominent scholars in the field agree that this polity existed. To the extent there are disagreements about temporal or geographic scope, or about the nature of its government, religion etc., these disagreements are extensively (even, thanks to Ghirla and Beit Or, painstakingly) set forth in the the article. The fact that this period is or is not taught in Russian schools is irrelevant. Very few (if any) American students learn about the Adena culture, either; that doesn't mean that they didn't exist or that they weren't a part of the history of North America. I have no idea why your second point militates against FA status; it would seem quite the opposite. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 03:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    • You don't have to tell me once again that american schools suck. anyway, I probably had to be more specific: Do they teach this in historical depts of Russian universities? Also about "all prominent scholars", I am not an expert, so I even did not raise this concern (namely, if there is any disagreement), alsthough I have my doubts as to total unanimousity with respect to these scarsely documented times. The second point subbranches into two items about an isolated stand of the text. `'mikkanarxi 23:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • By a sheer occasion, just now I stumbled upon the statement "there is no commonly accepted understanding of Rus khaganate", reaffirming my major objection: the article is misleading in presenting (possibly inadvertently) this theory as a well-established, consolidated piece of knowledge. `'mikkanarxi 23:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • A case to demonstrate my claim: The authors so unconditionally assume their POV that unwittingly (I don't assume they intended to cheat) write false statements: "The earliest European reference to the khaganate comes from the Annals of St. Bertin." There is no mention of "khaganate" In Bertinian Annals. This style of writing is good for pop-science, but not for encyclopedia, despite multiple inline references. And once again, paradoxically, the problem is aggravated by the fact that the text is very well written, so that ony such hardened nasty people like me may stop and wonder whether all this is bullhit or not. `'mikkanarxi 23:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    Mikka, if you feel that the article is a bunch of fantasies by Briangotts and me, you should apply to AfD. You may consider deleting its ru.wiki predecessor as well. To be sure, you won't find anything about the khaganate in Karamzin, Solovyov, or Klyuchevsky because, as the former has observed, в 1850 г., по высочайшему повелению Николая I запрещено было подвергать критике вопрос о годе основания русского государства, ибо-де 862-й год назначен преподобным Нестором. In the Soviet period, anti-Semitism was still rampant, so the "khagans" and Khazarian influences were seldom mentioned. I can't imagine any modern historian who can overlook evidence, however. Even Rybakov, the pundit of Soviet historiography, did not dare to deny these stubborn facts. --Ghirla 17:25, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    Don't overreact. What you've just wrote is a valid addition to the article, as an explanation of the obscurity of the topic. I am surprized you don't find this oblivion/obscurity to be a notable issue. `'mikkanarxi 19:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • It seems to me that the purpose of this reader is to derail this FAC nomination. It's his right to oppose, yet he makes several gross mistatements of fact that must not go unanswered:
Bertin does not use the word "Khaganate" but he does refer to a Rus' ruler whose title was "Khagan". a land ruled by a khagan is a "khaganate." To deny that Bertin refers to the Rus' Khaganate is an exercise in verbal trickery.
On the contrary, it is a verbal trickery to put your words into Bertin's mouth. He could have used the word "khagan" for countles reasons. the title of the ruler does not always correspond to the name of the polity, take Golden Horde for an example. `'mikkanarxi 19:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
With regard to the denial that this is taught in Russian universities- what Russian universities do or do not teach is their own affair, and something over which I have no control (and little concrete knowledge). But I will point out that numerous Russian professors, who did teach at various universities, have acknowledged this period of history and written extensively about it: Svetlana Pletnyeva, Machinsky, and Novoseltsev to name just three off the top of my head. Numerous Western academics of Russian or Ukrainian origin (Omeljan Pritsak, Vernadsky, etc.) have also written copious works on this topic. This is to say nothing, of course, of the vast number of scholars who have discussed the Rus' Khaganate who were not Russian or Ukrainian. To ask that everyone ignore all of these sources based on Mikka's feeling that this is all "bullhit" doesn't seem to me to comport with what Misplaced Pages is all about. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 18:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
I was asking. You answered. Ok they teacs about this somewhere. fine. What's the panic? `'mikkanarxi 19:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
Moreover, to refer to this article as a "theory" is ridiculous. The Rus' Khaganate existed, the fact that we don't know much about the structure of its government etc. is immaterial to its place in this encyclopedia. The disagreements and multiple theories extant are all given and discussed. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 18:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
There are many things that "exist". To you see that you perceive the term "theory" as a slur or insult is very funny. The article itself says that facts are scarse, hence the rest is a theory derived from scarse literary mentionings and excavations. And the introduction to this article cannot sound in the same declarative, doubtless way as, say, for Ancient Rome. `'mikkanarxi 19:17, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Very interesting, well-written, well-sourced, nicely illustrated, good length. Happy to support. :-) SlimVirgin 05:43, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support This article has wonderful citations and references, and the quality of it is impressive. Another fine, fresh (and former DYK) Rus' article brought up to FA standard in under a month. Good work! --Grimhelm 14:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Object—1a. Here are random examples of why the whole text needs copy-editing.
    • "poorly-documented"—NO hyphen after "-ly'. Why start with a negative?
    • "According to contemporary sources"—Does contemporary refer to the ninth century or now?
Oh, dear... "Contemporary" refers to the era of Rus' Khaganate; otherwise, it would be "modern". Beit Or 19:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
You' re right on that one; the rest stands, though. Tony 07:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "its successors would ultimately found Kievan Rus' and its successors, the states from which modern Russia would evolve."—why this back-slung conditional? What's wrong with the plain "its successors ultimately founded"? And "modern Russia evolved".
What's wrong with the use of the conditional? I can fix that anyway. --Grimhelm 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • "he was aware only about the Avar khagans, but never heard about the khagans of the Khazars and Normanns"—aware about? Insert "had" before "never". There's a false contrast here: "but" should be "and".
    • We have "11th" and "12th", but "tenth".
That was also easily fixed. --Grimhelm 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Why are some of the years linked? 889 tells me about Strathclyde, the Khmer empire, Bulgaria and Scotland. That's helpful.
You forgot to mention the Magyars, and both the Magyars and the Bulgars are mentioned in this article: just look at Template:Gardariki! --Grimhelm 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
This is way below the required "professional" standard. Tony 14:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
I am not a native speaker of English, therefore I can't assess if there is any merit in what Tony says above. I urge native speakers to examine his arguments which appear like his personal preferences rather than a definitely fixed standard. --Ghirla 17:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support. Quite interesting, well written, well referenced, well illustrated, good length. Kudos to its creators! Jayjg 20:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Minor object. This is a very interesting article, but there are several issues that need to be resolved first (I fully expect them to be, and thus it is a minor object which I expect to change to support shortly). 1) there are a few places where inline citations are needed, I added a few fact templates 2) government section has some inline comments raising important questions, they should be addressed, preferably at talk 3) there are some other inline comments throughout the article; discuss them at talk and remove them from article 4) lead could use a picture.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
    Yawn... This WP:POINT vote is so predictable as to be unevitable. Suffice it to say that such antics on the part of Piotrus were previously condemned by a sitting arbitrator as a sort of tag trolling. --Ghirla 17:35, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Support per nom. ←Humus sapiens 23:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment. Without revoking my support, I would like to make a few additional remarks (after reading the article line by line), in order to underscore some minor problems IMO that should be settled, before the article acquires the FA status (I must say I was influenced by Grimhelm's remarks):
  • Is there a reference of Rus' Khaganate in the the Annals of St. Bertin as the article claims or not as Grimhelm asserts? Such things are of major importance, if we want to guarantee that the article is accurate, and we should clarify them.
The Annals of St. Bertin article has been created by Berig - I copied his citation from it into this article. --Grimhelm 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • What is the Salerno Chronicle? There is no wikilink and no explanation. Will the editors of the article create a stub for this Chronicle? Shall they offer a brief explanation in the article we review (which according to my IMO would be necessary, even if a wiki-article existed)? This is not a major issue, but I think that some kind of explanation should be offered.
I believe that would be the Chronicon Salernitanum, which has had an article for some time; I have provided a link to it. --Grimhelm 14:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • About the fate of Rus' Khaganate there is only a short uncited paragraph at the end of the article. And, although prominent scholars are mentioned throughout the article, there is nothing there! Just the assertion that "The fate of the Rus' Khaganate, and the process by which it either evolved into or was consumed by the Rurikid Kievan Rus', is uncleal." Yes, but, when we have this detailed analysis in all the previous sections, the level of analysis in this final issue of huge importance can be caracterized as lower and maybe inadequate. What are the conclusions of the recent scholarly research? Slavonic and other sources may not be helpful, but what are the most popular scholarly theories right now? My impression is that the article closes leaving a sense of "incompleteness" to the reader, who wants something more in this particular issue, when he is already so well-informed for the previous open questions.
  • And, of course, before the article gets FA status, the added should be fixed. Otherwise, this is a reason for objections. A FA can't be in the category "Articles with unsourced statements".--Yannismarou 11:59, 14 December 2006 (UTC)