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Titles of articles on Ukrainian povits/uezds

I intend to clean up the titles of articles and categories on historical povits (a.k.a. uezds or counties) in Ukraine. This system of subdividing the gubernia (a.k.a. huberniia) was established in the Russian empire (Governorate (Russia)), and then inherited by the Ukrainian People’s Republic and Soviet Ukraine (Administrative divisions of Ukraine (1918–1925)).

The spellings and names are not consistent. There’s no advice in WP:UAPLACE and I can’t find any corresponding guideline for Russian-empire or Soviet place names. A number of these have been moved without discussion to a different pattern (e.g., Bakhmutsky Uyezd was moved to Bakhmut uezd).

I intend to rename all of these to use consistent spelling with the main article uezd, for example Konotopsky Uyezd → Konotopsky Uezd. This is not controversial and I will proceed without waiting for comments (but feel free).

I am also considering the following questions:

1. Do we keep the prevailing capitalization Konotopsky Uezd, or switch to lowercased Konotopsky uezd?
2. Do we keep the prevailing native adjectival proper name, like Konotopsky Uezd, or switch to an anglicized version like Konotop Uezd (after the city of Konotop)?
3. Were any of these established in Ukraine after 1917 and should therefore be renamed, e.g., Konotopsky Uyezd → Konotopskyi Povit/Konotopskyi povit?

Any other concerns? Please comment. —Michael Z. 16:55, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

It makes sense to use "uezd" for consistency with the main article name. Regarding the questions:

1. This probably should be governed by some general English rule. I see that American counties always use the capitalized versions: "Albany County", "Los Angeles County" (also "New York State"). Is it the same in other English-speaking countries?

2. I would prefer Konotopsky Uezd because it's closer to the original name. Otherwise, you actually need to do some original research to identify the center and to transform the name accordingly. And what to do when it's not named after the center, like Dneprovsky Uyezd? (Also, Ushitsa uezd is named after part of the name "Novaya Ushitsa".) Similar examples for other units, like Podolia Governorate and Taurida Governorate frankly sound a bit unnatural to me as a Ukrainian/Russian speaker, and require some extra-thinking to understand what the topic is about.

3. During Russian Empire times the divisions were very stable, but a lot of changes (incl. creations of new units and deletions of old ones) were happening after 1917. I guess most of uezds listed below were created in Russian Empire times, so probably the Russian name "uezd" can be used for the following reasons:

1) for consistency with all other imperial units existing back then;

2) because in all official documents of that time it would be written in Russian (since Ukrainian language was either prohibited or suppressed during that time);

3) since it would be hard to distinguish Ukrainian from non-Ukrainian units, since Ukraine did not have well-defined boundaries back then.

However, if some unit was created in Ukrainian SSR or one of Ukrainian states (after 1917), then probably the term "povit" might be a better fit, since that's how it would appear in many documents (including most of modern historical research focused on post-1917 Ukraine) and it would be clear that the unit indeed belonged to Ukraine. For older Russian Empire units which continued existence in Ukrainian SSR, the redirection from povit to uezd can be also used. Konotopsky Uyezd should not however be renamed into Povit, since it was created long before 1917, so most of its existence was in Russian Empire.

--Kammerer55 (talk) 04:36, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

3. Muscovy and Russian empire reorganized gubernias a number of times.

1) It’s not all consistent, as there are articles about former imperial counties with Estonian, Latvian, and a Lithuanian names, and I think Polish too. Would have to check Georgia, Armenia, Central Asia, &c. Consistency is the lowest-priority naming WP:CRITERION.

2) See WP:OFFICIALNAMES. There is no reason to automatically privilege colonial names and deprecate native local names.

3) Ukrainian ethnolinguistic territory had well defined boundaries, and history books tell us which gubernias or which of their parts were in it. Russia recognized specific Ukrainian boundaries in the 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. There were specific borders of Soviet Ukraine established soon after, and of course we know what the boundaries of modern Ukraine are.

There is also the assumption that “most of its existence” is true and significant, but “its most recent name” is not, with no rationale for this. In fact, most examples like Beijing, Mumbai, Dnipro, Kyiv, and Odesa indicate the opposite. WP:MODERNPLACENAME privileges most recent names, and local names, unless “a substantial majority of reliable modern sources” do otherwise.

(Ushitsa county was called Ushitskyi/Novoushitskyi povit or Ushitskii/Novoushitskii uezd.)  —Michael Z. 16:16, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

My main concern is that some of the articles, like Konotopsky Uyezd, cite only a Russian-language source. In such case, it would be probably an OR to translate the name into English through Ukrainian, especially since Ukrainian spelling 100 years ago and now might slightly differ. Such articles should have at least one Ukrainian-language source to justify the Ukrainian name, for example, you could probably use 1923 UkrSSR decrees establishing new okruhas and raions to get the correct Ukrainian spellings for the abolished povits. Kammerer55 (talk) 20:57, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

If consistency is not an issue, then you can probably decide on a case by case basis depending on the cited sources. Kammerer55 (talk) 20:58, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Of course, but I’d like to do a mass cleanup first. This conversation is just to see what is acceptable.  —Michael Z. 21:05, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

By the way, uezd was sometimes translated into Ukrainian as "уїзд" (uizd). In any case, all uezds/povits can be considered as colonial units, since they were established either by the Russian imperial, or by the Soviet, or by the Polish administration. The only truly native units pre-1991 were "zemlias" that the UPR tried to establish in 1918, or polks and sotnias in the Cossack Hetmanate times. Kammerer55 (talk) 21:04, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

For modern place names in Ukraine, per WP:UAPLACE we use the anglicized form for oblasts (Donetsk Oblast), raions (Zolochiv Raion), and hromadas (Avhustynivka Rural Council), but we transliterate names of urban districts (Zavodskyi District). This example shows that the lesser-known uezds don’t necessarily have to be named the same way as the larger gubernias. We do seem to capitalize all of the subdivision types when they appear in names, although many academic sources do not.

(By the way, the official Ukrainian Latin-alphabet place names are always transliterated according to the toponymic guidelines: Donetska oblast, Zolochivskyi raion, Avhustynivska rural council, Zavodskyi raion.)  —Michael Z. 18:48, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

2. I agree that transliterating the native name is best. Although Dneprovskii/Dniprovskyi can also be reverse-engineered as Dnieper uezd or Dnipro povit, this would be WP:OR (unless it were based on determining the COMMONNAME for each of these hundreds of little-mentioned places).  —Michael Z. 19:06, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

I second @Kammerer55's point about borders not being clearly defined. Linguistically it's largely a continuum. There are places within the borders of modern Russia whose language is closer to Ukrainian (such as some parts of Voronezh oblast) and vice-versa there are places within the borders of modern Ukraine where Ukrainian has never been the dominant language (e.g, Yaltinsky Uyezd). Alaexis_¿question? 20:16, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

The Historical Dictionary of Ukraine, 2nd ed., ISBN 978-0-8108-7845-7, gives a fairly detailed history of the “Administrative Divisions of Ukraine” (pp. 11–17). Excerpts:

• “At the beginning of the 19th century, there were nine gubernias in Ukraine: Kyiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Katerynoslav, Kherson, Tavriia, Podilia, and Volhynia.”
• “The territory of the restored UNR was divided into a Western (Western Province of the UNR) and an Eastern oblast.) The latter consisted of the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Chernihiv, Katerynoslav, Kherson, Zhytomyr, Kamianets, and Kholm gubernias.”
• “In the 1920s, the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic (renamed the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1937) was divided into 12 gubernias (nine gubernias after October 1922): Volhynia, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, Katerynoslav, Kyiv, Kremenchuk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Podilia, Poltava, Kharkiv, and Chernihiv. In the early 1920s, parts of the Chernihiv, Kursk, and Voronezh gubernias, where Ukrainians constituted an absolute majority, were annexed by Russia.”

Please give sources about this “linguistic continuum” theory. Imperial demographers mapped Ukrainian ethnolinguistic territory in good detail after the 1897 census. The Bolsheviks actually put some Ukrainian territory in the RSFSR, and not vice-versa. Please explain how this relates to WP:TITLE or other relevant guidelines.  —Michael Z. 21:24, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Paul Robert Magocsi 1996, A History of Ukraine (ISBN 0-8020-0830-5):

• 307: After 1802, “The largest concentration of Ukrainian inhabitants lived in nine provinces. These included, on the territory of the Hetmanate, the provinces of Chernihiv and Poltava. In former Sloboda Ukraine, an imperial province of the same name was established (although without certain territory in the north and northeast) and in 1835 it was renamed the province of Kharkiv. From the former Zaporizhia, which had become part of New Russia after 1775, the provinces of Katerynoslav and Kherson (including lands between the lower Dnieper and Dniester Rivers acquired between 1774 and 1791 from the Ottoman Empire) were created. Of the old Crimean Khanate, both ethnic peninsula and the lowland coastal region between the lower Dnieper River and the Sea of Azov became the province of Taurida. The lands acquired from Poland in 1793 and 1795 became the provinces of Kiev (including the city and surrounding area formerly within the Hetmanate), Volhynia, and Podolia. Together, Kiev, Volhynia, and Podolia provinces were frequently referred to as the Russian Empire’s Southwester Land (Iugo-zapadnyi krai) and will be referred to henceforth as the Right Bank. ¶ Besides the nine ‘Ukrainian’ provinces, Ukrainians also inhabited areas in immediately adjacent provinces or regions of the Russian Empire. These included, in the east, parts of the Don Cossack and Black Sea Cossack Lands; in the west, parts of the province of Bessarabia (both the coastal region in the south and the region around Khotyn in the north); and in the northwest, the regions around Brest and Chełm.”
• 331: “The Ukrainians, who represented nearly three-quarters of the total population, were by far the numerically largest group living in eight of the nine provinces that made up Dnieper Ukraine.”
• 332: “It was during the nineteenth century, however, that massive immigration of Russians to Dnieper Ukraine took place.”
• 486–87: “The territory of the Ukrainian state recognized at Brest-Litovsk included not only the nine former imperial provinces previously claimed by the Central Rada (Volhynia, Podolia, Kiev, Chernihiv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Kherson, Katerynoslav, and northern Taurida), but also the former province of Kholm and the southern third of Minsk and Grodno provinces, including the city of Brest-Litovsk itself.”

 —Michael Z. 22:07, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Orest Subtelny 2009, Ukraine: A History, 4th ed., ISBN 978-1-4426-4016-0:

• 204: “The process of imposing imperial administrative structures on Ukrainian lands began as early as the 1770s, but it was not until the 1830s that it assumed its final form. At that time, Ukraine was divided into nine provinces (gubernii), which could be subdivided informally into three distinct regions: Left-Bank Ukraine, where Cossack and starshyna traditions were strongest, consisted of Chernihiv, Poltava, and Kharkiv provinces; the recently acquired Right Bank, where Polish nobles still exercised socioeconomic domination over the Ukrainian peasantry and where the towns were populated mainly by Jews, consisted of Kiev, Podilia, and Volhynia provinces; and the newly colonized south, once the domain of the Zaporozhians and the Crimean Khanate, was divided into the provinces of Katerynoslav, Kherson, and Tavria (Crimea). Each of these provinces was further subdivided into counties (povit/uezd), and these were broken down into townships and villages.”
• 350: “But, to the great consternation of the Bolsheviks, the Central Rada announced that it was assuming the highest authority in all nine provinces where Ukrainians were in the majority.”

 —Michael Z. 22:19, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Cossack host article needs improvement.

Hello WikiProject Ukraine, the article Cossack host is listed as high importance for your WikiProject. The article is also one of the oldest unreferenced articles on the site. If anyone would be able to trim/improve/look at the article that would be much appreciated. Tooncool64 (talk) 06:57, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Viktor Kobzystyi - famous baseball player?

Recently some news sources claimed that "A famous Ukrainian basketball player, Viktor Kobzystyi, has been killed in a Russian missile attack on Lviv on 29 December." (CNN and others). Is he the same person as Oleksandr Viktorovich Kobzystyi (no uk wiki interwiki)? If not, does he have a uk wiki article that we could translate? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:17, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

basketball and baseball are two different sports. But the CNN article says the basketball player played twice in the Euros and has become a leading coach... The article is about a 20 year old player in the junior leagues... doubtful it is the same person. The father, who doesnt seem to have an english article .. is likely the person mentioned. Spanneraol (talk) 03:45, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Doh, guess I was tired and confused the b-ball games here... _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 07:45, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:China's peace plan#Requested move 8 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:China's peace plan#Requested move 8 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 17:35, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine#Requested move 8 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine#Requested move 8 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 20:34, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Blahodatne, Amvrosiivka urban hromada, Donetsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 4 January 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Blahodatne, Amvrosiivka urban hromada, Donetsk Raion, Donetsk Oblast#Requested move 4 January 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Reading Beans (talk) 10:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Extra Eyes Please

A new user has been rapidly creating a number of articles with w/o inline citations and performing some odd looking edits like blanking a page they had just created. They are also using random letters for edit summaries. I'm assuming good faith for now, but there is enough that I think a quick look by experienced who are knowledgeable on Ukranian history would be a good idea. Please ping me if any red or yellow flags turn up. Assistance much appreciated. -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:42, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

• Project-Class Ukraine pages
• NA-importance Ukraine pages
• WikiProject Ukraine articles
• Misplaced Pages pages referenced by the press