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Talk:Cursed soldiers

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A fact from Cursed soldiers appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the Did you know column on 18 August 2006. The text of the entry was as follows: A record of the entry may be seen at Misplaced Pages:Recent additions/2006/August.
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Good articlesCursed soldiers was nominated as a good article, but it did not meet the good article criteria at the time (August 23, 2006). There are suggestions below for improving the article. If you can improve it, please do; it may then be renominated.

A well-writen article

The editors are to be commended. While I do not have Polish languaage skills to verify the references, I thouht the article was well written (and well translated). It dealt with what is clearly a touchy subject while retaining NPOV.

I did some very light copyediting to make date formats consistent, add some definitive articles that seemed to be missing, replace the abbreviation ps. with pseudonym, eliminate a few run-on sentences, and make all spellings American English (there were only a few thaat were British, such as realised, while the rest were American). Twisted86 05:42, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

  • I second the commendation! I think the original article was written in British English, but little enough remained that removing the remainder was probably the simplest path. --Askari Mark | Talk 01:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Failed "Good Article" nomination

Hello, the reasons why I failed it:

  1. There is nothing more than just history.
  2. The huge red list is plain ugly.
  3. It has only 4 sources, and it's quite obvious that most of the article was taken just from one of them. Dealing with such a sensitive subject it's is clearly not enough.
  4. Some "heroic" phrasing borders on POV. 3 quick examples: "...when the (imprisoned) AK and WiN leaders realized their mistake..." & "The NKVD and UB were certainly not beyond using force" & "For the crime of fighting for their homeland..."
  5. I think the article needs a bit more time to settle down. Editors with different perspectives should have time to review it. Renata 03:37, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Regarding some of the objections, I'd like to note that most of the text (history...) was taken from AK article, which is a GA itself. But you raise good point that compared to AK it has too little about structure and such. Not sure if I agree with all of your 'heroic' style comments, but if somebody would like to NPOV it, then that would be great.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:27, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Article from modern newspaper article as a source for remote history

Most of this page is based on and article in a Polish newspaper. Do we know anything about the author of this newspaper article and his credentials of historian? --Irpen 05:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The author is Andrzej Kaczyński. Short bio in English. He seems to be a prominent journalist of that newspaper (with the rank of an editor (redaktor) - , , ) with dozens of articles, many of them about Polish history. Some of his articles have even been translated into English, particulary the ones dealing with Jedwabne, and published for example by JewishGen - it was so notable he even got mentioned in an English books (, ) - a no small feat for non-English journalist, as I am sure you'd agree. Even more importantly, he has been cited by academics: for example, by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz: , and possibly here ( - couldn't check full text right away, but got a hit for his name) and here ( - as far as I can tell from the snippet). Chodakiewicz also seems to cite him in this book but the snippets are broken. I hope this proves he is an estabilished, reliable journalist with much experience in writing about Polish history.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  07:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Lot's of water and no answer. Let me repeat the question then. Is he a historian? --Irpen 19:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

He is reliable per WP:RS. That's all there is to it, as has been discussed at Talk:Przyszowice massacre and in many different places.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

All right, so now without answering a question I did not ask (we will get to that later) I repeat. Is he a historian? --Irpen 20:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Still, since we are talking about events from about 40 to 60 years ago, with some of the participants still living, why would this be a priori excluded from the province of journalism? When does history end and journalism begin? Balcer 05:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Since you don't know and no one knows of any academic credentials of the author, the article on a historic subject needs rewriting based on something more serious than an article in a modern newspaper. And times of WW2 and immediately after it is certainly history rather than current events. --Irpen 05:34, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
As has been pointed to you at Talk:Przyszowice massacre, newspapers are quite reliable; besides, the author of the articles is much more reliable than some historians. This article fits WP:RS, please stop arguing without any policy to back you up.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  07:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Please stop disrupting the integrity of an encyclopedia through writing articles about hisotry referenced to newspapers. Since you refuse to correct, the article tagged. --Irpen 08:28, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

As has been explained to you on Talk:Przyszowice massacre, and our policies cited numerous times, the information is reliable. Please stop disrupting the project by misusing tags.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:53, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Icorrect, no policies were clearly cited and invited editors were split on the issue whether newspaper writings by an author with no credentials in history can are reliable. Not only the source is unreliable, but the entire article is based on a single (and unacceptable) source. I will mark it as such as well. Instead of revert warring, I suggest you improve the article and its sourcing. --Irpen 18:24, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. Article by a reliable journalist in a reliable newspaper is reliable, per WP:RS. While more sources would be nice, one source is enough. Unless you have contradictory references, there is nothing to question the reliability of this article; that you dislike newspapers doesn't matter as long as their use is permitted by our policies. Let me quote from our policies: Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources: Misplaced Pages articles should therefore ideally rely on all majority and significant-minority treatments of a topic, scholarly and non-scholarly. While scholarly sources are preffered and overrule non-scholarly, if we lack scholarly sources that contradict non-scholarly ones, and there are no concerns with 'undue weight' and such, non-scholary publications are considered reliable. Further, Misplaced Pages:No_original_research#Reliable_sources excplicitly states: In general, the most reliable sources are books and journals published by university presses; mainstream newspapers.... -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:55, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Name of the article

I don't think "cursed" is the best translation of the original word "wyklęci". It's more like a copy to English, which does not reflect its meaning. The word in question comes from polish word for curse, but has different connotation. It's something between outcast, expelled or banished and condemned or damned, with the latter two being closest in my opinion. The meaning of original phrase "Żołnierze wyklęci" has that kind of connotation. The other way, from English to Polish "cursed" would be "przeklęci", and not "wyklęci". These are not the synonims, and "cursed soldiers" sounds like inaccurate translation to me.
So, is the name ORish too? How is the subject of the article called in English? Or did the author come up with the term himself? --Irpen 18:26, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I think you may be right on that. Cursed soldiers seemed like the best translation, but indeed it's not perfect, outcast or damned would be as correct as 'cursed'. I am not sure however what would be a better title: Anti-communist resistance in Poland is about both violent and non-violent resistance forms, and 'violent resistance' is not a term used much in English.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:05, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
Maybe you should consider "Armed anti-communist resistance in Poland", I know it's long as hell, but at least it is entirely precise. Then you could link it to many articles concerning post-WWWII Poland history. "Cursed" is related only to the source article, and foremost IMHO it's really unfortunate translation - I would drop it completely if I were you. "Outcast" or "damned" would be a lot better. Also, if you don't mind the suggestion, I believe you should put the list of soldiers in separate article (or stub) linked to this one, that will make the article less red and more clear. Another thing is what the discussion was above - the sources. I think you can find many information concerning individual soldiers and the whole movement (mainly witnesses or autobiographic relation type) in "Karta '44" periodics - they show up every 2 or 3 months and I suppose they collect them in most public libraries in Poland (shouldn't be difficult to obtain if you live in one of the major cities). Other than that I think the article is well written and you should keep up the good work.87.206.24.237 01:57, 6 June 2007 (UTC)Pawel
I saw Piotrus' query on Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Military history. My suggestion would be to keep the title as "Cursed soldiers". For one thing, that's the only way I've ever seen it in English. "Damned soldiers" comes across more like an insult to soldiers, but "Cursed soldiers" actually has a certain brave, but ironic "cachet" about it – that being the heroism of fighting against impossible odds. Kirill Lokshin also had some suggestions worth considering, but Żołnierze wyklęci is unrecognizable to English-speakers like me who actually are familiar with topic. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
The original Polish title has nothing to do with their odds against the enemy. Furthermore - the word "wyklęci" does have pejorative connotation. It means they were expelled from the society , history and public memory by the communist authorithies. They were also condemned and their goals denied recognition until recent times. They were meant to be forever forgotten, stripped of their glory and honor in the eyes of general audience. Nevertheless, knowing original word and English being my second language, I believe it is more "damned"(in the meaning - condemned for eternal punishment, but it's not an insult in this case, becase the condemners are considered evil) than "cursed", while actually neither of these words are accurate translations. So I think "oucast" would do best, as I believe it reflects the original word quite accurately.87.206.24.237 05:39, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Why don't we simply state in the lead that the Polish term is difficult to translate into English, and that a number of translations are possible, followed by a list of those suggested here. As long as we do that, there is no reason to worry too much about the precise title used for the article.Balcer 05:45, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Such a footnote would certainly be useful. It would be even better if we could point to various sources and their terms, alas, this issue is simply mostly unmentioned in English literature. The refs are few and far in between, and the terminology varies, usually being quite general: for example, Marek Jan Chodakiewicz uses the term independentist insurgency. Would Polish anti-communist independentist insurgency be better, I don't know - it's certainly LONG (and we need Polish and anti-communist for disambig).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:42, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
A footnote is an excellent idea! This subject needs as much explanation as it can get. From what is written above, it would seem like the closest rendering might be something like "The Forgotten Soldiers", but that's too close to Sajer's book, "The Forgotten Soldier". I don't believe "independentist" is a real word, but "Polish anti-communist insurgency" might be a good substitute title – unless it might be confused with activities between the two world wars. Askari Mark (Talk) 22:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

IMHO mayby good alternative would be Polish post war world II anti-comunist guerillas or something like that. Radomil talk 08:52, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think this should become a big section within a very large, general feature on "Civil Unrest in Poland from 1944-1948: from the Lublin government to the PRL". Point is, much like Iraq today, there was all kinds of violence, and it is often difficult to distinguish between each type: political insurgencey, state oppression, Red Army indiscipline, political rivalry among insurgent groups, violent organized crime, ethnic and religious violence, violent competition for scarce housing in urban districts, anarchy and opportunist looting, violence caused by forced population transfer, NKVD agent provocateur action, and alleged British-backed "terrorism". It is a huge, fascinating subject worthy of a feature. And there are several sources - I`m sure Piotrus knows a few as well. -Chumchum7 (talk) 06:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

translation needed

It would be nice if someone would translate the abbreviations of army rank in the list from Polish to English. Thanks Hmains (talk) 22:42, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Done Radomil talk 13:55, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
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