Talk:Galicia (Eastern Europe)/Archive 3

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This is the first sentence of this article: Galicia is a historical and geographic region in Central Europe once a small kingdom that currently straddles the border between Poland and Ukraine.

Why does the article lead off with saying it's a geographic region in Central Europe, but the article is titled Galicia (Eastern Europe). If Galicia is a geographic region in Central Europe, as the article has stated for 10 years (upon reviewing the article's history), then why is the article titled Galicia (Eastern Europe), instead of Galicia (Central Europe)?

--hmich176 11:00, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

I reverted a good faith edit which changed the sentence above from "Central Europe" to "Eastern Europe." I did this because the user left the references for "Central Europe" in place with the "Eastern Europe" change; the region shouldn't be changed unless references can be provided.

My question still remains: Why is the article title "Eastern Europe" and not "Central Europe" given this sentence in the lead? --hmich176 09:18, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

hmich, have you read the conversations on this talk page (above)? It's a contentious issue. I changed the reference to Central Europe in the lead but you reverted it. Opinion is divided and what to title this article has been the subject of fierce debate. I'm not sure if editors are ready to launch into another discussion when a case (leading to AN/I) just occurred two months ago. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 14:05, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I only reverted that edit because the references were not changed. Changing it to Eastern Europe left it as Eastern Europe with references that Galicia is in Central Europe, making it appear as an erroneous statement. Proper citations need to be placed with "Eastern Europe" when the change is made, in my belief.

Yes, I recognize that the article title is a particularly contentious issue. I have a pretty good understanding of what it's like going through those. However, I posed this question given the curious nature of the discussion.

I say this because of four reasons: 1) Initially, this article has said Galicia is in Central Europe for ten years. Not that consensus can't change (because it

Historical regions of Central Europe since that article was written in 2004. Galicia should be excised from that list if we determine that Galicia is not part of Central Europe. 4) I posted images of two maps to the right shades or outlines the area considered Central Europe (top picture comes from the Central Europe article, bottom picture comes from Mitteleuropa

). Both images demonstrate that parts of countries which previously were within the borders of the German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Baltic governances of the Russian Empire, have both historical and cultural connections to Central Europe. As seen on these maps, all of the territory which was part of Galicia is considered part of Central Europe.

I believe there is a general consensus that Galicia is part of Central Europe, and I believe that is why the first sentence of the lede is accurate: "Galicia is a historical and geographic region in Central Europe once a small kingdom that currently straddles the border between Poland and Ukraine."

--hmich176 10:42, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Hmich, you seem to assume the macroregions like Central Europe and Eastern Europe have clear-cut borders and are mutually exclusive, so if we say that Galicia is, for example, part of Central Europe, then it cannot be part of Eastern Europe. However, this is not the case. These regions have fuzzy and overlapping borders. Take almost any book about the history of either region and most likely it will begin with a long introduction explaining how the concept of Central or Eastern Europe means very different things to different people and in different contexts, and how difficult it is to agree on the scope of these terms. So it very well may be that the statements "Galicia is a region in Central Europe" and "Galicia is a region in Eastern Europe" are both true. I think the biggest problem here (which I've already raised before) is that we're using a fuzzy, ambiguous concept for the purpose of disambiguation! There is currently no consensus to change it, though. — Kpalion^(talk) 18:14, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

I am not assuming this. Consider this quote, and note this comes from the same reference as you mentioned from the Eastern Europe article: "Central Europe: Scholars agree that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic are Central European states, since they are located next to each other and share Habsburg heritage and, going back further in time, a legacy of an enormous amount of contact, both positive and negative, with the German-speaking world."^[1] Furthermore, Section 2 of the book "Jewish Post-war Problems: How the Jewish communities prepared for peace during the first world war" is titled "In Central Europe" and says "About 2,500,000 Jews resided in what was then Austria-Hungary. The Galician and Carpatho-Ukranian Jews in that land, about 1,000,000 in number..."^[2] Another reference, here. The book is titled "The Russian plot to seize Galicia (Austrian Ruthenia)." In it, is written, "Regarded as one, the Balkans and Russia face Central Europe by the Carpathian bulwark." The Carpathian bulwark? "...the annexing of Galicia and Bukovina to the Russian possessions..."^[3] Another book, titled "National minorities in central Europe" makes several references to Ukrainians being in eastern Galicia.^[4] Here's another quote: "This is the old Austrian crownland of Galicia, and it is now the southern end of Poland, just as it has been, off and on, ever since the eleventh century. One of the most annoying features about Central Europe is the way in which everything changed hands every little while in the old days, so that at the present time everybody claims everything in sight, whether it belongs to him or not. Galicia, however, is now a part of Poland; and a large percentage of emigrants from Poland to America are Jews from Galicia."^[5] The author of this book makes a valid point in what I quoted, although central Europeans were hardly overrunning America.

I realize this is a large block of text (not to mention a reference list...to which, if I used the incorrect cite template, I apologize) which doesn't make for the easiest reading. However, when you examine available source material, there is more than enough material which firmly supports the concept that Galicia was in Central Europe. --hmich176 15:30, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• Regardless of the article‘s title (for which as many redirects can be made as may be deemed fit), the text should follow the sources, and the lead should summarize the text. We can respect the above closer’s recommendation, and leave the move discussions be for a while, without trying to make the article fit some sort of
  Procrustean bed created by the contentious title.—Odysseus1479
  06:14, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

@Odysseus1479: I respect the above closer's recommendation. I just don't see how the article can stand as it is with a paradox between the name of the article and the first sentence of the article. --hmich176 07:36, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

I hereby offer five new options: Galicia (Carpathia), Galicia (Halych), Galicia (cross-border region), Galician Plain, Galicia (East European Plain).--Pharos (talk) 18:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, I guess I'm leaning toward Galicia (East European Plain) as the most viable option now. What do others think?--Pharos (talk) 19:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Have you read through all of the previous proposals (including the archives)? I don't think any of these proposals are going to be supported. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:04, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Yes, indeed I have, which is why I've tried to come up with some options that haven't been discussed before.--Pharos (talk) 20:11, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think "cross-border" is a good disambiguator, it presupposes too much familiar knowledge in the reader, ie that Spanish Galicia is *on* but not *across* the border of Portugal, or that Galicia-not-in-western-europe stretches across several countries; in the same way neither is "plain", you have to know that Galicia in Spain is more mountaineous, and is it really? Galicia is quite mountaineous in Carpathia. Which brings us to the next problem, "Carpathia" is very ambiguous? Is Galicia a part of Carpathia (the answer is "no".)? Is it an alternative name (no again.)? "Halych" is an alternative name, but it's a bit like using the

Galicia (East-Central Europe), others that have been proposed are Galicia (Eastern Central Europe) (by Piotrus ) and Galicia (eastern central Europe) (by y.t.) ^walk victor falk ^talk

21:15, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

Actually, the reference is specifically to the East European Plain, a well-defined European landform of which Galicia is undoubtedly a part. The name is not meant to prejudice whether Galicia belongs to the vernacular regions of "Central Europe" or "Eastern Europe", and indeed I would agree it is more the former than the latter--Pharos (talk) 04:03, 17 May 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I find it unintuitive for the purposes of disambiguation. How meaningful would Galicia (East European Plain) be to most English speaking readers? It strikes me as two 'weird' quantities stuck together. I'm not aware of this combination even resembling any form of common usage. Commendations for trying to think outside of the box but, per victor falk's observations, all I'm seeing are very strained suggestions. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 02:02, 18 May 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps it makes more sense to avoid the whole messy East/Central thing in the title. "Galician Plain" is in fact a pretty common and unambiguous historical usage in English, and it does still get at the actual geographical aspect. Compare Galician Massif.--Pharos (talk) 12:33, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Just a reminder of Wiki naming policy for ethnic groups: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(ethnicities_and_tribes) "Self-identification-How the group self-identifies should be considered. If their autonym is commonly used in English, it would be the best article title. Any terms regarded as derogatory by members of the ethnic group in question should be avoided." As noted by Paul Robert Magosci, there is an ethnic group known in English as Ruthenians, but which self identifies as Carpatho-Rusyns, or simply Rusyns. They do not self-identify as Ukrainians. In fact, they find the Ukrainian label offensive. You are hereby warned that continuing to refer to Carpatho-Rusyns as Ukrainians may result in complaints being lodged against you in appropriate Wiki forums.85.154.245.171 (talk) 13:34, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

New strategy for future forum-shopping by the anon IP after his failure here: [2]? This article is about Galicia, not the region of Carpatho-Rusyns so it is completely irrelevant here.Faustian (talk) 13:37, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Oh oh. It looks like a lot of self-identified Ukrainians viewed the term "Ruthenians" to be offensive: Paul R. Magocsi. (2010). A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pg. 638. By the IP's silly logic this term can'tbe used either. Perhaps we should refer to these people as Martians?Faustian (talk) 13:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

The Rusyns who didn't identify as Ukrainians because they had their own separate ethnic identity have never had a problem being called Ruthenians. They just don't like being called Ukrainians, because they weren't. This is a communist invention which some here want to continue. (See Magosci) However, there is no RS that ethnic Ukrainians objected to the broader classification of Ruthenians during Hapsburg Galicia, which is the title of this page, and much authority that many Ruthenians knew themselves only as peasants and had not identified themselves as Ukrainians. But this does expose the nationalist POV being promoted by such comments.37.200.224.205 (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Good that you mentioned Galicia. So you'll stop irrelevant comments about Carpatho-Rusyns? As for "Soviet invention" - Carpatho-Ukraine preceded Soviet rule.Faustian (talk) 15:02, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

You appear to have a problem admitting to understanding sets and subsets. "Carpatho" is short for Carpathian, meaning all of the Carpathian Mountains, not just the part in modern Ukraine. Rusyn is the name given to the ethnic group which lived along the entire mountain range, thus Carpatho-Rusyns, or Rusyns for short. The fact that part of the Carpathians had part called Carpatho-Ukraine for a time after the end of Galicia, does not change the fact that there were Rusyns both in Austrian Galicia and across the rest of the Carpathians as well. See Magosci THE LEMKO RUSYNS: THEIR PAST AND PRESENT: http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/lemkos/lemkos.htm The two are not mutually exclusive as you are insisting without RS, and RS is to the contrary, AGAIN Your claim is OR and will be addressed, and also not NPOV85.154.245.172 (talk) 15:15, 23 September 2014 (UTC).

Carpathian Ruthenia was always a different region than Galicia.Faustian (talk) 15:23, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Which does not change the FACT that there were Rusyns in Austrian Galicia. See Magosci THE LEMKO RUSYNS: THEIR PAST AND PRESENT: http://www.carpatho-rusyn.org/lemkos/lemkos.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.200.224.205 (talk) 00:18, 24 September 2014 (UTC) 85.154.245.172 (talk) 00:24, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

The link isn't to a reliable source, sorry. (Carpatho-Rusyn American). See

WP:SCHOLARSHIP "Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view.". So, try to find a reliable source for your claims next time. BTW the article you cited states that a lot of them considered themselves to be Russians. Does that make them Russians? Interestingly it notes that the nationalistic Polish government (which in the 1930s' was nationalistic and anti-Ukrainian) pushed the idea of Lemkos as a separate nation. So we see the pattern of your pushing 1930's style nationalistic Polish ideas onto wikipedia.Faustian (talk

) 01:59, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

You cited him as a RS, and now he isn't reliable anymore? Are you schizophrenic or did someone hack your account? Maybe this needs to be reported? Just a reminder the source is: Paul Robert Magocsi (born January 26, 1945, Englewood, New Jersey, USA) is an American professor of history, political science, and Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He has been with the university since 1980, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1996. He currently acts as Honorary Chairman of the World Congress of Rusyns, and has authored many books on Rusyn history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Robert_Magocsi — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.154.245.172 (talk) 14:54, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Review wikipedia polices on reliable sources more carefully. Hint: a peer-reviewed work is reliable, a journal for activists is not and is only good for reporting what the activists believe. So Magocsi's work form university-published books is acceptable, his interview in a Rusyn political journal is not. Hopefully you have understood this? So, do you have one or will you continue providing irrelevant biographical details? Faustian (talk) 15:02, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

After fair warning, a compliant has been made here for OR, lack of NPOV and other issues regarding the disruption of this page here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Ruthenians_in_Galicia

Relevant exerepts are below regarding the lack of RS for the page, and the OR from certain editors which conflicts with known RS:

We are having several problems with tag team OR on the Galicia page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galicia_(Eastern_Europe)

The first OR pertains to conflating ethnicity and religion in Galicia: People

"It is, however, possible to make a clear distinction in religious denominations: Poles were Roman Catholic, the Ruthenians belonged to the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church (now split into several sui juris Catholic churches, the largest of which is the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church)."

No RS has been given for this assertion. The burden is on the person or persons posting this to have provided RS. I have cited two RS in the talk section who have noted that religion did not predict ethnicity between Poles and Ukrainians. (Galicia: A Multicultured Land (Christopher Hann and Paul Robert Magocsi (Editors) (2005) (Stepien, pp. 54-55; Hann, p. 220)) The response from was to assume bad faith, and revert without providing RS for the asserted "fact": "Am getting a cite check for the pages you have referenced. Reverting until this can be confirmed one way or the other. Your your arguments for deleting and removing all references to religion other than Jewish left the section as nonsensical. What does Jewish as the third largest religious group mean when there are no references to other religious groups? At worst, a request for a reference could have been inserted. The rest of your logic translates as WP:OR resulting in WP:POV blanking. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 04:59, 11 September 2014 (UTC)"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Galicia_%28Eastern_Europe%29&diff=625040224&oldid=624886751 Without a RS this comment is nothing but OR based upon this editor's "logic". Rather than support the assertion, OR accusations are made against me, despite the fact that I have provided RS and others have not, along with other uncivil comments. This appears to be contentious editing as well, but without RS, it is nothing more than OR. After I reverted to remove the OR, Faustian enters the page and reverts back to the OR with the edit summary of "rv POV edits seeking to erase word "Ukrainians". http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Galicia_%28Eastern_Europe%29&diff=625941453&oldid=625935356 (It should be noted that "Ruthenian" and not "Ukrainian" was the proper contemporary term for the time period, as I have cited:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenians#mediaviewer/File:Austria_hungary_1911.jpg) Since there was no source given for the edit, I reverted "noting Faustian replaced sourced material with unsourced without explanation or discussion" http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Galicia_%28Eastern_Europe%29&diff=626028273&oldid=625941453 Faustian refused to give a source, reliable or not, for the assertion, and again reverted with the comment, "restore version prior to Polish nationalist POV". Apparently, his opinion that something he just doesn't like is a Polish nationalist POV entitles him to engage in his own OR and not provide any sources for discussion.

We also see OR with the frequent removal by these editors of the contemporary word "Ruthenian" and replacing it with "Ukrainian", as if they are historically interchangeable. (Irish are Gaels, but is it therefore accurate to refer to all Gaels as Irish?) No source has been given for the assertion "Ruthenians (most of whom would today be regarded as Ukrainians)". This is nothing more that the opinion of these editors. (Nor is there any RS that most of these Ruthenians had actually considered themselves to have been "Ukrainians" during this time period.) There is no source cited on this point to discuss. Therefore, this statement and the substitution of "Ruthenian" and replacing it with "Ukrainian" is OR.

The Modus operendi of these editors is to make claims without RS, then demand proof what they believe is false. This reverses the burden of persuasion. However, there is a RS to the contrary. Respected historian Paul Robert Magsosci, Professor, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Toronto, Ph.D. in History has written extensively on the "East Slavic people called Carpatho-Rusyns, or simply Rusyns (sometimes in English: Ruthenians)." He is quite emphatic that they are not "Ukrainians", and nor is their language: "Ukraine must, in turn, guarantee the individual and corporate rights of Rusyns — or those citizens of Ukraine who wish to call themselves Rusyns... Ukrainian authorities must accept the fact that within its boundaries, primarily in its Transcarpathian oblast, there are people who define themselves as Rusyns in the sense of a nationality distinct from Ukrainians. Such people should have the right to declare themselves in their passports and internal documents as Rusyns, and the state census bureau should publish data on the number of persons who identify as Rusyns and not simply classify them, as has been done until now, as Ukrainians." (Magosci, "The Rusyn Question" Political Thought 1995, №2-3 (6) P.221-231, :http://www.litopys.org.ua/rizne/magocie.htm

Thus even if these editors might claim to find a RS for their POV, it would not be a NPOV. The forced submersion of ethnic Rusyns into the Ukrainian identity is the result of the communist takeover of the region: "As we know, the Communist era with its anti-democratic approach to the nationality question was to last until the revolutions of 1989 and 1991. The only exception was the case of the small group of Rusyns in the Vojvodina region of Yugoslavia. Although a Communist regime was installed in their land as well, the Yugoslav government allowed the Vojvodina Rusyns to decide their own national orientation. This was not to be the case for the Rusyns living in the Carpathian homeland. In short, the Soviet regime declared that further debate was unnecessary because the nationality question was supposedly solved long ago. Based on a decision made in 1924, all Rusyns, regardless what they may have called themselves, were declared to be Ukrainians. All those who opposed the Ukrainian viewpoint were accused of having "anti-historical" and, therefore, "anti-Soviet" opinions: they often were removed from their jobs or were arrested as "counterrevolutionaries." Closely connected with these developments was the liquidation first in Soviet Transcarpathia (1949) and then in Czechoslovakia (1950) of the Greek Catholic Church, which by the mid-twentieth century had become the center of the Rusyn orientation." (Magosci, supra) And also the ethnic cleansing of Nazi allied Ukrainian nationalists during the war. (The Rusyns who refused to identify themselves as Ukrainians committed an act which was punishable by the death penalty. Henryk Komański and Szczepan Siekierka, Ludobójstwo dokonane przez nacjonalistów ukraińskich na Polakach w województwie tarnopolskim w latach 1939-1946 (2006) 2 volumes, 1182 pages, at pg. 203.) What has resulted from these authors is a chauvinistic Ukrainian POV regarding the Ruthenian question.

There was a link provided to the Wiki Ruthenian page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenians [Ruthenians] Presumably, that should be enough for any reader who might be motivated to explore the topic further. However, these editors have decided that Ruthenians in Galica are somehow severable from the other Ruthenians in the region and are all simply Ukrainians. Again no RS have been provided for this opinion, and again RS are to the contrary: "As problematic is the nomenclature and identity problem among those Americans whose ancestors came from Galicia, where the term Rusyn as a self-identifier was also widespread until as late as the third decade of the twentieth century. In the United States, these Galician-Rusyn immigrants and their descendants, often from the same village or even same family, have identified themselves either as Carpatho-Russians, Russians, or Ukrainians. These varied identities are also found among Galicians and their descendants from villages in the Lemko Region, who have interacted particularly closely in America with Rusyns from south of the Carpathians. Therefore, one can encounter in the immigration Rusyn Lemkos, Russian Lemkos, Ukrainian Lemkos, or those who simply identify as Lemkos." (Magosci, "What's in a Name?" http://carpatho-rusyn.org/what.htm, Adapted from: "Our People - Carpatho-Rusyns and Their Descendants In North America" (1995).) Furthermore, by refusing to move this discussion to the Ruthenians page [Ruthenians], these authors appear to be attempting to carve out their own little empire on the Galicia page to engage in their own version of history. I thought that the Wiki idea was that more editors would enable a better result, rather than promoting a narrow, parochial view of history. After the repeated refusal of these authors to provide RS for their OR, I can only conclude that a Ukrainian nationalist POV is being put forward and being supported by OR. The battleground is that they wish to employ the Stalinist definition of "Ukrainian" to include all Ruthenians and ignore ethnic cleansing from Nazi allied Ukrainian nationalists and Stalin’s deportations to retrospectively assert that Eastern Galicia was in fact "occupied Western Ukraine" as Faustian has referred to the region in previously on the Bandera page:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Stepan_Bandera&diff=prev&oldid=557869288

This is clearly also Revanchism. Thus, we see in People not a total of all ethnic groups in the kingdom as a whole, but instead only two separate percentages for the Eastern and Western halves. We also see the need to replace the broader contemporary category of "Ruthenians" with the chauvinistic communist/Ukrainian nationalist invention of all as "Ukrainian" (regardless of whether these people had identified themselves that way, or even may have objected to the term) in the respective East/West ethnic percentages. We also see the need to claim that most of these Ruthenians would presently be regarded as Ukrainians, without discussion of why that confusion might remain in the post-communist world, or how we might travel back in time to know this.85.154.245.171 (talk) 05:14, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I went ahead and added some reliably sourced info - Yale historian Timothy Snyder's work published by Yale University Press - that explicitly uses what this IP calls the "chauvinistic communist/Ukrainian nationalist invention" word Ukrainians.Faustian (talk) 13:55, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it might be reasonable to collapse this section as

WP:ADVOCACY aspects, it's merely a cut-and-paste of the identical tirade this IP has posted elsewhere. --Iryna Harpy (talk

) 01:02, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Bringing this issue here to have a different Ukrainian Nationalist POV on this page than on the Ruthenians page is

WP:FORUMSHOPPING You add nothing to the discussion and only make accusations.85.154.245.172 (talk

) 17:04, 25 September 2014 (UTC)