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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3

Map of languages in 2nd Polish republic

Discussion moved out of User_talk:Piotrus, since it grew way beyond the original personal notice. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:27, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Someone [1] has a problem with a map you've uploaded.  Volunteer Marek  15:16, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

  • @Volunteer Marek:. This is a content dispute going beyond behavioural guidelines. It seems to me that the US IP user (Pennsylvania) might have a valid point, because 63 percent of Polish inhabitants of Polesie are not acknowledged in this map ... 63 percent is a lot of people, and the maker of this map, User:Krzysztoflew~enwiki, is inactive since 13 February 2009. I don't know what to say. Poeticbent talk 17:46, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
Click on it, and go to page 63: mother tongue in Lwów Voivodeship
Hmmm, ok. It's a nice map though, any chance someone could make a similar one but with all the info?  Volunteer Marek  19:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
The actual Polish census of 1931 is now available online, as published in Polish and also in French, available here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Polish_census_of_1931 It is best to use the original source, if it is to be cited as such, and avoid using other re-interpretations of that data. One curiosity is that the Poles identified two separate languages, as respondents self-identified, in what is now Western Ukraine, Ukrianians and Ruthenians:
Lwow: 57.67% Polish, 18.53% Ukrainian, 15.59% Ruthenian
Stanislaw: 22.44% Polish, 46.87% Ukrainian, 21.96% Ruthenian
Ternopol: 49.31% Polish, 25.12% Ukrainian,, 20.38% Ruthenian
Wolyn: 16.62% Polish, 68.01% Ukrainian, 0.41% Ruthenian
It will be a big job to get all of the data accurate to the original. However, this should be accurate if it cites to the original. What happened to the Ruthenians during the war remains somewhat of a mystery. Perhaps there have been some Polish historians who have written about this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doctor Franklin (talk • contribs) 20:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
  • @Volunteer Marek: I did some preliminary studies. Redoing the entire map would take me several days. The new pie-chart for every Voivodeship can be created online with all decimal points (exactly) and downloaded to your computer from https://www.meta-chart.com/pie. Please take a look at my thumbnail insert (above, right); on page 65 you can find the following data. The Lwów Voivodeship (zoom in, total population 2815178): Jezyk ojczysty: polski - 1606823, ukrainski - 555230, ruski - 476743, bialoruski - 188, rosyjski - 291, czeski - 340, litewski - 5, niemiecki - 9601, zydowski - 143482, hebrajski - 14140, inny - 451, nie podany - 7884. This means that for the purpose of our Wikipedia discourse with involves a number of controversies, no map with data other than all of the above, is going to cut the mustard. Poeticbent talk 23:56, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
  • @Poeticbent: I believe the cities have separate census surveys from the rest of their voivods. The numbers need to be totaled. If I have time, I could help you collect the population reports from each voivod. Be prepared for someone to claim that accurately reporting published census data is OR.Doctor Franklin (talk) 01:06, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
We do have relevant PDF files in Commons which are self-explanatory, providing that we do not "interpret" what's in them (which can be seen as OR). This is why originally I was against calculating percentages, which led to an unsightly edit war at 1931 census again. The data which I provided above is for the total of the Lwów Voivodeship only (!), excluding the city of Lwów. The census results for the city of Lwów can be added using plain maths. A pie chart could be generated automatically for the total number, using https://www.meta-chart.com/pie - nobody could question such method as being original research. Poeticbent talk 14:19, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Addendum. The reason why percentage points can be seen as riskey is because percentage points tend to hide the facts. – When five Polish Lithuanians responded to the census, they remained (and forever will be) five Lithuanians. This is not a representative category to dwell upon. Poeticbent talk 14:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
The user here seems to be a single-issue account pushing a particular POV described by Magocsi (A History of Ukriane, pg. 638, University of Toronto Press): "The Polish government adopted a policy of tribalization, which gave support to the idea that various ethnographic groups (Lemkos, Boykos, Hutsuls) aa well as the Old Ruthenians and Russophiles were somehow distinct from the Ukrainian nationality as a whole." Reliable sources almost always combine "Ruthenian" and "Ukrainian" into one number when they summarize the census data, as is done here: [[2]] by noted Polish academic Piotr Eberhardt. Thus, the map in its current form is fine and corresponds to summaries such as Eberhardt's. The single-user account is simply trying to push his POV that there was a huge "Ruthenian" nationality in Galicia and that something "happened" to it. Faustian (talk) 14:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Magosci's quote possibly explains who the self-declared Ruski were in the second Polish republic. The fact remains, that given the choice, they chose not to call themselves Ukrainians. Since you consider Magosci to be RS on the point, note that the Encyclopedia Britannica does as well. " Ruthenian (German: Ruthenisch; Hungarian: rutén) was also the official designation for the spoken and written language of the East Slavs (present-day Ukrainians and Carpatho-Rusyns) living in the Habsburg-ruled Austrian Empire." http://www.britannica.com/topic/Ruthenian The FACT is that the term did refer to more than one ethnic group in the past, but refers to one ethnic group today who don't consider themselves Ukrainians. How that term evolved over time, and who the Polish Ruski were in the census is a matter for academic debate, upon which not all historians agree. Finding one token Pole to "validate" your usage of the term proves nothing considering that Eberhart holds a doctorate in "geographical sciences, focusing in economic geography". The man is not a historian, ethnologist, sociologist, or even a political scientist. His usage of the term holds no academic weight.Doctor Franklin (talk) 15:57, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Your claims show us your POV but the work of reliable sources such as Eberhardt (a specialist in demography and human geography)is the basis of Wikipedia, not primary sources or your personal claims. If you find a reliable source showing that for example 20% of the people or Ternopil belonged to a non-Ukrainian ethnic group "Ruthenians" then include it. Otherwise, we follow reliable sources that refer to Ukrainans/Ruthenians as Ukrainians when describing the census results. This is what Eberhardt does, as well as others do. For example, Jerzy Kochanowski: [3] Faustian (talk) 16:13, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
My POV is that when a national census of a nation is the subject of a WP page, the results of that census will be translated and reported accurately on that WP page. Your POV is to censor reporting what you don't like by finding alternative second hand interpretation and synthesis of the same. If you don't make the same objections to other national censuses, I will conclude that your behavior is discriminatory and motivated by some kind of ethnic animus. Fair enough? I have read other Polish historians who used the "Rusni" to describe the inhabitants of Galicia and Wolyn without distinction from the census. This may get translated by some English editors as "Ukrainains" as in the work you cited. (Jerzy_Kochanowski BTW is a communist era historian who is published mostly on German issues. He wrote in Polish.) Regardless of how it gets interpreted of synthesized, the census asked what it asked, reported what it reported, and published what it published. No secondary source is needed to re-report what it published.Doctor Franklin (talk) 17:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
What you call "finding alternative second hand interpretation and synthesis of the same" iws actually using secondary rather than primary sources. I suggest you review Wikipedia policy about that [4]: "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources. Secondary or tertiary sources are needed to establish the topic's notability and to avoid novel interpretations of primary sources. All analyses and interpretive or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, and must not be an original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.".Faustian (talk) 23:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
That is not how WP reports from a national census on it WP page. Secondary commentary, criticisms, and interpretations only come after the original is cited from the primary source. You are rationalizing your behavior here.Doctor Franklin (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Dear @Faustian: Times have changed dramatically since 1931. Ukraine is a sovereign state, with its own problems ... and so is Poland. I repeat, all "interpretations" of original historical data (any way you cut it), including Eberhardt's summary, can be perceived as original research for our purposes. Poeticbent talk 15:04, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Eberhadt's work is not original research. Original research is when Wikipedia editors use primary sources to make claims or assumptions, such as there being a separate "Ruthenian" nation that almost equaled "Ukrainians" in Ternopil.Faustian (talk) 15:10, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
I hear you, but when you begin to add concrete interpretations by historians from any one particular national group (or any linguistic group for that matter), you begin to introduce bias against the individuals who weren't given a voice. This is what I was trying to avoid. Poeticbent talk 15:29, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Concrete interpretations by historians, rather than primary sources, is what Wikipedia is based on. The census itself was conducted in a biased way, which is why historians' summaries are so useful.Faustian (talk) 15:52, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
All censuses in the world are primary sources; six one way, half-dozen the other.Poeticbent talk 01:10, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Faustian, back in 2011 I added the table with the figures breaking out the 1931 Polish population by language and religion. The source of the previous table is a reliable secondary source The population of Poland by the U.S. Census Bureau, 1954. The Census Bureau authors combined the Ukrainians and Ruthenians in their table which I posted to Wikipedia. This table illustrates the disputed nature of the 1931 census, some historians claim that 69% of the population were Poles. That figure included 1.0 million Greek Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and 372,000 Jews who were classified as Poles by language. --Woogie10w (talk) 16:38, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
The secondary source in a foreign country did not accurately report the data from the 1931 Census of Poland. Occurring in the middle of the second Red Scare in the U.S., it can be seen as a political document, not academic, which attempted to gloss over the post WWII population transfers and Western abandonment of Central and Eastern Europe by synthesizing different ethnic groups together to obscure the ethnic diversity of the region, and the betrayal of self-determination of the local peoples. Since it did not accurately report the various ethnic groups, its interpretation of that census is a poor substitution for the accurately translating the original. "Ruthene" does not need to be translated from French to English since it is the same.Doctor Franklin (talk) 17:18, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
"synthesizing different ethnic groups " So here we have your personal fringe belief: that "Ruthenians" and "Ukrainians" as listed on the Polish census are different ethnic groups. That there were almost as many "Ruthenians" as "Ukrainians" in Tarnopol and Lwow. On the talk page you make your POV even more clear and bizarre: "the disappearance of the non-Ukrainian Ruthenians. Where did they go? Siberia? Kazakhstan? Former German territory in post war Poland? Executed? Emigrated to the West? These questions need answers, and not the typical nationalist Ukrainian white-washing of history." This is the POV you push, but multiple reliable sources - indeed, every reliable source found so far - don't agree and when summarizing the census they place them together as "Ukrainians."Faustian (talk) 19:34, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
By comparison to the original census chart and numbers, two ethnic categories were conflated together under one category, while the other category is ignored. That is a synthesis which is not true to the original. For example, I can take four categories of protestant churches and put them in a catch-all category of called "protestants", but I cant move the Lutherans into the category of Reformed and delete the later. You want to do the latter, which is academically dishonest. I understand that this is what you want to believe, but it is certainly not neutral POV. Since your opinion has been formed as part of your ethnic identity, I doubt that you would accept any source to the contrary. I suspect that people who study the region are curious where 3.8% of the pre-war population went.Doctor Franklin (talk) 22:44, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
You don't know my ethnicity, and it is irrelevant here. I want nothing but to follow the consensus found in reliable sources. You should want this, too, rather than engaging in uncivil behavior.Faustian (talk) 23:10, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, I do.
Thank you for the description of common sense.Faustian (talk) 17:07, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Doctor Franklin, the US census figures are in agreement with the Polish official data. However they combine the figures for the Ukrainians and Ruthenians as well as as the Tutejszy with the Belarusians for the sake of simplicity. The fate of the Ruthenians and Tutejszy was never ever an issue in the United States during the cold war. Your analysis of this topic is absurd OR and needs to be backed up with a reliable source --Woogie10w (talk) 17:39, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
No the US census figures synthesized different ethnic groups into a single category, contrary to actual published Polish Census of 1931. See the Second Red Scare (1947–57) https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Red_Scare#Second_Red_Scare_.281947.E2.80.9357.29 for further reading on the topic to which I referred. Slavic Ethnic groups in the U.S. were not happy with Stalin's expansion of communism to their homelands. For what purpose was the U.S census office reinterpreting a foreign census?Doctor Franklin (talk) 18:00, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

For what purpose was the U.S census office reinterpreting a foreign census? My hunch is that spoken Rusyn and western Ukrainian are closely related. For example my father learned Polish at home from his mother, he was a Pennsylvania coal miner and understood Rusyn after working 18 years underground. I remember him saying that the Rusyn's did not like to be referred to as Ukrainians. If he were alive today he would understand this discussion.--Woogie10w (talk) 19:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I think that good bit of caution is in order when one nation's government translates and re-publishes summaries from another government (In this case 23 years later). How credible would we find the Russian government republishing a Ukrainian or Belarussian census? I don't think it is that difficult for someone who spoke one Slavic language at home to understand or learn a second Slavic language. One Polish lady I know told me she was sitting in an airport and could understand every word from people from Yugoslavia. Historians like Kate Brown have noted that there wasn't a standard version of language spoken by the peasants in the region. There were different regional dialects that would blend together. Modern Europe recognizes this linguistic diversity, which is very much contrary to nationalists attempting to use language to "prove" ethnicity. Magosci is the recognized authority on the Carpo-Rusyns, and no they don't like being called Ukrainians.Doctor Franklin (talk) 23:06, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Dr. Franklin please cite a reliable source from the Cold War era on this Rusyn and Ukrainian dispute we are having. Here in New York the local Rusyns and Ukrainians are happy like peas in a pod see Ukrainian Americans in New York City. If you are in NY drop me a line and we can have lunch there. Regards--Woogie10w (talk) 19:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

http://www.rusynmedia.org/consortium/nov2011meeting.html Xx236 (talk) 12:12, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
Thank you kindly for the invitation. I have never meet anyone from WP, and judging from some of the characters that I have encountered, I don't know that I want to do that. I know of other communities in the U.S. where Poles and Ukrainians intermarried and got along famously as well. I think that you missed the point. During the Cold War there was little interest, and perhaps less ability, to look at the ethnic issues in the USSR. It is only recently, with the creation of the successor nations of the USSR and the fall of communism that academics have been able to access archive materials necessary to do this. Much of the funding, from what I can see, has gone to study Jewish issues. Ethnic studies in Galcia are difficult since the Soviets destroyed the archives of the region in Lwow. (Norman Davies reported this.) So, one is left drawing inferences from such actions. Khruschev is quoted as fearing historians.Doctor Franklin (talk) 23:24, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Edit to ad that it is not clear that the "Ruthenains" in the census were all Carpo-Rusyns. (See the Magosci quote above.) Quite possibly, they were a group of Greek Catholics intermarried with Poles over 600 years who spoke a mixed Polish-Ukrainian dialect and preferred living in a Polish state, or possibly prosperous kulaks, who rejected the "Ukrainian" ethnic identity for political reasons. The topic is open for discussion by academics.Doctor Franklin (talk) 23:40, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
My hunch is that the Polish government in 1931 wanted to bump down the number of Ukrainians so they counted the Rusyns separately. Today they are considered considered Ukrainians in the post communist census. My dad said their language was akin to Slovak, he should have known since he drank with them. --Woogie10w (talk) 01:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
btw the Carpo-Rusyns were in Zakarpathia-Czechoslovakia in 1931. The Czech census puts them at 451,000 in 1930. Our crew was across the border in Poland.--Woogie10w (talk) 01:17, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I din't notice this chat before. Now tl;dr, sorry. Whatever you discussed above is completely irrelevant for a single reason: it is not a job of wikipedians in interpret primary sources. Census is primary source. Either we report it as is or find secondary sources which interpret it in reliable way. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:21, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

We have. Reliable secondary sources such as this one[5] by Piotr Eberhardt combine Ruthenian-speakers and Ukrainian-speakers into one entity: Ukrainians.Faustian (talk) 02:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Good. But there are other modern reputable sources which claim that Lemkos, Boykos, Hutsuls are distinct enough to be treated separately, if only as a sub-ethnos. It is an easy thing to add a note about this combining, even an extra column. I see no compelling reason to doctor the original data. One may add all possible interpretations is the article text. Staszek Lem (talk) 17:22, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Staszek, what are your sources and how do they relate to the 1931 Polish census? In other words reliable source X tells us that there were Y number of Boykos in Poland in 1931.--Woogie10w (talk) 19:54, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Why are you asking? Staszek Lem (talk) 19:59, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Because you dI'd not provide a reliable source that we can verify, that's why, do you have a problem with that?--Woogie10w (talk) 20:33, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
Please tone down, do you have problem with that? Verify what? I didn't add any text into the article, hence my question to you. (For example, I am not asking you for RS about "Our crew was across the border in Poland" and how is it related to 1931 census.) And I am not saying that 'Boykos' was a separate entry in the census. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:41, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I am here to discuss changes backed up by reliable sources not to blog --Woogie10w (talk) 20:45, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

OK. You asked for it: if you are not to blog then please explain how your crew being across the board and your dad's drinking experience improves the article? And you still failed to answer my question. Your belligerent attitude is not helping. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2015 (UTC)


1931 population stats

In image file File:Mother_tongue_poland_1931_census.png you have population table. It seems that it does not match our wikipedia article Polish census of 1931. Most notable discrepancies are missing Rutenian language and difference in Yiddish. Please double-check. Staszek Lem (talk) 02:21, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

  • Agreed with Staszek Lem that this should be moved to the article's talk page. There's been more discussion here than on that page. Not only will it serve to inform other editors of the discussion, but will serve to retain this information on the relevant talk in the archives. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:45, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Compromise suggestion

  1. The article Polish census of 1931 must contain exact tabulation according to the original data. Image page is wrong location: content must be watched by people who are familiar with content.
  2. The author of the image can present the data in any way xe sees fit (for all I can care, it may have pie charts for "Pole/Non-Pole" only, as long as it contains explanation how it was constructed, pe verifiablitity rules.
  3. I trust the image creator duly took this discussion into the consideration, but the final decision is xis. Whatever xe does, it will be a useful graphics.
  4. If someone dislikes it, they are very welcome to create their own version of the graphics, which may represent all 14 language groups distinguished in the census. (Xe even may merge German and Yiddish, as long as it is explained, but xe must look hard to find an article which will fit the image to host :-).

Rgds, Staszek Lem (talk) 23:47, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

IMHO, The first order of business is to upload the population total page for each city and voivod and make a link. That should make it harder for disrupters to make claims of OR, which has already happened. Charts need to show all language groups. Showing only Polish vs. non-Polish is synth, and it reinforces Soviet propaganda. The Poles were the plurality in the Kresy. All languages Merging German and Yiddish is not advisable.Doctor Franklin (talk) 08:17, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Hello, we cannot use the raw data from the 1931 census to compute the number of Poles in the population of the so called "Kresy" region because the provinces of Białystok and Lwow were split between Poland and the USSR in 1945 (also there was a tiny sliver near Brest that went to the Soviets) Any attempt on our part to allocate the ethnic groups would be OR. The study by P. Eberhardt -Ethnic Groups & population changes on page 117 puts the "Poles" in the Kresy region at 29.3%, this is in close agreement with the U.S. Census study of 1954. I own hard copies of the Ethnic Groups & population changes and the US Census studies, if editors need of additional information feel free to contact me on my talk page--Woogie10w (talk) 11:32, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Also it should be pointed out that that some sources put the population of this "Kresy" region at 13.199 million which is taken from the Maly Rocznik Statystyczny Polski published in London in 1941 by the Polish government in exile. This is not correct because the figure of 13.199 million includes (c. 1.4 million) in the sections of the provinces of Białystok and Lwow returned to Poland in 1945. P. Eberhardt -Ethnic Groups & population and the U.S. Census study provide a correct allocation by not including the regions returned to Poland in 1945.--Woogie10w (talk) 13:05, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
We are accurately reporting the linguistic and religious data EXACTLY as reported in the census on this page. No, we aren't using the language data from the census to extrapolate ethnicity. That is an academic parlor game in which some engage. This page should make that clear as well that the criticisms of the census are based on that game. The Polish census followed the model of the U.S. census of not asking for a declaration of ethnicity. How is a U.S. census report 23 years later RS on the ethnic population of Poland when that census department did not judge ethnicity in its own country? For what political purpose was this done? See discussion above. Eberhardt holds degrees in geography from the communist era and made plain in the text that he was not studying ethnicity or ethnography. Eberhardt is not RS here. I am certain that there are better sources from Polish scholars in the social sciences on this point, but I expect that they were published in Polish. This is too important of a topic to rely on "easter eggs" found here and there as a tangential point in related works. Events in 1945 don't relate to the 1931 census.Doctor Franklin (talk) 14:05, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Edit to add that the US Census's 1956 report on Poland is better classified as a tertiary source, rather than a secondary source. Its use should be limited, and is not a substitute for original documents from the Polish statistical office, or Polish government in exile.Doctor Franklin (talk) 14:16, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Polish government in exile data is from 1941, in 1945 sections of the provinces of Białystok and Lwow returned to Poland. You are spinning wheels trying to use the 1931 census to determine the population of the Kresy region. The 1954 US Census report does in fact have the detail of the total population for each gmina that went to the Soviets in 1945, you could go to the Polish Wikipedia 1931 census page to look up the ethnic allocation of each gimina in 1931, then you would have to gross up the population to 1939. This would involve serious number crunching Good luck. I am trying to help you!!--Woogie10w (talk) 14:38, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Re Eberhardt, he was an associate of the Polish Academy of Science in the post communist era, his study deals with ethnic changes in 20th cent E Europe and was published by Taylor & Francis. I have the book in front of me!!--Woogie10w (talk) 14:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Good. Turn to page 3 where the doctor of geography wrote, "The focus of this book is on the geographic and demographic questions rather than on ethnology or ethnography." Thus not RS for purposes of ethnology or ethnography, what extrapolating ethnicity from a census which surveyed religion and mother tongue is.Doctor Franklin (talk) 01:12, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
The US Census report on Poland is a a reliable source based on that fact that it received a favorable review by the peer reviewed academic journal The Professional Geographer . [6]-- I have the book in front of meWoogie10w (talk) 14:53, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Yes, the review notes that it is "a compilation and evaluation of population data and related information mainly from Polish official sources". Thus, tertiary source to be used sparingly if at all, and never as a substitution for the original. It also may be dated since the Polish archives are now open to historians. If it is used, conflations of the original census categories should be noted.Doctor Franklin (talk) 01:26, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
"Extrapolating ethnicity from a census which surveyed religion and mother tongue" by an editor is original research. A RS using census data is a secondary source. Ebehardt also co-wrote a book on ethnicity, "Ethnic Groups and Population Changes in Twentieth Century Eastern Europe" in which he explicitly categorizes Ukrainian-speakers and Ruthenian-speakers on the census as one ethnic group whom he describes as "Ukrainians." Here:[7]. You have failed to find any reliable sources that claim that the 1.2 million people categorized as Ruthenian speakers were a separate nationality than Ukrainians, which is the POV you are pushing and the purpose of your "work" on this article. Faustian (talk) 13:01, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Faustian, please continue talking, but refrain from wp:personal attacks, because you're not new to this game. Thanks, Poeticbent talk 13:51, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
There is no personal attack in pointing out that the editor and the IPs he uses holds a fringe belief, with no reliable sources supporting it, and is pushing it here on wikipedia.Faustian (talk) 17:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Faustian is correct, lets talk about reliable sources that include the Ruthenians and Ukrainians: I have hard copies of these sources that combine the Ruthenians and Ukrainians. 1- N. Davies - Gods Playground, 2-T. Piotrowski Poland's Holocaust 3- P. Magocsi Historical Atlas of East Central Europe 4- The US Census study The Population of Poland. 5- Eberhardt , Ethnic Groups & Pop changes.6- Maly Roznik of Polish gov in London 1942. If push comes to shove I can provide jpg images of the pages. --Woogie10w (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
I hear you loud and clear, but please explain why the census respondents themselves opted for a different answer, and replied in such great numbers against the single category proposed (in hindsight) by the above historians. Poeticbent talk 16:26, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
As Magocsi stated, the Polish government was pursuing a strategy of tribalization with Old Ruthenians being categorized as a different group. Old Ruthenians are simply Ukrainians who had not yet adopted the Ukrainian self-identity (some ideologically, others because they lived in small villages and just called themselves Rusyns, comparable to people referring to themselves as "tuteszny" which also is not a separate nationality). If the census had been done in 1850 they would have all been Ruthenians. Multiple historians concur that self-identified Ruthenians and Ukrainians are the same people. Nobody has found a RS indicating that this was an entirely different nationality in this region, the fringe idea pushed by the other editor.Faustian (talk) 17:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
It may be linked to the developments after Ruthenian ethnicity was banned. Another interesting feature in Ruthenian - Ukrainian relations is the proximity factor (1991 census): when the self-registered Ruthenians and Ukrainians are taken as one group (Ruthenian/Ukrainian), the Ruthenians are the majority within the Ruthenian/Ukrainian group in North-East Slovakia, and Ukrainians elsewhere. In other words, those living in or close to the traditional Ruthenian/Ukrainian villages (areas) were more likely to again register Ruthenian ethnicity than Ukrainian, once it was allowed.
— Christina Bratt Paulston, Donald Peckham, Linguistic Minorities in Central and Eastern Europe, page 263.
But this is about Slovakia, not Poland in 1931--Woogie10w (talk) 16:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
You are correct; Slovakia was where this ethnic division first led to a surprising development. Poeticbent talk 16:54, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
The rise of Nazi Germany first impacted the Ukrainian lands in Czechoslovakia. In 1938 Ruthenia, called Carpatho-Ukraine, was made an autonomous province with its own government within a federated republic. Amid the continuing Czech crisis, the government of the province declared Carphatho-Ukraine independent on 2 March 1939.
— James Minahan, Miniature Empires: A Historical Dictionary of the Newly Independent States p. 283.
re " Old Ruthenians are simply Ukrainians who had not yet adopted the Ukrainian self-identity" It is exactly the point of objection: at the moment of the census Ruthenians were not Ukrainians yet (it is commonly agreed (and I believe written in wikipedia) that ethnicity is primarily self-identification). And declaring them otherwise would be an anachronism. Not to say there is nothing unusual for an ethnicity to have sub-ethnicities. Staszek Lem (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
We are drifting off-topic into OR here, but Ethnic group is broadly defined " socially defined category of people who identify with each other based on common ancestral, social, cultural or national experience.[1][2] Unlike most other social groups, ethnicity is primarily an inherited status. Membership of an ethnic group tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language and/or dialect, symbolic systems such as religion, mythology and ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, and physical appearance." "Ukrainians" and "Ruthenians" in Galicia shared the same language, history, religion (Greek Catholic), ancestry, art, homeland, etc. Being the same people but with a different label means that almost all of these criteria are met. Since "Ukrainian" became the dominant label only at the end of the 19th century (when most Ruthenes renamed themselves Ukrainians) the idea that a different label equals a different ethnicity suggests no such thing as "Ukrainians" or "Ukrainian history" prior to about 1870. Which is absurd. If, say, the Russian government decided to use terms Pole and Mazovian on the census separately, to make the number of Poles smaller, is the guy self-declaring "Mazovian" a different ethnicity than his neighbor (who uses the same language, goes to the same church, and is maybe related) writing Pole? Anyways, it is best to just stick to what reliable secondary sources say, which is to state that Ruthenians and Ukrianians on that census were the same people.Faustian (talk) 18:53, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
re "policy of tribalization" - this is a scientific opinion, not a physical fact, and must be described as such. If anything, the strongest Polish policy was that of assimilation (Polonization) from the early days of PLC and on up to Second Polish Republic: from Lithuanian nobility "adopted" into szlachta down to Belarusian peasants of Catholic faith written as Poles. (And there is nothing inherently wrong with that). (And now pot-kettle-black: Ukrainians are to assimilate Ruthenians. Again, nothing wrong with that, but we should not confuse the final result with the whole history). Staszek Lem (talk) 18:33, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
According to Piotrowski "Poland's Holocaust" p.180 The Ruthenian groups did not consider themselves Ukrainians and opposed the Ukrainian separatist groups, they were loyal to Poland. IMO -now this is just my opinion,-the Polish census takers may have intimidated local people who may have been afraid to identify with opposition Ukrainian groups. --Woogie10w (talk) 20:24, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
The simplest answers to this quandary are in the census results, and need to be accepted for what they are. The 1931 census categorized Poland's population by the first language as well as by religion (not politics), and that's how the distinctiveness of Poland's Ruthenians versus Poland's Ukrainians has been recognized by it. The Ruthenians were Greco Catholics who spoke Slaveno-Rusyn language known as Ruthenian. The Ukrainians were Orthodox Christians who spoke Ukrainian (decidedly different from Russian). Magocsi – who's a historian – recognized that fact:
The most obvious distinctive traits, that Old Ruthenians could propose in juxtaposition to Slavs living in the Russian Empire, were that they were Greek Catholics and subjects of Austria's Habsburg monarchy. Not surprisingly, the Greek Catholic hierarchy, from which many Old Ruthenians derived, was anxious to justify its middle-of-the-road distinctiveness vis-a-vis both the Orthodox, with whom they shared a common liturgy, and the Roman Catholics, with whom they shared a common hierarchical structure and papal authority. Thus, being a Greek Catholic Galician meant that one was by definition different from both the Roman Catholic Poles to the west and the Orthodox Dnieper Ukrainians and Russians to the east.
— Paul R. Magocsi, The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism: Galicia as Ukraine's Piedmont, pp. 108, 110.
Good point, I checked the census schedule, most Ruthenian's were Greek or Roman Catholics. So it seems that Ruthenian was a political label that indicated loyalty to Poland rather than a separate language.--Woogie10w (talk) 21:02, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi Woogie10w. Please take a look at that "jpg" once again. There were 1,219,647 Ruthenians in Poland based on language. – Definition of Ruthenian language (i.e. Slaveno-Rusyn) is in Magosci, p. 110 (above). Some 1,163,749 of them were Greek Catholics, almost all ... no conspiracy there, and (like I said) no "political " label either. Thanks, Poeticbent talk 21:30, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
When Magocsi was referring to the separate Rusyn language he was talking about Capratho-Rusyn, in Czechoslovakia. We are discussing census results in Poland. There was some overlap (maybe 20,000 people) along the Slovak border but in general Mogosci's Rusyn language isn't applicable to the areas that were part of Poland. The Orthodox Ukrainians lived in Volyn. Greek-Catholic Ukrainians lived in Galicia. Thus, the "Ukrainians" and "Ruthenians" in Galicia were both Greek Catholics. Indeed, they belonged to the exact same Church.Faustian (talk) 22:59, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
Piotrowski mentions the political aspect--Woogie10w (talk) 21:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
According to Piotrowski the Orthodox in Poland had a beef with the Polish government because they closed some Orthodox churches. The wound was reopened in 1991 when the communist system collapsed, the Greek Catholics tried to reclaim their churches turned over to the Orthodox in the communist era--Woogie10w (talk) 23:12, 12 October 2015 (UTC)
S. Lem's suggestion above seems good. Honestly, skimming through this discussion I don't see what the problem is. Can somebody summarize the reason for the NPOV tag? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 06:47, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
One editor didn't achieve consensus, so he put it there.Faustian (talk) 12:32, 13 October 2015 (UTC)
There is no liberum veto here; if several editors are seeing this article as neutral and only disagrees, the template can be removed - through I'd suggest RfC first (but I believe it already took place here, didn't it?). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 05:34, 19 October 2015 (UTC)
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