Talk:Stavka

Changed Stalin from Head of State which is incorrect, Mikhail Kalinin was the Head of State being the President. Stalin was only General Secretary.

We definitely need to have the Russian (Cyrillic) name for Stavka.. to have only romanized version is not enough. -- Obradović Goran (ta^lk 18:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Consistency

During 1941 Stavka changed three names. The third name was a combination of two fist, so if the first is translated "Stavka of the Main Command", then the third couldn' be translated "Stavka of the Supreme Chief Command". Either it must be "Supreme Main Command", or the first name must be "Chief Command". Colonel Glantz uses "Main Command" translation, I'd recommend to follow him.Fat yankey 03:33, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Capitalized spelling

Capitalized spelling IS a mistake, because it implies abbreviation (like OKW or COSSAC), which it is not. And I think, those who bother to read this article has all the rights to know that.Fat yankey 13:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

How do you know it wasn't written that way to be consistent with other Soviet institutions, or for some other reason?  —Michael Z. 2006-09-20 14:12 Z

Just because it is inconsistent with "other Soviet institutions". And in russian sources "Stavka" iz never capitalized. And competent western authors never use capitalized spelling. But I'm not going to waste my time on the editing war. Wanna keep it hat way? Be my guest.Fat yankey 15:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

It's just that calling it a mistake is quite specific. Absent a specific reference to a dictionary or other authority, it seems more reliable to simply make note of the difference. Can you be more specific about "competent western authors never use capitalized spelling"? —Michael Z. 2006-09-20 16:09 Z

Leading american specialist of the war on the Eastern front and Red Army history is colonel David M.Glantz. Always uses correct spelling. Who else... Alan Clark, "Barbarossa" - correct spelling. Richard Overy, "Russia's War" - correct spelling. Antony Beevor, "Stalingrad" - correct spelling. More? Fat yankey 16:54, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Steven Zaloga capitalizes STAVKA in Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two (1984), so I guess it would be incorrect to say they never do. —Michael Z. 2006-09-20 21:00 Z

Zaloga doesn't qualify as a competent author. Wikipedia articles T-34 and BT contain numerous errors, originated from Zaloga's books.Fat yankey 03:19, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I doubt that many people familiar with the field would agree that Zaloga is incompetent. Please enlighten us about the numerous errors—I'm eager to improve those articles. —Michael Z. 2006-09-21 14:30 Z

Whatever the oppinion of that many people familiar with the field would be, it couldn't change the fact, that Zaloga never used primary sources (e.g. russian archives) when he wrote books on russian armor. He used secondary sources, which makes him, what... tertionary? I made some remarks on T-34 discussion page; 7 errors just in two sections. Fat yankey 04:21, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll have time to look over your comments on T-34 properly and respond or update the article in a day or two. It is rare to get detailed critical analysis, and it is welcome. Regarding Zaloga, do you know of any English-language authors who use primary sources? He does seem to be the best expert who writes on the subject, although I have been trying to find "The Unknown" at my local bookstores. —Michael Z. 2006-09-22 06:28 Z

Unfortunately, I don't know any english language author on the russian armor subject, who works with primary sources. The subject was deeply infested with various myths, we just started to uncover the real picture, so most of the works before 1990 should be considered as outdated. Seems it's the same story as with french armor - if you want something reliable on the subject, you have to by it in french. If you can read russian, I may tell you where to find the digital copy of "The Unknown T-34" Fat yankey 18:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Since much of this information is new, reliable and verifiable sources of it are hard to come by, and in English they simply don't exist. But we have to use something for a basis, in this case mostly Zaloga's writing as it represents the bulk of the English-language corpus from the last 25 years or so, and supplement as much as possible with new information from recent Russian-language publications.

My Russian is very poor, and reading is a chore, but I'd like to have a look (and there are a couple of online translators to English and Ukrainian which are sometimes helpful). You can send me an email through my user page. Cheers. —Michael Z. 2006-09-26 03:20 Z

Split article

There needs to be two articles:

• Russian Imperial Stavka
• Soviet Stavka

although both called by the same term, they were vastly different, never mind belonging to different countries--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 06:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

If you're going this way, then the pre-Imperial stavka deserves a third, also separate article. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 23:43, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Etymology

I can't help but notice the similary between the Russian word Stavka and the germanic Stab or English Staff, as in Staff (military). Are they etymologically related? Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 23:40, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe way back, but the immediate etymology is separate. Stavka is related Russian ставить (stavit’), ‘to place’. The Russian for staff comes directly from the German: wikt:штаб (transliterated shtab or štab). —Michael Z. 2008-10-30 03:01 z

Origin of the term "Stavka"

The article currently states that "the word is not an acronym", yet Stavka is most probably an abbreviation for "Shtab vierhovnogo komandovania" ("General Headquarters" of armed forces), e.g. [1]. We need to clear this up. -The Gnome (talk) 12:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Acronym or not-Acronym

A recent version of this page by Entropy said that Stavka is sometimes "written in upper case ... although it is an acronym" -- which of course makes no sense as a statement (e.g. why would it be "although" it is an acronym). The previous version (up until a couple days ago) said it is "written in upper case ... although it is NOT an acronym" (which at least makes internal sense as a statement, even if it may or may not be true -- the preponderance of what one can find online in English and modern Russian usages of it suggests it is not an acronym, but this talk page has apparently a long history of arguing about it). Since the question of whether it is/isn't an acronym seems to be unresolved at least for the purposes of this page, I have changed the sentence to "written in upper case ... although whether it is an acronym is a subject of debate". Obviously if it ever gets resolved here "for wikipedia purposes" whether it IS or not, that's fine, but in the mean time, maybe better not to have the page flipping back and forth between "IS" and "IS NOT". 69.140.25.127 (talk) 16:00, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

That was a typo on my part, I wrote "despite being an acronym" but really meant "despite not being an acronym". Is anyone arguing that it is an acronym? If so, I'm fine with keeping the current language. If not, we should probably write "despite not being an acronym" or "although it is not an acronym" or something along those lines. My intention with the original edit was to remove the opinionated language, "which is incorrect since it is not an acronym"; whether or not it is "incorrect" to write the name in all-caps seems subjective at best. —Entropy ^(talk) 19:39, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

• I* am certainly not arguing that it's an acronym, it seems strongly likely that it was not, so feel free to change to what you originally intended which sounds fine to me. 69.140.25.127 (talk) 15:11, 4 February 2020 (UTC)