Talk:Marie Curie

Ethnicity/nationality

Please reinstate the category 'Ethnicity/nationality: Polish". It's scandalous that it disappeared again. Everything was explained in previous topics. I'm not Polish but I'm a foreigner in the county where I work. I've moved to UK at the age of 24 (similarly as her) to start a PhD at the University of Cambridge and it doesn't make me British, no one can change their ethnicity. She was not only of Polish descent, she was born and brought up in Poland. At the age of 24 everyone has already mature and shaped national identity. She remained proud Polish patriot and wanted herself to be considered Polish. No one denies the fact that she was living and working in France but some people try to deny the fact that she was Polish. That kind of manipulation is unacceptable. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:630:206:FFFF:0:0:3128:B (talk) 10:29, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

I do not think it is correct to associate ethnicity and nationality. Those are different concept and certainly nationality can be acquired/changed in most country. Further, the comparison of your situation with that of Marie Curie seems dubious to me. She is not qualified by the adjective French just because she received a PhD in France. She also married a Frenchman, was naturalized French, spent about all of her adult life in France, made a French family there, and even served on the French side during WWI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 12:22, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Good points. I've restored "nationality" to the infobox. Nihil novi (talk) 06:05, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

In normal usage "nationality" and citizenship are synonyms. Having both in the infobox is redundant. I guess the real question is, do we have sources to confirm that she ever became a french citizen?TR 10:27, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Don't agree. Obviously not true. Please restore nationality.

Nationality/ethnicity is determined from the moment we are born and is unassignable. Citizenship is a legal regulation, can be obtained after fulfilling political conditions, can be relinquished and may be different from nationality

Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationality and sources.

Nationality versus citizenship:

In a number of countries, nationality is legally a distinct concept from citizenship, or nationality is a necessary but not sufficient condition to exercise full political rights within a state or other polity.[1] Conceptually, citizenship is focused on the internal political life of the state, and nationality is a matter of international dealings.[3]

Having more information/facts is not a disadvantage, I strongly insist on restoring nationality — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:630:206:FFFF:0:0:3128:A (talk) 16:00, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If you link to articles, please read them. For one the article you link completely contradicts your assertion that nationality is unassignable. As far as countries make the distinction it is usually easier to become a national than a citizen. Also from the article you quote, "It differs technically and legally from citizenship, although in most modern countries all nationals are citizens of the state and all citizens are nationals of the state." So, unless Poland or France are exceptions and this exception was relevant the case of Curie, I see no point in making the distinction in the infobox.TR 21:49, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Please read the article again. I'm talking about nationality synonymously with ethnicity (not citizenship, which may be changed). Quoted sentence (without a source and not completely true - cause exceptions disprove each sentance containing word 'all' ): "It differs technically and legally from citizenship, although in most modern countries all nationals are citizens of the state and all citizens are nationals of the state" doesn't contradict my assertion. To see this: 1) If a Jewish family lives in Poland and a child is born, he/she will obtain Polish citizenship but remain Jewish nationality, the fact that most citizens of Poland have Polish nationality and other way around doesn't interfere with my assertion. All citizens from ethnic minorities are exceptions to quoted sentence (as e.g. Polish minority in the USA may not have Polish citizenship) 2) Secondly as I said, it states that nationality differs from citizenship both technically and legally (which is explained later). And yes, it may be easier to become a national (which may be simply determined by nationality of parents or place of birth) than citizen (if some conditions have to be fulfilled e.g. given period of residence). In Poland nationality and citizenship are not synonymous, nationality is still "seen originally as a permanent, inherent, unchangeable condition". In case of Maria - she was born in Poland, in Polish family with Polish nationality/ethnicity -> was given Polish citizenship, then married Frenchman -> obtained French citizenship. I asked for category nationality/ethnicity and still insist.

If I am not mistaken, Curie als obtained the French nationality when she married Pierre. (Which does contradict your assertion) For as far as countries make the distinction between nationality and citizenship, it usually means that citizens are are a subset of nationals. (Also there is no Jewish nationality).TR 09:22, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

She could obtain French nationality (in terms of citizenship) through marriage (see wiki: attribution of French nationality) but not ethnicity, which doesn't contradict my assertion. And of course there's a Jewish nationality, you are totally mistaken (see wiki: Jews, "Jewish people, are a nation", "The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation"), what you said is just disgraceful. Jews are a nation, the same is true for Romani people (an ethnic group) and other ethnic groups/nationalities, including Polish. You seem to ignore my arguments and not be able to make a distinction between ethnicity/nationality and citizenship/nationality. To make it clear, I'm asking for 'nationality or ethnicity', nationality is synonymous to ethnicity and may be synonymous to citizenship in some countries; to avoid ambiguity, please add 'Ethnicity: Polish' as ethnicity is not synonymous to citizenship.

Marie automatically became a French citizen upon marrying Pierre Curie, a French citizen. That's the way things worked back then. Binksternet (talk) 17:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I guess the discussion is finished and the arguments have been presented. Why ethnicity hasn't been restored then? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:630:206:FFFF:0:0:3128:A (talk) 10:01, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Typo in "Post-war years" section

There is a typo in the sentence: "In 1921 US President Warren G. Harding received her at the White House to present her with the 1 gram of gram or radium collected in the United States." 71.210.77.64 (talk) 05:45, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Fixed, in the future, feel free to do it yourself. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Nobel Section needs better focus

I couldn't tell from the Nobel section what she got her prize in chemistry for. There is a lot of biographical info, some totally unrelated to her Nobel prizes. But the section doesn't address half of what it is supposed to. I think someone should also include why she got a Nobel prize for isolating 2 elements. Why was it so hard? what about it changed the world? etc.

I think that Marie Curie was great, and like Emmy Noether was a fantastic physicist. But most people dont know Emmy Noether because she never got 1, much less 2 nobel prizes. This section of the article REALLY has to shine, since this is the part of the article that describes what most people want to know about her.

Drxenocide (talk) 21:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like a valid critique. Feel free to rewrite it, I am done with my pass on the article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:58, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Wrong fact

The sentence that says "On 26 December 1898, the Curies announced the existence of a second element, which they named "radium" for its intense radioactivity" is wrong because they named it after the latin word radius, which means ray. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Necklace22 (talk • contribs) 02:57, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

This seems confirmed by [1]; I'll adjust the article accordingly. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:11, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Marie Curie and Kazimierz Dłuski?

It says in the article that Marie Curie married Kazimierz Dłuski,this is not true she fell in love with him and they were going to marry but her parents objected to the union. She had only one husband,Peirre Curie. Just thought everyone ought to know that! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.124.103.90 (talk • contribs) 04:25, March 8, 2013

You're confusing Kazimierz Dłuski, who married Maria's sister Bronisława, with another Kazimierz — Żorawski — whom Maria fell in love with but could not marry. Nihil novi (talk) 05:14, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Source for radioactivity levels of her papers and cookbook

A Short History of Nearly Everything is the source for both of these claims. I haven't read it for a while,is Bryson the primary source on this, or is he quoting information, and if it is the latter shouldn't the quoted reference be considered the source. Whilst an excellent book there are a number of factual inaccuracies littered in its pages. Ajmayhew (talk) 20:16, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

The claim is referenced, but if you think the source is not reliable, you need to make a better case (perhaps at WP:RSN). I am open to removing the claim, but first we need a more serious proof of the claim being wrong than - with all due respect - an unreferenced claim that some of the book claims are inaccurate. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:56, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Polonium and bismuth

I query the statement that polonium is like bismuth. What does this mean? These two elements are from different groups of the periodic table, so their chemistries are significantly different. To a chemist the statement looks nonsensical. It's like saying that lead and bismuth are similar - the three elements , ⁸²Pb, ⁸³Bi and ⁸⁴Po have consecutive atomic numbers. Petergans (talk) 21:36, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

This claim is based on the following reference: [2]: "the bismuth fraction contained a new element. Chemically it acted almost exactly like bismuth, but since it was radioactive, it had to be something new. They named it "polonium"". --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 02:52, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 14 May 2013

I will change "Marie Curie" to "Maria Skłodowska Curie" because she was a polish woman, not french. It's not OK because many people think that she was french because of her name "Curie". Her really name allways was Skłodowska Curie, not only Curie. Patryk Dyjak (talk) 16:36, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're asking here. Her birth name and Polish ethnicity/birth are already prominently mentioned in the lead section of the article. If you want the title of the article changed, there is a process for doing that (here), but I will caution you that there is very little chance of the article title being changed, as Wikipedia guidelines on article titles require that an article on a person be titled according to the name by which that person is most commonly known. The full guidance on this can be found here, with specific guidelines on multiple and/or changed surnames here. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 17:37, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

Such a move was discussed and rejected in 2008: Talk:Marie_Curie/Archive_2#Requested_move. You can of course try again, 5 years have passed since, perhaps new data or rationales can be presented. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:44, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

• Please see Wikipedia:Requested moves for instructions on how to request an article be moved to a new title. Personally, I will register my preference for the current title because it is brief and widely used. Binksternet (talk) 03:54, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

latest changes

This edit [3] makes changes to the lede, of the sort that have been discussed extensively previously. Any such major changes should seek consensus. It also does not help to call other editors names.Volunteer Marek 20:47, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Agreed. Such language may classify for WP:DIGWUREN restriction. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:33, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

Addition to New Elements Section

Through some research, I found that during the years of 1898 to 1902, the Curies published, jointly or separately, 32 scientific papers and among them was one that announced that diseased, tumor-forming cells were destroyed faster than health cells when exposed to radium. I find this to be very important so I was wondering if it would be alright if I were to add this to the page. Calvin102594 (talk) 16:57, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you cite a source for this information? Nihil novi (talk) 21:31, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Here is the source: Marie Sklodowska Curie." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2nd ed. Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale, 2004. 339-341. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 June 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calvin102594 (talk • contribs) 01:47, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I encourage you to become a Wikipedia autoconfirmed user (an easy process) and add the information to the article. Please be sure to provide precise bibliographic information, including the page(s) actually cited. Nihil novi (talk) 03:51, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure if this is relevant; there's a lot about old research that is obsolete - should we list all errors Curie made? Scientists are not remembered for their errors (they make a lot of those, particularly as their research becomes obsolete), but for being the first. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 06:56, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Actually, that is an excellent point. I had assumed that this finding by the Curies, from over a century ago, is still valid; it may not be (e.g., healthy and pathological cells may be equally destroyed by radiation), and probably this information should be removed pending confirmation by a present-day expert source in pathology. Nihil novi (talk) 07:36, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Mind you, I may be wrong here - I just assumed that this claim is a trivia like fact making fun of Curie's misunderstanding of radiation and cancer. If I am wrong, I'd strongly suggesting rewording this, with (referenced) qualification of importance - why we should care about this particular finding? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:27, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

For now, I've moved the text from its previous awkward, disruptive placement. Nihil novi (talk) 09:15, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Who coined the term radioactivity?

Was the term "radioactivity" coined by Marie (as per the lead) or by Marie and Pierre (as per the "New elements" section? Nihil novi (talk) 09:21, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Since the lead claim is unreferenced, I'll bring it in line with the new elements section. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:35, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Affair: BLP

   I am treating the following problem with the urgency that WP:BLP explicitly calls for.
   I found:

In 1911, it was revealed that in 1910–11 Curie had conducted an affair of about a year's duration with physicist Paul Langevin, a former student of Pierre's. He was a married man who was estranged from his wife.... Later, Curie's granddaughter, Hélène Joliot, married Langevin's grandson, Michel Langevin.

Despite that,... in 1911 ...

   That is not just open to misinterpretation -- which results from the way the sentence "Later, Curie's granddaughter, Hélène Joliot, married Langevin's grandson, Michel Langevin"

interrupts the logical and temporal continuity between the two 'graphs, and

more specifically, changes the grammatical referent of "[Despite] that" from the affair and scandal in one generation to the marriage two generations later,

thereby suggesting that the granddaughter is in some sense part of the "scandal". In that context, it predisposes readers to drawing false conclusions that can be viewed as negative information about a living person: as if the granddaughter

• were descended from an adulterous conception by her grandfather,
  • which was also non-marital sex by her grandmother
    • while that grandmother's husband was living, and
• had married a first cousin.

Careful readers of related articles will see that not even one of those four bullet-pointed elements is the case.
   I remove that sentence without prejudice to the possibility that something -- for example, along the lines of putting the offending sentence in parentheses -- would sufficiently establish that what i've removed is not part of the flow from the preceding sentence to the next 'graph. But BLP's requirement for immediate removal would be a sham, unless replacement awaits an explicit consensus that a specific replacement solves the problem (and does not create a new, similar BLP violation).
--Jerzy•t 08:28, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure I fully follow your explanation, but I have no objection to the removal of this sentence. Is there anything else you'd like to do? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

Why not instead move the sentence into a note? It is interesting information; if it in some way impedes the main text, putting it into a note would resolve the problem. Nihil novi (talk) 06:02, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

   A note sounds promising, especially as it could be clearer than a replacement sentence: removing the side topic from the main flow of the article provides "elbow room" that could used to clarify its point more explicitly than the number of words i removed could manage; any additional clause or sentence inline would pretty surely be worse than what i removed, but even several sentences could be accommodated in a note, pointing out how old the relevant daughter was when the (presumptive) father died (and perhaps even how cold his corpse was when the affair took place). There's enuf info in the article (or at least in what it links) that a motivated reader would find it, but the rem'd sentence was tenuously enuf related to its context to invite sensationalist guesses about why the contributor thot it was worth including. (And i'm not arguing it has too little relevance for inclusion, but rather that as it stood it was too confusing to tolerate.)
--Jerzy•t 08:43, 21 June 2013 (UTC)

Her real name was Maria Skłodowska-Curie - why people does not respect her wishes?

"Maria Skłodowska-Curie is often simply called Madame Curie these days and if her name is mentioned, it is given in its French form as Marie. That bugs me a little, and I dare say it would bug the great lady herself. She was Polish, lived in Poland for almost a quarter of a century, and double-barreled her last name so as not to have to give up her Polish identity and made sure her two daughters learned her native language (btw: fun fact for the day Skłodowska-Curie’s daughter and son-in-law also won Nobel prizes, making them just about the most Nobel Prize-rich family). What’s more, she named the first radioactive element she discovered >>Polonium<<, so as to honor her native country. Being Polish was obviously a pretty big deal to her and an important part of her identity, so why do we keep ignoring it for the sake of ease of pronunciation? I don’t think that’s very fair – we owe her the discovery of radioactivity and the mastering of the medical x-ray. We could at least be bothered to thank her by calling her by the name she preferred. What’s more, by calling her simply Curie we ignore her conscious rebuttal of patriarchal rules, by which she should have simply taken her husband’s name. It’s still an uncommon thing today and was nearly unheard of back in Skłodowska’s days and do we really want to simply ignore her strong convictions and ideals for the sake of phonetic simplicity?"

Source — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.23.174.12 (talk) 07:44, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

I know it has been discussed before but I can see a recent tendency toward Marie Skłodowska-Curie in the West which makes a basis to change the article name form Marie Curie to Marie Skłodowska-Curie. It's not a matter of her wish and national sentiments but from the official point of view John Smith-Scott is not the same person as John Scott. Nobel Prize diploma was awarded to Marie Skłodowska-Curie, original grave in Paris (before moving to Pantheon) as well as Pantheon one gives Marie Curie-Skłodowska. The Marie Curie Actions has been recently renamed the Marie Skłodowska-Curie programme in recognition of the scientist’s full name [official document realesed by this organisation]. Marie Curie is an incorrect widespread acronym, its widespread usage is not an argument for its further usage, just the opposite, it underlines the importance of the true and official name promotion.

Even if she was signing her publications with the name "Skłodowska-Curie", I am not aware that she was opposing being called simply "Curie" in other contexts (Indeed, her daughter titled the biography of her mother "Madame Curie"). As for incorrect widespread acronym, the "widespread" is important here. Bill Clinton may not be have Bill as an official first name, this is what appear on the title of his main page, because that is the name by which everybody knows him.Tokidokix (talk) 13:00, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

"was a Polish physicist and chemist"?

The intro of this article seems to me quite biased towards preserving the pride of Polish nationalism. There is a full paragraph about how she "never lost her sense of Polish identity". While this information is probably worth mentioning, I don't think it is important enough to be mentioned in the introduction. This is not what she is known for, and the fact she was teaching Polish to her children cannot be put on equal footing with her scientific achievement.

Also, the first sentence describing her as "Polish working mainly in France" is, I think, misleading. It is not only that she did her scientific work in France. She married a Frenchman with whom she had children, had French citizenship, spent most of her life in France, died in France and was buried in France. Her descendants are also French living in France. Trying to imply that she only had a professional link with France is misrepresenting her life. Furthermore this is inconsistent with most other wikipedia entries of people having several nationalities. For example, John Von Neumann is described as "Hungarian-born American mathematician", even though he was living in Hungary until at least 22. Similarly, Benoit Mandelbrodt is a "Polish-born French and American mathematician". So the convention seem to be "BirthNationality-born CountryLivedInAndNationalityObtainedWhenDoingWork Qualifier". That would translate as "Polish-born French physicist". Since some people above seem to have issues with this, an alternative could be "Polish and French physicist" or "Polish-born French-naturalized physicist". But in any case I do think "Polish working mainly in France" is very misleading and should be changed. 130.54.130.234 (talk) 04:01, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

There is definitely something wrong in the phrasing of the first sentence.

First it is inconsistent with other biographical entries. I saw the comparison above with Albert Einstein and Walter Kohn being dismissed on the basis of a difference of age at the time of moving (17 vs 24). Where exactly did you found the wikipedia rule saying that this makes any difference (and what would be the precise age limit that separates one case for the other?) Or did you just made that up?

But these entries are not the only one relevants anyway. John von Neumann moved to USA at age 27 and is "Hungarian-born American scientist". Nikola Tesla moved to USA at age 28 and is "Serbian-born American physicist". The list could grow quite long. In non-scientific biography, the rule is usually the same: you can find that Arnold Schwarzenegger is an "Australian-born American actor", while Josephine Baker is an " American-born French dancer". Generally speaking, all this examples tend to use the country of residence and nationality at the time of the notable work of the person.

Further, in WP:MOSBIO, section "Opening Paragraph", you can find the following recommendations: "Context (location, nationality, or ethnicity)" should be "for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable". Furthermore, it is explictly written: "Ethnicity should not be emphasized in the opening" and "Similarly, previous nationalities or the country of birth should not be mentioned in the opening sentence". Marie Curie became notable for and during her work done in France, while she had French nationality, and France was at the time (and remained for her whole life) her country of permanent residency. All of these recommendations point to qualifying Marie Curie as "French physicist" and not "Polish physicist".

Therefore I see strictly no case for using "Polish physicist". Consistency with other biography alone is a strong enough motivation for changing back to "Polish-born French physicist". (Having read many other biographies of persons with similar life, the sentence "Polish physicist that worked mainly in France" gave me the impression she was never even given French nationality).Tokidokix (talk) 15:13, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I would like to add that this is not something about nationalistic pride (and it should not be). I would personally prefer it very much if Wikipedia policy was to forbid mentioning nationality/ethnicity of scientists in their introduction (as introduction should focus on their achievements and those have universal value). However, if nationality is going to be mentioned, it should be in a way that is neither misleading nor inconsistent with wikipedia entries/policies. Tokidokix (talk) 15:34, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Curie was Polish by birth and by strong association with the language and culture. She was French by marriage and by adult residence and research location. She never applied for French citizenship as it was not needed because of her marriage to a Frenchman. Binksternet (talk) 16:19, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

You are not addressing any of my issues. And further I don't see how anything you said would go against calling her "Polish-born French". Her association to Poland by birth is covered by the "Polish-born". It is a fact that she was French (as "having French nationality" is one of the most common meaning for the adjective "French", and she had french nationality). The specific way in which she got French nationality has no relevance into that (further, have you even documented proof that French nationality laws of that time was granting automatic French citizenship? Nowadays you certainly have a lot of paperwork to do to get the French nationality, even if you married a French national). Further the association of Marie Curie with France is certainly at least as strong as her association with Poland. France was the country in which she chose to live most of her life, the country in which her family was, the country which she supported in times of war, and the country in which she did all her notable work. She certainly could have, at several point of her life, chosen to return to Poland and finish her days there, but she chose not to. There is further no evidence that I know that she opposed being mentioned as French.

And anyway, I reiterate here: your edit is totally lacking of consistency with other Wikipedia article of people with similar biography, as well as not following WP:MOSBIO.

By the way, if anything WP:MOSBIO makes a much stronger case for mentioning her as French only without mentioning the Polish-part than the opposite: the context information in the opening should be the one relevant for the notable work of the person. She would not have done her work on radioactivity if she had not come to work with Bequerelle who had just discovered it. And she did her notable work in France, with French nationality, with French colleagues and husband. On the other hand, except for the fact of naming one element Polonium, I don't see any association between her notable work and Poland. So following strictly WP:MOSBIO would lead to "French Physicist" and not even "Polish-born French physicist" (but I am not even asking for that anyway). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 23:58, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh, and finally: the online Encyclopaedia Britannica do mention her as "Polish-born French" in their introduction: http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/146871/Marie-Curie . It would seem to me that it is a pretty objective source (as in "established" and "neither French not Polish") Tokidokix (talk) 00:07, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

The question of nationality is not so cut-and-dried as you suggest. Kurt Gödel (1906-78) appears on Wikipedia as "an Austrian logician, mathematician, and philosopher," though he lived most of his life in the United States (from 1940), became a U.S. citizen in 1947, and did much of his important work there. Nihil novi (talk) 04:19, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) is described in his Wikipedia lead simply as "a German-born theoretical physicist..." though he did his most memorable work as a Swiss citizen, lived his last 22 years in the United States, and died an American citizen. Nihil novi (talk) 04:29, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I will give you that wikipedia is not 100% self-consistent on these things. But the pattern I have described do seem to be applied most of the time. As for Godel, he did his most notable work (incompleteness theorem) while still in Austria, so this is not the same case anyway.

I see that, while not further discussing here, user Binksternet has changed the intro to "French Polish physicist". I would not have liked this to turn into an edit war, so I wanted to say that I appreciate that he tried to revert the page to a more consensual version. I am still slightly annoyed that this wording lacks consistency with other wikipedia entries/encyclopaedia, but at least I don't see it as a misrepresentation of the life of Marie Curie anymore. Since I'd rather not use too much of my (and other's) time for this, if "French Polish physicist" is considered acceptable by all, I will be content with this edit and stop the discussion here for my part. Tokidokix (talk) 04:00, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

• Susan Quinn writes in her Marie Curie: A Life (Da Capo Press, 1995, ISBN 0201887940) that Curie was Polish by birth and by culture. Nowhere in the book does she describe Curie as French. When Quinn encounters French claims that Curie was French (with her Polish heritage mentioned in passing if at all) Quinn points this out as hypocrisy (see page 192.)
• Eve Curie writes in her Madame Curie: A Biography (Da Capo Press, 2001, ISBN 0306810387 reprint) that, as a married woman Curie "retained the audacity and vehemence of a young Polish 'progressive'" (page 356.) Nowhere in the book does Eva say that Curie is French. Eva says Curie preferred to write and speak Polish, and that she was culturally Polish.
• Janice Borzendowski writes in Marie Curie: Mother of Modern Physics (Sterling, 2009, ISBN 1402765436) that Curie was remained very proud of her Polish heritage all her life. Nowhere in the book does she say Curie is French. Borzendowski emphasizes Curie's Polish cultural ties, and her naming of polonium for Poland.
• Barbara Goldsmith says in Obsessive Genius: The Inner World of Marie Curie (Norton, 2011, ISBN 0393079767) that Curie was filled with Polish patriotism. Never once does Goldsmith say that Curie is French.

I think the reason so many biographers dwell on the Polish culture of Curie is that she was so vehemently Polish in her life. If she had turned away from Poland and fully adopted French culture we would have a different story. Binksternet (talk) 04:08, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

These are excellent grounds for considering her Polish, and therefore a "Polish physicist and chemist". Her descendants, reared in France in French culture, may well consider themselves primarily French, but she herself was very much a Polish person living and working in France. Her sister Bronisława, for whom Maria built the Warsaw Radium Institute, berated Joseph Conrad, visiting Poland in 1914, for writing his novels in English rather than Polish. Nihil novi (talk) 04:41, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, but how is that even relevant to this discussion? We are not discussing the nationality of Marie Curie's sister here.Tokidokix (talk) 19:28, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

I still think that you are getting the wrong idea about what should be the mention of nationalities in the introduction of a wikipedia article: it should be about objective facts like official nationality and residence, context of work etc. Feeling of nationalism are too subjective to evaluate anyway. But anyway, even if you want to consider feelings of nationalism, I still have to disagree with you. You seem to consider that her feeling Polish would be exclusive with her feeling French: still many people can have feeling of affection for both their country of origin and country of attachment. Also, a person feeling do not have to be the same through all of her life: Marie Curie was probably feeling mostly Polish during her first year in France, but she quite possibly was feeling more French than Polish 30 years later. So pointing at her being a Polish nationalist at some point of her life is not even a proof that she stayed in the same state of mind for all of her life. As for the biography quotes above, I am quite surprised with the statement by Binksternet that the biography Madame Curie by Marie Curie's own daughter do not refer to her as French. Either we do not have the same version of the book, or you did not really read it. Here are some quotes where she is called a Frenchwoman by her own daughter:

• About the choice of the name Polonium: "The choice of this name proves that in becoming a Frenchwoman and a physicist Marie had not disowned her former enthusiasms."
• "The Austrian government, which was the proprietor of the State factory there, decided to present a ton of residue to the two French "lunatics" who thought they needed it." (The 2 French lunatics are Marie and Pierre Curie)
• After the death of Pierre: "Gouy informed the dean of the faculty of their conviction: that Marie was the only French physicist capable of pursuing the work she and Pierre had undertaken"
• On her attitude during WWI: "Marie had only one thought: to serve her second fatherland."
• It is also said that while she wanted her daughters to know about Poland, she wanted them to be Frenchwomen: "And as she had not established the cult of the vanished scientist in her house, neither did she establish the cult of martyred Poland. She wished Irene and Eve to learn Polish, and for them to know and love her native land. But she deliberately made true Frenchwomen of them. Ah, let them never feel torn between two countries, or suffer in vain for a persecuted race! "
• It is also said she took great effort to master the French language as soon as possible and was trying not to sound Polish in French: "She had decided to learn the French language perfectly, as it was indispensable to her; and instead of cooing incorrect, sing-song sentences for years, as many Poles do, she learned her spelling and syntax with infallible sureness, and hounded down the very last traces of her accent. Only a very slight rolling of the "r" was to remain ever afterward as one of the graces of her rather muted voice, so sweet and charming. "

So you see that it is even explicitly said that Marie Curie was considering France to be her "fatherland" ("Patrie", in French).

Furthermore, the fact is that she chose to live in France until her death. That verifiable fact alone is enough to suppose she was feeling mostly French until proof of the contrary: a real Polish nationalist would have no doubt returned to Poland as soon as possible. So I believe this fact alone justify that the burden of proof on her not considering herself French is upon you. Please find a letter she would have wrote to a French newspaper saying "Please do not call me a French scientist, as I consider myself a Polish but not a French", for example. (But as the previous quotes show, she had no problem being called French)

So I stay by my initial position: I really see no case for not calling her a French physicist. (And again, I believe the correct version should be "Polish-born French physicist). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 19:19, 9 August 2013 (UTC)

---

The examples above describing her as a Frenchwoman are not really valid:

• “becoming a Frenchwoman” doesn’t mean she became a Frenchwoman;
• referring to her collectively with Pierre as French is not surprising,
• “Marie was the only French physicist capable of pursuing the work she and Pierre had undertaken” – in the sense, “the only physicist in France...”
• “second fatherland” implies she was a foreigner, a Polish emigrant
• the fact that her daughters were French is not relevant here (although she taught them the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland)
• It’s not surprising she wanted to master the French language but, as you say, to the end she had a foreign Polish accent (the "r" sound)

All of the above made her a Polish emigrant working and living in France; she would normally be considered a member of the Polish minority in France, not French. Do you call all Poles (or other minorities) married to French citizens, "French"? Or only the successful ones? To me, it sounds very like French hypocrisy.

Furthermore, in an article, one finds: “Despite Curie's fame as a scientist working for France, the public's attitude tended toward xenophobia […] which also fueled false speculation that Curie was Jewish. During the French Academy of Sciences elections, she was vilified by the right-wing press, who criticised her for being a foreigner and an atheist. Her daughter later remarked on the public hypocrisy: the French press often portrayed Curie as an unworthy foreigner when she was nominated for a French honour, but would portray her as a French heroine when she received a foreign one, such as her Nobel Prizes.”

Another example of this attitude that can be found in the article: “Before the meeting [with the US President], recognising her growing fame abroad, and embarrassed by the fact that she had no French official distinctions to wear in public, the French government offered her the Legion of Honour, but she refused it.”

Finally, the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions fellowship program of the European Union for young scientists wishing to work in a foreign country is named after her (as she was a foreigner working in France).

I have found another objective source, a 2013 BBC documentary, "The Genius of Marie Curie" [4]

Throughout the film, there is not a single mention of her as a "Frenchwoman" or being "French", instead we find:

• “This foreign woman, who pushes a hesitant father of a family to destroy his home” - from Action française
• “Article in a newspaper accusing him [Paul Langevin] of hiding behind a Polish woman's skirts […] it was such an insult to his French dignity” – Dr Patricia Fara, University of Cambridge
• “a poor young woman from Poland”
• From a letter by Marie Sklodowska Curie: “It is a sorrow to me to have to stay forever in Paris”
• “It was not seen as a particularly fruitful research topic [Henri Becquerel’s research] which is probably why she as a Polish woman was enabled to pick it up because there wasn’t a lot of competition for it” - Dr Patricia Fara, University of Cambridge
• Her granddaughter: “It was a big problem [the affair with Paul Langevin] […] she was not only a Polish woman but a woman taking the husband in a family with four children”
• “For the [French] tabloids, the story of a famous female immigrant ruining the marriage of a prestigious Frenchman perfectly suited their nationalistic agenda.”
• The final sentence in the film: “At last, France had made it up to Marie Curie; this brave, brilliant Polish scientist, so truly shamed in life, had received her adopted country’s highest honour” when her body was moved to the Paris Panthéon – again, a Polish emigrant in France who was always seen as a foreigner.

As to the argument that she did not return to Poland:

She met Pierre thanks to a fellow Pole (Prof. Józef Wierusz-Kowalski), was homesick, missed her father and initially refused Pierre’s proposal of marriage. Pierre insisted and was ready to give up his scientific career and follow her to Poland, even if meant being reduced to teaching French. Your views on the matter show that you have no clue about the historic circumstances of many Poles living in exile during the 123-year-period of Poland's occupation by foreign powers: some of them were as Polish-nationalist as anyone could be (e.g., Mickiewicz, Chopin), and their émigré status only amplified their nationalism and their longing for a free country, in accord with the patriotic idea that "Poland is not yet lost so long as we still live". Poles living in exile in foreign countries during Poland's occupation preserved their Polish language and culture; becoming French would have meant betraying Poland, which Maria Skłodowska Curie never did. She remained a Polish nationalist to the end of her life; suggestions that she changed her attitude toward her native country are pure fantasy. That she stayed in France till her death does not prove she felt mostly French: at about age 40, she hired Polish governesses to teach her daughters her native language, and she sent or took them on visits to Poland – she did not feel less Polish. Poland regained independence when she was 51 (well settled in Paris), 16 years before her death, too late to return to Poland. Despite poor health, at age 58 she visited Poland to lay the foundations for another Radium Institute in Warsaw in free Poland. At age 62, she went on a second American tour in order to equip the Warsaw Radium Institute with radium. The Institute finally opened 2 years before her death, with her physician-sister Bronisława as its director. Furthermore, Maria was an active member of Polonia committees in France dedicated to the Polish cause, and she visited Poland just a few months before her death, so please don’t imply that, over the course of her life, she had lost her connections with Poland.

Poland is the country where she was born, raised and received her secondary and early higher education, the country where she did her first scientific work, the country where she had family, the country which she supported in its fight for independence, and the country which she never forgot. She was a Pole who married a Frenchman, a Pole who stayed in France till the end of her life, but still a Pole. Ethnicity is unchangeable, and she never said, "I don’t want to be Polish anymore"; on the contrary, she remained a Polish patriot to the end.

"Polish-born French" is unacceptable and narrows the meaning, as she was not only born in Poland. "French-Polish" is more appropriate, but I would say it is misleading as she was not of mixed descent – she was simply a Pole working and living in France. It’s true she was a Pole who married a Frenchman with whom she had children, a Pole who received French citizenship, a Pole who lived as an émigré in France, where she died and was buried – but she did all that as an ethnically Polish foreigner. “Polish scientist, working mainly in France” was more accurate and precise. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.185.215.70 (talk) 16:13, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Persons with some understanding of Polish history, and of Maria Skłodowska Curie's history in particular, will appreciate the aptness of 79.185.215.70's comments above. Nihil novi (talk) 06:22, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Nihil novi, I noticed that you had a tendency to add a "praising comment" after a comment saying the thing you have been arguing for all along. This feel like borderline pupeetering to me, as it creates an illusion of people discussing and convincing each others when it is actually 3 or so like-minded persons discussing together. I do not want to offend you by this remark. But I just wanted to say it would be easier for me to assume good faith from you if you would avoid doing this. Also, possibly a bit off-topic, I note that you support the view of 79.185.215.70 that French-Polish imply French ancestry. It just so happens that I recently looked a bit at the Frederic Chopin talk page, and it *seems* (I did not bother to re-check, so please forgive me if I am wrong) to me that you were arguing there that on the contrary he should not be called French-Polish in spite of his father being French. This would not be very consistent then. In any case, I now expect you will support restoring the Frederic Chopin introductory sentence to French-Polish ;-).

Nihil novi, I am now really annoyed. Looking at the history of the talk page shows that you have been editing the reply of 79.185.215.70 (for example, see https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3AMarie_Curie&diff=569024781&oldid=568997979). Since you have then yourself written a "oh you are so right" comment about 79.185.215.70, and used the 79.185.215.70 comment that you edited yourself as a base for making a non-consensual edit, this now seems like blatant sock puppetry to me. (if you dont know this term, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry). Please know that I am now considering reporting your account for this. If you think I was mistaken in looking at the edits, feel free to explain to me below. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 06:05, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

79.185.215.70, I could take the time to refute your "arguments" one after the other ('“becoming a Frenchwoman” doesn’t mean she became a Frenchwoman': what does that mean?; 'too late to return to Poland': why too late?, she was not that old; her supposed nationalism supposedly proved by her hiring a Polish governess? the quotes from her daughter I gave above show she would not even want her daughters to feel Polish; Poles of French nationality not being called French? by who?, etc...). BUT it does not even matter because you are again totally missing the point and not addressing the issue I raised. You are basically doing personal research (and personal research is bad) about the possible nationalistic feelings of Marie Curie. But this is about verifiable facts and wikipedia conventions. You insist a lot on her "Polish ethnicity", but in WP:OPENPARA, it is EXPLICITLY said that mention of ethnicity and country of birth SHOULD BE AVOIDED (except if it is relevant to her notability) in the introductory sentence. And it is also EXPLICITLY said that the country to be mentioned is "the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable". Marie Curie is notable for being a scientist, not for being polish. And she did all of her notable work in France, while having French nationality. So I argue again that strictly following WP:OPENPARA lead to emphasizing her French nationality over her Polish origins. Not to mention that mentioning her as "Polish working in France" is inconsistent with about every other Wikipedia biography of people with similar life/career. Tokidokix (talk) 05:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I said earlier I did not think it was worth my time to answer all of 79.185.215.70 points, but since this discussion is probably going to last for a long time, and since I have a bit of time today, I might as well answer a bit more here, for the sake of the archives.

First, I find your answers to my quotes very unconvincing (and do not forget that the points of these quotes was to expose the fact that Binksternet was not telling the truth when saying that no Marie Curie biography would qualify her as French, otherwise there would be even more relevant quotes, I think):

• '“becoming a Frenchwoman” doesn’t mean she became a Frenchwoman;' --> I think the sentence means exactly that, yes. How can you have a different interpretation?
• 'referring to her collectively with Pierre as French is not surprising,' -> No, if she was considerd Polish, it would have been written "a French and a Polish lunatic", or maybe a "a French lunatic and his Polish wife" or "a Polish lunatic and her French husband".
• '“Marie was the only French physicist capable of pursuing the work she and Pierre had undertaken” – in the sense, “the only physicist in France...”' --> no, in that case it would have been written "Marie was the only physicist in France"
• '“second fatherland” implies she was a foreigner, a Polish emigrant' --> again, nobody deny she was an immigrant from Poland. But surely somebody that consider France to be a fatherland to her can be called French, no?
• 'the fact that her daughters were French is not relevant here' -->it is relevant! Especially given that the French father had died early, there is no doubt that a really nationalistic Polish person would have tried to make her daughters feel like belonging to Poland.
• 'It’s not surprising she wanted to master the French language but, as you say, to the end she had a foreign Polish accent (the "r" sound)' --> I am not the one saying it. These were direct quotes from Eve Curie's book. The point here is that she made effort to be integrated in French society.
• 'Do you call all Poles (or other minorities) married to French citizens, "French"? Or only the successful ones? To me, it sounds very like French hypocrisy.' --> Yes, anybody having received the French nationality through marriage or other process has the right to be called French. Even if there will always be some people that will try to insist on their possible previous nationalities (whether with good or bad intention).

As for the attitude of French people toward her, there is no doubt that a part of the French population was (and still is now, but hopefully in lower proportion) xenophobic, mysoginistic, antisemitic (even if not a jew, the fact she was coming from Poland was making it easy to accuse her of being an undercover jew), conservative (see anger at the Langevin affair); not to mention ignorant of the scientific contributions of any scientist. That does not mean it was representing the attitude of all of French people, and frankly how could she have done the career she did if she had received such an overwhelming opposition in France? For example, in 1900 (before receiving any Nobel prize) she became the first woman (French-born or not) to be a faculty member of the Ecole Normale Superieur, the most prestigious school/university in France (and contrast this with the fact she would not even be accepted as a student at Warsaw university). And as much as one want to insist on the fact she lost her election to the French Academy of Science, she only lost by two votes, meaning there were still a large number of French scientist supporting her application (and it is quite likely that the one that rejected her for bad reasons were more annoyed by the fact she was a woman than the fact she was Polish-born). Another example is when members of the Pasteur institute also supported her in her creation of the Radium institute. So in the end, yes, she was criticized by some, but also supported by others. French government's attitude was probably quite opportunistic too (but politicians giving a late accolade to a great person they finally notice is not that uncommon, even for French-born people). But on the other hand, most of her research (before or after Nobel prize) were funded by the French government.

And frankly, using quotes from "Action francaise", the most horribly antisemitic and xenophobic far-right newspaper of the time is revealingly unfair. Calling all of the American population conservative bigots using a quote from Rush_Limbaugh would not even be as bad.

As for her supposed lifelong Polish nationalism, your arguments do not hold water for me. I am aware of the history of Poland (even if of course, I probably know it less than you). But it is very clear that after settling in France, she was not interested in going back to Poland. For example, in 1912, the Warsaw Scientific Society offered her the directorship of a new laboratory in Warsaw, but she refused, preferring developing the Radium Institute in France. When Poland was re-created, she was only about 50. And her husband was dead. Certainly nothing prevented her to spend her old days in Poland with her sister (which is what people that are really passionate about their country tend to do). She did not. This is a fact. And it is a meaningful fact. It does not mean that she had lost connection with Poland. But it does mean she was considering her life was now belonging in France.

Also, I would like to see a bit more details about her involvement in the Comittee for Poland. She was of course a member. But I have not heard of very "notable" contributions from her at these comittees. Which is surprising, if she was really that active and given her high international status. From the elements I have, she might as well have seen her participation at the comittee meetings as an occupation allowing her to meet other Polish-born friends.Tokidokix (talk) 05:40, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

The Good Article version of this article can be seen here, representing the work which culminated in September 2012. It has a hidden note reading "Please do not change the nationality from Polish to French without consulting the discussion page. This formulation has been found to be the best way to reflect Curie's strong connections to both of these countries." The formulation referred to is "French-Polish", and was generally arrived at by User:Piotrus, User:Nihil novi and User:John leading up to the GA process. During the GA process overseen by User:TimothyRias, the formulation was not questioned or changed.
Previous discussions about this issue include French or Polish? from 2005, Nationality claims from 2005, Nationality from 2006, Is she Polish or French? from 2007, Polish-born French? from November 2010, Edit request from , 7 November 2011, Was a Polish-born , not Polish–French from November 2011, "was a Polish physicist and chemist" from February 2012, and Ethnicity/nationality from November 2012. Personally, I'm in favor of any formulation that emphasizes Curie's Polish birth, as she was proud of her Polish heritage all her life. The one formulation I cannot agree with is simply "[["French", delivered without clarification. Binksternet (talk) 23:21, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

Your link to the GA discussion only lead to a history diff of the main article, so I could not check it. In any case, I already said that, while I think "Polish-born French" is the way that follows Wikipedia and other encyclopaediae conventions best, I am not passionate enough to start a war over this. So I am fine if there is a GA version stating "French-Polish". But then why has someone reverted this to "Polish working mainly in France"? I will revert again to the GA version then.

Also, I think it is you that moved this discussion down the talk page. Why? Especially, this discussion is much more active than the one that has now been put at the top and that discuss similar issuesTokidokix (talk) 05:02, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The bottom of the talk page is where new discussions go. I support any version of Polish or Polish-French or French-Polish that editors can agree on. I cannot support "French" alone, or even Polish-born French which is what you are suggesting. Marie Curie never embraced France as her own country. She pointedly kept her Polish cultural heritage intact. Binksternet (talk) 05:42, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The fact that new topic would go at bottom of pages is certainly not true of most talk pages I have seen on wikipedia. As for French-Polish, I already said I was personally fine with that, but that Wikipedia conventions favor "Polish-born French" (again, Polish-born French is not implying she was not feeling Polish). In any case, as I also said previously, if you are fine with French-Polish and it is the previously GA version, I think I would rather settle with that than use countless hours to get through a GA process :-) Tokidokix (talk) 06:16, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Binksternet, why do you write you support the "French-Polish" version and then change the article to "Polish"? Tokidokix (talk) 08:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Binksternet, I do not want to start an edit war, but then at least discuss here why you now will accept only the version "Polish working mainly in France". You said in your revert that even if you agree with "French-Polish", you are taking into account another editor viewpoint. In that case, why not take into account mine as well. I thought it was at least consensual that until an agreement can be reached, using the Good Article version was the better compromise. And I am still waiting for anyone to address my issues here. All that I have seen here is some hardly-backed opinions about how somebody think she supposedly had strong nationalistic feelings all of her life. But these are just opinions. It is my opinion that she wasn't feeling much Polish nationalism after having settled to France (and I have backed these opinions with what I believe to be strong points). But in the end this should not be a battle of opinion. People that support "Polish working mainly in France" HAVE to explain why they think it is necessary to disregard Wikipedia guidelines in this case. And also why they consider it necessary to not follow an established encyclopedia like Encyclopaedia Britanica (which uses "Polish-born French physicist"). As a sign of good faith, I have not and will not try to edit into "Polish-born French physicist" until a consensus can be reached. But until someone can make STRONG and valid points about at least the two issues I just mentioned, I do not accept that the article is left in a state different than the Good Article version.Tokidokix (talk) 02:52, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

I believe you are not getting much respect here because you fail to see that reliable sources tell us that Marie Curie was very strongly nationalistic for Poland all her life, no matter that she married a Frenchman and lived in France. All the standard biographies describe her as emphatically Polish in her cultural practices. She taught her daughter the Polish language and Polish customs, and she followed Polish customs herself. Biographer Susan Quinn writes about how Curie was thrilled to be back in Poland in 1921 for the purpose of starting a radium institute in Warsaw, and Curie took the opportunity to involve herself in the "new struggle" to preserve the old Polish heritage. (See Quinn's Marie Curie: A Life, page 421.) The way you dismiss this kind of description as "opinion" is revealing. Binksternet (talk) 03:32, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

No, all standard biographies do not describe her as emphatically Polish. You have already tried to lied about this some comments up. You said she was never mentioned as French in the biography by her daughter, "Madame Curie", and I provided you with several quotes showing this was not true. I cannot check the other biography you mentioned, but given your bad faith about "Madame Curie", I have no reason to trust you on this one. I any case, I believe "Madame Curie" is the most relevant biography to know the state of mind of Marie Curie, as it was written by her own daughter. And again, your biased view show in that you keep on mentioning the fact that she taught Polish to her daughters, without mentioning the fact that her daughter explicitly said they were raised as French girls, and that Marie Curie did not try to instill any kind of Polish nationalism in them. And Generally speaking, no, "Madame Curie" do not describe Marie Curie as "emphatically Polish". Further you keep on arguing about the nationalists feelings of Marie Curie without discussing the point I make about Wikipedia guidelines, which is perhaps the most important point. I would have liked to solve this issue in a simpler way, but I see now it will be difficult to avoid going through the full process of a Wikipedia dispute resolution. Tokidokix (talk) 06:02, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, Binksternet, please show me the Wikipedia Policy that justify your edit for moving the whole content of this discussion at the bottom of this talk page, as well as changing the title of the section. Otherwise I am going to revert this change as well.Tokidokix (talk) 03:18, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Tokidokix, welcome to Wikipedia! As a neophyte editor, you show an impressive grasp of Wikipedia's principles and mechanics.

However, categorical principles are sometimes trumped by common sense. Thus the "Vladimir Nabokov" lead describes the Russian-born and -reared author, who spent only a quarter of his life in Russia (through age 20) and nearly half in the United States, merely as "a Russian-born novelist". Not as a British, German or American novelist, though all together he spent three-quarters of his life in those three countries, most of that in the United States.

Your interpretation of my relation to 79.185.215.70's arguments is topsy-turvy. I first expressed approval of them, then corrected some obvious English-usage errors in them in order to facilitate the discussion. 79.185.215.70's grasp of the controversy is better than his command of English—which is exactly the opposite of the situation in your case. Nihil novi (talk) 06:42, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Nihil novi, no need to welcome me to Wikipedia. I have been an occasional contributor since at least 2006. I usually only make rather non-controversial edit to science articles, which is why I usually do not bother to log into an account.

On the other hand, for someone that seem to be quite active, you seem to be very happy to disregard the most basic WP policies. Apart from your will to disregard WP style guides for biographies, you should know that editing another users's comment without his explicit consent (and you cannot get a consent for a comment posted by an IP) is not acceptable (of course, if you are 79.185.215.70, you have his consent, but then it is sock puppetry -> in both cases you are violating WP policies).

As for 79.185.215.70's comment, they are just repeating the same baseless or irrelevants arguments you and another user have already used without addressing the issues I raised. And if Nabokov is described as "Russian-born", note that he is not described as Russian. "Russian-born American" would not have been shocking I think, but the fact that he did his significant work in different countries may have created trouble for the WP contributors to reach a good consensual formulation. In any case, this is not the case of Marie Curie, who did about all of her work, and spent most of her life, in France. Tokidokix (talk) 08:21, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Nihil novi, Binksternet: It seems that we are in a deadlock. You refuse to address my arguments about Wikipedia guidelines, and in any case I find your arguments about Marie Curie lifelong "emphatic Polishness" unconvincing. Likewise it seems that I cannot convince you that Marie Curie possible nationalistic feelings do not belong to the introductory sentence, and that anyway facts show she was feeling at least as much French as Polish for most of her life. As a first step towards solving this deadlock, I propose that we ask for general advice on the dispute resolution noticeboard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 07:03, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Nihil novi, Binksternet: I thinbk you have been noticed automatically, but I went on to post our dispute on the noticeboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Marie_Curie

Nihil novi, Binksternet: could you please explain your reasoning for rejecting the dispute resolution post on the noticeboard. You both stated that we should go for a Request For Comment first. But from what I can see on WP:DISPUTE and on the noticeboard page, the noticeboard is supposed to be the initial step to get advice before moving to RFC or other process. I am OK to do a RFC, but I do not think that getting initial external advice on the process can hurt.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs)

WP:Request for comment is a step which should be taken before dispute resolution. It would not hurt to get community input on the issue. Binksternet (talk) 05:04, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, I have come across a possible explanation as to why some of your arguments seem so odd to me (and maybe some of mine seems odd to you). There would be in Polish 2 different concepts known as narodowosc (which Polish translate as Nationality in English) and obywatelstwo (translated by Polish as citizenship in English). In France, the concept of nationality is strictly equivalent to the concept of citizenship. This difference can probably be attributed to the different history of the 2 countries. I think however, that in the English world, the meaning of Nationality is more similar to the meaning in France. Something closer (but still not equivalent, I would say) to what you seem to mean by Nationality would be, I think, National Indentity, or possibly Ethnicity. I don't know if this is true, as I just read this. And I don't even know if you are Polish (although I think I can infer it is likely to be the case of at least Nihil novi). And I don't think this will close the discussion either (I would still disagree on the national identity of Marie Curie anyway). I just thought that discussion will be easier if we can clarify that we sometime have different meaning for the same word. Feel free to comment on this :-) Tokidokix (talk) 11:42, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Binksternet, can I ask your help for something? You said in a comment above that there would have been a discussion around september 2012, leading to the GA status for the article, that was involving users TymothyRias, Nihil Novi, John and Piotr, and that had settled for "French-Polish". I would very much like to read it. However, although I could see some previous discussions on this topic (most of them seeming to end without a consensus, by people simply leaving the discussion), I cannot find a discussion involving these users at the given date. I would very much appreciate if you could point it to me. Tokidokix (talk) 11:53, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

GA status was conferred after this discussion: Talk:Marie Curie/GA1.

John and Nihil novi are not in that discussion but you can see their contributions in the archives such as the most recent one: Talk:Marie_Curie/Archive_3.

Hope that helps. Binksternet (talk) 12:17, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

I had seen the GA1 discussion, but I was hoping there had been some discussion officially moderated by user ThimotyRias. In the Archive you point to, only Nihil Novi seem to discuss the issue we are talking about (no John there). Also, why are you insisting on changing the title of this section to something less informative and more provocative? Tokidokix (talk) 12:37, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, Nihil novi, could you point me to the first commit you did after the Good Article qualification that changed the lead to "Polish physicist", as well as the discussion that justified this change? Thanks. Tokidokix (talk) 19:19, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Tokidokix, by your reasoning about Wikipedia nationality standards, how would you account for Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004; "nationality: Polish; citizenship: Polish, American"), who moved to the U.S. in 1960 and did most of his writing there, being described in the lead as a "Polish poet"? Nihil novi (talk) 23:00, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, there is at least three things here. 1- "Polish poet" might be understood as "Poet writing in Polish" anyway. 2-I already acknowledged that not all Wikipedia article were consistent with each others or with the guidelines. But I would say most of the one I read do follow the patterns I mentioned. So I would prefer you to reason on the wording of the guidelines instead of trying to find some random articles that do not respect it. 3-The history shows that you have been yourself involved in the editing of this article, and especially in another discussion/edit battle with User:Dr. Dan about the lead of this very article. So you are basically trying to convince me that you are right in your interpretation of the guidelines by using examples you made yourself. And, as a passing remark, if I understand correctly (but I did not take much time to look in the discussion of that article), it seems that you were opposing Czesław Miłosz to be mentioned as "lithuanian-born", which is strange for someone that is arguing in other articles that for people born in Poland, the country of birth is the most important thing...Tokidokix (talk) 03:17, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

There is a difference between a "Polish poet" and a "Polish-language poet." Czesław Miłosz happened to be both; he was a Polish-language Polish poet. But to use a different example, the Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck was a French-language poet and is described in the article lead as a Belgian poet who "wrote in French." Had Miłosz been a Polish-language poet of a nationality other than what it was, like Maeterlinck he would have been so described in his lead; he isn't. Miłosz, like Skłodowska–Curie, was Polish despite living, marrying and working outside Poland and receiving a foreign citizenship. Nihil novi (talk) 04:21, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, although I do not know much about Czesław Miłosz, I am afraid it is still very unclear to me which criterion you are using to judge that a person is Polish. The article says that Milosz said of himself: "I am a Lithuanian to whom it was not given to be a Lithuanian." and "My family in the sixteenth century already spoke Polish, just as many families in Finland spoke Swedish and in Ireland English, so I am a Polish not a Lithuanian poet. But the landscapes and perhaps the spirits of Lithuania have never abandoned me". Which to me clearly means that he was considering himself a Polish poet by language, but a Lithuanian by heart. And he was not born in Poland and it does not even seem that he spent a large proportion of his life in Poland.Tokidokix (talk) 03:56, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

How do you suppose this Lithuanian manqué happened to spend his last days, die and be entombed in Poland's ancient capital, Kraków, rather than in Vilnius, now in Lithuania but from 1920 part of Poland as Wilno, where he had attended school and studied law in the Polish language?

He broke with Poland, which he had served as a diplomatic cultural attaché, in 1951, aged 40. All his life till then, except for brief visits to France, had passed substantially within the Polish cultural sphere. Nihil novi (talk) 05:42, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Now, this is an interesting piece of argumentation, Nihil Novi. So Czesław Miłosz is a "Polish Poet" because he was intumbed in Poland's capital and spent a large part of his life in the Polish cultural sphere except for a few brief visits to France. Let us transpose this reasoning to Marie curie, who was intumbed in France, and spent most of her life in the French cultural sphere (ie France) with only a few brief visits to Poland. Now it would be nice if you could be consistent with your own reasoning and say that Marie Curie was a "French physicist", so that we can stop it here... Tokidokix (talk) 05:55, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

You miss the point, which is that each spent his formative years in Poland. That, and not the circumstances of their entombment, decided their cultural affinities. Nihil novi (talk) 08:05, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

If you consider the ciscumstances of entumbment are not relevant, why did you mention that in the first place? And why would Marie Curie's studies in France not count as formative years anyway? I still think you use different criterions depending on who you are talking about...Tokidokix (talk) 08:15, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Miłosz was entombed in Poland because he was living there when he died — which is a little peculiar, if he is to be viewed as a Lithuanian. As a retired Berkeley professor, he could live in post-communist Poland.

Skłodowska Curie's circumstances were different. She never retired but kept at her work, which was by then tied to the institute she had established in Paris. She was 24 when she left Warsaw for Paris; at that age, a person's national identity is fully formed. Nihil novi (talk) 08:38, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Still do not understand why it is "a little peculiar" for Miłosz to be entombed in Poland rather than Lithuania but not for Marie Curie. Also Marie Curie had many opportunities to continue her work in Poland if she wanted to (in particular at the Warsaw Radium institute). So yes, staying in France was her choice, not that much of a work constraint. I should add again that a person's national identity is different from his nationality (which is what is discussed here), and that your criterion that the formation of national identity can only happen during a certain time of life seem quite arbitrary to me.Tokidokix (talk) 09:02, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

And one last thing. If you claim that Miłosz is Polish for doing his studies in Polish, then Marie Curie is Russian for doing her studies in Russian. In these times, it was forbidden for any school of Poland to provide classes in another language than Russian (and indeed, Marie Curie was fluent in Russian too). She could attend some underground classes in Polish, but I think that most of her official education was done in Russian. Tokidokix (talk) 09:09, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Another issue to be discussed related to the "working mainly in France" version. I think the "mainly" is justified by a footnote (I think by User:Nihil novi), stating she had done physics experiments in Warsaw before leaving for Paris. But a reading of her biography clearly show these "experiments" were just some practical training done in the framework of the Flying university at an undercover lab hidden in the Museum of Industry and Agriculture in Warsaw. She was just trying to reproduce experiments described in training books there, not doing any kind of research. Further, the biography "Madame Curie" clearly states that these experiments where not even sufficient to equal the level of French high school training:

'She thought she had had sufficient scientific preparation to pursue the courses of the university. But her solitary work in the country, in the governess's room at Szczuki, near Przasnysz, the knowledge she had acquired by correspondence with M. Sklodovski, and the experiments attempted by hook or crook in the Museum of Industry and Agriculture, did not take the place of the solid baccalaureate training of the Paris schools. In mathematics and physics Marie discovered enormous holes in her "culture."' (Madame Curie, Chapter VIII)

Therefore, unless one want to consider all high school students to be experimented physicist, it is very wrong to say that Marie Curie worked as a Physicist in Warsaw prior to coming to Paris (she did work in Poland, but only as a private teacher and a governess). Tokidokix (talk) 17:35, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

Here is another important fact, that I think (along with other quotes I have already provided) support my claim that Poland should be seen as the "country of origin" of Marie Curie, and France as her country. In the first scientific communication (18th July 1898) announcing the discovery of Polonium, Marie and Pierre Curie write:

"If the existence of this new metal is confirmed we propose to call it polonium from the name of the country of origin of one of us."

It seem quite significant to me that it is written "the name of the country of origin" and not "the name of the country". This shows that they consider France to be the country of Marie Curie at the time of publication of this paper, since otherwise, there would not have had a need to add the "of origin" qualifier to refer to Poland. Tokidokix (talk) 17:54, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

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First of all, I have no problem with Nihil novi correcting grammatical and spelling mistakes in my comments as I don’t have time to polish my contributions. Secondly, Tokidokix, thank you so much for your precious time spent on answering ‘all’ my points, but if you’re able to refute my arguments one after the other, why haven’t you commented on the quotes from the BBC documentary? Your comments are full of personal research, opinions, overinterpretation and manipulation, e.g., in calling her participation in the Committee for Free Poland a form of socializing, sic! I have plenty of strong quotes from her daughter’s biography and the objective BBC documentary about Maria Sklodowska-Curie’s ‘possible’ (as you say) nationalistic feelings. To clarify my previous arguments:

• There’s a difference between the perfective and continuous forms of a verb, as, for example, ‘a dying person’ is not yet ‘a dead person’ – that was my point. ‘Becoming a Frenchwoman’ doesn’t mean she underwent the process and finally became exclusively a Frenchwoman, as you’re trying to portray her.
• “referring to her collectively with Pierre as French is not surprising”, as a French person wouldn’t be bothered to write “a Polish-French and a French lunatic” when she can write “French”, referring to both. It’s a simplification, the same as with "Maria Sklodowska-Curie", which is the only truly appropriate version of her name (look at the grave and the Nobel Prize diploma) but is constantly being simplified to "Marie Curie".
• ‘again, nobody deny she was an immigrant from Poland. But surely somebody that consider France to be a fatherland to her can be called French, no?’ -> No, at most Polish-French. Furthermore, she never said that she considered France to be her fatherland. Eve Curie, in her biography, describes Poland as homeland, motherland and sometimes also fatherland. Also you said: ‘nobody deny she was an immigrant from Poland’ – to me it seems that you try to deny she was Polish.
• Why would she have tried to make her daughters feel like belonging to Poland? It doesn’t make any sense. “She wished Irene and Eve to learn Polish, and for them to know and love her native land” [from Eve’s book] – It was her native land, not her daughters'. They were born and living in France, had a French father and happened to have a Polish mother. It wasn’t her intention to make Poles of them, as a Polish patriot she just wanted them to know and love her beloved country and language.
• No, it’s your interpretation again. What was said of her was that she made an effort to master the French language, not to integrate into French society.
• It wasn’t my point that she was offered a French honour quite late, but that she refused to accept it. Why would she, if she were such a French national?

Why is it unfair to quote Action francaise if she was so shamed and almost lost her second Nobel Prize because of the criticism? It wasn’t only this newspaper that criticized her. A quote from Eve Curie's book: “Every time an occasion offered to humiliate this unique woman, as during the painful days of 1911, or to refuse her a title, a recompense or an honour, the Academy, for instance, her origins were basely brought up against her: called in turn a Russian, a German, a Jewess and a Pole, she was "the foreign woman" who had come to Paris like a usurper to conquer a high position improperly. But whenever, by Marie Curie's gifts, science was honoured, every time she was acclaimed in another country and unprecedented praise heaped upon her, she at once became, in the same newspapers and over the signatures of the same writers, "the ambassadress of France," the "purest representative of our race's genius," and a "national glory." With equal injustice, the Polish birth of which she was proud was then passed over in silence.” You’re doing the same, trying to pass over her Polish ethnicity/nationality in the name of some editing rules that are not standarised anyway.

As to the argument that she refused to return to Poland. I mentioned she was already settled in Paris, had a good post and daughters who didn’t speak fluent Polish, etc. Why would she start over again (16 years before her death, already ill)? The fact that it was more convenient to stay in Paris doesn’t mean she felt she belonged exclusively to France. She wrote in her diary: “It is a sorrow to me to have to stay forever in Paris”. There’re millions of Polish immigrants working abroad who consider themselves Polish, as she did, it’s nothing unusual. Her difficult decision is perfectly described in Eve’s book: “The idea of returning to her OWN COUNTRY attracted and frightened her at the same time. In the state of physiological misery in which this woman found herself, any decision became terrifying. There was something else: the construction of the laboratory the Curies had so long wanted had at last been decided upon, in 1909. To renounce Paris and rice from France was to reduce this plan to nothing, to kill a great dream. At a moment in her life when she felt hardly strong enough for anything, Marie was torn between two duties which excluded each other. After how many homesick hesitations, with what suffering, she addressed her letter of refusal to Warsaw! Still, she accepted the task of directing the new laboratory from afar and placed it under the practical control of two of her best assistants: the Poles Danysz and Wertenstein. Marie, still very ill, went to Warsaw in 1913 for the inauguration of the radioactivity building.” Again, your suggestion that she ‘wasn’t interested in going back to Poland’ is a manipulation or simply a lie, as she clearly was interested but it wasn’t so easy. One finds later in the book: “Her stubbornness alone was not enough to conquer the difficulties. Poland, convalescing from a long enslavement, was poor: poor in money and poor in technicians. And Marie had not time to make all the arrangements herself or to collect the funds.”

To me, things that she said or that her family and scholars have said about her are more meaningful than your interpretations. Again, the BBC documentary, Dr Patricia Fara (University of Cambridge), Marie's husband Pierre Curie, her daughter Eve Curie, her granddaughter, and other sources describe her as Polish:

• “Article in a newspaper accusing him [Paul Langevin] of hiding behind a Polish woman's skirts […] it was such an insult to his French dignity” – Dr Patricia Fara, University of Cambridge
• “a poor young woman from Poland”
• From a letter by Marie Sklodowska Curie: “It is a sorrow to me to have to stay forever in Paris”
• “It [Henri Becquerel’s research] was not seen as a particularly fruitful research topic, which is probably why she as a Polish woman was enabled to pick it up because there wasn’t a lot of competition for it” - Dr Patricia Fara, University of Cambridge
• Her granddaughter: “It [the affair with Paul Langevin] was a big problem […] she was not only a Polish woman but a woman taking the husband in a family with four children”
• “For the [French] tabloids, the story of a famous female immigrant ruining the marriage of a prestigious Frenchman perfectly suited their nationalistic agenda.”
• The final sentence in the film: “At last, France had made it up to Marie Curie; this brave, brilliant Polish scientist, so truly shamed in life, had received her adopted country’s highest honour” when her body was moved to the Paris Panthéon – again, a Polish emigrant in France who was always seen as a foreigner.

You haven’t refuted my arguments, but you call them baseless or irrelevant. And yes, hiring a Polish governess who taught her children the Polish language supports arguments in favour of her Polishness. You seem to present her as an exclusively French woman who forget her Polish heritage, while she felt Polish unto the grave. My arguments show her not as an aggressive Polish nationalist trying to Polonize everyone around her, but as a Pole living and working in France who had to struggle a little bit because of her Polishness and never lost her sense of Polish identity. From your story it seems that she was a French heroine, born somewhere else (not even worth mentioning where in the introductory paragraph), which had no impact on her later life. But in Eve’s book you find that even Pierre was aware of her strong nationalism: “Knowing you, I am convinced that you will remain Polish with all your soul [Piere about Maria]” and became Polonized a little: “He [Pierre] tried to learn Polish, the most difficult of languages; Pierre took his Polonisation treatment at The Hind.” Furthermore, they corresponded in Polish: “These lines were traced with great industry, in Polish, the barbarian language in which the physicist had wanted to know all the tenderest words. Also in Polish, and in short little sentences that a novice could understand, Marie answered”. During a visit to Poland, “He purposely spoke in his brand-new Polish, which, in spite of the bad accent, dazzled his brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law; and he caught the smile of pride on Marie's glowing face.”

And finally, yes, all standard biographies describe her as emphatically Polish, including Madame Curie by Eve Curie. We must have a different book or you’re ignoring huge parts of it, trying to support your opinion with only a few sentences describing her debatably (and not always directly) as French. I went through the whole book and counted how many times she was described as Polish or a Pole vs. French. Total count: ~37 Polish vs. 3 French. Yes, I do agree that Madame Curie is one of the most relevant biographies, so let’s stick to ‘Polish’ as Eve did. It’s funny how you call your interpretation of a few French-biased sentences “significant”, “important” and “meaningful” (while they are not, really), e.g., that referring to Poland as a "country of origin" instead of "the country" contradicts her Polishness, which is a bold over-interpretation. Two sentences above, you find the phrase, “her own country”, in reference to Poland; this phrase is used several times throughout the book. At the same time, you ignore so evident chunks of Eve’s book describing her as a Polish patriot and nationalist. Quotes from Eve Curie’s book about her mother’s “supposed” lifelong Polish nationalism:

• “Like every Pole of her place and time she was exalted by dreams. There was one dream common to all the youths: the dream of nationhood. In their projects for the future, the desire to serve Poland took precedence of personal ambition, of marriage and of love. […] For them only one thing counted: to work, to build up a magnificent intellectual capital for Poland”
• “The little Polish girl [24 years old] gave nobody the right to call her Marie.”
• “She was Polish, come from Warsaw to study at the Sorbonne”
• “Later on I shall be a teacher in Poland; I shall try to be useful. Poles have no right to abandon their country” (Maria Sklodowska-Curie)
• “He [Pierre] followed her in thought; he would have liked to join her in Switzerland […] or else in Poland, in that Poland of which he was jealous.”
• “Knowing you, I am convinced that you will remain Polish with all your soul, and also that you will never cease to be part of our family in your heart.” (Pierre about Maria)
• “Then, her heart turning toward her own country which had been erased from the map of the world” – the moment when she got the idea of naming polonium after Poland (her own country, mentioned later as ‘the original country’ but you ignored the first sentence, and the slightly changed second phrase is ‘significant’ to you – please don’t make a story out of it as your subtle manipulation doesn’t make any sense)
• "Pierre Curie, 'the foreigner,' was the object of many attentions [in Poland]. His Poles were proud to show Poland to him."
• "For Marie there were two victories instead of one [the end of World War I]: Poland was born again from the ashes, and after a century and a half of slavery became a free country once more. The 'patriotic dream' in the name of which she had once almost […] sacrificed her vocation, and even the love of Pierre Curie, was becoming a reality under her eyes."
• "Her presence gave Marie a little of that Polish intimacy of which her exile had often seemed to deprive her too much."
• "She wanted to make herself the equal of the masters who once had dazzled a young Pole."
• "And above all, like a naive Polish woman, she was afraid of seeming pretentious or ungrateful by refusing the distinction which she imagined her adopted country was offering her."
• “Pierre spoke of the future several times again. He had asked Marie to be his wife; but the answer was not a happy one. To marry a Frenchman and leave her family forever, to renounce all political activity and abandon Poland, seemed to Mlle. Sklodovska like so many dreadful acts of betrayal. She could not and must not.”
• "But, still too shy to make friends with the French, she took refuge among her [Polish] compatriots […] and the young Wojciechovski, a future president of the Polish Republic, became her friends in that colony which formed a little island of free Poland in the Latin Quarter."
• "The Polish woman forgot that France was only her adoptive country [during World War I]"
• "These emigres [Poles in the USA] were acclaiming one who was no longer a scientist, but the symbol of their far-away fatherland [Poland]."
• “Since Poland had become free again, Marie had been haunted by a great project: she wanted Warsaw to possess a radium institute, a centre for scientific research and the treatment of cancer.”
• "In 1925 Marie went to Warsaw to lay the cornerstone of the institute. It was a triumphal visit: memories of the past, promises for the future... The fervour of a whole people accompanied the woman who was called, by one of the orators, 'the first lady-in-waiting of our gracious sovereign, the Polish Republic.'"
• “This was the last time Marie was to see Poland, the old streets of her native town, and the Vistula, which she went to gaze at nostalgically on every visit, almost with remorse. In her letters to Eve she describes again and again this water, this land, these stones, to which she was attached by the most violent, primitive instinct.”
• "This Polish water has within itself such a charm that those who are taken by it will love it even unto the grave."
• “And like the little girl of sixty years ago […] this professor at the Sorbonne was counting in Polish”
• “Her coffin was placed above that of Pierre Curie. Bronya and Joseph Sklodovski threw into the open grave a handful of earth brought from Poland. The gravestone was enriched by a new line: MARIE CURIE-SKLODOVSKA, 1867-1934.”

Eve clearly considered her mother to be Polish; throughout the book, numerous times, she uses “Mme Curie”, “a Pole”, “Polish girl [not only in reference to her childhood]”, “Polish woman”, etc., as synonyms, while "French" is used only 3 times (including the debatable “becoming a Frenchwoman” and the reference to her jointly with Pierre). None of these 3 sentences shows French nationalistic sentiments. Examples of her being called "Polish" or a "Pole":

• "But she had an animated and pleasing face, […] clear eyes and hair and skin of Polish women."
• "The Polish girl on her bench smiled with ecstasy"
• "a poor Polish girl could work until they closed the doors at ten o'clock."
• "The Polish girl was tamed."
• "Could a Polish girl be conquered by a Parisian winter?"
• "No, it is not surprising that a Polish girl of genius, isolated by her arid existence, should have preserved herself for her work."
• "But it is surprising, indeed wonderful, that a scientist of genius, a Frenchman, should have kept himself for that Polish girl, should have unconsciously waited for her."
• "immediate sympathy brought the French physicist and the Polish student together."
• "The attraction he felt from the first moment for the foreign girl who spoke so little was doubled by intense curiosity."
• "Pierre Curie was already the captive of the too intelligent, too lucid Polish girl"
• "Ten more months had to pass before the obdurate Pole accepted the idea of marriage."
• "Pierre could have married no woman other than the fair, tender Polish girl"
• "The Polish girl had travelled far since the morning in November 1891"
• "It would be natural for Dr. Curie to go and live with Jacques, rather than to stay with her, with a foreign woman, a Pole."
• "The Polish woman was solitary no longer [during World War I]"
• "But she retained the audacity and vehemence of a young Polish 'progressive.'"

Personally, I think that "Polish-born French" is an attempt to depreciate her Polishness. She was, by all sources, simply a Pole living and working mainly in France (can anyone deny that she was a Pole who lived and worked in France for two-thirds of her life?). WP:OPENPARA rules can’t change that. I cannot understand why referring to her as Polish is so odious to Tokidokix. Why do you insist on removing this information from the introductory paragraph (you argue that "French" is the one description that best respects WP:OPENPARA, and you want to move material on Marie Curie's attitude to Poland to a separate section)? I think that some of the information that has been presented in this discussion should be used to elaborate on her sense of Polish identity and nationalism, an aspect of her life that is notoriously ignored or denied. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.185.78 (talk) 23:22, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

First, I am sorry, but I am afraid you are either misunderstanding my actions or trying to misrepresent them. I have not been fighting against Marie Curie being mentioned as Polish, nor have I asked for her being referred as uniquely French (even if I did mention that WP:OPENPARA seem to indicate this is the preferred form, I have not been arguing for it). Quite the contrary, I am opposed to editors that are against Marie Curie being in anyway referred to as French and that want to have her referred to only as Polish. I said "Polish-born French" seemed to me to be more consistent with other Wikipedia articles (I gave several examples above), but I am personally fine with "Polish-French" or "French-Polish".

And again, my point with the quotes was to answer Binksternet saying that the biography "Madame Curie" was never referring to Marie Curie as French. The quotes were here to establish that this was false. Secondly, your quotes are misleading, since they almost all come from the description of the younger years of Marie Curie (her youth in Poland, then her first years in France until about the marriage with Pierre Curie). She was of course not going to be referred as French when she was a girl that had never left Poland and had not French nationality yet. Check and you will see that 80% of your quotes come from the first half of the book.

In any case, again, the discussion here is not about whether she can be referred to as Polish, but on whether she can be referred to as French. Which is why I selected the quotes that are supporting this view. I do not have the time to look again in the biography right now, but I have no doubt I could find more. For example, I am pretty sure France is mentioned as her "fatherland" several times, just like Poland.

There are several other points I should address in your post, but I since my time is not unlimited, I will just make a few remarks about some of the points that stroke me most on first reading.

First remark, I would appreciate that you do not accuse me so lightly of making comments "full of personal research, opinions, overinterpretation and manipulation". I believe I have made a fair effort to present my point of view and to support it with citations. I certainly deny any intention of manipulation, and frankly I felt more that it was you that tried to misrepresent my position as if I was arguing for mentioning her uniquely as French. I have re-explained above, so if there was any misunderstanding regarding my position, I hope it is now cleared. I acknowledge that you also invested times in your replies, which is good, but if we are going to prolong this discussion, would you consider using a Wikipedia account so as to make it easier to follow?

Then, the quote "I am convinced that you will remain Polish with all your soul" is in a letter from Marie's brother Joseph. It is not from Pierre, as you claim twice. You cite the sentence "Pierre took his Polonisation treatment at The Hind.”, but you omit the sentence that come just after that says: "at Sceaux, where he brought his young wife in September, it was Marie's turn to become Gallicised". (Gallicised means "Frenchified", in reference to Gaul, the ancient name of France). Thus yes, as is normal with two lovers, they acquire the culture of the other.

I did not answer thoroughly to your quotes from the BBC documentary because I have not seen it yet (and also because having little esteem for TV, I certainly have more consideration for a 300 pages biography than for a small made-for-TV documentary, even from the BBC). Briefly, though, some of the things that strike me:

• “It [Henri Becquerel’s research] was not seen as a particularly fruitful research topic, which is probably why she as a Polish woman was enabled to pick it up because there wasn’t a lot of competition for it” - Dr Patricia Fara, University of Cambridge --> that is quite contradictory with "Madame Curie", that states clearly that Marie Curie chose this topic because it was exciting and new for her, not because that would have been the only one she would have been "enabled to pick" (further there is no indication in the book that she would have suffered discrimination as a student due to her foreign origins; indeed I think it is even written somewhere that foreign students where well considered at La Sorbonne)
• Again the fact that Far-right newspapers and tabloids bashed Marie Curie at the time of the Langevin scandal is not that surprising given the mentality of the time. But one could as easily find quotes from newspapers that praise Marie Curie.
• As for Marie Curie not receiving all the honors she should have in due time, the same could be said about Pierre Curie (and indeed, in the biography she wrote of her late husband, Marie Curie write bitterly about the lack of acknowledgement of Pierre's great work by the government). "Madame Curie" actually shows numerous times that the biggest problem here is that both Marie and Pierre Curie are too "pure" to accept to play the political games that would allow them to receive funds and honors.

• "(her own country, mentioned later as ‘the original country’ but you ignored the first sentence, and the slightly changed second phrase is ‘significant’ to you – please don’t make a story out of it as your subtle manipulation doesn’t make any sense)". --> I am not sure what you mean, but I think you are mistaken (and again, I do not like that you say I use manipulation). I was not quoting the book here, but translating the sentence in the original paper written by Marie and Pierre on Polonium. To be exact, the paper read (in French): "Si l'existence de ce nouveau métal se confirme, nous proposons de l'appeler polonium, du nom du pays d'origine de l'un de nous." The translation I gave is perfectly word-for-word, no manipulation. And again, this is written by Marie and Pierre, not by Eve.

• "There’s a difference between the perfective and continuous forms of a verb, as, for example, ‘a dying person’ is not yet ‘a dead person’ – that was my point. ‘Becoming a Frenchwoman’ doesn’t mean she underwent the process and finally became exclusively a Frenchwoman, as you’re trying to portray her." --> No. The expression "On becoming a Frenchwoman, she had not" imply the process is finished. Anyway, I can refer you to the French original version if you need confirmation. And you I never wrote "exclusively".
• "It wasn’t my point that she was offered a French honour quite late, but that she refused to accept it. Why would she, if she were such a French national?" --> Her husband Pierre refused also the Legion d'honneur. As is shown in "Madame Curie", both Pierre and Marie's morality were opposing them accepting such things.

As for her participation in the Committee for Free Poland, I am just requesting more details and citation about it. From "Madame Curie", it seem like Marie Curie stopped getting involved with the Polish nationalists in Paris after a few month: her father had written to her that it would create problems for her in Poland if her name was to be mentioned somewhere; and further she found herself totally absorbed by her studies. A few years later, after her sister moved back to Poland, she even seem to have lost most contact with the Polish community of Paris. She is actually described as having very little life outside of her laboratory and her family. I do not remember her taking part in the Committee for Free Poland in "Madame Curie". I may be wrong, but could you find me the relevant information in Madame Curie, or maybe somewhere else? And something that would describe her activities there? I have nothing against this being mentioned. I would just like some sources for it, as it seem like "Madame Curie" do not support it (unless I forgot the relevant parts). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 16:03, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

---

Yes, you’re right, the quote: "I am convinced that you will remain Polish with all your soul" is from her brother’s letter, it’s my mistake, I got lost in my notes. But it doesn’t change the fact that the quote is about Maria and shows her incredibly strong Polish identity.

I’ve done some statistics, as you asked. Of 35 quotes from Marie Curie describing her literally as “Polish” or “a Pole” (including “a Polish woman” in her adulthood, the last part of the book) 14% come from Part One, 63% from Part Two, and 23% from Part Three. She is referred to as “French” or a “Frenchwoman” only 3 times throughout the whole book (including the debatable “becoming a Frenchwoman” and the reference to her jointly with Pierre). It’s very weak evidence to support her Frenchness. Furthermore, I haven’t found a quote from Maria Skłodowska-Curie calling herself a Frenchwoman. Eve clearly considered her mother to be Polish; throughout the book she uses “Mme Curie” and “a Pole/Polish” as synonyms, which is not the case with “Frenchwoman/French”.

Furthermore, I don’t agree that the sentence, “The choice of this name [polonium] proves that in becoming a Frenchwoman and a physicist Marie had not disowned her former enthusiasms”, indicates that the process was finished and she had become a Frenchwoman. Otherwise Eve would have kept calling her a “Frenchwoman” or “French” in the later parts of the book, but she does not; instead she keeps calling her “Polish”. The clear message is that her former enthusiasm hadn’t let her to become a Frenchwoman.

You wrote that another “important” and “significant” fact that supports your claim that Poland should be seen as the "country of origin" of Marie Curie, and France as her country, is the sentence: "If the existence of this new metal is confirmed we propose to call it polonium from the name of the country of origin of one of us."; otherwise it should be written "the name of the country". In the book, the sentence in question is translated as follows: “If the existence of this new metal is confirmed we propose to call it polonium from the name of the original country of one of us” -> sounds more like a native country. Furthermore, two sentences earlier, Poland is described as “her own country”, which shows that “original country” and “own country” were used as synonyms and there’s no need to over-interpret this phrase as being against her Polishness. Your significant discovery is invalid. The fact alone that she named polonium after Poland, not France, shows her nationalistic sentiments.

Additionally, you shouldn’t be sure that France is mentioned as her "fatherland" several times, just like Poland, because France is mentioned only twice as fatherland while Poland is mentioned 6 times as “fatherland”, once as “motherland”, 6 times as “native land” and 4 times as “own country/her country”. These are just simple counts from the book, but I’m providing them since you used this book in trying to demonstrate that she felt equally French as Polish, while the book reads against you. Besides, “homesick hesitations” before deciding against returning to Poland means that Poland was home to her; please don’t degrade Poland to “the country of origin”. Anyway, I’ve previously provided a list of quotes showing her strong nationalistic affection for Poland.

Moreover, you not only request more details about the Committee for Free Poland, but you do personal research. You clearly wrote: “he might as well have seen her participation at the committee meetings as an occupation allowing her to meet other Polish-born friends”, without providing the source of this information. Even if you don’t have much information about her involvement in the Committee, you cannot, without strong evidence, assume that it was a form of socializing. It seems like personal research to me, or just your imagination. I want to remind you that you were the first to accuse me of doing original research, while admitting that you were presenting your “opinions” and “a point of view”; I just pointed that out.

As to the claim that “she have lost most contact with the Polish community of Paris”, I have a quote from Eve’s book: “Workers of many nationalities succeeded each other in the Tower of Babel that was the Radium Institute. There was always a Pole among them. When Mme Curie could not bestow a university scholarship on one of her compatriots without injustice to some better qualified candidate, she paid the expenses of the young man from Warsaw out of her own money, a generosity of which the young man never knew.”

Finally, you tend to deprecate published sources that stand against your opinions, e.g., the BBC documentary. I believe that Dr Patricia Fara has greater expertise in this field than you. I quoted her sentence as she called Maria a “Polish woman” (besides, the fact that Maria was excited about Henri Becquerel’s research doesn’t contradict Dr Fara’s statement that there wasn’t a lot of competition for it). Eve Curie's book is not the only available source; furthermore, Marie Curie is affected by Eve's personal and emotional attachment to her mother, and thus is not entirely objective and has been criticized for intentionally omitting some aspects of Maria’s life. Still, the book stands against you and shows Maria Skłodowska-Curie as mostly Polish (none of your quotes show strong evidence of French nationalistic sentiments).

To sum up, according to the BBC documentary, Dr Patricia Fara, Eve Curie, Maria’s granddaughter, other biographies by Susan Quinn, Janice Borzendowski, Barbara Goldsmith and even Maria Skłodowska-Curie herself – she was emphatically Polish and felt mostly Polish; that is why she was described in the BBC production as a Polish scientist working and living in France. Your whole point that “she was feeling at least as much French as Polish for most of her life” or “was feeling more French than Polish 30 years later” is not reflected in the sources presented and seems to be original research with insufficient support (“and personal research is bad”, someone said). All the sources stand against you, including Eve Curie's Marie Curie, which you praise. If you want to prove your point, provide a quote from Maria Skłodowska-Curie calling herself a Frenchwoman. Furthermore, provide as many quotes about her Frenchness as there are items of evidence for her Polishness, to counterbalance the arguments that speak for her Polish identity. Otherwise you have no basis for claiming that she felt equally as French as Polish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.185.78 (talk) 22:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Again, the quotes I gave in the beginning were to contradict the assertion that she was never qualified as French in "Madame Curie". Not to start a statistical war.

This being said, not wanting to have to blush from my "80% in first half" previous estimate, I briefly checked that she was mostly qualified as Polish in the first half of the book (in which, for the most part, she do not have French nationality). I did a search on an electronic copy of the book for the term "Polish" (sorry, I did not take the time to search for Pole or other synonyms), and what I found is: 16 times (72%) qualified as Polish, in the first half, 6 times in the second half (28%). Moreover, out of the 6 times she is qualified as Polish in the second half, 3 times are used in reference to her past life in Poland ("as a little Polish girl of sixteen", "Polish birth", "young Polish progressive"). That does leave only 3 occurrences (14%) in the second half of the book where she is qualified as "presently" Polish. There are probably some other occurrences were a synonym of Polish is used, but my point remains that she is much less qualified as Polish when she is past 30 year old that when she is younger.

And again, my point is not that she cannot be qualified by "Polish". My point is that she can perfectly be qualified as "French" as well, and that she probably would not have opposed it. She certainly had nostalgia of Poland, as any immigrant would have, but she still decided to stay in France until her death. The book even describes how, after her husband her father-in-law's death, she has the Curie family grave in Sceaux prepared to have a room for her at her death. So, yes, she intended to live and die in France, even if it was tempting for her to go back to her family in Poland.

"none of your quotes show strong evidence of French nationalistic sentiments" --> here is one, already mentioned: "Marie had only one thought: to serve her second fatherland"

I am not exactly trying to deprecate the BBC documentary. I do prefer books, but the fact is just I did not watch the BBC documentary, so it is difficult for me to address it. As for Dr. Fara, I am sure she is competent, but having myself a PhD in a top university of my country of residence, I know enough not be impressed by title: even a PhD do not have ultimate knowledge. Still, I would have no problem believing she is competent, but it is just that your quote from her about Marie Curie's choice of PhD seem inconsistent with what is described in the book "Madame Curie" (even though Eve Curie usually like to mention all the troubles her parents had to go through). I agree that "Madame Curie" has probably its flaws too, but I would have liked to know upon which source are based Dr Fara's statements.

As for the quote from the communication about the discovery of Polonium, the original is in French, and it does read as, word-for-word, "country of origin".

As for the Comittee for Poland thing, you are misunderstanding my sentences when you accuse me of personal research. When I write "From the elements I have, she might as well have done X", I do not mean I know she has done X. I just mean that there is no evidence of what she was actually doing there. I have seen several editors claim she was an "active member" of the Comittee for Poland. But I can't find so far any sign/description of her activities in this comittee. Indeed, I think "Madame Curie" do not even mention it. (Only some meetings with Polish nationalists during her first months in Paris, that she stop at the request of her father as well as because of her preference for deep studies).Tokidokix (talk) 11:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Since you have access to a computer, please feel free to view the BBC documentary, at your convenience, here: "The Genius of Marie Curie: The Woman Who Lit Up the World"

Could you please provide the context of the Francophile quotation, "Marie had only one thought: to serve her second fatherland". Would it by any chance relate to her World War I service in the mobile x-ray "petites Curies"? If so, she was simply showing her public-spiritedness as a resident of France, and contributing to the defeat of her native country's (Poland's) Austrian and German partitioners. Nihil novi (talk) 21:27, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Your division into 2 parts is weird as the book is naturally divided into three parts. First part describing her life in Poland, 2nd her life in France before Pierre’s death (before and after obtaining French nationality) and 3rd after Pierre’s death. She’s not less qualified as Polish in the third part than in the first, just the opposite, almost twice as much (5 vs. 8). The majority of ‘Polish/Pole’ instances occurs in the second part and refers to her both before and after getting married. Furthermore, all three occurrences of ‘French’ referring to Maria come from the second part, not the third one. Finally, you totally misunderstood the reference to ‘her past life’ in the third part, because they read:

• “Polish birth of which she was proud”
• “she retained the audacity and vehemence of a young Polish "progressive."”
• “like the little girl of sixty years ago […], this professor at the Sorbonne was counting in Polish”

They all mean that she remained Polish and describe her as "presently" Polish, you can’t disqualify them.

As to your quote about her affection for France. The sentence is indeed about her service in the mobile x-ray and is given out of context. The book reads:

“Poland is partly occupied by the Germans. What will be left of it after their passage? I know nothing about my family. [...]The Polish woman forgot that France was only her adoptive country; the mother did not dream of going to join her children; the frail, suffering creature disdained her own ills, and the scientist put off her personal work until better times. Marie had only one thought: to serve her second fatherland.”

In this fragment she is referred to as a ‘Polish woman’ and France is mentioned as ‘only her adoptive country’ but during these difficult times of war she forgot that France is only an adoptive country and decided to help the people in need as she could.

Still, "country of origin" is synonymous to “country of origin”, “original country”, “native country”, “her own country”, “fatherland” and “motherland”, there’s no basis to degrade Poland to the place of birth only.

What exactly is inconsistent? Again, Dr Fara’s quote doesn’t not interfere with ‘Marie Curie’ as the fact that Maria was excited about Henri Becquerel’s research doesn’t contradict Dr Fara’s statement that there wasn’t a lot of competition for it.

If you don’t know what was her involvement in the Committee, please spare us your speculations without any evidences. As to the contacts with Poles, 'Marie Curie' describes her contacts with Polish nationalists, returns to Poland and effort she made to establish Radium Institute in Warsaw etc.

You still haven’t proven that “she was feeling at least as much French as Polish for most of her life” or “was feeling more French than Polish 30 years later”. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.185.78 (talk) 17:10, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

We could argue about what is the best division, but splitting in half seems natural enough to me. The part II span periods of the life of Marie Curie before and after she received French nationality. So this is not a very relevant division for the point I was making. As for the quotes, I will give you that the one about "Polish birth"is debatable, but the other two are clearly intended as references to her youth in Poland. ("young Polish progressive": she is not that young at the time the quote is made, and the book had expanded a lot on her contact with positivism while she was in Warsaw; "as a little Polish girl of sixteen" -> this one is obviously a reference to her youth, and is not the one you answered to, by the way)

Your arguments against the "to serve her second fatherland" quote are thoroughly unconvincing. First, you truncate your quote from the book to concatenate a part of a letter an a subsequent paragraph to make it seems like she would join the army out of worry for her family in Poland. Second, you try to argue she would fight alongside France out of hate of the Poland-occupying German, but then France was an ally of Russia in the war, so that was actually making her fight with the other power controling Poland (and the one she had the most reason to resent). Finally, it is indeed written "to serve her second fatherland", not "to serve her country of residence".

When a country is mentioned as "country of origin", it usually implies there is a different "current country". I do not think you will often find written that USA is the "country of origin" of George W. Bush, for example.

If you want some facts to be mentioned on Wikipedia, it is your duty to establish the sources proving that fact. It is not other people's duty to establish that the fact is false. Again, I do not remember any mention of the Comitee For Free Poland in the 300 pages of "Madame Curie". If she was really active in this comitee, there should be some sources for it, telling us when she was participating into it, and what kind of activity she had.

As for proving whether she was feeling more French of Polish, I already argued above that this could only be a matter of opinion and personal research. Which is why I have argued since the beginning that the important things were the objective facts: she had French nationality, she was living in France, she did all of her notable work in France. That qualify her as "French physicist" in at least 3 different ways (again I am not arguing that the "Polish" part should be removed here, but I argue that it is absurd to remove the "French" part). Tokidokix (talk) 11:00, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I commented on quotes form the last part, "as a little Polish girl of sixteen" is form part II. I wasn’t trying to defend quotes form the second part as there’re so many of them, one less doesn’t make any difference. Still, there’s no quotes describing her as French in the third part and there’re many more quotes referring to her as Polish through the whole book in comparison to only 3 “French” phrases.

I can provide the whole fragment, it doesn’t change anything:

“Poland is partly occupied by the Germans. What will be left of it after their passage? I know nothing about my family.

An extraordinary emptiness had been created all around Marie. Her colleagues and all her laboratory workers had joined their regiments. Only her mechanician, Louis Ragot, who had not been mobilised on account of a weak heart, and a little charwoman about as high as the table, remained with her.

The Polish woman forgot that France was only her adoptive country; the mother did not dream of going to join her children; the frail, suffering creature disdained her own ills, and the scientist put off her personal work until better times. Marie had only one thought: to serve her second fatherland. In the terrible contingency her intuition and initiative revealed themselves once more.”

Am I try to argue? I haven’t mentioned neither Russia, nor Germany, nor fighting for Poland, I’m just quoting the book, which reads that she’s worried about her family in Poland, emptiness had been created around her and during these difficult times of war she forgot that France is only an adoptive country and decided to help the people in need as she could by inventing the mobile x-ray. In this fragment she is referred to as a ‘Polish woman’ and France is mentioned as ‘only her adoptive country’. It’s not a quote about her French nationalistic sentiments but about mobilization during the war.

G. W. Bush... so what? I said that in the book Poland was described as “original country”, “native country”, “her own country”, “fatherland” and “motherland”, all being used synonymously and there’s no point of taking “country of origin” as an evidence supports degradation of Poland to her place of birth only. Even if you go for holidays to a different country you might be asked: “where are you originally form”? Not convincing at all.

Yes, that’s right – “it is your duty to establish the sources proving that fact”, you should take your advice seriously. Just want to remind you that it wasn’t me who was proposing a new fact. I haven’t said that she was an active member of the Committee (by the way, ‘Marie Curie’ doesn’t describe her whole life but selected aspects, this one could have been omitted). I just opposed your suggestion that this could be a form of socializing as you haven’t supported it with evidences. If you want to prove that Committee was a socializing club and she felt “more French” than Polish provide something more than your opinions.

I guess it doesn’t make sense to continue our discussion, as it’s becoming a matter of opinion. You were trying to portray Poland as a country of origin/birth only, I’ve provided counterarguments (supported by all sources presented) that she was emphatically Polish. As you’re not arguing that the "Polish" element should be removed, and I’m not arguing to remove “French” neither, I guess that’s it. I’m totally fine with “Polish, French-naturalized” as it’s the most accurate. “Polish-French” is ok, but in my opinion it’s less descriptive and could be misleading (suggesting mixed descent).

I have already argued the point is the distribution of quotes before/after her becoming French.

"G. W. Bush... so what?..." -> my understanding was that we were discussing the quote from the Polonium discovery paper, which states "country of origin".

"I haven’t mentioned neither Russia, nor Germany, nor fighting for Poland" --> You are right, actually it was Nihil Novi that mentioned Germany.

Again, I have not argued she was socializing at the Comitee for Free Poland. It is just that some authors were claiming her to be "active at the Comittee for Free Poland" as a proof of her nationalism, but I could see no source describing her activity at this Comittee (nor if she was even part of it and at what time of her life).

I certainly agree that this discussion will end up in being a matter of opinion. Which is why I have argued since the beginning that the article should be based on known facts about the life of Marie Curie, not on trying to guess what could have been her state of mind at different time of her life. And if "Madame Curie" describe her as emphatically something, that is as emphatically a scientist ("a super-nerd" in modern vocabulary :-). Tokidokix (talk) 12:12, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Citizenship: Poland - by birth?

It's highly unlikely that she could attain a Polish citizenship at birth as by the time she was born Kingdom of Poland has been already fully integrated into the Russian Empire85.177.169.216 (talk) 13:01, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Restore Ethnicity or Nationality instead, as it was asked before. Don't know why it has been changed to 'citizenship'..? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:630:206:FFFF:0:0:3128:B (talk) 14:14, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Request for comment on Polish, French in first sentence

Regarding Marie Curie's nationality and heritage, should the first sentence say she was:

1. French-Polish;
2. Polish-French;
3. Polish-born French;
4. Polish, working mainly in France;
5. French; or
6. Polish, French-naturalized

Binksternet (talk) 05:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

(EDIT: added "French" option: This is not my preferred version (Polish-born French is more consistent with other articles), but I would argue this is the one that most respect WP:OPENPARA (ie no mention of country of birth or ethnicity, only mentioning the country in the context of which the notable work has been done).Tokidokix (talk) 06:31, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

Also, Binksternet, I would like to express some reserve at your choice of tying the Request For Comment to a survey in a separate section from the main discussion. A survey is not necessarily the best way to conduct a discussion, and I hope editors coming here through the RFC request will also take the time to participate in the discussion above. (But OK, let's keep the survey as a quick way for anyone to state their preference :-)Tokidokix (talk) 08:51, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

I am adding a 6th choice: "Polish, French-naturalized", per the current French Wikipedia formulation. As JonRichfield eloquently remarks, "It summarises the complex situation comprehensively, comprehensibly, compatibly with sensitivities and realities." Nihil novi (talk) 05:05, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Survey

• 2 or 4. She was not French alone because her Polish heritage and culture were important to her, so #3 does not work. She was not French first, so #1 does not work. Binksternet (talk) 05:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

• 6. Four Please see the 2013 BBC documentary biography, "The Genius of Marie Curie: The Woman Who Lit Up the World", which describes her scientific work in Warsaw before she left for Paris. Before she finally agreed to marry Pierre Curie, Maria Skłodowska tried to get a university post at Kraków in the Austrian-ruled sector of Poland. She grasped (and fought for) opportunities abroad, as many of her compatriots, including her older sister pl, have done in recent centuries; her ambitions did not include changing her national identity from Polish. Nihil novi (talk) 06:22, 28 September 2013 (UTC)

It may be worth noting that the French Wikipedia lead describes her as "une physicienne et chimiste polonaise, naturalisée française" — "a Polish, French-naturalized physicist and chemist". This formulation neatly distinguishes between national identity and citizenship, and could offer a valid alternative to other wordings to describe her. Nihil novi (talk) 08:54, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I would not consider the current formulation of the French page as expressing any consensus: it was modified on 13 june 2013, but before that the French version is "Francaise d'origine Polonaise" (roughly equivalent to "Polish-born French". The change was made by an anonymous IP with the comment that it was for consistency with the English version of the article, which was at the time, IIRC, the version you are supporting. This imply that you are making a very circular argumentation. Further this change was not supported by any discussion on the talk page (although there had been long discussion in the past about the "Francaise d'origine Polonaise" version. Anyway, I argue again that this should be a matter of consistency within English-language Wikipedia articles, and "X-naturalized" is hardly used in other articles compared to "X-born Y" or "X-Y".Tokidokix (talk) 11:35, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

The "X-born" formulation is extremely imprecise and is therefore to be deprecated. It can refer equally to an infant taken from his land of birth soon after birth, and to an adult expatriate with a fully formed sense of personal and national identity. Nihil novi (talk) 06:44, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Whether "X-born" should be deprecated can be a subject of discussion on the guideline, but you cannot decide it unilaterally. I think it is in any case the form used in a majority of similar cases on Wikipedia, even when leaving the country of birth at a later age, especially when the person was not notable at the time she left the country (see John von Neumann, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Josephine Baker, Nikola Tesla, ...). In the case of an infant leaving the country of birth, this information would typically not be mentioned in the lead sentence except maybe if it has relevance to the notability. And if you argue "X-born" is imprecise, the same can be said of "X-naturalized", as you will similarly not know if naturalization happened at the end of life or at its beginning. It is probably a matter of interpretation, but in the case of Marie Curie, I would argue "Polish-born French physicist" is clearer as to the fact that all of her Physicist career happened in France. In any case, the lead is not here to describe precisely the whole life of the person (the body do that), but formulation should be consistent across articles, or it decreases the informativeness of the opening paragraph.Tokidokix (talk) 10:22, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

Why are John von Neumann, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Josephine Baker "X-born Y" but Nikola Tesla is "X Y"? If consistency is to be a central criterion, why the inconsistency in these examples? Nihil novi (talk) 14:36, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

And, actually, the Serb Nikola Tesla was born in Croatia and was thus a Croatian-born Serb. Which, by the standards that you apparently propose for Wikipedia, would make him a "Croatian-born Serbian-born American"? Nihil novi (talk) 14:58, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

• 3. "Polish-born French" as the most correct one. "French-Polish" or "Polish-French": acceptable too. Short explanations on each choice follow. "Polish-born French" is my preferred version (had French nationality and was living in France when notable work was done), as I have argued it is the most consistent with most of Wikipedia biographies, and is also the version blessed by Encyclopedia Britannica. "French" alone is I think the most respectful of WP:OPENPARA (do not mention the country of birth or ethnicity, only mention the country in the context of which the notable work has been done), but it is not consistent with many other biographies, not too mention that it would be too controversial with the "pro-Polish" editors to result in a stable version of the article. French-Polish (or Polish-French) is also acceptable (less consistent with guidelines and biography, but potentially more acceptable as a compromise by other editors). "Polish, working mainly in France" is, I think, very bad. It is the opposite of what is prescribed in WP:OPENPARA, is inconsistent with most biographies and is misrepresenting Marie Curie's life (see the long discussion above for details, as well as the biography by Marie Curie's daughter).— Preceding unsigned comment added by Tokidokix (talk • contribs) 06:31, September 28, 2013

actually, her Polish identity is consistent with most biographies including 'Marie Curie' by Eve Curie (see the long discussion above for details).

Well, being one of the main contributor of it, I am certainly aware of this discussion. And I disagree with your statement :-) (but yes, interested -and courageous- people should have a look at it :-) Tokidokix (talk) 12:19, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

• 4 per Nihil novi. --John (talk) 10:12, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
• 2 or 4. Leaning toward 4, but the wording should be "living and working", I think. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:42, 28 September 2013 (UTC)
• 4 makes most sense. Volunteer Marek  18:17, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
• 2 Mainly for the sake of brevity (the order being chronologically better) . The term has no clear meaning and so can be expanded upon in the body of the article. I do not think it is possible to give an accurate description of a ethnically Polish woman, born in Poland, who moved to France, married a Frenchman, and became naturalised French in a few words, so why try? 2 is fine. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
• 2 per Martin Hogbin. She was both Polish and French, being a citizen of both countries. Saying she was "Polish working mainly in France" would give a misleading impression that she did not have French nationality. Neljack (talk) 05:38, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
• 2 looks like being the best description for the complicated life of her. --Stone (talk) 07:41, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

• Comment The list of alternatives is inadequate. None of the options compares with Nihil novis's proposed translation of the French version: "a Polish, French-naturalized physicist and chemist". It summarises the complex situation comprehensively, comprehensibly, compatibly with sensitivities, and realities. It does not in any practical or realistic sense conflict with fancied regulations. I support it without any functional reservation. JonRichfield (talk) 07:26, 6 October 2013 (UTC)
• 3. Although her Polish origins were important, the French should be emphasized more per WP:OPENPARA. 069952497a (U-T-C-E) 13:54, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Correction. Neither should be emphasised. The article should state relevant facts as constructively and helpfully as possible, whether it favours one view (nationalistic or not) or the other, or neither. It is not for us to allocate her nationality or her nationalistic leanings if any. So for example "a Polish, French-naturalized physicist and chemist" states the case comprehensively, clearly and without prejudice. Until someone can come up with anything that says it better, that is the best I have seen so far. What on earth happened to NPOV? JonRichfield (talk) 15:53, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

WP:OPENPARA states that if the subject was notable "mainly for past events, the country where the person was a citizen, national or permanent resident when the person became notable" should be the one in the lead. Marie Curie became notable for her work in France. That is where the emphasis should be. 069952497a (U-T-C-E) 22:50, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

I commend another Wikipedia rule for your consideration: "WP:IAR" ("Wikipedia:Ignore All Rules"). Especially when rules are applied imprecisely, capriciously, or as a substitute for informed thought. Nihil novi (talk) 06:02, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think WP:IAR is meant to be a convenient way to oppose any invocation of a rule in wikipedia. Rules should certainly be used with proper reasoning, and ignoring them in a non-controversial context can probably be good. But rules have usually been established for a reason and ignoring them should require consensus and strong justification.Tokidokix (talk) 10:29, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, but I do not understand why you mention NPOV... More precisely, in which way is "a Polish, French-naturalized physicist" more NPOV than "a Polish-born French Physicist"? "a Polish-born French Physicist" simply states factual things: she was born Polish, and was also French by nationality. There is no implication she stopped speaking Polish after becoming French there. Further, beyond the issue of nationality, she was also a "French physicist" in the sense of doing her career as a Physicist in France. Added to the fact that it follows the "X-born Y" pattern of the biographies of many persons with similar life, I still argue it is more informative.Tokidokix (talk) 10:45, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

It has been discussed before why “Polish-born” is bad. There’s an implication that Poland was for her only a place of birth, it’s similar to “of Polish descent”. "Polish-born French" is unacceptable as it narrows the meaning - she was not only born in Poland but also raised and received her secondary and early higher education, the country where she did her first scientific work, the country where she had family, the country which she supported in its fight for independence, and the country which she never forgot etc. “Polish, French-naturalized” is the most precise. "Polish-French" is less descriptive and could be misleading (might suggest mixed descent).

Again, if Poland was simply a place of birth, there would not even be a mention of it in the lead. "X-born" is used plenty of times throughout Wikipedia for people that grew-up in X. And "X-Y" is used plenty of time for people whose ancestors are not from X or Y. So why would Wikipedia reader misunderstand in this case? (this is what I mean when I say consistency make sentences more informative). And I can make a sentence perfectly identical to yours about France: France is the country where she went to the University, where she worked, where she married, where she created her family, where her descending family still is, for which she fought for in WWI and where she lived from a young adult until her death.Tokidokix (talk) 12:36, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

I do not believe that it is the job of WP to help countries lay claim to famous individuals, even if some sources do that. To do so demeans both WP and the person involved. Famous people are individuals, like everyone else, and cannot be claimed by countries, cultures, religions, or ethnic groups. In the body of the articles we should state the facts, as given by reliable sources. In the lead, I think the briefest of summaries is best. There are no fights we should be fighting. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

So... J. Robert Oppenheimer is no longer to be described in the lead as "an American theoretical physicist and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley"? Nihil novi (talk) 08:41, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

As Oppenheimer was born in the US I would support his being initially described as American, again with the body text giving the full personal details. I am not arguing against the use of national or ethnic descriptions in the lead; I am arguing against unseemly fighting over which country 'owns' a particular individual.

I think it would be useful to develop some policy on how national and ethnic identities are described in the lead, without reference to any specific case. My preference would be for a short, simple, descriptions in chronological order. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

As a matter of fact, there is such a policy in WP:OPENPARA. It states that the country to be mentioned in the lead sentence is the one in which the notable work was done, and that country of origin/ethnicity should be avoided. That would point towards using "French" only. I do not think this guideline has to be strictly followed, but on the other hand using only "Polish" is doing the exact opposite of what the guideline is asking.

In any case, I support your comment that WP should not help countries lay claim to famous individuals.

BTW, I did not understand the exchange on Oppenheimer. He was born, died, and did the Manhattan project in America, no?Tokidokix (talk) 16:23, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

The other "father of the atomic bomb", Enrico Fermi, likewise worked in the United States on the Manhattan Project but appears in the lead only as "an Italian physicist", not as an "Italian-American". Nihil novi (talk) 03:54, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

I think this is a result of supporters of Italy claiming Fermi for their own; exactly the kind of thing that I am objecting to. I have looked at WP:OPENPARA and think that this goes too far in the other direction. To completely ignore a person's birth nationality seems wrong to me also. I think we need a clear and neutral policy on this subject and I intend to take this up on the WP:OPENPARA page. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:41, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

So will Enrico Fermi now be an "Italian-born American physicist", an "Italian-American physicist", an "American-Italian physicist", or an "American physicist"? Nihil novi (talk) 05:27, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

The recommended style will depend on the outcome of the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biographies. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:59, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

I am fine with any guideline as long as it is consistently applied in all articles, I think. In any case, I agree a precise wording is necessary here.Tokidokix (talk) 12:15, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

It should be but probably won't. That is WP for you. Martin Hogbin (talk) 12:20, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Moving material related to the relationship of Marie Curie with Polish culture to a specific section?

It was mentioned in earlier, but I argue that the part of the opening section that states:

"While a French citizen, Marie Skłodowska Curie (she used both surnames)[3][4] never lost her sense of Polish identity. She taught her daughters the Polish language and took them on visits to Poland.[5] She named the first chemical element that she discovered – polonium, which she first isolated in 1898 – after her native country.[a]"

is not in the right place. Opening section should be focused on the facts that makes the person notable. The fact that she would teach her daughters Polish cannot be considered notable. Giving an equal weight to this and to her nobel-prize worthy research seem very unbalanced to me. Not to mention that the account of Marie Curie daughter remove some weight to the importance of this fact: Eve Curie says that despite teaching them Polish, "she deliberately made true Frenchwomen of them". On the other hand I do agree these information are interesting. Would it be considered acceptable by other editors to move this material to a specific section about the relationship of Marie curie with Poland/Polish culture? As a section, it would be visible from the table of content, so it would still be in a very visible place. But it would be better from the point of view of the structure of the article IMO. Also it would be possible to add other details on this topic in this section that can be found in her biographies.Tokidokix (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Martin Hogbin (talk)