User talk:CityElefant

Thank you for your Poland-related contributions

Hello and welcome CityElefant! Thank you for your contributions related to Poland. You may be interested in visiting Portal:Poland/Poland-related Wikipedia notice board, joining our discussions and sharing your creations with our community.

--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Poland

Thank you for your Poland-related encyclopedic contributions! But creating content by yourself is only part of the collaborative Wikipedia user experience, there is an active community of editors discussing how to better improve the Poland-related content; please consider joining our discussions at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Poland. There are many editors who would like to work more closely with you, benefit from your insight, and help you with their experience! PS. Please also consider editing your entry in our participants list to state your areas of expertise/interest.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 19:24, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Articles of interests

You may want to see Lithuanization, ethnographic Lithuania, Lithuania proper, krajowcy, tutejsi and Ethnic minorities in Lithuania (note we are missing an article on the Belorussian minority in Lithuania. PS. You may want to use WP:BABEL to declare known languages in addition to alphabets. It would be useful to know for other editors if you can read sources in Polish, Lithuanian, Belorussian, Russian and so on. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Piotrus, thanks a lot for your comments. I have been observing these articles for a while before I joined Wiki. Maybe I will be able to add something. CityElefant (talk) 16:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I was going to leave a comment on Coat of arms of Lithuania but thought it better to drop a note here. First of all, welcome to WP, I see you have already made Piotrus' acquaintance. Just taking a peek at your edits, I wanted to pass a comment your way. The Baltic and Eastern European editors work together quite well across a broad range of topics. One area of dispute, however, is Lithuanian/Polish relations and history, going all the way back to is it Jogaila or is it Jagiełło? As you would expect, Lithuanian-Polish relations in the 20th century are also a problem area.

   My own background is Latvian, and having a fondness for both the Poles and Lithuanians, I've been able to assist here and there where nationalist accounts have come into conflict. While there are places where editors are pushing POV accounts of history which are patently false and, IMHO, doing so in bad faith, I can say that on even the most contentious Lithuanian-Polish issues, virtually everyone is editing in good faith even while disagreeing (rather stridently at times!) based on reputable--but because of the narrow topic of interest--generally nationalist sources.

   Try to stay away from the swirling black vortices and you can have an enjoyable and productive WP experience! Best regards, PetersV       TALK 21:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Peters, thanx for this message. Firstly, I am not intend to bring any kind of "disorder" to the Polish-Lithuanian relations. To this topic I may say many things and I do know positions of both the parties. Secondly, I do consider that your understanding of Polish-Lithuanian relations in a historical perspective is a bit narrow. In my opinion, you interpret these relations as the relations between ethnic Poles and ethnic Lithuanians and it is a bit wrong perception. In many cases, Belarusians and Ukrainians are thus eliminated from the discource. And what is more important the role of the Slavic component in the GDL as well as the status of the Belarusian language in this entity is underestimated. Thirdly, I am indeed trying to back all my statements with academic sources. Moreover, I have an article to the GDL problematic published in one of German academic journals. And that is why I am convinced that my passages are reasonable. Fourthly, as you may see from my profile I am for the consolidated version of the GDL history. But in my opinion, what we now have is far from the really consolidated version. I do emphasise that the GDL was a multiethnic state and was the cradle not only of the Lithuanian but also the Belarusian statehood (if you need arguments I will provide you with them). We have, let me say, many links to the Lithuanian and Polish sources but their Belarusian and Ukrainian counterparts are virtually underestimated. By this disproportion we could hardly achieve any compromise. Thus, there is no proportion which really proves multiethnicity of the GDL. Moreover, if you read a current version of the article about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, it is just inconsistent as it leaves more questions than provides answers. To be more precise, some of its quotations are just contradictory to each other (compare the beginning and the last parts of the article). Finally, you may be interested in my argumentation regarding the coat of arms of Lithuania and you may find it here [1]. I left some reasonable questions and have not got the answers so far. Anyway, I am open for discussion and I do accept reasonable critic. Paldies! CityElefant (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

If I may ask - feel free to ignore this question - are you from Poland, Belarus or Lithuania? PS. You may want to do this. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 22:17, 7 April 2009 (UTC)