Category talk:Murdered royalty of Kievan Rus'

Scope

Hello @Mellk: I understand that you find the 1300 demarcation "arbitrary" (and here as well). To an extent, that is true. But this has been a pragmatic boundary between "Kievan Rus'" and "Russia" category trees on English Wikipedia for some time. I did not come up with it. On the one hand, it is based on the scholarly consensus that the Siege of Kiev (1240) represents the end of Kievan Rus'. On the other, on the fact that we categorise many people and things by century, and so we included the entire 13th century for pragmatic reasons, also because many people born before 1240 died after 1240. See for example:

• Marcocapelle created Category:13th-century people from Kievan Rus' in 2017.
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 April 12#Rus' people by century

On the other hand, there seems to be a consensus to have "Russia" and "Russian" categories start from the 14th century.

• Category:13th-century princes from Kievan Rus' and Category:14th-century Russian princes allow for easy navigation between them. Some people are included in both, such as Daniel of Moscow and Andrey of Gorodets, as they lived in both centuries.
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 12#Category:14th-century Russian princes appears to have confirmed that that category should be maintained as it is.

Long story short, taking the year 1300 as our boundary between "Kievan Rus'" and "Russia" is not ideal, but I think it is acceptable, given the technical limitations of century-based categorisation. Are you ready to accept it as well? Feel free to propose an alternative solution if you can think of any. I'm always open to what you have to say. Good day, NLeeuw (talk) 21:12, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

I understand this would make sense for the people by century categories, but is it also necessary to specify a specific date for these categories as well? For example I would rather have separate Ruthenian categories rather than including them under Kievan Rus up to 1300, long after it was destroyed, if you get what I mean? If you wish to revert then feel free. Thanks. Mellk (talk) 16:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

That is a good question, and one I actually asked almost a year ago at Talk:Ruthenian nobility#Scope. From the articles I gathered that "Ruthenian nobility" emerged no earlier than the 14th century. And so, I boldly updated the catdesc of Category:Ruthenian nobility with This category is for Ruthenian nobility, who emerged in the 14th century when most of the lands of modern Ukraine were incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. For princesses of Kievan Rus' before 1240, see Category:Princesses from Kievan Rus'. We could refine that a little better if you like. E.g. it would probably be correct to include Belarus in that description as well, and perhaps rephrase it as 'of the 13th century and earlier' instead of strictly 'before 1240'. That way, the boundary is vaguely set at 1300 for practical, pragmatic purposes, not because something big happened in exactly that year. Between the end of Kievan Rus' in 1240 and the emergence of the modern 3 states, there was a long period in between where we can't really identify any political entities that encompassed the entire territory in a simple way for us to categorise around. But the convention to take 1300 as the split between "Rus'" (before 1300), "Ruthenian" (after 1300 in the west) and "Russian" (after 1300 in the east) seems like an acceptable solution purely for categorisation purposes. NLeeuw (talk) 21:14, 1 May 2024 (UTC)