Talk:Odessa Bolshevik uprising

Requested move 27 September 2022

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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result:
Not moved. See below strong opposition to this title spelling change. Thanks and kudos to editors for your input; everyone stay healthy! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^put'r there 06:12, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

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Odessa Bolshevik uprising → Odesa Bolshevik uprising – For WP:consistency with the spelling of the main article Odesa.

I previously renamed this article without discussion, but it was reverted by @Dunutubble with the edit summary “It was called Odessa in English at the time, Odesa should be used for post-independence events.”[1][2] But I dispute this logic, because our WP:TITLE guidelines are based on current usage, as exemplified by WP:namechanges. (For example, historickal founts of knowledge on ye Wars of ye Roſes may welle have used other spellinges – but that should not determine Wikipedia’s style in Wars of the Roses.)

The spelling Odesa is currently used in historical subjects dealing with the period of this subject, 1918. Remember that the city has never been renamed. Both spellings have been in use historically (see wikt:Citations:Odessa), but Odesa has recently become the most commonly, and as a result the consensus Wikipedia spelling per talk:Odesa#Requested move 11 July 2022.

The current full article title cannot be considered the WP:COMMONNAME of this event, as it is only mentioned twice in the entire easily searchable corpus, with any spelling: 2, 0 in G Books, 0, 0 in G Scholar.

The authoritative cataloguing source Library of Congress uses the spelling for the city in its subject headings, including to catalogue historical sources with Odesa (Ukraine)—History.

Important subject-specific sources include the following (search inside for “Odesa”):

• Bohdan Kravtsiv and Volodymyr Kubijovyč (2012), “Odesa,” Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine, Edmonton, AB: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
  Quote: “In January 1918 Bolshevized units from the Romanian front took Odesa and were joined by Mikhail Muravev’s detachments.”
• Zenon Kohut et al. (2013), Historical Dictionary of Ukraine, Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
• Serhy Yekelchyk (2007), Ukraine: Birth of a Modern Nation, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
• Andrew Wilson (historian) (2015), The Ukrainians: Unexpected Nation, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
• Serhii Plokhy (2017), The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, New York: Basic Books.

Other examples: 1975, 1998, 2002, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2017, 2021, 2022.

The only web-accessible source cited in the article uses the spelling Odesa.[3]

—Michael Z. 18:30, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

• Support per well-reasoned and strongly-researched nomination. This is not a Königsberg / Kaliningrad or Breslau / Wrocław renaming occasioned by transfer of national administration, but merely a transliteration adjustment. —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 00:19, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
• I am not convinced by the arguments. The five sources, with the exception of Wilson, are all written by Ukrainians, and we know that in Ukraine is socially not acceptable to use Odessa as a spelling. I am pretty sure there is a lot of historical literature using Odessa which the nominator does not mention. We need a more detailed analysis, stating how it is spelled in independent academic literature.--Ymblanter (talk) 09:41, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  @Ymblanter, that is offensive. An uninvolved admin should just remove it, because this article is covered by WP:discretionary sanctions. —Michael Z. 16:42, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  Ok, ask an uninvolved admin. Ymblanter (talk) 16:47, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  Note for example that Odessa Stories by Isaak Babel, which refer to the same period, have been translated six times to English, and the spelling is invariably Odessa. Ymblanter (talk) 10:44, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  I thought you were against Ukrainian authors. —Michael Z. 16:45, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  THIS is offensive and a personal attack. Ymblanter (talk) 16:46, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  I don’t even know what you mean on either count. —Michael Z. 21:07, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

  Babel’s fiction anthology is not the subject and title we’re discussing. But this is interesting:

  “The next day, laborers, dockworkers, and other rioters spilled into the seedy Moldavanka district that the water Isaac Babel would make famous in his Odesa Stories.”  —Jeffrey Veidlinger (2021), In the Midst of Civilized Europe: The Pogroms of 1918–1921 and the Onset of the Holocaust, New York: Metropolitan Books.

   —Michael Z. 16:58, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

The city was only 9-17% Ukrainian at the time. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 17:00, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

So? —Michael Z. 20:51, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Out of curiosity- what differentiates this from the Persia/Iran controversy? Because articles before 1935 in the country (such as 1909 Persian legislative election) refer to Iran as "Persia." And I don't see a reason to not follow the pattern here. Dunutubble (talk) (Contributions) 14:55, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

I don’t know what controversy you refer to, but those are different names with different meanings (I think Persian, at least, is an ethnic and linguistic designator), and there was an official name change. Odesa and Odessa are two English spellings of the same name that never changed, but one is derived from the colonizers’ language. —Michael Z. 22:00, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Move to Odessa uprising. That seems to be the WP:COMMONNAME in google books (21st century results only [4]). I got no results with "Odesa" spelling or for the current title. Vpab15 (talk) 15:10, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose. Duntubble is right, the town was called "Odessa" in English sources at the time it happened, and per Vpab15's evidence is mainly spelled that way. I'm not sure if we should use plan "Odessa uprising" though, because that could be confused with either the strikes during the 1905 Russian Revolution or events during the 2014 Maidan uprising... Probably best to leave as is, as the long-term title.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:50, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose A restricted search on Google Scholar showing results written before 2000 for the various terms "Odessa uprising", "Odessa Bolshevik uprising", and "Odesa uprising" shows that "Odessa uprising" was the most used term, and "Odesa uprising" was the least used term. However, "Odessa uprising" had articles about the 1905 Russian Revolution. There is an one-fold increase in the number of articles returned on "Odessa uprising" if there's no date range restrictions. However, it contains articles about the 2014 Maidan uprising as well. "Odessa Bolshevik uprising" returns more relevant articles about this event. A search on "Odesa Bolshevik uprising" returns articles with the double s spelling. – robertsky (talk) 03:05, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.