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Nationality of Roger Joseph Boscovich: Italian or Croatian? References.

Croatian

There are more then hundreds scientific articles that are explicitly claiming a Croatian origin of Roger Boscovich. I choose some of them, randomly:

1. JJ Haldane. Heythrop, Copleston and the Jesuit contribution to philosophy, Philosophy, vol 91 , no.4, pp.559-589 (2016):

"This work was known to the Croatian Jesuit mathematician, astronomer and physicist Roger Boscovich SJ (1711-1787) who was also Jesuit educated, at Collegium Regusinum in Dubrovnik."

2. David K. Nartonis. Locke‐Stewart‐Mill: Philosophy of science at Dartmouth College, 1771‐1854, International Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Volume 15 - Issue 2 (2001):

" In 1792, Stewart welcomed the atomic theory of 18th-century Croatian Jesuit, Roger Boscovich, because it seemed to show that material contact was not involved in the collision of two objects."

3. Karis Müller. Physics and the Deity: the ideas of R Boscovich and J Priestley, Enlightenment and Dissent 12:49-62 (1993):

"There has been some discussion on the extent of the influence of R J Boscovich's physics on the Christian materialism of Joseph Priestley.1 Both the Unitarian minister and the Croatian Jesuit were concerned to repudiate the classical particle physics associated with Descartes:"

4. Richard C. Sha. John Keats and Some Versions of Materiality, Romanticism, Volume 20 Issue 3, Page 233-245 (Oct 2014):

"Moreover, the eighteenth-century Croatian Jesuit priest and mathematician Roger Boscovich thus conceives of matter as centers of forces instead of hard corpuscles (Yolton, 110)."

5. M. Stanojević. Proof of the Hero’s formula according to R. Boscovich, Mathematical Communications 2, 83-88(1997):

"With this lecture we would like to draw attention to a significant contribution of a Croatian scientist (mathematician, physicist, astronomer and philosopher) Roger Joseph Boscovich (Rud¯er Josip Boˇskovi´c) (1711-1787) in natural sciences specially mathematics."

6. Maria Petz-Grabenauer's "Wissenschaftsbegriff und Botanik zur Zeit des Roger Boscovich" in Helmuth Grössing and Hans Ullmaier "Ruđer Bošković (Boscovich) und sein Modell der Materie" (Wien, 2008):

"Der erste ernsthafte Versuch einer allumfassenden Theorie der Mikrostruktur der Materie und ihrer Eigenschaften stammt von dem 1711 in Ragusa/Dubrovnik geborenen Jesuiten und Universalgelehrten Ruđer Josip Bošković/Boscovich, den Werner Heisenberg „der kroatische Leibniz“ nannte."

7. M.S. Altic. Exploring Along the Rome Meridian: Roger Boscovich and the First Modern Map of the Papal States, History of Cartography (International symposium of the KA), pp 71-89 (2012):

Roger Boscovich (1711-1787) was one of the most prominent Croatian scientists of the 18th century. In his diverse scientific work he tried his skills in cartography as well, creating the first map of the Papal States based on modern geodetic surveying principles.

8. J. C. S. Neves. Nietzsche for physicists, arXiv:1611.08193 [physics.hist-ph]:

The Croatian thinker Roger Boscovich (physicist, mathematician, philosopher,etc.) was a decisive reference on Nietzsche’s philosophy.

9. Stephen Portnoy and Roger Koenker. The Gaussian hare and the Laplacian tortoise: computability of squared-error versus absolute-error estimators, Statistical Science, Volume 12, Number 4, 279-300 (1997):

" In 1760, the Croatian Jesuit Roger Boscovich, while on a visit to London, posed the following problem to Thomas Simpson:"

10. E. T. H. Teague, R. W. Argyle. Simple Techniques of Measurement, Chapter in Observing and Measuring Visual Double Stars (2012):

"The Ring Micrometer. Invented by the Croatian Jesuit astronomer Roger Boscovich (1711–1787), this is an elegant method of measuring differences in right ascension and declination."

11. Richard A. Davis and Rongning Wu. LAD Estimation with Applications in Time Series Analysis, Encyclopedia of Environmetrics. 3. (2013):

"Stemming from a proposal of Croatian mathematician Roger Boscovich in 1760, the use of LAD dates back to as early as [1]."

12. MACDONNELL, Joseph. Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu, 45: 139-148 (Jan 1, 1976):

"Streets in Milan, Rome, and Dubrovnik are named after a Croatian Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich (1711-1787). He taught in Pavia and Rome until the suppression of the Jesuits and then became the director of marine optics for the French Navy."

13. G. Grau. Presidental adress, Geophysical Prospecting, Volume 25, Issue 3, Pages 405–414 (September 1977):

"in line with ideas held by Roger Boscovich. This great Croat scientist (in Croat Ruder Josip BoSkoviC) had expressed as early as 1755"


14. Maurice Whitehead. From Expulsion to Restoration: The Jesuits in Crisis, 1759–1814, Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 103, No. 412, THE JESUITS IN IRELAND: Before and After the Suppression, pp. 447-461 (Winter 2014/15):

"To take but one example, the 1750s witnessed the work of two distinguished Jesuit scientists, one English, Christopher Maire (1697-1767), and one Croatian, Roger Boscovich (1711- 87), who, together, surveyed the meridian between Rome and Rimini."

15. etc.

Interesting fact: Esplanade Roger Joseph Boscovich in Paris, claiming that Boscovich was a Croat.

Italian

There are some articles that are suggesting Italian origin of Boscovich, but most of them are written on Italian and published in Italian journals. There are dozens of international published articles claiming both Italian and Croatian origin of Boscovich. For example:

Richard William FAREBROTHER and Caroline ELLIOTT. Name index to Elizabeth Hill’s Biographical Essay on Roger Boscovich, Electronic Journal for History of Probability and Statistics, Vol. 3, n.2 (2007) & R. W. Farebrother. Rogerius Josephus Boscovich, Chapter Statisticians of the Centuriesm pp 82-85.


Rogerius Josephus Boscovich (Italian: Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich; Croatian: Rugjer (or Rudjer) Josip Boˇskovi´c) was born in Ragusa (now Dubrovnik, Croatia), on 18 May 1711, the sixth son of a merchant’s agent.

Serbian

There are no any serious references to claim that Boskovich was a Serb. Unless you count nationalistic paper The 100 most prominent Serbs by SANU, which only claim that Boskovich was Serb (among all other non-Serbs from list), but do not provide any proof for such claim:

"Thus the issue of objectivity also arose, especially regarding the personalities such as Ruđer Bošković, Ivan Gundulić, Ivo Andrić and Meša Selimović, for which there is no general consensus of ethnic affiliation within the Serbian ethnic corpus."

Conclusion: Why in the world would anyone try to "sell" pseudohistorical claims here? You have strict scientific references and majority of relevant scientific community agrees that Boskovich was Croatian Jezuit, sometimes claimed by Italians (fair enough, he spent his all (almost) life in Italy) and even sometimes claimed by French. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Everett57 (talk • contribs) 18:57, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

Why was the option "Serbian" excluded from the section title when there are plenty of sources for it?

Well, mister everet makes his own conclusions instead of leaving that for others to do. Let see, he claims "There are no any serious references to claim that Boskovich was a Serb.". Here are some:
This one is different with a interesting approach:
Some other sources claiming he is Italian still give preference to Serbian origin over any other. Exemple:
  • Beyond Beta by Samuel Kotz and Johan René Van Dorp, at page 2 says: "...on the correspondence with Roger Boscovich (1711–1787) a famous Italian astronomer and statistician of Serbian origin."
Then there are sources optin for neutral approaches leaving direct nationality labeling for Boscovich aside, such as this exemple:
  • The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy by Simon Blackburn, at page 60 says: "Boscovich, Roger Joseph (1711–87) Jesuit mathematician and scientist. Born in Dubrovnik of Serbian and Italian parents, Rudjer Josip Bošković was educated at Rome..."
Interesting that most, if not all, dont even mention Croatia or Croats.
Will continue adding sources to demonstrate user Everett57 conclusions are done in a way to convince others about his POV and not actually the trouth. FkpCascais (talk) 19:06, 11 January 2017 (UTC)


My dear friend, first, thank you for your comment :) Second, have you read any of these references that you have shared? None of these is historical scientific article that is dealing explicitly with origin of Boscovich. Information about Boscovich's Serb father is based on false (this is proven to be false, and I have given you an reference!) claim made by Serbian philosopher Petronijevic (which is in one of your references!). He was supposed to write introduction in Latin-English translation of Boscovich's Theory of Natural Philosophy (1922). He used that opportunity to state that Boscovich's father was a Serb from Orahov Dol. Croatian scientist checked archives from Orahov Dol and found that Orahov Dol was completely catholic village (according from archives from 1624., 1733., 1871., 1879; in 1776. there was only one non-Catholic family, and they were Muslims), with none of Serbs, whatsoever. Anyone can request access to these archives and check it. Of course, this false information about "Serb father" is little bit spread among academics, but it is still false and still minor.
This is reason why contemporary historians of science never mention any Serbian origins. They are speaking about Italian and Croatian origins. You should investigate this topic a little bit better! It is truly interesting topic.
Fun fact: Belgrade's Jugomarka published stamp with Boscovich's picture, celebrating 200th birthday of Boscovich, with sentence: "Greatest Croatian scientist ever". I think we should implement this information also :)
Also, I would like to kindly ask you to stop deleting referenced information about Boscovich's "nickname" and referenced claims about truthfulness of SANU's claims. I do not see any reasonable explanation od doing this (national pride is not one of them :)). Also, you are trying to input Boscovich's name in Serbian Cyrillic. Why in the world would you do that? Please, explain to us because he never used that alphabet in his life.
If you have doubts about nationality of Boscovich, we can debate it and it is good thing that we have constructive discussion! We are all fine to state "Ragusian scientist" since there are some serious disputes between Italian's and Croatian's claims.
Best regards,
--Everett57 (talk) 00:20, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I would like to know the conclusion of Kutleša (2012) regarding Boscovich's ancestry. The Serbian sources, which theorize/elaborate on this issue (and not unreliable entries in black-and-white), were indeed removed from the article. Note that Everett57 is a sock.--Zoupan 00:58, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Then you should read an article :) Conclusions and analysis. I do not know what is a "sock", but I can tell that it is not something good. --Everett57 (talk) 01:29, 12 January 2017 (UTC)


Everett57 says: "None of these is historical scientific article that is dealing explicitly with origin of Boscovich." One would assume that he himself provided only historical scientific articles in his own list of text which list Boskovic as Croatian and Italian. A casual glance at his list shows this not to be a case. So, why is Everett57 asking from others what he himself is unable to provide?? 87.116.181.213 (talk) 17:04, 13 March 2017 (UTC)

Categories

Hebel, on 1 August you removed several categories, and summarized that they "depict contradictory notions about his nationality, see talkpage", but did not point to any discussion, and ignored that fact that many if not all pre-19th century worldwide personalities have national/ethnic category.--Crovata (talk) 12:13, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Boscovich nationality

The entire section seems like a pissing contest among Balkanites eager to prove that Boscovich achieved what he achieved solely because he had Croatian/Serbian/Italian blood in his veins. I doubt that the book-length biographies of Boscovich give a single paragraph to the "debate" on Boscovich's nationality. The entire debate is comprised of a century-old paper by Varićak (that deals with the issue only tangentially), Tadić's comment and a response by some Croatian academicians, and two papers mentioned at [[Nikola Bošković]] (Atlagić, Šćepanović) which don't even deal with Boscovich. It's a major WP:SYNTH, WP:UNDUE and a major abuse of primary sources - all of the parts that describe what languages Boscovich corresponded in, what did he say on the street, what was his mother's and father's ancestry and so on - all of which leave it up to the reader to conclude the "truth". The only thing that matters are secondary sources - who categorizes Boscovich as Croatian/Italian/Serbian and that's it. I suggest that the entire section be reduced to 1-2 sentence for each side of the argument, incorporated into the main article and not as a section on its own, and all of those "evidences" removed. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 10:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

I find it funny since you seem to have started this "pissing contest" in the first place, opening a large can of worms. That section, as far as I can see, was added just because of these ridiculous arguments and was kept in it's present state since at least I arrived on Wikipedia which was some 2.5 years ago...and was probably part of the article long before that as well. I suggest the entire section is either removed completely or left as it is, not molded into what you want it to be, you obviously don't have a consensus for that. Shokatz (talk) 11:05, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
I opened the discussion on a POV that was missing (Serbian side). You are abusing the "you don't have the consensus argument" and don't seem to constructively want to solve this issue at all. If necessary, I will just proceed with suggested changes and if Croatian editors completely ignore the discussion and revert under the "no consensus", I'll report them. How about that? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:16, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Funny, would you so openly accept the claims that Tesla was of partial Croat origin and therefore a Croat? Of course you wouldn't. Not without trusted proof. There are actually claims to this. Thing is, unless they are proven credible in official documents, they are not accepted. Please leave your nationalism at the door when entering Wikipedia talk pages. Thank you.

108.27.252.190 (talk) 01:32, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

No "my friend" it is you who is abusing the policies, especially WP:CON and WP:CIVIL. Several users (including me) have clearly expressed their opposition to your edits here. Serbian POV is already present in the article, but you have decided to go further and remove content and sources without any discussion. Also completely disregarding previous discussion regarding certain claim and removing tags. Now the only reason why I haven't already reported you to WP:ARBMAC for several issues including Canvassing and invicility is that I strongly believe you are a sockpuppet of PaxEquilibrium and I am waiting a decision on that matter. If you proceed to edit this article without discussion and the resolution with other users here then you will be reverted and reported yourself. Shokatz (talk) 11:33, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Is there anything constructive you want to add for my suggestion above, other than your standard threats of "abuse"? --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:45, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
I have already made my suggestion, either the section completely goes or it stays as it is. Anything in between is a open invitation to a complete escalation. My other constructive suggestions would also be that before you start introducing changes and removing content you actually seek consensus and that you stop edit warring. Shokatz (talk) 18:50, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
So you agree that the debate is non-notable and the section should be removed? Whether absence or presence of something is an "invitation to escalation" doesn't really matter. Either it's relevant and it stays, or it isn't or and it goes away. So far I cannot see any evidence of notability/relevance, except for editors themselves doing creative synthesis of tidbits from various sources. No papers, book chapters etc. dealing with the so-called dispute. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 19:30, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
The sole purpose of that part of the article is blood cell counting because his true ethnicity is disputed by some Serbian nationalists and probably some Italian ones. I'll make a parallel with the Nikola Tesla article, his ethnicity is also disputed by Croatian nationalists, yet I don't see them represented in the article solely because someone claims he is a Croat, it clearly states that he was a Serbian-American inventor and stresses out his Serbian identity. Also, the language mentioned there is Serbian, not Serbo-Croatian, yet in this article someone is trying to push the Serbo-Croatian one despite it didn't even exist as a term during the life of Boscovich. But OK, Nikola Tesla's article is well protected and someone who could try to play with those parts would probably be blocked soon. So if there should be a section about the ethnicity of Boscovich, then you can't just delete one of the primary source for the Croatian claim, i.e. his calling the encountered soldiers "our Croats" (the original in Vladimir Varićak, Ulomak Boškovićeve korespondencije, p. 377). That is way more important than some secondary source nationalist nutheads from the 90's and then try to present the dispute as an equal Croatian vs Italian vs Serbian one where everyone has strong arguments for their claim. Primary sources always outweigh secondary ones, anyone can write anything in a book. Tzowu (talk) 14:08, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
But who disputes it: Wiki editors or some scholarly figures? This dispute is way overblown in importance and sources are obscure figures that are not even historians (geographer, mathematician, Serbian president) - all of which deal with the issue indirectly. The problem is in your heads because you imagine it to be important, when it's really not. Where are Boscovich's biographies in this? Nowhere, it's not even the issue for them. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 16:38, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Well you added sources that claim he was a Serb and most of the discussions that relate to Boscovich are about his nationality/ethnicity, just look at this talk page and edit history. The same goes for Nikola Tesla, but his article is protected. So if the article about Tesla doesn't have any info resembling his ethnic origins from various perspectives (which is more than fine by me), why should this one? If others agree that "Competing claims for Bošković's nationality" section could be removed and some of its contents incorporated into the rest of the article, but without any fringe theories. Tzowu (talk) 23:23, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
But wait a sec. I don´t see much parallel with Tesla here. Tesla is cleraly a Serb born in what is today Croatia (back then Military Krajina). His family was setled there just as many other Serbian families were. I don´t see much dispute there, from what I know both of his parents were Serbs. Boskovic is kind of different, he was Ragusan, born in a period when nationality per se was not an important issue. I know well the Dubrovnik area, I used to have a house there. I know many people there, and also how many, specially elders, feel kind of a kind within Croats. Certainly it was the closeness about Catholic religion that was decisive that later, after the end of Ragusa, many declared Croats, but there was a period when it was uncertain if the Dubrovnik region will become part of Croatian or Serbian sphere. Later during royal Yugoslavia the region was even part of the Zeta banovina. It is a fact that many people there (even more in the past) had origins from Herzegovina (which could be Croats or Serbs) or Montenegro. I know I risk being attacked for what I am gong to say, but I think that Boskovic is neither a Croat or Serb, but Ragusan, however as that is no longer used, now the modern-day existing nationalities make claims on him. FkpCascais (talk) 01:44, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
@Tzowu: - I've added a source for a Serbian POV because it was missing, it had [citation needed] tag. And I suggest that you reread my suggestion, because I am suggesting that the whole section be removed and/or significantly reduced because it's 1) way overblown in importance 2) it's mostly a synthesis of cherry-picked sources that only tangentially deal with the topic of Boscovich's ethnicity 3) it has turned into a "pissing contest" among Italian/Serbian/Croatian editors who try to "prove" that Boscovich was more Italian/Serbian/Croatian than something else. And they do that by quoting his statements, describing the ancestry of his parents, or the languages he wrote in - none of which are secondary sources, and which leave the reader confounded what exactly is the general position on Boscovich's nationality. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:32, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
@FkpCascais: Tesla was actually a citizen of Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia as you can see by his passport yet the article doesn't mention this at all and refers that he was born in "modern-day" Croatia, suggesting that somehow that wasn't Croatia back then either. So it's a good example. Now while the Tesla article takes into consideration his own personal views and how he expressed himself (as a Serb) we should now somehow disregard the same thing that was done by Boscovich himself who also in his private correspondence identified himself as a Croat. That would be a rather weird criteria. Shokatz (talk) 11:23, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
-It depends on what you mean by "clearly". If we are to be precise, Tesla was born in a section of the Military Frontier called Croatian Military Frontier and there are very few (if none, some may even say "doubtful" for all of them) sources in which he himself describes his nationality or ethnicity. It obviously didn't really matter for him either. If I were to be evil I could list a few dozen links from google books calling him a Croat, say that he visited Zagreb more times than Belgrade, say that none of his parents ever said that they were Serbs and point out to cca 99% of sources from the 16th, 17th or 18th century dealing with the settling of Serbs in Croatia which in fact never called them Serbs, but usually Vlachs. Yes, that was a term used mostly to describe all "immigrants", usually of Orthodox faith, and doesn't necessarily mean anything regarding their ethnicity. However, since there are so many misinterpretations and usage of foreign (Austrian, Hungarian, English) works mostly from the 19th century which often mixed Serbs with Croats and vice versa, I'll use that as an example. But if I didn't say that Tesla is despite that surely a Serb and add that to the Talk section of his article then I'd end up with several users citing more than a few dozen sources which call him a Serb to counter me and there would be no "nationality is irrelevant" story. So Tesla is a great parallel, especially because he lived in a later time and there is so much more information about him than Boscovich, yet the nationality/ethnicity sources (primary ones) are almost equally scarce. Even a memorial plaque on his former house lists him as a Yugoslav-American scientist: [1]. As for Dubrovnik, there was no period when it was uncertain which sphere would its citizens end up in. A few Catholics who declared themselves as Serbs in the late 19th century were a vast minority, just like for example the Croatian Muslims in Bosnia, whose numbers were in fact much larger than of the previously mentioned. I'm also not sure what does Zeta Banovina have to do with this, the subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were not made according to the ethnic composition of its population. Anyway, Dubrovnik had quite a celebration in 1925 regarding the 1000th anniversary of the Kingdom of Croatia, and that was before the establishment of the Zeta Banovina. As for Boscovich, since his nationality is not important and no one ever talks about it, his father is from Orahov Do, which before the emmigration to larger towns reduced its population, in for example 1961 had 98,26% (283 out of 288) Croats. His father moved to Dubrovnik later, his mother was Italian, and Boscovich called Croats "our"/"my" in his letters and also (maybe) said that "he can in some way be called Italian" since he lived in Italy for a while. I don't see any background in the "Serbian" claim except the ultranationalist view that all South Slavs (except Bulgarians and Slovenians) are Serbs. He may have never even written the word Serb or Serbia, which can be concluded by looking through his preserved letters. This is where one more parallel to Tesla shows up, people who claim Tesla was a Croat (that thesis is on Croatian wikipedia too) also stress out his origins and don't use some letters or anything similar where he called himself a Croat (since there aren't any).
@Ivan Štambuk, I know that you proposed those changes, but I'm not sure that we are thinking about the same thing by incorporation into the rest of the article. If we are to just count the secondary sources dealing with his nationality then we know whose "side" would be "victorious".Tzowu (talk) 21:58, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

serb catholic movement in dubrovnik (ragusa) was nothing else than ideology pursued from several ragusans who were against Khuen in 19th century. I'd like to know since when is BAN serbian lastname? e.g. one of those who considered themselves "catholic serbs" had pure croatian lastname based on croatian title BAN. most of them croatian origin, just like all different travellers described them. only few of them shown croatian identity, yes, but it wasn't that important back then because they had their own independence so serbs are taking advantage of anyone who didn't identified themselves in any way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.239.19.94 (talk) 13:29, 21 June 2015 (UTC)

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