Talk:Lithuanization

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An entry from Lithuanization appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on March 1, 2007.

Contents 1 Please expand on following points 2 Bad ref 3 Lithuanization of Ruthenia? 4 Title

[edit] Please expand on following points

Renata removed some points that I agree where poorly referenced:

• forced - we need to describe clearly and with proper references if Lithuanization was indeed forced
• Most Polish schools, social institutions and political societies were closed, and the local Poles were forced to declare Lithuanian as their nationality. This was referenced with three Polish sources, no pages given. Please provide page numbers, quotes and translations to back up this serious claim.

In my spare time I will look for some additional sources to expand this article, but please, let's stick to WP:V and WP:RS as much as we can.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

• • Re forced: yes, indeed, please provide serious sources for "forced."
  • Re closed schools: schools closed themselves because they had too few students. (because only Polish/German sudents were allowed to attend minority schools). Statistics is in the article.
    • That seems plausible, but it would be interesting to see what Polish sources have to say on this (if anything at all).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • On a sidenote, that reminds me of the conce discussed case of losed Orthodox Churches in interwar Poland (almost all were closed because nobody was attending them).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Re political societies: quite possible (due to political situation). Need details though.
  • Re other societies: details please. I have sources that say there were quite a few Polish societies in 1938 (including Podcholia)
    • Pochodnia, you mean?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Re forced to declare nationality: the only census was carried out in 1923 and it showed 65k Poles (and that's not including Vilnius region) - very balanced number.
  • General comment: Lithuanization is not a wide spread term: 4 irrelevant hits on JSTOR, 2 on EbscoHost, 13 in Gbooks, and a few in Google. More I am thining about it, more I am convinced it should be renamed to "Minorities in Lithuania" or something similar. No sources show that there was a deliberate and enforced policy of turning all non-Lithuanians into Lithuanians. Renata 19:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
    • A few more via Google scholar. The topic discussed is different enough from minorities in Lithuania (an article worth creating, certainly) to merit it's own article, I believe (or otherwize, a section in another article that would be split-off - and this is not a stub, so it belongs here anyway).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:18, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah sure, if google scholar suggests Did you mean: Euthanization instead of Lithuanisation there would be another proof of Polish culture superiority. Bugaga:) Not to mention such great inglish idioms like is, to myknowledge. Exceptionaly reliable sources I'd say. Truly worth a google generation bureaucrat to be found by. --Lokyz 23:26, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bad ref

• It was also around that time that the newly-established Lithuanian state started aiming at cultural and linguistic assimilation of other large groups of non-Lithuanian citizens, mainly the Poles and Germans. (English) various authors (1994). in James Stuart Olson: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary of the Russian and Soviet Empires. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 258. ISBN 0313274975. 

That is not a valid reference. If you go to that book and that page you will see the following:

The only difficulty expereinced by germans during the interwar period was an attempt at lithuanization of Memelland from 1923 until the mid-1930's.

There is nothing else there about Lithuania. And the sentence above does not support such a vast and strong conclusion as presented in the article. Renata 19:44, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, this needs to be rephrased or expand with other refs, as it is, this is a ref to show that Germans were subject to Lithunization too, nothing more, and nothing less.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:20, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lithuanization of Ruthenia?

Wow! Sorry, but it is a bunch of counterfactual nonsense. It was Lithuania itself that was Ruthenized following the conquest of Rus' by Gediminids.

"Within the [Lithuanian] Grand Duchy, the Ruthenian lands initially retained considerable autonomy. The pagan Lithuanians themselves were increasingly converting to Orthodoxy and assimilating into Ruthenian culture. The grand duchy's administrative practices and legal system drew heavily on Slavic customs, and Ruthenian became the official state language. Direct Polish rule in Ukraine since the 1340s and for two centuries thereafter was limited to Galicia. There, changes in such areas as administration, law, and land tenure proceeded more rapidly than in Ukrainian territories under Lithuania. However, Lithuania itself was soon drawn into the orbit of Poland.";;

Source: Ukraine article in the latest Encyclopædia Britannica. Please correct the article's speculations. --Irpen 06:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Partly done by rewriting the first para of section one. But there is nothing I could do with this stuff in the intro but removing it since it is just NOT Lithuanization. --Irpen 06:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

This seems to fit with some of what I have read. Hmmm, Ruthenization article, anyone? :) -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  15:21, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Thinking more of it, should the times where Lithuanization was not talking place be covered at all? I rewrote the paragraph that originally somehow implied to the contrary simply to replace the incorrect info by the correct one. But sometimes, it is better to remove stuff, especially the stuff that does not belong to the topic. So, we can move this to, say GDL article. It is like recent addition of depolonization and Russification policies to the Polonization article by someone lately. We should not attempt to "neutralize" the material not to our liking by the off-topic stuff. I just purged some of the De-Polonization from the Polonization article. By the same token, Ruthenization material does not belong to Lithuanization. IMO, adding the irrelevant stuff to neutralize the relevant one is not "balancing" and WP:NPOV but rather "off-topic" and WP:TE. Objections? --Irpen 10:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Title

And what's with the title? While the concept of cultural assimilation of minorities by Lithuanians does exist as for any nation, this is such an obscure phenomenon that the term suggested by the article's authors is a pure neologism. The term produces only 57 google hits of which many are about Lithuanization of the software or the Lithuanization of the names (that is how foreign names, when written in Lithuanian, are modified by adding suffixes in the end). In the cultural assimilationist sense, the term is exceedingly rare. If one wants to have an article about this rather rare phenomenon, I suggest renaming to something like Cultural assimilation of minorities in Lithuania. While almost any valid dtopic may have Wikipedia articles, neologisms are inappropriate for the article titles. --Irpen 05:59, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

A term used in 13 (at least) books, and 7 academic (or more) articles is notable. Also per our naming guidelines, shorter names are preferable to long descriptives. PS. Your term is unused in academia.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  13:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless those are neologisms. Using those for titles just makes no sense. Of those 13 books, 6 use the term in the "quotation marks". I would not object to the referenced term usage within the text flow but not the title. --Irpen 18:26, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The term exists, is used by academics worldwide, and is definitely more handy than, say, Forced or voluntary cultural and linguistic assimilation of people by the governments and cultural associations of Lithuania or its predecessor states. Which, for me, is enough to have it where it is. BTW, what title would you suggest? //Halibutt 16:26, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Irpen, how could one possibly argue with, The term exists, is used by academics worldwide... (sic) ? Dr. Dan 02:42, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I would not if the claim was not false. Google search produces nothing. Half of the 13 google books hits use the "quotation marks" around this supposedly widely used term. Besides the article looked from the onset like an OR essay. Adding the times of Gediminas that no one ever calls Lithuanization, to the 19th-20th century, where those few who use the term refer to. Is a strange OR. I corrected the bizarre assertion of the Lithuanization of Ruthenia so that it is at least not counterfactual, but I still have doubts this belongs together with the assimilation material at all. --Irpen 02:59, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

How could one not support all the constructive proposals you list here... //Halibutt 16:07, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, please confirm that you do not object then to:

1. removal of Ruthenian parapgraph as this has nothing to do with Lithuanization and is never called as such. (After I corrected your original writing it is factually correct but is still irrelevant in this article)
2. renaming the article into Cultural assimilation of minorities in Lithuania.

Please confirm. --Irpen 17:08, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I abstain on the first issue (don't know enough about it) and object to the second one.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:15, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

What name do you propose? The current one is a neologism, obviously. The topic is valid, but in the lack of an established name it can be presented under the descriptive name. What's wrong with my name? --Irpen 17:23, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. Why do you have to ask the same question over and over again? I support current name ('Lithuanization') and please don't ask me that again; also, please don't treat my lack of reply to your questions if you repeat them as silent agreement. My rationale: title used by scholars and suggested by Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:58, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Six books only means "used by scholars"? --Irpen 20:25, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Is some other name more popular?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:51, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no well-established single word to define the phenomenon. In such case descriptive name is in order. I proposed one above. Do you have any better ideas? --Irpen 05:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, in Google Books there's at least 13 books mentioning Lithuanization, another 3 for Lithuanisation, 7 for Lithuanianization and 2 for Lithuanianisation. More than enough, if you asked me ([1]). Besides, simple google search suggests that the word is also used by common people and also by Lithuanian sites in English. //Halibutt 10:28, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

• Of those 13 with Lithuanization only 12 are viewable of which in 7 {more than in a half} "lithuanization" is use "in quotation marks", thus the author themselves consider the term odd.
• My search shows not 3 but 2 books with lithuanisation (could be google books fluke) of which only one is in English and it also uses 'quoation marks'.
• Of 7 books with Lithuanianization only in 6 you can see actual usage and in half (3) it is again "in quotation marks"
• Of 3 books with Lithuanianisation, 2 use quotaion marks as well
• Of 58 total google hits (not many), not all are English, despite requested, and some are about software, which is unrelated to the policies

Unlike the term-based names, descriptive name does not have to be strictly used in that exact form as long as it is reasonably correct and neutral. If you insist on descriptive name's wide usage requirement, please consider that "Massacre of Poles in Volhynia" has only 1 hit in google books. --Irpen 11:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Because there is no shorter term for that, at least ouside Poland ('rzezie wołyńskie', IIRC, and that's not that popular either). Here, however, we have a short term indeed used by some sources. Why not use it? Yes, it's not extremly popular. It's a minor notable phenomena and 50+ books is quite good, one way or another.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  23:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

So, are you saying that the usage of the term in "quotation marks" or for the software related issue is "quite good" to justify the article about the political phenomenon? --Irpen 02:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)