Talk:Lorraine (province)

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WikiProject Echo has identified Lorraine (province) as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the French language Wikipedia.

The history section in the article is totally biased (with anti-French/German nationalist approach), and needsll'#[;#;'. Hardouin 03:07, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Care to elaborate on how it is biased? 1:09, 13 Nov 2004 (EST)

It discusses forced imposition of French customs and language on "German" population in the early modern period (it is questionable whether this occurred at all prior to the French Revolution), and it refers to the region being "reunited" with Germany (implying irredentist claims). This can be a very delicate subject (similar to the ugly German-Polish disputes which erupt here), and care ought to be taken. From an historian's (rather than a nationalist's) perspective, there is no point in describing the population as "French" or "German" before the invention of the modern concept of the nation (circa 1800 or so). (Almost nobody in France spoke "true" French until fairly recently; all regions had their own languages or dialects, and while Alsace-Lorraine had Germanic local speech and Bretagne had Celtic, it is not clear that anyone really considered this important.) The article should not make claims about things like national identity, but should instead discuss the importance both French and German nationalists have placed on "proving" that the region is "French" or "German".

It is probably worth having an article on the Alsace-Lorraine issue, because the two regions are normally linked in this context, and rather than duplicating the discussion, both regional articles could link to it. --Tkinias 04:10, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've redone some of the article stressing german oppression while keeping french examples as well. I think its pretty indisputable that most of Lorraine is 'french' (Bismarck didnt contest it), I left the question of Moselle's nationality open, but its pretty meaningless at this point (at the same level of whether transylvania is romanian or if croatia is yugoslav). --CJWilly 11:30, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Lorraine: neither French or German...

Being from Lorraine, I just would like to point out that when we are talking about Alsace-Lorraine, although the term encompass the totality of Alsace, it only refers to a fourth of Lorraine, now called Moselle. The other 3 "departements" of Lorraine (Meuse, Meurthe-et-Moselle and Vosges) always remained French from 1766 til today.

Also worth noting, Lorraine is one of the last big "regions" to become French in 1766 (followed by Savoie in 1860). Before 1766, It was relatively independant, and both the kingdom of France and the German Empire were considered foreign neighbours as Mexico and Canada would be for the US. Also interesting to see that our cousins from DOM-TOM (such as caribeean islands Martinique and Guadeloupe) became French before the inhabitants of Lorraine!!

Lastly, Lorraine never had a common language but a lot of different patois (French replaced them only during the 20th century through school education). That said, we can recognised that the northern half of today's Meurthe-et-Moselle AND Moselle (called Moselle before 1870) had mainly German-related dialects, while the southern half (previously called Meurthe) AND Vosges AND Meuse had mainly old French-related dialects.

As for the controversy about Alsace-Lorraine being French or German, let's not forget that nationality should not always be based on language but also on traditions/customs and willingness to be part of a country/nation. Alsace and Lorraine experienced the French revolution, took part in Napoleon's campaigns (and supported him and his nephew with higher percentage than the French average), and although the population wasn't necessarily French-speakers, it is generally admitted that on the whole, the population was leaning towards France rather than Germany...

Ok, first you stress the importance of seperating these things out, then lump them together again. Alsace without doubt, after the first world war, leaned towards Germany and pro-french parties recieved few votes in the last election before WWI. There was also nearly an armed stand-off when France annexed Alsace after WWI. Of course you could probably find examples which support Alsace being more pro-french, certainlly this is true today. However historically the area was indesputably Germanic. Also their support of Napolean might have nothing to do with their identity as "french" but rather resentment of local rulers etc.

Regardless, I think it's unfortunate that we can't just put up some statistics here regarding books published in Strassbourg (what language were they in throughout history?). The modern identity of the area is not being contested, the see themselves as french, so there's no need for nationalist rants supporting one side or the other, it's irrelevant. 130.71.96.23 05:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I just added suggestions to merge Lorraine (province) and Lorraine (région). I do understand the difference between the two, but in my opinion they can be presented in a single article. There is already a significant overlap, and I don't see how to justify listing typical Lorraine foods in one article but not the other, and discussing the regional languages in both (at the moment the information in the Lorraine_(province) article is wrong). CapnPrep 19:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

It would make more sense to merge this article with Duchy of Lorraine rather than with Lorraine (région). The modern région is much larger than the historical province, whereas the historical province and the Duchy of Lorraine share the exact same territory. On Wikipedia we distinguish between modern divisions and historical provinces whenever the limits are different, such as is the case with Flanders (the modern federal entity) vs. Flanders (county) (the actual historical Flanders, smaller than the current federal entity). Hardouin 22:59, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

In that case let's combine Duchy of Lorraine and Lorraine (province) into a more general article about the "territory" of Lorraine (because "Duchy" will no longer be an appropriate name for the whole article). I am mostly bothered by the overlap between the province and région articles at the moment, so whatever we do I think that all redundant sections should be taken out of "région" (leaving only administrative, economic, political information). For cultural, historical, environmental details, link to the "main" Lorraine article. CapnPrep 09:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)