Talk:Battle of Strumica

Strumica

The city is in Macedonia and IT IS MACEDONIAN city. The language is Macedonian whether you like it or not. The city is transcribed into English as it is with c. Do not use nationalistic phrases such as invented language or bulgarian city. An administrator will check your awful Bulgarian behaviour.-- MacedonianBoy  ^Oui? 18:07, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Look, we know it's pretty cool that Yugoslavia acquired Strumitsa and other Bulgarian regions in 1919, but that has nothing to do with the Middle Ages, right? This battle took place in 1014 when Strumitsa was a fortress of the First Bulgarian Empire and it was not even geographically part of medieval Macedonia; so, no, the city was not a Macedonian city at all. The Bulgarian language has been codified since the 9th century, which is about two centuries before the 11th century, and the fighting forces were Bulgarians and Byzantines: as such, the relevant languages are Bulgarian and Greek only.

It has already been mentioned in the infobox that medieval Strumitsa is today Strumica in the Republic of Macedonia; other than that, the battle bears no relation to the country founded in 1991 or the language codified (if you don't like "invented") out of Bulgarian dialects in the 1940s.

Some examples: the Battle of Anchialus took place at what is today called Pomorie, the many Battles of Adrianople were fought at modern Edirne, and so were the Battles of Dyrrhachium, or Durrës.

My "awful Bulgarian behaviour" seems pretty reasonable when explained, no? But that doesn't warrant such ethnic hatred, does it. I mean, if it's awful behaviour, does it just have to be Bulgarian? Todor→Bozhinov 18:23, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

First of all, it was not center of the BG empire (Strumica was occupied). The language that you claim is Bg- it is old church slavonic. You made your language later on 1880-s I think thanks to the Russians. The standard BG language was not standardized at all at that time and thats why you shopuld not use Bg if there is no MK too. Wake up from the false BG history and be realistic- kids are reading this.-- MacedonianBoy  ^Oui? 18:28, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Occupied, my buttocks. You can say that for Pliska, Preslav, Ohrid, Skopje, Veliko Tarnovo and Sofia if you like :) You can believe in whatever your historiography is making up, but, like it or not, Bulgarian has a continuous and very smooth literary history since the 9th century. "Old Church Slavonic" was not called Bulgarian by its users coincidentally, I'm pretty confident of that. Also, do I really have to change one letter to make it Old Bulgarian, it will make me very sad :( But as you say, I can only claim "Old Church Slavonic" was Bulgarian :( Damn, you're so right. Spot on. Todor→Bozhinov 18:42, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes you are changing one letter because you have accepted that language as your new one. Your first language was...-- MacedonianBoy  ^Oui? 18:49, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

WOW great vocabulary (as European citizen it is wonderful). I am not forumize this article!-- MacedonianBoy  ^Oui? 18:46, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Wow, I've seen not a single valid reason behind your edits. They are neither justified, nor meaningful. If you need a place to rant, try a forum. Please, please, do not play with articles - you have a whole wikipedia where you do what you want, do not ruin this one as well. --Laveol ^T 22:29, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Guys, stop the pissing contest about what nation this or that historical event "belongs" to, that's all pretty ridiculous. The most common spelling as used today in English wins out, period. Hint: normally I'd expect that to be the spelling under which we also have the article for the place. Work it out. (The most ridiculous aspect of this dispute in this case is that it's not even two different names, not even two different name forms, not even two different orthographies! It's two different preferences for Latin transliteration, for crying out loud, and those transliteration systems are of course entirely modern, in both languages, and constructing a difference out of that for historical discourse is so utterly senseless I lack words to describe it. And by the way, of the six standardised systems we have listed at Romanization of Bulgarian, two actually use <c> for <ц>, so don't even pretend c would be somehow incorrect even for that language.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:17, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Fut, names of battles in the 1010s are often different as compared to the modern names of the cities. We have countless precedents for that, I don't think I have to bring up any once again. You're right about the transliteration stuff, though, so I'm find with this version. But if Bulgarian armies fought for Bulgaria against Byzantium in 1014, a people that emerged in the 20th century can't claim they've "been there, done that". Byzantine source know what they're talking about. Todor→Bozhinov 16:47, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with cases where names applicable to different historical periods are genuinely and obviously different (Adrianople/Edirne, as you said, or Danzig/Gdansk and all that jazz.) But in these MK-BG cases, we typically have not genuinely different names, but just superficially different orthographical (or at most minor phonological) variants. The outside reader would never imagine that the difference between Skopie vs Skopje could have any importance, they'd neither understand nor care that the one is a Bulgarian and the other a Macedonian form; they'd just see is as an irritating orthographical inconsistency across Wikipedia. My old pet peeve: stop thinking for a moment about editors and their nationalist preoccupations, start thinking about outside readers.

Also, I'd maintain that in such cases, the default assumption should always be that a place keeps a single standard name irrespective of the time period. Gdtantszigkzfkldf solutions are always the exception; if you want one, it's your task to demonstrate the need for it, based on evidence that this is consistently done out there in the usage of English-speaking scholarship. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:48, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I agreed with you on that point, arguing about a single letter really is stupid and it does look inconsistent with Skopie. Good idea with the way of thinking, I really need to do that more. Referring to English scholarly usage does seem reasonable, although in the case of relatively minor events we'd have a hard time finding any info, what's left for a consensus about the name or spelling. Anyways, I was just pointing out that your view on the current placename and the placename in the event's name isn't that right: the further back into the past you go, the different those names get normally (and that includes names as commonly used in English scholarship). Todor→Bozhinov 23:03, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Middle Ages

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Devintom25 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Totallynottai, Ewwhitf.

— Assignment last updated by Dwlehm1 (talk) 00:31, 24 October 2022 (UTC)