Talk:Ivan Cankar

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Ivan Cankar was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: April 14, 2008

Contents

[edit] Cankar as a poet

The article said:

His hometown Vrhnika (20km from Ljubljana) boast a museum dedicated to him. Next to France Prešeren, Ivan Cankar is the most famous poet of Slovenia.

Although Cankar published collection of poems Erotika (Erotics), I don't think he's as famous for poetry as other Slovene poets (Simon Gregorčič, Anton Aškerc, Dragotin Kette, Oton Župančič, to name a few). So I rephrased this to "... the most famous writer of Slovenia." --romanm (talk) 16:17, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've mostly translated this text from the German wikipedia, where he is referred as a poet. But no objections to the change. --Explendido Rocha 10:18, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] the pronouncication (cankar)

I don't know how relevant this is so I am writing it here, but cankar is actually pronounced as tsankar (or is there a more spelling?). I find it quite disturbing to hear him refered to as kankar. Neikius 13:07, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Failing GA

There are some basic issues here, so I'm failing this article's Good Article review. I note also that the nominator has not contributed to the article, so I suspect that there's not too much point writing up a detailed commentary. However, for the record, among the issues that need attention are the fact that there is no lead, and that the references use "op cit" and "ibid." But it would be very nice were this to be brought up to GA status, so I'd encourage anyone who is knowledgeable on the topic to contribute. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:12, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slovene vs. Austro-Hungarian writer

I think calling Cankar "an Austro-Hungarian writer" is inappropriate. He identified exclusively as Slovene. In his famous speech "Yugoslavs and Slovenes", he said "Austria should be left to drown in its own shit" (which he admitted at the trial). Besides, he acvocated the creation of a Yugoslav federation and died as a citizen of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Furthermore, he was never "claimed" by the Austrians and his cultural legacy was limited to the Slovene-speaking lands. Viator slovenicus (talk) 14:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Slovene refers to his ethnicity, Austro-Hungarian to his nationality. According to WP:MOSBIO, nationality (not ethnicity) is one of the things that the opening paragraph should provide. His political views and self-identification don't change anything. Of course, you're free to explain them in the 'Biography' section (or persuade people to change the guideline for that matter). --Eleassar my talk 14:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, let's discuss the issue. I think it's good it has come out, because we can clear this out also for further cases. I say we have to be pragmatic in interpreting the guidelines. I don't want to argue with them, I think they're good, but they just cannot be applied directly to all cases, because in some cases the very distinction between nationality and ethnicity makes no sense. It can clearly not be applied to the case of Austria-Hungary. The concept of nationality is a modern one, linked to the emergence of Nation States. Austria-Hungary was however NOT a nation state. It was a confederative monarchy, made up of the Kingdom of Hungary (thus people from the Kingdom of Hungary were officialy only Hungarians and not Austro-Hungarians) and of a second part with no official name (in the official government documents it was called "Lands and Kingdoms represented in the Imperian Council", in the press "Cisleithania", and commonly - but erroneously - also "Austria"). No such thing like an "Austro-Hungarian Nation" has ever existed. Furthermore, even in its own official terminology, Nationalitaet was a term designating the different peoples of the Monarchy. The guideline distinction "Nationality vs. ethnicity" does not translate directly to our Central European distinction of "Citizenship vs. nationality". The western and post-19th century concept of "ethnicity" has very little to do with the Central European concept of "nationality". There were many cases of Slovenes who were in fact of Czech or German ethnicity (Henrik Tuma, Otokar Rybar, Peter Kozler, Lili Novy, etc.) but of Slovene nationality, although they were of course citizens of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Should we call Otokar Rybar "an Austro-Hungarian politician of Czech descent"? Of course not: he was a Slovene politician in Austria-Hungary of Czech descent. The same goes for Carlo Favetti. He was certainly not an "Austro-Hungarian author of Friulian descent", but by all definition an "Italian author of Friulian descent in the Austro-Hungarian Empire". On the other side, we can use the term "Austrian" or "Austro-Hungarian" to designate someone's nationality in the cases where the individual indentified primarily with the Monarchy (the "State"). That's because in Central and Eastern Europe self-identification does matter, since citizenship and nationality are not synonims in most of these regions.

If we were to use the guideline distinctions uncritically, without taking into account the contemporary terminology and self-identification of the persons concerned, we would commit a serois anachronism. Besides, such a policy would create enormous confusion because of the frequent shifting borders in the region. What shall we do with Boris Pahor? Call him Austro-Hungarian-Italian-Triestian-again Italian writer of Slovene descent, even though he repeatedly says he is only a Slovene writer, despite his Italian citizenship.

What I'm saying is that we must use meaningful terminology, and we can do this only by establishing a reasonable way to translate the general guidelines (the "spirit of the law", so to say) in order to fit particular cases. Viator slovenicus (talk) 15:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)