Talk:Erzincan

Where was the Battle of Köse Dağ
The Encyclopaedia of Islam states that Köse Dağ is a “land-corridor some 50 miles/80 km. to the north-west of Sīwās” and, under “Kaykhusraw II” in the same work, “between Erzindjan and Sivas.” Cahen in Pre-Ottoman Turkey locates the battle in “the defile of Köse Dagh, in the province of Erzinjān.” My cherished Turkish atlas, Köy Köy Türkiye: Yol atlası (Istanbul 2006), puts Kösedağ Geçidi (Köse Dağ Pass) to the south of Gümüşhane and well to the north of Erzincan. In 13th century terms, this would be close to the lands of the Empire of Trebizond and nowhere near the caravan route between Sivas and Erzincan. Can anyone produce a credible source in any language that offers more precision? Thanks Aramgar 16:28, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * The information above is corroborated by Anthony Bryer and Richard Winfield, The Byzantine Monuments and Topography of the Pontos, vol. 1, (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1985) 172, 353. Aramgar 21:14, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Armenian Spelling
The Armenian and Greek names, which are historical names, are mentioned in the article. But the editors placed it in the head of the article. What is the purpose of doing this? They did not specify a reason to do so. This change is now Neutral point of view violating. There are no Armenian population in the city of Erzincan. Or it is not an Armenian spoken or official language.--ArslanYabgu (talk) 12:03, 20 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The alternative name is sourced and there is article content on it. Having alternative or local or historical names in the lede is an accepted practice and is seen on many articles. See WP:PLACE. The function of the lede is not to describe a place as it is now, it is there to summarize the article, and NPOV would be violated by manipulating article lede content to exclude historical data or names. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:28, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

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Armenian genocide
Should there not be mentioned in the history of the city the results of the Armenian genocide, as I read about them in the article Assassination of Talat Pasha?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Talat_Pasha "... One of these volunteers was Soghomon Tehlirian (1896–1960) from Erzindjan, Erzurum Vilayet, a city which had 20,000 Armenian residents prior to World War I and none afterwards.[49][51]" [49] MacCurdy 2015, pp. 172–173. [51] MacCurdy 2015, pp. 175, 201–202. MacCurdy, Marian Mesrobian (2015). Sacred Justice: The Voices and Legacy of the Armenian Operation Nemesis. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-49218-8. Jacobs, Steven Leonard (2019). "The Complicated Cases of Soghomon Tehlirian and Sholem Schwartzbard and Their Influences on Raphaël Lemkin's Thinking About Genocide". Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal. 13 (1): 33–41. doi:10.5038/1911-9933.13.1.1594. ISSN 1911-0359.

I don't want to get into it myself since I am nothing close to an expert in the field. Can anyone help? Skimmedlatex (talk) 09:13, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

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Recent edits
I reverted the edit violating WP:NPOV, WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. I also reverted the single single source cited for the recent edits which is a primary account of Kâzım Karabekir and can't be used as a reference, especially for the type of contentious information that was being added. Wikipedia is written based on secondary reliable sources. Until then, discuss here in case of disagreements per WP:ONUS. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 09:54, 21 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Hello Mr. Giovanni, there are some topics that are not clarified in my mind. You have also reverted my edits regarding Kemal Karpat's work. Which is highly cited. There are many cases that 2nd sources state that the amount of an X population in an Y time in Ottoman Census was Z. We see that they make inaccurate statements, and we verify it with Karpat's work. Also, just today, you have reverted an edit in Ardahan Province. In that article, Russian Census information is present. You have not deleted that information, but deleted this information. Why? Karabekir's claims are supported by photographic evidence I only put 3 of the photographs there are more only for Erzincan and snow in the pictures also denotes the month of February which he claimed, which I have also added. Moreover, the liberation of Erzincan is celebrated annually by the people of Erzincan. I have added a link, yet you have also deleted this information. Why have you deleted? Paradise Chronicle  has kept the claim, but you have also deleted the claim of an eyewitness. I used the word Muslim as it is not possible to know whether the people were Kurds, Zazas or Turks etc.  Utku Öziz (talk) 18:08, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I repeat the book of Kâzım Karabekir you added is a WP:PRIMARY source, Karabekir himself taking part in the events. Wikipedia is written based on WP:SECONDARY reliable sources like the ones you tried to discredit in your last edit, with your own WP:OR and MOS:EDITORIAL comments, and adding "claimed" to reliable sources, casting doubt on them and violating MOS:CLAIM. If you have secondary WP:RS confirming Karabkeir's account, then show it in this discussion. Otherwise, Wikipedia doesn't use primary accounts/sources, especially for such contentious claims from someone so involved and one-sided like Karabekir. And we don't do our own analysis based on primary sources, that's why we have historians and experts for that - meaning you need to show secondary WP:RS disputing the victim numbers put by Winter, Miller and Kévorkian write (all of which are secondary WP:RS) for us to even have this discussion, instead of doing do your own research and making an edit based on it. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 18:22, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * As to me Karabekir could be used for biographical matters on himself or also on other Military Officers or politicians. But for potentially controversial issues such as casualties, deaths or military events it might better be avoided. And that the liberation of Erzincan is celebrated each year, I would also support its inclusion.Paradise Chronicle (talk) 21:51, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't have a problem with adding the celebration bit, but as you also said for controversial issues especially, using a primary account of someone who was literally the commander of the opposite side is unacceptable by wiki standards. For that info to be reinstated, we'll need to verify it from secondary WP:RS. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 21:59, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Giovanni, there is another topic that is not cleared in my understanding. I see that you have not deleted the Karabekir's account about Erzincan Soviet part and Arshak Jamalyan with this source: ((in Turkish) Karabekir, Kâzım. Erzincan ve Erzurum'un Kurtuluşu: Sarıkamış, Kars ve Ötesi (The Liberation of Erzincan and Erzurum: Sarıkamış, Kars and Beyond). Erzurum Ticaret ve Sanayi Odası Araştırma, Geliştirme ve Yardımlaşma Vakfı, 1990, p. 377. ISBN 978-975-512-072-0.) However, you deleted his account from another book: Karabekir, Kâzım (2000). 1917-20 Arasında Erzincan'dan Erivan'a [From Erzincan to Yerevan in-between 1917-20] (in Turkish). İstanbul, Türkiye: Emre Yayınları. ISBN 9789758496112 . In both books Karabekir mentions about Arshak Jamalyan. Mentioning one account about a person and not the other does not make sense in my mind. Utku Öziz (talk) 21:15, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Firstly, you don't have consensus for your edits, so don't imply it in your edit summary "as per talk". Secondly the source you've restored again is Karabekir's account, it even lists Karabekir as the author, it is primary and not WP:RS to begin with, as user Buidhe also pointed out. So far, you haven't shown any secondary WP:RS verifying the information you're trying to add, and it was only agreed to restore the "Liberation day" between me and Paradise Chronicle if that's what you referred to "As per the talk page with Giovanni and Paradise".
 * Your own added commentary to Ottoman data is WP:OR since it doesn't dispute or even talk about Winter, Miller or Kévorkian research says. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 21:48, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * We can include the official 1914 census results with the caveat that they are not generally considered completely accurate by modern scholarship. Also, Kaiser's article if you read it is mainly about Armenians from elsewhere so the census figure even if accurate hardly falsifies his research, and the connection drawn between the two is original research. Given the known falsification of images to fabricate Armenian atrocities during world war I (see for example Kevorkian 2011 p. 364), I do not think these images can be included without a scholarly source that confirms the identification. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  21:41, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Almost all arriving deportees had witnessed atrocities. They had lost loved ones or had been personally subjected to outrages. Those arriving from Erzerum to the east had passed through several killing fields like those around Mamakhatun and Terdjan.27 The Trebizond caravans had come from the north and passed through the slaughterhouse Gumushkhane district had become.28 Caravans arriving from eastern sub-districts of Sivas, like Sushehri, had suffered as well but probably to a somewhat lesser extent. In sum, authorities along the way to Erzindjan had executed a series of atrocities and abductions which significantly reduced the size of passing caravans. At Erzindjan the caravans were halted and merged with other convoys thereby regaining the desired number of deportees per caravan. Efficiency was important as at least 150,000 deportees had to pass through Erzindjan and the Euphrates gorge near Kemah.
 * You're right Kaiser does mainly talk about deportees from elsewhere, not just Erzinchan, so I reverted the WP:OR of a wiki user. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 22:02, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I am trying to figure out why so much editing of a very narrow and controversial period of history, a few years in essence, when centuries of history of Erzincan prior to 20th century is missing from the article? Murat (talk) 21:27, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Brad Dennis
Brad Dennis from University of Utah isn't a reliable source and is a genocide denier, like many others from the university which promotes Armenian genocide denial and legitimizes genocide deniers like Dennis. The whole book is basically based on a hypothetical scenario by Dennis, quote: ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:01, 1 December 2022 (UTC)
 * "There is strong reason to believe that if the Armenians had had stronger British and Russian backing and constituted a slightly higher percentage of the population in the region of Eastern Anatolia that an independent Armenia would have emerged in Eastern Anatolia and Cilicia much in the same manner that an independent Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro emerged in the Balkans. Given this retrospective likelihood, the question of whether an Armenian state would have taken steps to cleanse the indigenous Muslim population much like many of the Christian populations in the Balkans did is relevant. This study explores the propensities exhibited in the Armenian community towards cleansing the Muslims over a period of 8 decades stretching from 1828 to 1915.


 * I don't think the given quote is a direct denial of the genocide, and I don't think the presence of a denier in the university would be a reason to not include this source. I suggest that this should be submitted to WP:RSN. Ayıntaplı (talk) 22:21, 8 December 2022 (UTC)
 * University of Utah isn't just a single instance "of a denier in the university", it's funded by Turkish lobby and promotes Armenian genocide denial. It has a "Turkish studies program" specifically for this. It is not a one time thing, this university promotes genocide denial and is funded by the Turkish lobby in US. Authors from this university can't be used for anything close to Armenians or Armenian genocide.
 * The university's Turkish Studies Program, funded by Turkish Coalition of America and headed by M. Hakan Yavuz, has been criticized for promoting Armenian genocide denial. Nevertheless, the university had  established itself as a "denialist beachhead" prior to the creation of the Turkish Studies Program. The University of Utah Press has published several books denying the Armenian genocide, beginning with Guenter Lewy's The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey''.  The book's publication by the University of Utah Press was arranged by Yavuz himself.
 * Professor Keith David Watenpaugh charges the program with "promoting the falsification of history through its grants and political advocacy... the University of Utah has provided an institutional home to genocide denial." '' ZaniGiovanni (talk) 13:23, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Ottoman Period
The paragraph under "Ottoman Period and Armenian Genocide", says nothing about actual Ottoman period of Erzincan, and details some statistics form 1914-1916. How can centuries of Ottoman rule of the city and the area be totally missing from a paragraph with such a heading? By the way alleged AG is not a period but an event. It does not denote a period of history. Also much of the information, which seems more like one sided propaganda on a controversial topic, is already treated in countless many articles in Wikipedia. I suggest the informed editors try to build some content here relevant to Ottoman Period. Murat (talk) 19:56, 19 December 2022 (UTC)


 * Content is definitely missing, and the Armenian Genocide should definitely be a subsection, or a section all on its own (I'll be fixing this right now); however, I disagree that the content there is propaganda; while there are problematic sections (which I'll also mark with the same edit) its treatment of the subject is perfectly in line with academic consensus. Uness232 (talk) 20:40, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for taking action. Are you knowledgeable about this region and town? I hope you can add some relevant facts about the very long Ottoman rule over the area as well as address the highly one-sided current content. After all, all local populations suffered from the turmoil at the beginning of 20th century. But the Ottoman history is a lot more than a few years and a specific event highlighted. Please include facts and figures specific to Erzincan, and not repeat general topic treated excessively in many articles. Murat (talk) 21:11, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

I see that you (or someone) has deleted Ottoman Period completely. Is that what was meant by fixing it? Please stop such disruptive edits that contribute nothing to the article. First, there should be an extensive Ottoman Period section, and other topics can appear under that. It would be appropriate not to give undue weight to specific events when there are centuries of history missing. Just common sense. If not capable or qualified to make any meaningful contributions here, then it is best to let editors who are qualified to do so. Murat (talk) 21:24, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Demographics and history sections
There is a separate section on the demography of the town while the paragraph on the "Ottoman era" in the history section basically only goes into the city's demography. I'd suggest adding more non-demography related content to the section and moving most of the current paragraph to Demographics. AlenVaneci (talk) 12:02, 22 October 2023 (UTC)