Talk:Governorate (Russia)

Old talk
What is the proper plural form of Governorate General? Is it Governorates General? Governorate Generals? Governorates Generals?--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 17:32, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

"Governorates General". It is French-style naming, "general" being an adjective. BTW it needs to be clarified how the notions "gubernator" and "general-gubernator" (and "guberniya" and "general-gubernatorstvo") were related." Mikkalai 19:07, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. As for the difference between "gubernator" and "general-gubernator", maybe I'll add it later, unless you already have something to add.--Ëzhiki (erinaceus europeaus) 19:15, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Governorate-General
The usual English term is in fact "Governor-Generalship", and in the Russian Empire at least it is not the same thing as a Губерния. A Guberniya is a province (normally known as an Oblast in the outlying regions of the Empire), and a Governor-General had authority over several provinces. In Turkestan, for instance, The Governor General had authority over the Syr-Darya, Ferghana, Samarkand and Transcaspian provinces. Sikandarji 14:13, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
 * With the English term may be right, but as to the rest you a right only partially. You probably didn't read the article carefully how the meaning of the term Governor General changed over the history. Mikkalai 19:28, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Fair Enough - although I had always thought that as military rulers they were in some ways the successors of the pre-Petrine Voevody. Try not to use 'Governorate General' though as it looks abominable in English.Sikandarji 08:16, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Russian Governor Generals of estonia
Has anywone got any info on the governor generals of russian estonia? --Dahlis 23:00, 2005 September 2 (UTC)
 * If no one answers you, I'll try to dig something up for you after I return on 9/20. Can't promise I'll find this exact info, though.&mdash;Ëzhiki (erinaceus amurensis) 01:03, September 3, 2005 (UTC)

Governorate?
Why are we translating this as "Governorate?" The 1911 Britannica uses "Government" as its term for divisions of Russia, or alternately "Province." This would point to what the usage was at the time these things actually existed. Can we point to usage of "Governorate"? john k 17:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I guess the term came about in order to avoid using "guberniya", which is the direct transliteration from Russian and is unintuitive to the general English-speaking public. "Government" is too ambiguous (just try describing the history of the government of Smolensk Government and its differences from the government of Smolensk :)), and "province" is unacceptable because guberniyas themselves were administratively divided into provinces.  "Governorate" seems to be the best adequate translation of the Russian "guberniya".   With all due respect to Britannica (both 1911 and modern), the scope of their articles dealing with guberniyas is pretty limited, so they never ran into the problems we did.  They also invented the term "sector" to refer to Russian raions, so I'd take whatever terminology they are using with a grain of salt.
 * That said, if you have a better solution, please voice it here. Thanks.&mdash;Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 17:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I would say that we should use "government" in this article, because it is not ambiguous. In any other articles we can say "government (guberniya)".  Thus, the Government (Guberniya) of Smolensk.  Britannica 1911 has articles on most Russian guberniya, so I don't see the idea that the scope of their articles is especially limited. john k 19:36, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * All we have to do to use government, at any rate, is to say that Tsarist Russia was divided into "provinces called Governments (Guberniya)" or else "provinces called Guberniya ("governments")". Lots of words have multiple meanings.  There is absolutely no reason not to use "government" a proper English word.  There are other similar uses - the French military provinces in 1789 were Gouvernements. john k 19:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * If you are willing to do all the work that needs to be done to introduce such a change, go right ahead. You will need to start with History of the administrative division of Russia and its subarticles, change every instance of "Governorate" to "Government" or "Government (guberniya)", make sure all double redirects are fixed, verify that all backlinks are linked properly, and that all existing references to "governorates" are straightened out.  You will also need to revise some of the narrative to make sure there are no "government" vs. "Government" ambiguities (I suggest you practice with my Smolensk example above first, writing a few paragraphs on the differences between the government of Smolensk and the government of Government of Smolensk; your practice passage doesn't need to be factual, just coherent).  Once you do all that, I promise you (or any other editor who embarks on and finishes this tremendous endeavor) a barnstar or any other award of your (their) choosing.
 * I beg your pardon if I sounded a little sarcastic, but my point is that the expected final outcome simply does not justify the amount of work involved. It's one thing to mention that "Russia was divided into provinces called Governments/guberniyas" in the lead section of the guberniya article (which is a fine suggestion, although not terribly superior to what the lead is already saying now); it's a completely different matter to correct the whole naming scheme, hopefully without screwing things up.  The value added by using what's arguably a better term, in my view, is quite marginal.  If you are willing to spend your time on that, I have no problem with it, but please make sure that when you are done things are in the same or better condition than they are now.
 * As for the existence of lots of words with multiple meanings, that is, of course, true. It is also true that one usually seeks synonyms when two such words collide in one sentence in order for one's writing to be coherent.  "Governorate" is just such a synonym in this case (one can imagine that due to the nature of the topic the meanings of "government" as "a governing body" and "an administrative unit" are bound to collide quite often).  Unless you can show that "governorate" is an entirely incorrect term to use, I am not convinced that this whole correction thing is anything more than a fool's errand.  Thanks.&mdash;Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:52, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Fair enough, and you have called my bluff - I don't think I'm up to the task of changing the whole wide variety of articles. I tend to dislike neologism translations, but it's probably not worth the effort.  john k 22:17, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks; however, please note the section I added below. The term is far from being a neologism.  If it were, I myself would be doing all the activities I so helpfully outlined to you above :)&mdash;Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 12:26, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with John that "government" (guberniya) would be a better term to use than governorate, as my searches through Google Books have brought up significantly fewer instances of the latter. Using some Baltic provinces as examples, guberniya is used occasionally, while usage of governorate is practically non-existent (Courland: government vs. governorate vs. guberniya; Livonia: government vs. governorate vs. guberniya). Unfortunately, the number of articles that would be changed does present a quandary. Olessi (talk) 02:50, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * However, I think "government" implies sovereignty, where as "governorate" implies an imperial province ruled by an appointed "governor". See the definition of "governorate" on dictionary.com Martintg (talk) 03:24, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * IMO, we should use the terminology most commonly used in English, which, indicated to me by Google Books and Britannica, is government. I agree with John's rationale and suggested phrasing of how to deal with the ambiguity of "Government". Unfortunately, I think a prospective change would be moot at the moment because of the scope of the changes. Olessi (talk) 04:01, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, when I started working on this topic back in 2004-2005, the choice of terminology was one of the first things I considered. I specifically chose "governorate", because, while it seems to be less commonly used than "government", it is still a correct English usage (both inside and outside the scope of the Russian Empire), and, as noted above, does not suffer from the ambiguity problem (once you start writing about the "government of Foo Government" or the "governor of the Government", you'll understand what I mean).  Judging from how the term proliferated without being questioned much by native English speakers, I'd say the choice was not poor after all.  We don't have to go for the "most commonly used English term"; the fact that the term is correct in English is good enough, especially if there are other good reasons to use it.  Remember that Wikipedia has more information on Russian governorates and thus is in greater need to organize and cross-reference it efficiently than any other English-language source out there.  What works for Britannica, which only covers a handful of Russian governorates, does not necessarily work for us.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it would be a good idea to mention that "government" is an alternative English designation for the units, at least. Olessi (talk) 01:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I, for some reason, was under impression it had already been listed. Fixed.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 01:40, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that update. In a little bit, I'll add also known as the "Government of Foo" to the individual articles and create redirects for them. Olessi (talk) 20:04, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for doing that&mdash;it's a tedious task. I'm glad I don't have to do it now :))—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 20:29, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

For reference
Lest you still have doubts, a google books search shows that the terms "governorate" and "governorate general" are valid. "Governorship" is also used, although a good portion of the hits refers to the post of the Governor, not the administrative unit.&mdash;Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 21:01, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Page move
Judging from the above discussion and looking into the page "Governorate", I would propose to move this page to Governorates of Russia. `'Míkka>t 04:41, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Neutral. I don't really feel that much is going to be gained by such a move, but I don't really have anything against it either.  Governorates of Russia, however, seems to work better as a title of a list of all guberniyas, while guberniya (or governorate (Russia)) would be where the actual encyclopedic information about the term is located.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 15:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * What is to be gained? An act of cleanup.  My suggestion was based on precedent, as explained. See Governorates of Syria for comparison.  "Guberniya" is not English. There long exist Endglish direct translations. It is reasonable to abandon the term "government" as confusing, so we are left with "governorate". List of gubernias belongs to List of governorates of Russia.  `'Míkka>t 16:38, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, guberniya, being listed in larger English dictionaries and all, can be considered an English word as well. It is certainly a more precise term than "governorate", and folks interested in this subject will recognize it just as easily as they would "governorate".  The downside, of course, is that it is not easily recognizable by folks who happen to see it in some other article mentioning guberniyas.  But anyway, like I said, I am not going to oppose to the move if it is supported.  I would, however, recommend, to first gain a consensus on a term dealing with "наместничества".  So far I've seen namestnichestvo, vice-royalty, and governorate used interchangeably, and the clash with "governorate" is considerable, which may murk the distinction even further.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Still not moved? It sits in the way to document usage outside the Russian Empire: http://www.nsi.bg/nrnm/index.php?i=1&ezik=en. The most consistent name would be Governorates of the Russian Empire. Guberniya would then only talk about the term. Androoox (talk) 08:15, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
 * If you could create a stub on Bulgarian gubernias (even if it's in your userspace), I can help move things around for better organization. The reason I'm asking for Bulgarian coverage first is that we have something to insert immediately after the moves are done (if there's nothing, who knows how much longer it will take until someone bothers to cover Bulgaria). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 10, 2014 ; 15:24 (UTC)

Map
For those interested, this rather large (over 9 MB) map nicely depicts the Russian Empire's subdivisions in European Russia. Olessi (talk) 03:14, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

WP:RM
Only two of the articles in Category:Governorates of the Russian Empire that use "governorate" do not use the form "X Governorate": I moved them, but one non-Russian speaking user, which seems to be from Finland moved them back, called my moves "bad moves", please raise your voice. Schwyz (talk) 11:20, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Talk:Governorate of Estonia
 * Talk:Governorate of Livonia
 * The "bad" part in "bad moves" probably refers to the fact that the governorates are not really known as "Estonia Governorate" and "Livonia Governorate" in English, so Petri was right to revert the move (although I wish he were more specific with the rationale). As for these two governorate names not conforming with the rest of the names in the "Governorates of the Russian Empire" category, you are correct there.  The current names are not "wrong" by any means, but neither they are the only possible variants (as the articles' leads would attest).  I would recommend moving them, correspondingly, to "Estland Governorate" and "Livland (or Livonian) Governorate", both of which are equally correct and have the benefit of conforming with the rest of the titles in the category and being closer to the original Russian names.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); August 9, 2010; 15:38 (UTC)
 * I would support Estland and Livland. "Livonian" I would not, since the others don't use adjective. Schwyz (talk) 17:36, 9 August 2010 (UTC)


 * You may note, that most of the governorates are named after their capital cities. The Baltic governorates listed above + Governorate of Courland and Lithuania Governorate are the exception. As pointed out by Miacek here the reason why the "of" form is used has to do with the use of declension in the source language and the fact that English does not distinguish between the place and the people. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Sakhalin Oblast? Named for Sakhalin people? Or Sakhalin Island? Schwyz (talk) 14:53, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Who are the Sakhalin people? Hellerick (talk) 16:03, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Difference to oblast
I just read in Sergei Yesenin that he was born "in the Ryazan Province (Губерния, Gubernia)". Naively, I would have replaced that with "Ryazan Oblast". But from this article here it appears the oblasti were then only at the periphery. Is that just a naming convention, or was the Ryazan Gubernia a different entity from the Ryazan Oblast? The Russian Wikipedia has a section called, but it doesn't actually seem to address this question. &mdash; Sebastian 07:18, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yesenin was born in Ryazan Governorate. Ryazan Oblast was not established until 1937; well after his death.
 * It should be noted, however, that it is not uncommon to see gubernias and oblasts referred to as "provinces" in literature. For the most part, it is an acceptable practice, since most academic works only mention these entities in passing and don't really care about the differences. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is the sum of all human knowledge, which is why maintaining precision, especially when dealing with encyclopedic material about the administrative entities themselves, is of paramount importance. In the Yesenin article (since the administrative entity where he was born is of secondary, if not tertiary importance) it doesn't matter so much, although the link to Ryazan Oblast definitely needed to be fixed (I've taken care of it). Hope this helps!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 3, 2015 ; 14:29 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the reply and the edit; I hadn't been aware of the Ryazan Governorate article. (So thanks also for creating the disambiguation page; I just added a redirect from Ryazan Gubernia. Should the same be done for other губернии?) I'm still not clear how the Ryazan Oblast relates to the Ryazan Governorate; a comparison of the map at Oblasts of Russia with the fact that there were originally less than a dozen governorates suggests that the latter may have been much bigger. &mdash; Sebastian 15:28, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You are welcome. Yes, creating other "XXX Province" disambiguations, where XXX is the name of a governorate and a modern oblast is always helpful, as is creating redirects from alternative names/terms/spellings/etc.
 * To answer your other question, Ryazan Oblast is a successor to Ryazan Governorate, so to speak. The governorate was created in 1796 and existed until the Soviet times virtually unchanged. 1919 is when it fell victim to various territorial re-organizations; bits and pieces of it were being chipped off and transferred to other governorates and oblasts until 1928. In 1929, Ryazan Governorate was abolished altogether, with its territory becoming a part of Central Industrial Oblast (later renamed Moscow Oblast) and incorporated as Ryazan Okrug within that oblast. In 1937, Ryazan Oblast was split out as a separate entity and still continues in that form now. Does this help?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 6, 2015 ; 15:45 (UTC)
 * Thank you, yes this helps! I just looked at the map Olessi posted above, (full size), and realized that there were many more oblasts later. The subject marked "Riazan" seems to be about the size of the modern oblast. So, can we conclude that at least this subject didn't change much, and by extension that oblasts in general are on first approximation not too different from the late governorates? &mdash; Sebastian 15:55, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Redirects and disambiguations
As Ëzhiki suggests above, "creating other "XXX Province" disambiguations, where XXX is the name of a governorate and a modern oblast is always helpful, as is creating redirects from alternative names/terms/spellings/etc.". I just checked Kazan for that purpose, and found that Kazan Province is actually a redirect. Also, I realize that the wording of my question was ambiguous, I had meant to ask whether redirects XXX Gubernia → XXX Governorate are needed. &mdash; Sebastian 16:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * "Gubernia", "guberniya", "guberniia", and probably a handful of other variants I'm forgetting, are all spellings one can encounter in English texts discussing these Russian entities. Our article titles are standardized to "governorate", because that's a less obscure and less ambiguous term, and because having consistent titles within any series, and especially the series which cover obscure entities without a common name (as is the case here), is always helpful. But since there's no way of telling how readers will arrive to any given article, creating redirects which cover all common variants is always a good idea. It is, however, also tedious and mind-numbingly boring (I should know; I created thousands of them) :)
 * Kazan Province is a redirect probably because not many know that Kazan Oblast was actually a real thing (it existed for less than a year in 1952–1953). Cheers,—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 6, 2015 ; 16:45 (UTC)
 * We don't even have redirects for all the basic words - Guberniia is missing. I just thought of creating that, but then had second thoughts when I realized that there may be some use to seeing that we have many articles that contain that text. These have Penza Guberniia, Yaroslavl guberniia , and so on, which raises a number of related questions for in each of these cases:
 * Do we actually not have the "XXX Governorate" article?
 * Should we have it, or can it be covered within the corresponding oblast article?
 * If we need an article, should it remain a redlink or be a temporary redirect?
 * &mdash; Sebastian 17:32, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * One more level of complication: If a governorate changed its name, it multiplies the number of possible redirects. E.g. in Nikolai Uglanov the text reads "Petrograd Guberniia", and I just added a piped link to Petrograd Governorate, which in turn redirects to Saint Petersburg Governorate. &mdash; Sebastian 17:47, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * We are indeed missing a great number of governorate articles (and most of those we do have are in a pathetic condition; some are plain incorrect even). Addressing this has been on my to-do list for years now, but I don't really have time to properly do that in addition to all the things about the modern entities I'm working on. If you feel up to the task and want to take it on, that'd be awesome!
 * Governorates can and should generally be mentioned in the oblast articles, but I wouldn't go as far as upmerging everything. The correspondence is rarely 1:1 (or even near it), and while the modern oblasts can be seen as historical successors to the governorates, in many cases there are significant gaps between the abolition of a governorate and the creation of a similarly-named oblast/krai/republic. If a stub can be created for a missing governorate, containing the most basic information (such as the dates it existed and its seat), that, in my opinion, would be preferable to redirecting it to a modern entity, which quite often is only tenuously related. If a stub can't be created, I personally would rather see a red link, which immediately tells me that the article is missing, instead of a redirect, which creates a false impression that everything is shipshape. Others may see it differently, of course, but in my experience this subject area isn't of interest to many, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for comments to pour into this thread :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 6, 2015 ; 17:58 (UTC)
 * You are right about name changes. Normally, the most recent name is used for the article's title, unless that's not the name under which the governorate was known throughout most of its existence. St. Petersburg Governorate is a case in point&mdash;it's most recent name is "Leningrad Governorate" (and "Petrograd Governorate" before that), but it was only known under these two names between 1914 and 1927. St. Petersburg Governorate, on the other hand, was its name for over two centuries prior. Having redirects from all historical names, of course, is even more important than having redirects from spelling variations...—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 6, 2015 ; 17:58 (UTC)

''drive-by editing" - Penza Guberniia, Yaroslavl guberniia is a really bad idea. I dont want to repeat here numerous issuess with non-transparent wikipipes, but such things must be killed on the spot. Lembit Staan (talk) 02:31, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Help
Most of the individual pages of each governorate are very terrible as the are basically tiny, unsourced stubs (e.g: Astrakhan Governorate ). If someone could please improve them or at least have suggestions for improvement?. Gott Erhalte Kaiser Franz (talk) 01:40, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, I looked at several of them and they contain a ref to "Russian Gazetter" not formatted as a footnote. So here is a suggestion: Make the Gazetteer into a footnote. It does contain some extra info, but it may be user carefully: Information must be with in-text reference, e.g. "The 1919 Russian Gazetteer says that...." Also, "Astrakhan Governorate " cha a hatnote Expand Russian - a good suggestion. YOu may ensure other governorate ministubs have it. Lembit Staan (talk) 02:25, 7 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Would help if you would be more specific Gott Erhalte Kaiser Franz (talk) 05:26, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Improvement of these articles is in my workflow, see Siberia Governorate or Pskov Governorate as examples.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:28, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

Sorry I am going to revert colleaague Franz in Astrakhan Governorate. You seem to be a very new editor and dont know the ruless of english wikipedia. He the article text must be based on reference to reliable sources, please read carefully out rules: WP:CITE and WP:RS. Because our main policy is WP:Verifiability. And in most cases the only way to verify wikipedia text is to check the references provided. You translated a huge text from russian wiki, which, as I keep noticing, has a huge number of articles with little references. We cannot accept unreferenced texts, sorry. Please translate only pieces which are supplied with footnotex and verify whether the footnoted text is covered in the sources cited. Unfortunately often the footnotes "migrate" due to careless addition of more text in front of the footnote.16:38, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , care to fix the referencing problem with Astrakhan Governorate ? Lembit Staan (talk) 16:36, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I will have a look. Russian Wikipedia indeed has serious issues with sources, we should discourage direct translations.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:22, 7 September 2021 (UTC)

P.S.  FYI: this is our guideline : Help:Translation. It states what I was saying above: the translated piece of our article mush adhere to our (i.e., English Wikipedia) rules. Lembit Staan (talk) 19:17, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Endonymic translations in lede
Re our discussion on the Elisabethpol Governorate talk page I thought it best to continue it here to have a more centralised discussion on the issue which affects numerous articles. The prevailing trend on these articles I identified was using the official Russian language name, followed by the translation of the state which owns most of the modern-day territory, followed by an optional translation of whichever ethnic group is the majority of the population, if they are not the same as the state which owns it. For example, the Shusha Uyezd should by default receive its official Russian name, accompanied by the translation of the state which owns most of its modern day territory, Azerbaijani for the Republic of Azerbaijan, followed by an Armenian translation given the Shusha Uyezd was majority ethnic-Armenian. In the case of the Elisabethpol Governorate, since the area mostly corresponds to modern-day Azerbaijan, and Armenians were not a majority in the province, I think it would be appropriate to only leave the Russian and Azerbaijani translations in the lede, that is my rationale on the issue and my understanding of the trend on these articles.

Another issue which should be discusssed is if an endonymic translation is included, should it use the anachronistic modern script, or the standard used at the time, for example, Azerbaijan Arabo-Persian in place of modern Azerbaijani Latin (which began use in 1992). If the aim is to establish a standard or default for translations in the lede, I believe it should be done here with a proper discussion on the pros and cons of doing so as to make the article as understandable as possible for the reader. -𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒖𝒙𝒙𝒙 ✪ 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 02:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * I think there are 2 possible solutions. Keep only Russian, or add local majority language spelling. If we are to keep only the old Russian alphabet, then modern Russian will need to be removed too, as I see many articles use modern Russian alphabet. But I don't think it makes sense to remove modern alphabets. After all, the aim is to provide a spelling in the language of majority population. It is also the case for example with such entitles as Kazan Governorate, Ufa Governorate, etc. Turkic people had multiple alphabet changes, but normally the modern alphabet is used in the articles. And the argument about Armenian oblast is not relevant. At the time of its existence it did not even have an Armenian majority, so it is not clear what spelling to use there. Grand  master  09:33, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I am personally in favour of the second solution and thus support including the pre-1918 official Russian spelling followed by the endonym of the majority (or plurarity) population, perhaps even with a transliteration. I think this would be the most equitable and logical outcome in this case, however, I am interested to hear what counter-arguments the others have to say on this. - 𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒖𝒙𝒙𝒙 ✪ 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 12:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I already said in the Elisabethpol Governorate talk, I support only official Russian spelling, as it was the Russian Empire. Also, we have issues of anachronism, which aren't being addressed. We can't add Az spelling for example with modern Latin alphabet, that's not how it works. You can't say I support multiple spellings, then say stuff like that. And for these reasons, leaving only the official Russian version is better and creates less confusion. We don't need to create a rule like this translation of the state which owns most of the modern-day territory, followed by an optional translation of whichever ethnic group is the majority of the population we can just leave out all the other spellings and keep the only official Russian one. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 13:04, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * "We can't add Az spelling for example with modern Latin alphabet, that's not how it works."
 * Yes, I addressed this exact point due to the anachronistic nature of adding a 1992 alphabet spelling to a 1917 district. One of the solutions could be to use the correct alphabet for the time, including in the case of the Armenian and Georgian districts by using a translation in pre-reform Armenian and Georgian spelling, respectively.
 * "We don't need to create a rule like this translation of the state which owns most of the modern-day territory, followed by an optional translation of whichever ethnic group is the majority of the population"
 * I'm not saying we need to create this rule, I simply stated that it is what I identified as the status-quo/de-facto rule on these articles, and it's worth being addressed for what it's worth, whether we decide to keep it or replace it. Since you seem to be basing your position on the official state-preferred name of the district, I would direct you to page 84 of Arthur Tsutsiev's Atlas of the Ethno-Political History of the Caucasus (ISBN: 9780300153088) where it can be seen that the uezds of the Russian Empire were preserved as administrative units of the Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian Soviet republics from 1922–1928 (and I believe it's obvious that Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian were the official state languages of these Soviet republics, respectively) therefore, these administrative divisions' names during the Soviet-era should (by your logic) be listed as a translation in the lede in addition to their name within the Russian Empire. - 𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒖𝒙𝒙𝒙 ✪ 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 13:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * And in 1920s Azerbaijani language used Latin alphabet. Which Azerbaijani script should we choose, from which era? Grand  master  14:55, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Do we have WP:RS stating those other spellings were officially recognized or used in documents? Or are we just going to play the WP:OR games, without even figuring out which alphabet was used? I'm still of the belief that only official Russian spelling of Russian Empire's Governorates should remain in the lead. If we can find at least one reliable source backing those other lang spellings, showing at the very least which alphabetic version was used, we should create a small subsection Name like suggested in Talk:Elisabethpol Governorate. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 21:59, 17 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Lede: Only include the original Russian spelling, in contemporaneous orthography.
 * Body: create a "name" section where major regional languages are added, in addition to the Russian original and modern spellings. We should not forget that it was the Russian Empire with a Russian identity. Not the Armenian, Azerbaijani or Martian Empire. Russian original spelling should be listed once more within this section, in addition to the modern Russian spelling. Major/relevant regional languages in the contemporaneous scripts should then be added, alphabetically, behind the Russian ones. As for the Transcaucasian governorates, this includes (Perso-)Arabic script for Azerbaijani, as that was the major script used by the Turkic speakers of Transcaucasia (later Azerbaijanis). I'm willing to compromise by adding modern spellings too ( including the 1992 Latin script for Azerbaijani in the Transcaucasian governorates), but only if they are added behind the contemporaneous scripts. - LouisAragon (talk) 16:32, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "And the argument about Armenian oblast is not relevant. At the time of its existence it did not even have an Armenian majority (...)"
 * While they might not have constituted a majority straight off the bat, they were indeed a major plurality in the Armenian Oblast, before becoming the largest ethnic group over time. By 1832, they had already achieved parity with the Muslims (which consisted of both Trancaucasian Turkics and Kurds) of the Armenian Oblast. Furthermore, the Oblast was named after Armenians and founded in a major part of the historic Armenian homeland. I would say there is definitely "relevance".
 * "Thus, the total population of the new Armenian Province in 1832 was 164,450,13. Armenians forming 50.09% and Muslims 49.91% . Two centuries after their forced exile, the Armenians had only achieved parity with the Muslims in part of their historical homeland ." -- Bournoutian, George (2018). Armenia and Imperial Decline: The Yerevan Province, 1900-1914. Routledge. p. 20.
 * - LouisAragon (talk) 16:32, 18 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please don't make comments like "are we just going to play the WP:OR games" again, it's mean and creates a toxic environment in an already hostile topic area. Secondly, I'd like to understand the rationale as to why you believe the majority population's endonym for these Russian districts should be concealed in the body of the article, yet in several Ottoman Vilayet articles—of which the state language was Ottoman Turkish—you added an Armenian translation in the lede, even preceding the Ottoman Turkish translation? For a specific example, refer to your edit in the Diyarbekir Vilayet article where you added an Armenian translation (without any consensus or explanation) despite the fact that the majority population was not Armenian by any estimate, official or otherwise; and similarly in your edit on the Erzurum Vilayet article. According to WP:IMPARTIAL and other guidelines, these abolished district articles should be treated consistently and all should either have only their official name in the lede, or also include the majority population's endonym, so I think it may be worthwhile to re-evaluate your standing in this issue. - 𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒖𝒙𝒙𝒙 ✪ 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 07:57, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please focus on the things we're discussing here, and stop this WP:OTHERSTUFF. And btw, I don't mind creating a subsection Name for those villayet articles either, not sure how that was a "got you" or something. You also forgot to mention that these villayet city names (at least the six Armenian villayets, which were the ones I edited) come from Armenian language, see Diyarbakır and Erzurum the two examples you brought, I think in those cases it's justified to be included in the lead, even though again, I don't same treatment for those too. Kind of weird that you had to dug out some October edits of mine, though. And I agree with LouisAragon's latest suggestion. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 11:18, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "Please focus on the things we're discussing here, and stop this WP:OTHERSTUFF"
 * I am discussing the issue at hand, which relates to the inconsistency of adding native translations in the lede in some abolished articles, but not in the ones which don't have "enough" of an Armenian character, specifically in contrast of the Diyarbakir Vilayet and the Elisabethpol Governorate articles.
 * "not sure how that was a "got you" or something."
 * It wasn't intended as such, rather, I am trying to understand your rationale which seems to be able to arbitrarily justify one position whilst holding another.
 * "You also forgot to mention that these villayet city names (at least the six Armenian villayets, which were the ones I edited) come from Armenian language"
 * I'm not really sure what the etymology of some of the vilayets' city names have to do with including an Armenian translation in the lede of their district articles, that sounds like you're saying the inclusion of a translation in the districts lede depends on the etymological origin of the district's administrative center? In which case, I'd refer you to the fact that Ganja, the administrative center of the Elisabethpol Governorate (which we were previously discussing), has a Persian etymological origin—are you advocating for the inclusion of a Persian translation in the lede of the Elisabethpol Governorate article?
 * "the two examples you brought, I think in those cases it's justified to be included in the lead, even though again, I don't same treatment for those too."
 * Please share your rationale as to why you think those cases are "justified to be included in the lead"? Again, these districts had Armenian minorities, and were never incorporated into an independent Armenian state, so I'm confused as to why their translations are there, yet same logic isn't applied to Azerbaijani-majority districts in using Azerbaijani translations. - 𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒖𝒙𝒙𝒙 ✪ 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 12:01, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * You really need to concise your comments, not everyone has time to read your essays. First of all, Armenians were majority in number of these vilayets and total population was higher from any other ethnic group, please stop pushing this "Armenian minorities", this is the second time you do so without any evidence. And secondly, most importantly, I stated that I don't mind creating a subsection for those vilayets either, but I'm still puzzled how your WP:OTHER and WP:OTHERSTUFF to prove-a-point is relevant here. You should focus on the articles we're discussing and as far as I'm aware, this talk discussion is about Russian Empire and its Governorates,... in its talk page. Yet you keep bringing other articles and ignoring my comments. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 12:20, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
 * "You really need to concise your comments, not everyone has time to read your essays."
 * Please don't make comments like "not everyone has time to read your essays", it's mean and creates a toxic environment in an already hostile topic area, this is the second instance I'm asking you. And sorry, but if you don't have time to read 6 sentences (even less than your replies after) which are direct responses to you, maybe you shouldn't be engaging in a discussion without any intention to take replies seriously.
 * "First of all, Armenians were majority in number of these vilayets and total population was higher from any other ethnic group,"
 * This is a debated claim with numerous interpretations, in any case of the ethnic composition, the point still stands that if you are justifying an Armenian translation in the lede of an abolished district article, that same logic (according to WP:BALANCE) should be applied to other abolished district articles in including translations other than Armenian if the ethnic composition justifies it, especially so if they became an administrative unit of that state (ADR 1918–1920).
 * "but I'm still puzzled how your WP:OTHER and WP:OTHERSTUFF to prove-a-point is relevant here."
 * I don't see how this is WP:OTHER or WP:OTHERSTUFF since they are directly relevant as being the same class of abolished districts from the same time period, peoples and region, you are simply using semantics to distinguish them when in-practice, they should be treated consistently unless there is a consensus stating otherwise. Also worth noting that those guidelines you posted both refer to the exact same guideline, so you are using two variants of the same subsection to exaggerate your point.
 * "Yet you keep bringing other articles and ignoring my comments."
 * I haven't ignored your comments, I'm trying to answer each one of your points to help us reach a consensus, in lieu, you seem determined not to explain your rationale/logic that Ottoman district articles are deserving of native endonyms, but Russian Imperial and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic district articles aren't.
 * I'm not against creating a subsection called "Name" in the district articles for unofficial local/native endonyms, however, I believe official district names (which include Imperial Russian and Armenian/Azerbaijani/Georgian terms) have no reason not to be included as translations in the lede, as consistent with other articles on WP. - 𝑵𝒖𝒏𝒖𝒙𝒙𝒙 ✪ 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘 00:21, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I haven't ignored your comments, I'm trying to answer each one of your points to help us reach a consensus, in lieu, you seem determined not to explain your rationale/logic that Ottoman district articles are deserving of native endonyms, but Russian Imperial and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic district articles aren't. - Where did I say this? My argument is that with Vilayets, if a name (as is the case with Diyarbakır and Erzrum villayets you brought up) is based on Armenian cities that have been Armenian for centuries and most importantly, comes from Armenian language, it does actually have a better justification for the lead inclusion, than saying "population=inclusion". If something is based on a specific language, by definition, said language spelling is a due inclusion. But even in those cases, I'm open to discussing the same treatment as Name section proposed here, but I'm not going to entertain it here on this talk page as I already said. Keep it to the respective article pages.
 * you seem determined not to explain your rationale/logic that Ottoman district articles are deserving of native endonyms, but Russian Imperial and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic district articles aren't. - What? Firstly, stop misrepresenting me about Villayets, I explained my position pretty clearly at this point. And secondly, I'm fine with removing / creating a section of other lang spellings for ALL governorates, not just Azeri spellings. Thought this was the whole point of the discussion, was it not, LouisAragon? To determine a standard for ALL governorates, yet Nunuxxx, you keep saying I have something specifically against Az spelling governorates. I actually removed all other lang spellings from Elisabethpol Governorate, Armenian included. The entire discussion was transferred to this talk page to define a standard for ALL governorates. FYI, baseless accusations qualify as personal attacks - consider this as a last warning from me. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 01:02, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
 * And btw, if a name (as is the case with Diyarbakır and Erzrum villayets you brought up) is based on Armenian cities that have been Armenian for centuries and most importantly, comes from Armenian language, it does actually have a better justification for the lead inclusion. I'm not saying if it should or should not, that (again) isn't something to be discussed in this talk page, and personally, I would be fine with a Name subsection too. This is the last time I'm addressing the villayets stuff in this talk page, keep it for their own respective pages and keep this page out of WP:OTHER arguments. ZaniGiovanni (talk) 12:40, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

I think the best solution to this would be an RFC, with the questions:

Option 1: The lead of articles about governorates of the Russian empire should include official Russian language name (pre-reform script), followed by the translation of the state which owns most of the modern-day territory.

Option 2: The lead of articles about governorates of the Russian empire should include official Russian language name (pre-reform script), followed by the translation of the state which owns most of the modern-day territory, followed by an optional translation of whichever ethnic group is the majority of the population, if they are not the same as that of the state which owns it.

Option 3: The lead of articles about governorates of the Russian empire should include official Russian language name (pre-reform script).

Is everybody is ok with it, I will go ahead and start the RFC. Grand master  22:28, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Autonomous governorate?
We have a template-generated red link for Autonomous governorate. Cleary identifiable concept? Worth of standalone article? Estopedist1 (talk) 08:13, 26 January 2023 (UTC)