Talk:Manaki brothers

Title
Should probably be renamed to Manaki brothers as the main title (not a redirect) which appears to be more commonly used than the current title. --Jiphipk&#39; (talk) 11:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed let us change it--Lceliku (talk) 01:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Language
Since they are Vlach / Aromanian, how does this stand up? The article includes the text, "They are also refer to using the Macedonian (Јанаки and Милтон Манаки)" This could be Bulgarian or Serbian or any other Slavic language in the Cyrilic alphabet. Politis (talk) 15:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Greece was their first choice
Apparently, at first they offered all their work to the Greek government, but the authorities (stupidly) had no use for it, so their second choice was Yugoslavia. Can anyone source that information? Politis (talk) 11:46, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Given that one brother chose to stay in Yugoslavia and the other chose to go to Greece, I wonder if the story is more complicated than that.... In any case, as you say, we need sources. --macrakis (talk) 13:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The story is that they were both short of money that is why they moved into doing other jobs wherever they could get them. No one (to my knowledge) sponsored them and their work was considered (in some respects) of lower standing both across Greece and Yugoslavia; it did not have the 'glamour' of being or showing western subjects, it was too local and it lacked national feeling or communist bravado. Belgrade accepted their gift but had no time or place for it, so it handed this 'minor' material to a city that lacked archives but had plenty of space, Skopje, who then moved it to Bitola. In no way would they have associated themselves as (Slav) Macedonians, but were happy to be, in order of preference, Greek, Yugoslav, Romanian. Today they have been turned into Slav Macedonian legends - this simply kills their memory. As for the Greeks, I really think (the malakismena plasmata in Athens) turned down their work. Politis (talk) 13:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Do you have a source for the "order of preference" you mention? Are you sure they considered themselves Romanian as opposed to Vlach? I added some time ago a relevant book to the bibliography, Αδελφοί Μανάκια: πρωτοπόροι του κινηματογράφου στα Βαλκάνια και το "Βλαχικόν ζήτημα", but unfortunately I have not read it, nor do I know whether it is reliable. --macrakis (talk) 13:45, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

One of the brothers worked at the Romanian consulate in Thessaloniki and, I think, he had to declare ethnic Romanian. It is unbelievable how they were treated in life and are fought over after death. Politis (talk) 14:18, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Both brothers were Aromanians, born into the Ottoman Empire in a town, which was one of the centres of the Romanian National movement in the area. They were educated initially in Romanian school and later in Romanian gymnaziums. One of them died in Greece, another in Yugoslavia, but they were neither pro-Slavic, nor pro-Hellenic oriented in ethnic sence, I think.


 * Typically people who were with consulates at the time were citizens of the host country, not of the represented country. So it doesn't really mean much other than as a person with Greek, Aromanian, Bulgarian/Macedonian and some Turkish language skills as well as French and some English, contacts all over the Balkans, he woudl be a good hire for any consulate in the region. That Yanaki was a Greek citizen later in life, when he was living in Thessaloniki, and that is not inconsistent with working in a consulate.
 * I think we have to be very careful about assigning nationality and ethnicity to people from Rumelia/Thrace/Macedonia regions at the time of the Manaki brothers. It was much more complex and heterogeneous even within an individual than some make it to be.N34B2 (talk) 13:44, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

Language and boosterism
Recently a large part of this article has been changed. Though there are some additional interesting facts, unfortunately the additions are marred by (1) ungrammatical and unidiomatic English and (2) boosterism and nationalism, starting with the very first sentence of the lead ("gained reputation" is not English; "Bitola, a strong economical and cultural center" is not English and is boosterism). I am not sure whether the better strategy is to go back to the "last known good" version and edit that to include new material, or to try to clean up the current version. I suspect we need to go back to the last good version, because almost every sentence in the new version has something wrong with it: "after their excellent work is seen"; "it was the first film sequences"; "marked the birth of the cinematography of Southeastern Europe"; etc.

Also, it is not clear whether some of the new cited sources are reliable sources at all. For example, ПО ПОВОД МАНАКИ appears to be an original film script.

It would be great to have more material on the Manaki brothers, but it has got to be in intelligible English, not marred by nationalist boosterism, and well sourced. --Macrakis (talk) 02:41, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree. The peer reviewed sober scholarly work avoids direct ethnic labels being artificially being used in the Roumelia/Thrace/Macedonian region of this time. It is an anachronism to do so. many people wold have spoken several languages, and had a complex and fluid self nomination as to ethnicity.N34B2 (talk) 13:48, 22 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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Out of wedlock
Since Milton married Vassiliki in 1935 and their son was born in May 1935 (May is the 5th month), then the child was conceived out of wedlock. Politis (talk) 00:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * So? Surely there's no need to add that to the article. --Macrakis (talk) 03:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't know if Vassiliki got pregnant before they got married. In those times such things were more frowned upon, but it is not impossible that it happened. Super   Ψ   Dro  14:49, 28 January 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 4 November 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: page moved. Andrewa (talk) 20:28, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Yanaki and Milton Manaki → Manaki brothers – "Manaki brothers" is the name under which these two men are known the best. I get 53,000 Google results when searching this name in brackets. On the other hand, I get 1,860 with "Yanaki and Milton Manaki", 1,370 with "Yanaki Manaki" and 23,700 "Milton Manaki" (I don't understand what happens with Yanaki here), and less when using their Aromanian surnames. Furthermore, the proposed move goes in line with other examples (Wright brothers, Coen brothers) and avoids mentioning one of the brothers before the other in the title. In the future it'd be good to also move the title so that it uses the brothers' Aromanian surname but the Greek (?) one seems to be the most common name as of today. Super  Ψ   Dro  19:49, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Usually referred to as such. For some reason, Milton is more famous of the two (I did not even know the brother's name offhand), which explains the difference. No such user (talk) 11:07, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Since about 1988, the phrase "Manaki(s) brothers" has become far more common than Milton Manaki, which was always far more common than Yanaki. ngrams doesn't even find the phrases "Milton and Yanaki" or "Yanaki and Milton". --Macrakis (talk) 13:44, 5 November 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment re the Aromanian surname, WP policy is to use the name that is most common in English-language sources. "Manachia" is vanishingly rare in English. --Macrakis (talk) 13:50, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

11:25, 26 December 2005‎ Miskin talk contribs block‎ 30 bytes +30‎  moved Manaki brothers to Manakis brothers: That's the most commonly used form of the name (Greek nominative) thank which is part of the triangle of moves this completes, so I preserve that here. Andrewa (talk) 20:23, 11 November 2021 (UTC) The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Comment: I am intending to close this as consensus to move but not to move the talk page as that would overwrite much relevant discussion. Instead I will post an explanation on the target talk page. The article move will however overwrite

Manastir vs. Monastir
the WP article uses the spelling Manastir, as does the infobox in this article. Why have you changed the spelling in the body of the article? --Macrakis (talk) 19:34, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi Macrakis, in the previous spelling you have used, the wikipedia link didn't work. I changed one letter and the link went working. I haven't looked at the main article to see what is spelling of the standard title and how it's written there.
 * I've restored the standard title, added a redirect, and made an explicit wikilink. --Macrakis (talk) 17:24, 1 September 2023 (UTC)