Talk:Mingrelia

Candide Charkviani a Mingrelian?
According to Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: Court of the Red Tsar the Communist boss of Georgia in the 1940s was Candide Charkviani, a Mingrelian. "Beria was a Mingrelian, so was Charkviani", pg. 632. If so he should be added as a famous Mingrelian. Someone informs me is actually a Svan, but there is no reference for this. His son is the current ambassador of Georgia to the U.K.

Seth J. Frantzman (talk) 17:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Montefiore's information is apparently inaccurate. Charkviani one of the oldest and famous Svan families. I'm native to the region and I have relatives surnamed Charkviani. So you can trust me.:) Cheers,--KoberTalk 17:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * P.S. Note that Candid's grandson's debut album was called "Svan song", a parody to a Swan song. --KoberTalk 17:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment
It is interesting to note that this province and its inhabitants figure prominently in one of John Le Care's most recent novels: "Single and Single". He has had great foresight in setting his novels since the collapse of the Soviet Union in some of the "hot spots" in this part of the world which has been so neglected in the consciousness of the west.

In the novel he mentions that the inhabitants of the "heart" of Mingrelia consider themselves to be descendents of Jason and the Argonauts. Does anyone know anything more about this particular legend?

Dave Lea Fish Creek, WI

* Just read the article about Jason, Medea and Kutaisi. Also - we should consider changing the word "Mingrel" to "Megrel" since this word has a real meaning - the Person from Egrisi - ancient Georgian country.

Name of the article?
Has there ever been a discussion about the location this article should be at? It's not that I really mind its being at Samegrelo, but I would have thought Mingrelia is much more common in English. sephia karta 20:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

+ Mingrelia —Preceding unsigned comment added by Segnor Bugatti (talk • contribs) 14:24, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Can I ask again: is there any reason why this article should be at Samegrelo rather than Mingrelia? sephia karta  14:03, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I support changing the name to Mingrelia. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 01:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Samegrelo is an official name. Plus it is quite common in English nowadays too. Google search gives twice as many hits for Samegrelo. (PaC (talk) 21:21, 16 August 2008 (UTC))


 * But google scholar has 4 times as hits for Mingrelia. Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 23:29, 16 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Scholar only gives a couple of hundred hits. Anyways, that just goes to show that both names are common. In this case we should stick with an official name, IMHO. (75.137.185.117 (talk) 01:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC))


 * Thanks for responding. I'll have to look into Google search results, but note that this is about the historical region, so it doesn't have an 'official' name. sephia karta 16:50, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Question: isn't Samegrelo the Kartuli name for Mingrelia and Samargalo the Mingrelian name for Mingrelia? Doesn't it make more sense to have the english name as the title of this article rather than use a Kartuli name for an historic district populated by Megrelian speaking peoples? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:38, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm.. Old song continued? The Mingrelian-speakers use both Samegrelo and Samargalo just like Abkhazeti and Saabkhazo. Georgian has been a language of literacy for Mingrelians since time immemorial. Samegrelo is both official and historically correct term whether you like it or not. Mingrelia is a corrupted form coined by the 16th-17th century European travellers and has largely become obsolete. --KoberTalk 04:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

As a native English speaker from the United States, I've never heard this region called anything but Mingrelia. Regardless of the article's title, I think everyone can agree the name Mingrelia should at least be mentioned somewhere in the article, so I've restored that because it should not have been purged. Without a reference to Mingrelia, this English-language article is unhelpful to English speakers who know it by that name, and it's confusing because most of the linked articles use the other name (Megrelian people and language, Principality of Mingrelia, articles on the House of Dadiani, etc.). RCTodd (talk) 13:42, 15 March 2017 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was no consensus. --BDD (talk) 22:40, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Samegrelo → Mingrelia – per WP:UE (use English) as seen in this NGram and the arguments above. Other related Wikipedia articles already use the English name (e.g., Mingrelians, Mingrelian language, Principality of Mingrelia, Mingrelian Nationalist Party). Relisted. BDD (talk) 18:36, 5 September 2013 (UTC) —  AjaxSmack   00:26, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - Ajax, I'm a little bit nervous in using a name used by John Locke for a modern region when Barbara A. West Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania 2009- Page 537 has "As a province of Georgia, Samegrelo was part of the Soviet Union until 1991, when Georgia achieved its independence. Due to the period of Russian rule in Samegrelo, there is a greater fluency in Russian among many Mingrelians than ..." The ngram will be picking up many references to pre-independence Georgia. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:10, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * But it's not a modern region, at least not an administrative one. I'm not sure what "a province of Georgia" means but Georgia only has regions and districts now and I'm not sure when it ever had provinces.  Quite a few of the sources using "Mingrelia" are discussing the Zviadists in the 1990s. —  AjaxSmack   02:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * "Mingrelia" indeed is a historical name, primarily used for the Principality of Mingrelia. The name has survived in the English exonym for its inhabitants, Mingrelians. But I think "Samegrelo" is the most common modern name for the region. As for its status, Samegrelo is a "traditional" subdivision (province), not a current administrative entity. Nowadays, its part of the Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti region. --KoberTalk 19:07, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose. "Mingrelia" is a historical term and its usage is justified for the former principality. But as a modern, unofficial/"traditional" subdivision of Georgia it is referred to by its Georgian name. --KoberTalk 19:08, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * That makes sense for Georgian Wikipedia but English Wikipedia is supposed to use the common name in English sources. This NGram shows that "Mingrelia" has been consistently more common over time.  We follow the same practice with other regions such as Abkhazia.  —  AjaxSmack   01:01, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.