Talk:Sabina Spielrein

Year of birth
The intro starts 'born 1884', the biography starts 'born 1885'. Which is it? VenomousConcept (talk) 09:34, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Sources say 1885. This was fixed a while ago. Debresser (talk) 06:46, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Question
Did she really have a spanking fetish or this just something they invented for the film "A Dangerous Method."

I'm curious to know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.72.24.204 (talk) 05:53, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

No. See latest edit. She had masochistic fantasies as a child and adolescent but there is no evidence she practiced sado-masochism with Jung or anyone else Johnlauner (talk) 09:06, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Father's profession
In the german Wikipedia Spielrein biography her father was a 'Kaufmann' (merchant, business man) while here he's a physician. Which one is right ? Someone should find out. (Arkadasch (talk) 16:36, 13 November 2011 (UTC))
 * Both. While in Warsaw he was an entomologist, and in Rostov he turned merchant. By the way, an entomologist studies insects, so I wouldn't call him a physician, really. Debresser (talk) 06:50, 28 December 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree, an entomologist is not a physician. I will make the appropriate change to the father's occupations in the "Biography" section of article, based upon my reading of the source provided for this passage of the article.  I will not remove the description of merchant.  Thus the edited article will list entomologist and merchant as professions for the father.Ctconnolly (talk) 03:22, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I have corrected this to 'agronomist' in keeping with the authoritative biography in German by Richbächer, which I have referenced.80.0.26.136 (talk) 12:14, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Citations needed
First allow me to apologize for not providing an "Edit summary" for the edit I made to this article on 29 December 2011. Another editor of this article has removed the entirety of my edit with the following explanation in his or her Edit summary: "Undid revision 468338600 by Ctconnolly (talk) Seems like an arbitrary deleting of external links, and in one case likewise arbitrary addition of fact tag." Allow me to clarify that I have made neither deletions nor alterations of any type to the "External links" section of this article. In the section titled "Further reading" of this discussion page I have already addressed my rationale, with supporting documentation by way of internal Wikipedia link, for deleting two titles from the "Further reading" section of this article. Thus allow me to address my rationale for making two requests of "citation needed" (what I assume this other editor was referring to when using the phrase "fact tag").

The first citation request I made was placed immediately after the following unsourced statement in the introductory section of this article: "She studied under Carl Gustav Jung, with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship." While her studying with Jung seems to be widely accepted as fact and not in need of a citation, I feel that the latter clause of the quoted sentence does require a citation or should be deleted from this article. Legitimate encyclopedias have no place for unsourced rumors. The Wikipedia article Help:Editing is clear on this matter: "If you add information to a page, please provide references, as unreferenced statements are subject to removal"  In the "Biography" section of this article the topic of the content of their relationship is raised again, with an editor citing a page in a published book to claim that their relationship included sexual activity. If this reference is truly supportive of the earlier claim of a "romantic relationship" between Jung and Spielrein, I feel it would be more suitably placed at the top of the article, after the sentence I have quoted above. Alternatively, citations may be placed in both locations, but I, as a Wikipedia reader, would prefer that it not be placed exclusively in the latter location. Many readers may read the introduction of this article, yet not continue to read the article in its entirety. If there are additional references supportive of this claim, I feel they should also be placed after the quoted sentence in the introductory sentence of this article. If sources are differentiating between "romantic" and "sexual" this should be noted as well.

The second citation request I made was placed immediately after the following unsourced statement in the "Cultural impact" section of this article: "Spielrein's letters, journals and copies of hospital records have been published, as has her correspondence with Jung and Freud." I feel it would help readers of this article to provide citations here, directing them to the books or other media that have published this material. Reading the "References" and "Further reading" sections of this article does not clearly reveal which volumes may contain this material.

I welcome the opportunity to continue collaborating with other editors in an attempt to further improve this article. Thank you for your assistance.Ctconnolly (talk) 22:14, 30 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Agree with you about the first tag, which is why I said in the editsummary of my undo ""in one case". The second is more a request for adding an external link, rather than a source, and using the Citation needed tag was inappropriate. Debresser (talk) 16:38, 31 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the second citation request (made after the claim that her letters and correspondence have been published), I agree that an external link is one possibility, yet I also feel there are justifiable alternatives, including those that would merit the request for a citation.  A citation results in a new entry in the References section.  The Wikipedia article Manual of Style/Layout clearly states that there are several types of entries that can appear in the References section:  "This section, or series of sections, may contain (1) explanatory footnotes that give information which is too detailed or awkward to be in the body of the article, (2) citation footnotes that serve to verify specific information in the article, (3) general references (bibliography items) that are not explicitly related to any specific parts of the text or are the target of a short citation".  Either of the first two types could be used in this instance to easily inform the reader as to what books or other media have published these writings of Spielrein.  Another alternative is to add brief notations after any entries in the Further reading section that contain these writings.  This is clearly supported by the Wikipedia article Manual of Style/Layout:

"When an article lists a large number of sources or materials for Further reading, it may be helpful to add brief notes about the sources (e.g., beginner, advanced, detailed, survey, historically important, etc.), like this: J. Smith, Introduction to Linear Programming, Acme Press, 2010. An introductory text. D. Jones, Linear Programming Theory, Excelsior Press, 2008. A rigorous theoretical text for advanced readers. Various formats may be used for these notes; it should be consistent within an article, but which format is used should depend on the nature and length of the annotations, and the format of the reference itself".

The titles of these books or other media could also simply be added to the main body of the article, yet this may disrupt the flow of the article.

Whichever method is selected by the editors of this article, it is my hope that some path is created to lead the reader directly to the names of the books or other media that have published these writings of Spielrein.Ctconnolly (talk) 15:35, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Until an editor can provide a citation, I think it is a good idea to remove the following clause from the introductory section of this article: "with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship". Here is the full sentence as it exists now: "She studied under Carl Gustav Jung, with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship." Here is an alternative I have written: "During the course of her adult life she was in succession an analysand, then student, then colleague of Carl Gustav Jung.  She also had a professional relationship with Sigmund Freud." The issue of a sexual relationship with Jung is then presented in the Biography section of this article with a citation, and this seems fine to me if this is an accurate summary of the work cited. In terms of a possible gender bias in this Spielrein article, it is worth noting that the editors of the introductory section of the Wikipedia article on Carl Jung have not feel the need to mention the issue of a sexual relationship with Sabina Spielrein, or with anyone else for that matter, and have chosen to focus instead on his professional accomplishments. An interesting fact in an encyclopedia where nearly 90% of the editors are, like me, men.Ctconnolly (talk) 16:06, 1 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Instead of writing such elaborate thought-out plans, it would have better to type the word "Spielrein" and "Jung" into Google, and you would have easily found good sources for the statement, as have I. Debresser (talk) 16:15, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Today I have edited and expanded the section of her life from 1904 to 1911 in accordance with current scholarship. I have added some citations but have had problems with using an initial attribute followed by further citations in the form. When I did this yesterday it seemed to work fine, but today I get error messages saying I haven't added the final. Advice please? (I'm also posting this on my own talk page) Johnlauner (talk) 08:11, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens in public domain?
Since her paper, Die Destruktion als Ursache des Werdens. Jb psychoanal psychopathol Forsch 4, 1912, 465-503, is 100 years old, it should be in public domain. Is there a copy of the German text on the Internet? --Nbauman (talk) 16:49, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes there is. You can find it at the Internet Archive, at https://archive.org/details/JahrbuchFuumlrPsychoanalytischeUndPsychopathologischeForschungenIv_509. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larrykoen (talk • contribs) 04:46, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Death
Is there a reliable source for the claim that Spielrein and her two children were killed by a nazi German SS Death Squad, Einsatzgruppe D in August 1942 in Zmievskaya Balka, together with 27,000 other victims? Please link towards uploaded copies of documents supporting this claim. 82.169.234.28 (talk) 15:38, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
 * There is a source in the article, reference number 10. Debresser (talk) 18:51, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The authoritative biography by Sabine Richebächer (see refs) also includes 9 pages of contemporary testimony to the massacre by Einsatzgruppe D at Zmyevskaya Balka, extracted from documents at Yad Vashem. (I have deleted an offensive entry denying that any massacre took place) 80.0.26.136 (talk) 12:20, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Legacy
I have recently published the first full length scholarly biography of Spielrein in English (now added to references) and would like to start attempting to amend this page since much of the content is inaccurate, out-of-date or unreferenced. In the first instance, I should like to change the last sentence under legacy to read:

"Extensive extracts from Spielrein's letters and diaries are available in a number of journals and books including [with citations]. Her correspondence with Jung and Freud are available in [with citations]. There are full bibliographies of her published papers in her biography in English by John Launer [with citation] and the one in German by Sabine Richebaecher [with citation]"

Is this acceptable? Also is there a way of converting standard academic referencing systems eg Harvard or Vancouver into the very unusual system used by Wikipedia?

At a future date I would like to propose further changes, but I would like to start with this one. Please comment.Johnlauner (talk) 10:32, 25 May 2015 (UTC)


 * This looks very acceptable to me. You can have a look at Template:Harvard citation documentation and Harvard citation template examples regarding Harvard style citation templates and Help:Citation Style Vancouver for a list of the available Vancouver style citation templates. Debresser (talk) 11:41, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I am continuing to expand this article in line with current scholarship. Please note I am not removing any previous edits, although I have moved some in order to make a smoother narrative. Johnlauner (talk) 08:24, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

Names
I have changed her patronymic from Naftulovna to Nikolayevna (including in Cyrillic) as she used this name on her papers published in Russian, as well as on official forms (see Etkind 1997 in references). It is also the one used for her on modern Russian websites. I have given the name on her birth ceritificate as testified by Ljunggren and Richebächer who have seen it (see refs). I have added a further transliteration of her name. 'Shpilrain' as this is the one used by her heirs in north America including the mathematician Professor Vladimir Shpilrain. I am happy to provide more precise citations in support of these changes, which I recognize are significant. Johnlauner (talk) 09:31, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think you had a superfluous letter in the Russian, so I removed it. For the record, I completely agree with this change, which differentiates between the birthname and the name as in her papers. Debresser (talk) 10:20, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for spotting the superfluous и and for all your help!Johnlauner (talk) 15:49, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Dates
To the best of my memory, October 25 is precisely the same November 7 in Old style dates and New style dates, based on the Gregorian or the Julian calendar. It is common to add OS and NS to such dates, to avoid confusion. In other words, I think she was born October 25 OS, and it should be changed back but with the added "OS". Debresser (talk) 10:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes you are right, have amended accordingly Johnlauner (talk) 08:07, 4 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Thank you. Debresser (talk) 09:18, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

Relationship with Carl Jung
The last two paragraphs of this section under the heading "Relationship with Carl Jung" are chaotic, and not entirely correct historically. They need cleaning and further citations to current academic sources. This is a controversial issue, of course, with many opinions. I would like to re-write these sections. I have recently authored a long chapter on this material, which has been peer reviewed. It is available at online here. If those following this page have no objections, I will submit a rewrite in the next few weeks, adding some of the references in the published article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LOwens (talk • contribs) 23:42, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

I have made several edits to this section, and added a new references in support. Any comments will be appreciated. LOwens (talk) 08:18, 21 December 2015 (UTC)