Talk:Smolensk War

Cossacks' participation in the war
A very interesting fact seems to be missing from the article, and namely, the Ukrainian Cossacks' participation in the war. Incidentally, the future hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky and another prominent Cossack Ivan Bohun participated in the Smolensk war. For his bravery Khmelnytsky was presented with a golden sword from King Wladislaw. I looked and could only find Ukrainian sources on that of historian Yuri Mytsyk. I was wodering if there are Polish sources that corroborate that, and if this fact can be included in the article? Below is the relevant passage in Ukrainian, if that could help to those, who can read it.
 * У 1633-1634 рр. Москва спробувала взяти реванш, розпочавши так звану Смоленську війну. Головні події відбулися саме під білоруським містом, яке врешті було взяте військом Речі Посполитої. Тут відзначилися запорожці, серед яких був і …Богдан Хмельницький, котрому король Владислав ІУ нагородив за це цінною шаблею. Потім настав відносний спокій, але запорожці, насамперед знаменитий Іван Богун, здійснювали у першій половині - середині 40-х років 17 ст. успішні походи проти Московської держави: від Кодака (суч. Дніпропетровськ) аж до Мордовії! --Hillock65 15:35, 5 August 2007 (UTC)


 * By all means, feel free to add it. I just finished reading the summary in Nagielski's book; he doesn't seem to mention those details, but please feel free to add yours if you think they are relevant. Eventually when this war gains its own subarticles, it can be split off, perhaps, but now its 'all about the Smolensk war'.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:27, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I have written an article just on this subject (http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Запорізькі_козаки_у_Смоленській_війні_1632-34_рр._). Zapogian Cossacks did take a prominent part in the war, but there is no indication in the historical sources that Bohdan Khmelnytskyj took part in it as well Chestnut ah (talk) 21:59, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Copyedit
I have done a minor copyedit so that the article reads slightly better in English. I hope that I haven't changed the sense of any sentences, the one change that I'm a little uncertain of was changing "Polish enemies" to "Poland's enemies" as I'm not certain whether it's correct the describe the whole Commonwealth as "Poland"? Changes made:
 * addition of numerous "the"s - I get the impression that Polish doesn't use the definite article as often as English does!
 * change of "Muscovy" to "Muscovite" in several places. Arguably either could be used, but referring to the people rather than the state seems to read better.
 * use period rather than comma as the decimal separator in values ("6.5 million zloty" rather than "6,5 million zloty").
 * "because of" is usually considered to be grammatically better than "due to".
 * I've wikilinked dates so that user preferences can take effect. There is some mixture, as written, of mostly European English format dates and occasional American English format; I've not changed the underlying formats, but leave this to the regular editors.

I notice that generally the article is written in American English style, which is slightly surprising in a European subject (use of "fall" rather than "autumn" for the season, use of "ize" rather than "ise" suffix in words, and I noticed one instance of "fervor" rather than "fervour"). I have not changed any of the English dialect differences, and leave it to the regular editors to determine which form of English you want to use. - Arwel (talk) 20:45, 13 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the copyedit!--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 05:17, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

GA review
I have taken on Smolensk War for review under the Good Article criteria, as nominated on the Good article candidates page by Piotrus. You'll be pleased to hear that the article meets none of the quick-fail criteria, so I will shortly be conducting an in-depth review and will post the results below.

Where an article is not an outright pass, but requires relatively minor additional work to be brought up to GA standard, I will normally place it on hold - meaning that editors have around a week to address any issues raised. As a precaution to prevent failure by default should this occur, if editors are likely to be unavailable over the next ten days or so, feel free to leave a message on my talk page so we can arrange a more convenient time for review. Regards, EyeSereneTALK 10:55, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * I may not be very active over the coming week.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 14:27, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
 * No problem; from my initial readthrough it looks like the most the article might need is a further minor copyedit - sourcing is the usual issue at GA review (and one which needs expert attention), but not in this case ;) I'll go ahead with the review, and maybe ce myself if that's ok? EyeSereneTALK 11:39, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
 * By all means, ce as much as you want. Thanks! --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 02:05, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I made some edits and split the long paragraphs into shorter ones. --Irpen 03:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

GA on hold
(contd from above): Thank you both! I have undertaken a further copyedit, and made a few alterations to the layout to comply with the Manual of Style. Hopefully these are alright - please feel free to alter anything that needs it ;)

I'd normally give a thorough review, but since I've commented above and, with your permission, addressed the issues I would have raised, this seems superfluous. However, even if my changes are OK, you'll still need to proofread the article to ensure I haven't messed up the facts. If you let me know when this has been done, I'll be happy to pass the article. All the best, EyeSereneTALK 18:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. I corrected the confusing sentence, and restored the one which I think has relevant detail.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Allegoric pics
The picture of Russians fallen down to the mercy of the Polish king, whose horses stand on the Russian banners is obviously allegoric. It needs to be said so in the caption. For the similar problem, see Talk:Muscovite-Lithuanian Wars and the solution at Muscovite-Lithuanian Wars. --Irpen 03:15, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, the older picture is definitely allegoric, most obviously because of the angels in the sky. I have no problem with making this clear in the caption, to make sure that no readers are led to believe that angels intervened in the battle.  As for the second picture, the resolution is so low that it is hard to tell what is going on.  I would just remove it, as it does not add much to the article, unless a higher quality version can be found. Balcer 03:41, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Please do not pretend you have not got what I meant. The "older pic" also shows the equestrian pl-king standing on Russian banners. Do you believe this a minute? As far as angels go, you can photoshop them out, if you like. --Irpen 04:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Why are you so certain this has not happened? Do you really believe that the Poles of that time were incapable of desecrating the Russian banners in this way?  Anyway, as I said, we should state in the caption that the picture is allegoric, as we agree on this, though for different reasons (which is fine).  Balcer 04:40, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you actually read the article? Here is what it says:
 * "The Russian [...] were allowed to take their banners (after a ceremony in which they were laid before king Władysław"

"Laid before the king" is not the same at "trampled by king's horse" but certainly calls for that allegory. --Irpen 04:59, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The reference contains an account of the campaign by an anonymous Polish source. The painting is another source in this case, so to speak.  You are thus claiming that the anonymous account by some Polish soldier must be correct (and complete), and what the painting from roughly the same time shows must be incorrect.  That may well be but it is not obvious to me at all, as you insisted above.  Anyway, it seems we are arguing over details.  Let's just add a note that the painting is allegorical and be done with this issue. Balcer 05:11, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I have no problem with "allegoric" being added to the first picture; per Bacler. As for the second, that photo doesn't seem too allegoric. However I'd strongly object to its removal, we have ample space in the article for them.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Problem with refs
Can we replace dubious references by more academic ones. I see the "Rickard" ref linked to a site of non-established reputation. If it is merely a reprint form a reliable source posted here, please say so. Also, what's the deal with Rzeczpospolita (newspaper) in the reflist? How is that acceptable for the material about 400 years ago? --Irpen 04:58, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
 * As you can see here, the author is a reliable historian. As for the Rzeczpospolita, it seems you have failed to note that it is a history supplement published in cooperation with a history magazine, written by many reliable historians.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 04:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

GA pass
Thanks for the proofread and corrections ;) I have now passed Smolensk War as a Good Article, and listed it as such on the Good Articles page under History > War and military > Conflicts, battles and military exercises.

Great work, and well done! EyeSereneTALK 17:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Review: Pass
As part of the WikiProject Good Articles, we're doing sweeps to go over all of the current GAs and see if they still meet the GA criteria. I'm specifically going over all of the "Conflicts, battles and military exercises" articles. I just realized that the article was passed just a few weeks ago, but I'm going through all of the Conflicts articles so I might as well make sure the article still has its high quality. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. I had to make a few corrections for some and I put one of the "citation needed" statements in a hidden comment tag, so add a source for it so it can be readded. Also the lead should be expanded more to better summarize the article and include inline citations (see WP:LEAD). If you have any questions, let me know on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I have edited the article history to reflect this review. Regards, --Nehrams2020 01:27, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Category:GA-Class Poland-related articles

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