Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Duchy of Poland (c. 960–1025)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was redirect to History of Poland during the Piast dynasty. There is consensus to not keep all these separate articles. There is no clear consensus how to otherwise organize the topic area, but that can be left to the consensus of interested editors. As an interim solution, redirection to the article covering the entire period appears most appropriate.  Sandstein  08:02, 24 April 2022 (UTC)

Duchy of Poland (c. 960–1025)

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

First part in a series of articles created by user User:Artemis Andromeda about Polish "states": Most of these are created by copying content from already existing articles on Polish history (e.g. History of Poland during the Piast dynasty). Such a division is factually incorrect; the time periods correspond to the periods in which the ruler of Poland wore the royal crown. In principle, this did not cause any administrative changes that would justify the creation of a separate article. The fact that Bolesław II the Bold crowned himself in 1076 and was dethroned three years later is not a sufficient basis to divide Polish history into three sub-periods. Besides, already from the 11th century the Polish state was referred to in sources as "regnum Poloniae", even if none of the rulers was strong enough to crown himself. Unnecessary multiplication of entities and duplication of content that is already well described on Wikipedia. Marcelus (talk) 23:24, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Duchy of Poland (c. 960-1025)
 * Hello. I am the one who created all this articles, and I would like to add a few things to this discussion. Firstly, let me open with the statement, that I acknowledge my mistake in separating the entity from years 960-1138 into a separate auricles, as they indeed were a single state, with different titles of its monarch. However, everything since 1138, were completely different entities with drastically different political systems from one another. Let's start with Duchy of Poland (1138-1227). In 1138, duke of Poland, seperated the state into smaller duchies that were given under the control of his sons, reforming the state into the confederation, somewhat similar to, HRE, while before that, Poland was a unified singular state. The members of such confederation were vassals of the High Duke, who was the leader of the state. Then, in years 1227-1295, there wasn't any Polish state, as the title of High Duke was abolish, and all duchies become independent, ending the confederation. The Kingdom of Poland (1295-1296), was a completely separate entity from other Polish kingdoms/duchies on the list, as it was a standalone short-lived attempt in recreating the title of King of Poland, that only controlled Greater Poland and Pomerelia, as other Polish duchies, such as Krakow, or Masovia, were still independent. Then Kingdom of Poland (1300-1320), was a proper reestablishment of the confederation of Polish duchies under the King of Poland, that eventually however ended with fauiler, and 14 years of interregnum period, with Polish duchies still pretty much remaining de facto independent from the centralized power. Then, the United Kingdom of Poland was establishmed in 1320, with coronation of Władysław I Łokietek, and abolishing all smaller duchies, and formed a unified kingdom. Sincerely, Artemis Andromeda (talk) 23:54, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Nothing really changed in 1138, as Poland was divided into separate provinces basically after the death of each ruler. This time the division just happened to be more permanent. It is not true that Poland did not exist in the years 1227-1295, there was a sense of unity between the Polish lands ruled by members of the Piast dynasty, there was just no one powerful enough to impose his will on the others. Conventions of princes were held, the unity of the state was personified by a church metropolis, and the whole country was called Polonia. Przemysł II did not create a separate state, as you say, but he crowned himself king of Poland, although he only managed to cover two large provinces with his power. Both Wenceslaus II and Ladislaus the Short regarded themselves as successors to Przemysl II. The only significant moment would be the fall of the so-called First Polish State in 1031-34, Casimir I actually built the state from the beginning, on slightly different principles. Other periodisations as regards statehood are not justified. The term kingdom of Poland refers to the Polish state from the coronation of Bolesław Chrobry in 1000 or 1025 until the fall of the state in 1795. Then we have the Congress Kingdom (Congress Poland) and the German-created Kingdom of Poland (1917-1918). A separate entity, not identical and existing alongside the kingdom, is the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, created in the mid-14th century. Other divisions and administrative changes, the appearance and disappearance of crowned rulers, are very well described in articles on Polish history, there is no point in multiplying entities beyond measure.Marcelus (talk) 00:49, 2 April 2022 (UTC)


 * Sigh. Every few years some user will decide to rewrite the history of Poland subarticles into whatever they like. This really needs to stop, and the only way to do so is through a WP:RFC on which Periodization system, based on reliable sources, to adopt. We also have the 'history of' series of articles, as seen in the Template:History of Poland and the 'states of' series represented by this one, which totally bypasses the old and elegant system as seen in Template:Polish statehood. While I support such a split (history of a state is a subarticle of the state article), the split articles pre Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (1385–1795)/Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795) is, IMHO, not good. United Kingdom of Poland (1320–1386) borderline, as it still is not just the 'history of', but IMHO all of Andromeda's creations (from Kingdom of Poland (1300–1320) onward) are just unnecessary 'history of' duplications. I'd support restoring Kingdom of Poland (1025–1385), which had the proper structure (not just history, but politics, military, economy sections, etc.), although I am amenable to see it split into pre-fragmentation, fragmentation, and post-fragmention entries (i.e. Kingdom of Poland (1025–1138), Kingdom of Poland (1138–1320), United Kingdom of Poland (1320–1386), per pl:Szablon:Historia Polski). The other one that would remain would be Duchy of Poland (c. 960–1025). I'd also ask Andromeda to show us what periodization they used for their split; if that cannot be shown, this split needs to go simply as WP:OR. Anyway, a big problem we have right now is a form of WP:POVFORK, as the articles written by Andromeda are just 'history of' and as such they duplicate the existing 'history of' series, just with different periodization. That's chaotic, and hence my support for restoring the situation where we have the one, single, state-level parent article (or two, Kingdom of Poland (1025–1385) in this version+Duchy of Poland (c. 960–1025)). Frankly, we need to have the article on periodization of Polish history, badly; I'll see if I can write one using sources like this. Ping User:Merangs and User:Orczar who IIRC were interested in this topic a while ago. PS. I'd also point out that this was a bad form de facto deletion of article by Andromeda, skipping AfDs and consultations with community. We need to restore the articles to their decade-lon stable version ASAP. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:02, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the problem lies in the periodization of Polish history, since this already exists: It's not a perfect periodization, but it's as good as any (personally I would have preferred if the first three articles had included a time period - e.g. History of Poland (960-1385), but that's a secondary thing). Here we are dealing with various forms of Polish statehood. We certainly need a Kingdom of Poland article, but it should be a single article, describing the process of the emergence of royal power in Poland, covering the period from 1000 to 1795, explaining why some rulers crowned themselves and others did not and mentioning attempts to reconstruct the kingdom in the post-partition period - Congress Poland and the regency kingdom formed in 1916, but as an epilogue. I believe there may be an article under the title Monarchy of the First Piasts or First Polish State, describing the first state founded by the first half of the 10th century and collapsed in 1031-34. It is often distinguished in Polish historiography (e.g. Labuda, PIerwsze państwo polskie). This state actually collapsed and had to be rebuilt anew. The article Crown of the Kingdom of Poland should exist. But it should not be an entry describing the history of Poland, but concerning a certain political and legal concept, which was not created in 1385, but around the middle of the 14th century. The concept included the idea that: 1) the kingdom does not belong personally to the king, but to the Crown, which symbolizes the indivisibility and permanence of the state 2) the Crown symbolizes the state, which is not only in the hand of the ruler, but also communitas regni (in the Polish case the nobility and the clergy) 3) the Crown symbolises the whole state and not only the lands which are actually part of the kingdom (in the Polish case Silesia and Pomerania) 4) after the Union of Lublin, despite attempts to extend the concept of the Crown to the whole Commonwealth, it became the name of the "Polish" part of the united state. All this should be included in such an article. It was quite an original Polish creation, but there were oldest examples of similiar concepts in Europe. There were English, Bohemian, Hungarian, Aragonese Crowns, as political entities (classic Kantorowicz's The King's Two Bodies, Of course articles such as Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Duchy of Warsaw, Congress Poland are inviolable and should exist alongside. The Duchy of Poland should be a disambiguation page leading to other pages. I consider the existence of the article United Kingdom of Poland to be nonsensical. Especially since it ends on 1385. BTW on Polish Wikipedia the mess isn't much better. BTW2, descriptions from Kingdom of Poland are basically WP:OR: Marcelus (talk) 10:55, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Poland in the Early Middle Ages
 * History of Poland during the Piast dynasty
 * History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty
 * History of Poland in the Early Modern era (1569–1795) (and History of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569-1648) and so on]]
 * etc.
 * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1025 to 1031
 * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1076 to 1079
 * Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom in Greater Poland existing from 1295 to 1296, under the rule of Przemysł II
 * Kingdom of Poland, a confederal kingdom existing from 1300 to 1320
 * United Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom existing from 1320 to 1386
 * Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, a kingdom, which from 1385 to 1569 was an independent country, and from 1569 to 1795 was a member state of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth


 * @Marcelus You make a good point. Frankly, the PLC article has been the only one I've edited significantly, and that was long ago, when my research and writing skills weren't at their best. Anyway, I fully agree we need a series of articles on Polish statehood (as in, articles which are structured as describing a state, i.e. geography, politics, economy, and not just history), and generally speaking, yes, I think it makes sense to have a Kingdom of Poland main article, as the one proceeding the one about PLC (although technically I still think the Mieszko I Duchy period cannot be properly described as Kingdom). How to split it, exactly, I'd really prefer to base such a decision on a reliable historian (Labuda, sure). PS. Anyway, unless someone jumps in to do major rewrites now, my preferred solution is to restore this version, pre-AA's restructuring, and turn his(her?) article into redirects, since that older article was stable for many years and has the correct "state" structure. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:01, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Piotrus Except that the Kingdom of Poland article should not precede PLC, but exist in parallel, as the kingdom did not cease to exist either in 1385 or in 1569. As to the state of Mieszko I propose: First Polish state or Polish state (before 1039), which would describe the formation of the Polish state from the early 10th century and its decline after 1039. After his return to Poland, Casimir the Restorer rebuilt the state from scratch, with a new capital, church hierarchy etc.Marcelus (talk) 11:07, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Marcelus I think Crown of Poland describes the Kingdom of Poland within PLC. (The confusing part is that it also describes the entity pre-PLC). As for the pre-10? state, I am open to seeing what the literature says (our old article used the year 1025). Frankly, we have numerous ways to divide things, including yours, and that's why I strongly believe we need to reply on what real historians say. Which is why I still intend to research and write the periodization of Polish history article first, and only when I am done (unless someone does it first) I'll be able to strongly opine on what is the best solution (and hence, for now, I support restoring the articles to how they looked during the ~2010-2021 period). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:14, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @PiotrusWell, I cannot agree with you completely. We are not talking about periodisation here. Only about describing political creations and concepts. Kingdom of Poland and Crown of the Kingdom of Poland are two different things that existed side by side in time. The problem does not concern the periodization of Poland's history at all, because this one is done well in my opinion (Poland in the Early Middle Ages, History of Poland during the Piast dynasty, History of Poland during the Jagiellonian dynasty, History of Poland in the Early Modern era (1569-1795) etc.).Marcelus (talk) 11:53, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @MarcelusBut we are talking here about the periodization of Polish state. That's very related. I started pl:Periodyzacja historii Polski (work in progress) and I'll get back to you when I am done. For now, again, given I am unsure what is the best solution, I prefer restoring stable article had in the past decade (so, roughly, I agree with you that we need to revert Andromeda's edits, but you have not proposed what to do to replace them, hence my vote to restore and redirect). If you intended to write a series of new articles, you are welcome to do so, but we need something in the interim. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 12:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Piotrus Not really, articles dividing Polish history into periods already exist (I mentioned them in a previous post), here we are talking about Polish states.Marcelus (talk) 13:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Marcelus Periodization of Polish states is very much a thing too. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 14:40, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   06:16, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict with last item) Remove these to restore the series of articles that we used to have (perhaps still do), per Marcelus. The whole series of creations results from the fallacy that a ruler taking a new title creates a new sovereign state and thus requires a new article.  The changes in status (Duke to King and vice versa) did not create a new polity, only a new status for an existing one.  The history of Poland is slightly complicated because at some periods there were multiple polities.  For example Silesia was at one period a Polish duchy.  Since WWII it has again been part of Poland, but not for many centuries between.  Equally, at times, the ruler of one polity also ruled another, perhaps by a personal union.  In the 18th century the electors of Saxon were sometimes also kings of Poland, but that does not mean that Poland and Saxony ceased to exist in favour of an allegedly merged state, when in fact each retained its own institutions.  Only where there was a split, so that two successor states went in completely different directions should new articles be needed.  Peterkingiron (talk) 14:47, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:50, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: History and Poland.   Sandstein   06:17, 9 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Restore to prior configuration - These new articles were a unilateral attempt to reconfigure how Wikipedia deals with large swaths of Polish history. Some of the article divisions are based what are effectively nothing more than semantic distinctions, plus WP:NOPAGE - even if a case can be made for these being distinguishable entities, that doesn't mean that we must deal with them all on separate pages. Such major reconfiguring should go through RfC, rather than creating duplicate timelines and trying to sort it out by AfD. Best approach is to return to status quo ante and work forward from there in a more considered manner to decide how best to divide medieval Polish history. Agricolae (talk) 18:25, 10 April 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Admin query: Could you please rephrase your opinions to indicate whether you want to delete, redirect or merge all or each of these articles? Otherwise, the closer will not be able to determine what exactly the outcome of this discussion is.   Sandstein   08:53, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * @Sandstein True, this is a bit complex. Let me repeat my preferred solution: restore this article an redirect all nominated entries to it, except the United Kingdom of Poland and Duchy of Poland (c. 960-1025), which I am fine with existing separately. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 10:05, 17 April 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say they should all be redirected to History of Poland during the Piast dynasty, from which much of their content was copied, or simply deleted, with no bar on recreation after a formal discussion over whether/how best the history during this broad period should best be subdivided. Agricolae (talk) 14:20, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Delete all of them, Kingdom of Poland article should cover the period since the start of 11th century until the last days of Polish monarchy, with definition similiar to Kingdom of France: is the historiographical name or umbrella term given to various political entities of France Poland in the medieval and early modern period.Marcelus (talk) 15:00, 21 April 2022 (UTC)
 * Just FWIW, we have a single article covering the Kingdom of Navarre, beginning when what became the kingdom was probably nothing but a tribal cheifdom and perhaps a frontier province of the Caliphate of Cordoba, through semi-autonomy, petty-kingdom, dominant monarchy, appenage to the French crown, and formal disolution, spanning multiple dynasties and even a change in the name of the entity (Pamplona, then Navarre), all in a single article, which is basically analogous to the approach being suggested here, rather than slicing and dicing every time there was a political or stylistic change. Agricolae (talk) 18:15, 21 April 2022 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.