Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nationality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


 * 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 keep‎__EXPECTED_UNCONNECTED_PAGE__ without prejudice against further discussions of merging.  Arbitrarily0  ( talk ) 10:50, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

Nationality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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

I raised issues with this page in August at Talk:Nationality_of_Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart, to which replied by essentially repeating the substance of the complaint: there is no source that actually covers an actual discussion about Mozart's nationality -- the article presents this as an academic debate when no such debate is acknowledged in the sources. As I note, there exists a manner in which WP can write about this topic, but no such substance exists in the current article, nor has any effort been made to add such substance since I raised the issue (only two edits since August), and I am doubtful any such rewrites would amount to enough substance to justify a standalone article from Mozart. Hence AfD. Ping:, , ... but the only editor who has contributed more than 100 characters to the article's text is. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:10, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Michael Bednarek (or someone else) would need to provide individual sources which show there is a dispute regarding Mozart's nationality. It's not enough to provide sources which contradict each other on his nationality. The sources themselves have to demonstrate that the question itself is relevant. Onetwothreeip (talk) 19:54, 13 November 2023 (UTC)


 * The topic of the article is Mozart's nationality, not a specific dispute as posited on the article's talk page. There have certainly been sources that discuss the question and its significance, eg Mozart and the Nazis: How the Third Reich abused a cultural icon. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:54, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That would not be relevant to an article on Mozart's nationality. Content about how the Nazi government portrayed Mozart belongs in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in popular culture. The nationality article can only be justified by a dispute over his nationality. Onetwothreeip (talk) 08:11, 15 November 2023 (UTC)


 * What are you basing that assertion on? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:12, 16 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Keep – The subject of the article is spelled out in the lead: "Editors of modern encyclopedias and other reference sources differ in how they assign a nationality to Mozart (if any) in light of conflicting criteria." and later, "evidence is available to support a variety of opinions about Mozart's nationality." Our German colleages at de:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart use the same rationale. The article presents those variety of opinions; whether musicologists dispute each other's assignations is neither here nor there. Those opinions find their way into popular culture (see e.g. Unsere Besten, Google ) and presenting them is a legitimate subject. Placing this material in the the main Mozart article would rob it (justifiably) of the historical context and be undue there because it hasn't anything to do with WAM as a composer. In a reduced form, it would almost certainly invite unhelpful edits and create perennial instability there. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep if only to keep these tedious explanations out of the main article. Johnbod (talk) 04:29, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep: The fact that the article is poor and that no one has cleaned it up is no justification for deleting it. WP:Deletion is not cleanup. Furius (talk) 11:10, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

In case people skip over my original, more detailed post of objections on the article's Talk Page which I linked, I will repost it here. None of what I wrote above is a relevant argument, just a nondescript summary.

"As far as I can tell, this article seems to be entirely WP:OR and/or WP:SYNTH to explain or answer the question of nationality as applied to Mozart. It is not actually about the subject of the nationality of Mozart as it actually exists. An example of this would be if notable figure A says mozart is X, notable figure B says Mozart is Y, and they get into a poopstorm over it that is covered by notable source C. There are notable mentions of the politicization of Mozart's nationality -- for example, in a 2013 WP discussion User:DoctorJoeE links to a BBC story that quotes the Austrian embassy on this subject. This story is cited in the article currently, yet, bizarrely, it is done so for historical facts and not for modern politics. (Neither the ambassador nor the embassy spokesperson are specialist historians.)

This article is not justifiable in its current state. It either needs to be entirely about Mozart's nationality as a subject under significant discussion -- not simply a amalgamation of isolated blurbs from historians. Or else its scope should be expanded into a larger discussion of either the historiography for declaring the nationality of pre-Modern figures, or else the modern politics behind claiming nationalities for historical figures. Failing such change (or other suggestions you may have), I'd recommend deletion in a month or so. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:38, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

...

All the encyclopedias in the article seem to decide each edition on one thing or another. The only place in this entire article that we mention sources which actually ponder over the issue of Mozart's nationality is the final paragraph, which cites all of two scholars. From this article it seems to me that, for this eminently important historical figure who has been extensively written about from every perspective, the only writers who are devoting such extensive coverage to debate his nationality are us. SamuelRiv (talk) 02:37, 17 August 2023 (UTC)"

To clarify: to "ponder over the issue of Mozart's nationality" means to write much more than something like "The young German did this" or "The Austrian prodigy did that". It means to dedicate, by my minimal standards, at least one full sentence to the historical-biographical matter of national identity as claimed by the man himself, family, or any politician, historian, etc. to follow.

The reason I'm saying to delete the article rather than to merge it is because the only bits of the article that aren't SYNTH (inventing a debate or staked claim in sources which do no such thing) is as far as I can tell a single paragraph. The throwaway quotes of politicians may be worthwhile if there's further research on whether this actually matters, but in such context it is not an actual substantive debate over Mozart's nationality, but rather perhaps a notable political macguffin of Austria–Germany relations, and worth mentioning as part of Mozart's cultural influence.

Central to the problem is that the article from the beginning presents Mozart's nationality as some kind of legitimate discussion that real people actually have. Read the article and count the number of people who are actually discussing it. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:57, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Footnotes 32 and 33 (the newspaper articles) both raise the issue of Mozart's nationality, don't they? It's also discussed in this book as a matter of controversy in modern times; this book also devotes a paragraph to unpacking the issue. There is material for an article on this topic; the fact that this article uses it very badly is not a justification for deletion. 18:42, 14 November 2023 (UTC) Furius (talk) 18:42, 14 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Also, as noted above, Mozart and the Nazis: How the Third Reich abused a cultural icon does this in detail. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:16, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * "... I believe I am capable of bringing honor to any court—and if Germany, my beloved Fatherland, of which, as you know, I am proud, will not take me up—well, let France or England, in God's name become the richer by another talented German—and that to the disgrace of the German nation!"
 * Mozart himself describes himself as German here. this article is a great collection of sources, which all show imput for a debate or at least question, that arises in modern times with Mozart being born in a "country" no longer existing, into a collection of states which later form modern Germany for the most part, into the German culture and language sphere. we think in terms of nations today and all people of past ages are part of some national lineage. Mozart may be of two, but that should always be an information avaiable. Wikipedia is about people accumulating data for others to read. this article is all about that. deleting it would be against Wikipedia´s basic idea. BauhausFan89 (talk) 10:29, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
 * KEEP: for the reasons above. BauhausFan89 (talk) 10:30, 16 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Delete per SamuelRiv's argument above. This is an OR discussion of a question that interests the editor rather than an encyclopedic treatment of an actually existing debate which RS have treated as notable. I'm mystified that other editors support keeping this. Llajwa (talk) 21:51, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: It's clear that no one wants this in the main article on Mozart. But it also seems clear that no one is particularly excited about the article as it stands, and there are major WP:OR and WP:SYNTH concerns. Sure, deletion isn't cleanup, but would WP:TNT without prejudice to recreation be a useful solution in this case? Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, asilvering (talk) 22:41, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep|re-write Delete WP:TNT, per SamuelRiv: "There are notable mentions of the politicization of Mozart's nationality -- for example, in a 2013 WP discussion User:DoctorJoeE links to a BBC story that quotes the Austrian embassy on this subject." Being a new editor, my opinion might matter little in this discussion; however, I believe other editors may be hesitant to delete or merge this article because it is well-composed in terms of sourcing, graphical content, etc. But none of those reasons are significant to overcoming WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH claims for this article. There are isolated media references to a significance in Austria-Germany relations, and per Furius "There is material for an article on this topic; the fact that this article uses it very badly is not a justification for deletion." I disagree with keeping the article, as too much of the work is OR. But I think it should be blown up and re-written to discuss historical debate over Mozart's nationality. 22 November 2023 It might be preferable if used a different place to backup the good original synthesis they have performed in writing this article, and instead the article re-written under WP:CLEANUP to include only such information and sources that shows there is current dispute among notable sources over Mozart's nationality, and none of the lengthy background/historical information. Then, it would be much easier to determine the amount of WP eligible content and thus determine if the article is worthy of standalone support, merging, or even deletion. That sounds like a lot of effort, though. AlexTheAwkward (talk) 17:14, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * I disagree - the whole point, which the article rather fails to make sufficiently clear, is that there is no "current dispute" of any significance, but there used to be one, largely motivated by political reasons. You are suggesting throwing out the baby and keeping the bathwater. Johnbod (talk) 17:19, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Bands and musicians, Ethnic groups, History, Austria,  and Germany.  WC  Quidditch   ☎   ✎  23:19, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * AlexTheAwkward seems to believe that I was involved in writing this article. An inspection of its history shows that I contributed almost nothing. However, I do believe it's a subject that's widely covered, and thus needs an article here. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:48, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
 * That's fully my bad, I scrolled to the bottom of the page of revision history and there you were; for some reason, it didn't occur to me to skip to the oldest versions. I'll update my main comment tomorrow, but for now I'd like to say that I like asilvering's solution to WP:TNT the article to allow for its problems to be flushed out. I think the topic is worthy, but the original synthesis issues are too baked-in currently to revive the written article. AlexTheAwkward (talk) 03:43, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Let me see now &hellip;

Relisting comment: Relisting as the discussion has become more complicated than it was a week ago. Instead of editors advocating Keep and Delete, we now have those arguing that a Merge would be the best solution. So, I'm relisting this discussion to see if we can arrive at a rough consensus rather than closing this discussion as "No consensus". Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 22:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * &hellip; yes, this does seem to have been something that the world has had a bit of a debate over, last century, documented in university press books. The major problem with the article seems to be that it entirely ignores World War 2. Uncle G (talk) 16:39, 21 November 2023 (UTC)
 * There are three options:
 * Move to What nationality would someone born in Salzburg in 1756 be?, because this is primarily an essay, not an encyclopedia article;
 * Merge selectively to main Mozart article, as most of the article does not discuss Mozart and is a discussion of the politico-cultural situation in Central Europe in the mid-18th century;
 * or Cut everything except the "Scholarly practice" section, which is the only significant part of the article which is directly relevant to the title. This is my preferred option. AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:25, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Or, much better than any of these, leave it as it is. Johnbod (talk) 04:05, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Or, better even than that, write about the subject, which was a matter of propaganda and debate in World War 2. It's not that there isn't a subject to write about here, it's that editors have spent more time on arguing the case directly than looking for documentation about the time when the world argued the case.  Uncle G (talk) 03:19, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh certainly that. It was an issue over a longer period than that I think. Johnbod (talk) 16:10, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep per discussion and points made by Johnbod, Michael Bednarick, and others. Randy Kryn (talk) 04:45, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Merge without objection to a Delete, a one paragraph summary with refs from Nationality of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart section into the main article. There does not seem to be enough material here to justify a stand alone article, this is an unneeded CFORK fleshed out with historiographic trivia and OR (eg: "The prestigious German music encyclopedia Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart lists no nationality, but this follows the policy it applies to all composers.", "Sources have sometimes changed their practice over time. The Grove dictionary did not always call Mozart "Austrian"; the designation appears to have been added with the first edition of the "New Grove" in 1980."). Merging anything more than a one paragraph summary is UNDUE (and even this is generous).  // Timothy :: talk  15:04, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Oppose merge – This article was split from WAM's article for good reasons. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 01:13, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Keep. I think notability has been demonstrated. Srnec (talk) 01:18, 5 December 2023 (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.