Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 August 22

= August 22 =

Nested fiction?
Is there a proper term for a fictional work that is fiction within the context of another fictional work? For example, a story like Tales of the Black Freighter. As a followup, is there a proper term for a character within such a work? 108.6.218.63 (talk) 22:17, 22 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Embedded narrative was the term I was looking for (I should have searched harder :P ) but I'm still interested if there's a term for a character within one. 108.6.218.63 (talk) 22:20, 22 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Story within a story or "embedded narrative". Alansplodge (talk) 22:23, 22 August 2022 (UTC)


 * It only becomes a story within a story if (some of) the content of the fictional book (or whatever medium) is told within the real book, like the story "The Tale of the Three Brothers" from the (then) fictional book The Tales of Beedle the Bard is revealed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. We have a Category:Fictional books, a subcat of Category:Fictional works. At least on Wikipedia, we distinguish between a "work of fiction", which includes Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, and "fictional works", which, like fictional characters, exist in a fictional universe (created by a work of fiction), such as The Murder of Gonzago. --Lambiam 09:43, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

Romanian integration of its new territories after the end of World War I
How easy (or difficult) was it for Romania to integrate its new territories after the end of World War I? Romania's size massively increased as a result of WWI, with it acquiring Bukovina, Transylvania, the eastern Banat, Bessarabia, and a few small territories to the west of Transylvania. Was integrating such a large new population a huge challenge for Romania? Or was it relatively easy since the ethnicity (Romanian) was the same in both Old Romania and New Romania? 68.4.99.100 (talk) 23:00, 22 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Transylvania contains a significant Hungarian population. It was protests in Timisoara which started the downfall of Ceausescu... AnonMoos (talk) 03:40, 23 August 2022 (UTC)


 * See Treaty of Trianon for some more information. Also, Greater Romania likely has some good background on the matter.  -- Jayron 32 15:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)


 * Treaty of Trianon is a rather long article, but doesn't bother to explain that one reason that the terms of the treaty were unfavorable to Hungary is that the Hungarian government and aristocracy enthusiastically participated in suppressing Slavic nationalisms during much of the late 19th century and 20th century before 1914. AnonMoos (talk) 18:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Possibly true, but Romanians are not Slavs. -- Jayron 32 12:24, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Another reason is that (with some justification) the Hungarians, along with their Austrian countrymen, were deemed to have started the First World War and therefore needed to be weakened in case they thought of doing it again. The Romanians fought on the side of the Allies, and therefore deserved a slice of the cake. The moral is to end up on the winning side (Hungary would make the same mistake the next time around too). Alansplodge (talk) 23:04, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I doubt that the fact that Hungary was technically an aggressor nation (as half of Austro-Hungary) would have weighed so heavily in the post-WW1 aftermath if it hadn't been for the fact that the Hungarian government and aristocracy had enthusiastically participated in suppressing Slavic nationalisms... AnonMoos (talk) 04:04, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

The short answer is, yes it was complicated. "Livezeanu stresses the existence of different identities in the territories acquired by Romania, including Bessarabia, after World War I. This she explains not by reference to the sizable minority population but by pointing to significant differences in the identities and moods of the "new Romanians." She maintains that a Moldovan identity prevailed in Bessarabia during the interwar period.23 As Charles King remarks, for all the cultural activity of the Romanians between the wars, Bessarabia remained the least integrated component of Greater Romania. Bessarabian Romanians were considered a lower stratum in the Romanian state system. They did not have equal possibilities for career advancement in the state structures; they were not regarded as loyal enough or Romanian enough, and this contributed to the conservation of a Moldovan identity." --Soman (talk) 18:39, 25 August 2022 (UTC)