Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 July 7

= July 7 =

More problems with similar articles...
West Point, New York and Fort Clinton (West Point). So I know West Point, New York is a census-designated place. But both articles seem to have the same history and it seems to me that the only difference is that Fort Clinton (West Point) is the physical fort and West Point, New York is the site of the fort and the military academy. Still, West Point, New York has history for Fort Clinton (West Point). Any advice on the best course of action to take from here? (Currently, I'm editing assuming West Point, New York is the site per WP:BOLD) ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍  ‍  02:48, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirect Fort Clinton to West Point. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:55, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't know. Maybe we'd merge the contents of Fort Clinton to West Point, but then you've got Fort Putnam (another garrison) which was also in West Point, New York, so I don't know. Perhaps it would be best to have a centralized discussion on the articles' fates. ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍  ‍  03:24, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You need to talk to the people at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history. This sort of problem is their bread and butter. Alansplodge (talk) 08:46, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Mongol destruction of cities
Are there instances of cities completely destroyed by the Mongols (like Genghis Khan or Kublai Khan) that never recovered and were actually erased from the map? 79.22.6.128 (talk) 09:11, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I found Siege of Ryazan. It has a "citation needed" notice on the crucial point. Here's a citation for "never rebuilt", but it's from a book about metalworking so not exactly ideal, I'd rather find an on-topic source. That says the same about Vyshhorod, which looks rebuilt to me? Well it sounds like "never" means "not for 300 years, and not properly rebuilt for 700 years". Ryazan on the other hand actually changed location by 50 km, according to our article. Card Zero  (talk) 09:37, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This is, I believe, a good example. It is acceptable if a city is rebuilt later in another place or if it is revived but after centuries when the Mongolian Empire was history. I'd like to find as many examples as possible. 79.22.6.128 (talk) 09:56, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Another, perhaps more reliable, source for Ryazan not being rebuilt is a magazine article in Soviet Life (March 1969, Issue 3; p. 33) by Vladislav Darkevitch, a "Master of Science (History)". Alansplodge (talk) 12:35, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Or ... In December 1237 the Tartars besieged and captured Old Ryazan. The town suffered terrible destruction, traces of which appear in the archeological record. Life was soon renewed. The churches and fortifications were restored and new houses built. In the fourteenth century, however, the capital of the princedom was for several reasons, including repeated raids by Tartars because of its proximity to the steppe, transferred to Pereyaslavl-Ryazansky (renamed Ryazan in 1778). The old town gradually became deserted. (Archaelogy in The USSR, M.W. Thompson, 1961.)
 * Can anybody find the source of the line "There was none left to groan and cry" in the article? Most of the time it follows the First Novgorod Chronicle (a translation of which is conveniently linked in the sources), but I can't find this particular quote there. The article just attributes it to the Rus' chronicle, which is a very wide target. This source cites the Primary chronicle, but that covers 850 to 1110, while the siege was in 1237. Card Zero  (talk) 00:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A number of Russian sources assert that out of 49 Russian towns pillaged by Batu Khan 14 or 16 have never recovered (this source includes Ryazan, Pereyaslavl Yuzhny and Vladimir-Volynski among those that didn't recover, but all of them appear to still exist, probably in another place). Brandmeistertalk  19:48, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 79.22.6.128 -- In some regions (such as Mesopotamia and parts of Central Asia) the Mongols apparently mainly caused population decline not by destroying cities, but by interfering with water control works which irrigated fields, since in many cases they preferred grazing lands for their horses over fields planted with agricultural crops... AnonMoos (talk) 03:51, 8 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Old Ryazan was neither revived nor relocated. The article in English is long overdue, but, since I stopped contributing to the English Wikipedia about 15 years ago, few people care. Modern Ryazan is a completely different city which was renamed Ryazan by Catherine the Great in the late 18th century. --Ghirla-трёп- 10:46, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Otrar and Urgench are among several Central Asian cities whose decline and eventual disappearance are commonly attributed to Genghis Khan. Our articles show that these places were abandoned much later, however. (This seems to confirm Lev Gumilev's opinion that our perception of medieval Mongols is heavily colored by various "black legends" and that the nomads might not have been as genocidal as commonly portrayed in Western literature.) --Ghirla-трёп- 10:47, 16 July 2023 (UTC)