Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Peer review/Russian-Circassian War

Russian-Circassian War
A lot of online publications about this provides a lot of info, the main prose probably needs both to be slimmed down and enriched with more facts and less waffle IMO. Having recently had an article FA'd im very keen to get another rated as higher than a B, and am eager to hear your views, one request though could you please list your points with bullet points, it makes it easier for me to address them. Also I hope you don't mind that I write 'fixed' or something in bold next to these points, I won't edit the points themselves.

It needs a lot of work, so don't pull any punches! Fire away. SGGH 14:49, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

PocklingtonDan
I have a few concerns about this article. Normally I restrict myself to grammatical and structural issues, but I have issues of content here;
 * I'm not convinced that the topic deserves the title "war", given that it is spread over 100 years, with lack of an agreed start date. A series of conflicts, invasions and resistance, certainly.
 * what would you suggest as an alternative title? Historical documents refer to it as a war, but then these are circassian historians, so perhaps they would do so, that can't be ruled out. I am open to interpretation


 * Was Circassia an internationally recognized state? If not, it would be hard to classify this as an inter-national war. Its existence as an internationally-recognized political state is also cast into doubt by the statement in the article that "The Circassia of the time was divided into two regions". It also seems clear that for much of this history this seems to be viewed as a matter of internal rebellion than foreign invasion.
 * the article on circassia states it to be a region, yet it had a flag. Perhaps territory would be more suitable? the division is mostly geographic and ethnic, rather than political as is my understanding


 * There is a serious lack of citations and none of the citations seems to be from Russian sources.
 * A huge majority of the citations are from historians from the CBA, which is a circassian historial society based in New Jersey, US.


 * The word "genocide" is contentious and doesn't seem to match the facts, which talk about forcible removal from land. This is similar to the Highland clearances in Scotland for example, but it is not genocide - "deliberate and systematic extermination". This section needs renaming to "Clearances" or similar.
 * it was originally titled "genocide?" but the question mark has been removed. It is debated as to whether it was or not by historians, but yes the majority of deaths were on the move during the forced migration, so I'm not sure whether that counts? Also note the Circassian ethnic cleansing article

I want to make it cleat that these are all questions I want to put to you rather than statements of fact - I personally know absolutely nothing about this part of the world or this period of history. I simply have to question a few of the fundamental premises of this article. Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 18:16, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I understand :) I'm not taking these things personally. I have made some comments in bold to your points and will leave a note on your talk page inviting you to make more comments. SGGH 18:56, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi SGGH, I'm glad that you are able to take these comments in good faith! Based on your comments about where you got your information for this article, I would be extremely careful about ensuring that this article was NPOV and wasn't biased towards a Circassian point of view. I'm not convinced that this qualifies as a genocide, since the *intent* was land clearances, not deaths. I don't feel terms like this ought to be used lightly, since it reduces the impact when they are used.
 * I will lower the emphasis on the term and refer more to the migration, however I feel it is important to include that many believe it to be genocide, but i will make it clear that it is hotly debated


 * Also, if it wasn't a political state as I thought it might not be, then I'm really not sure that it can be classified as a war, especially not in the "Russian-Circassian" format that is used to differentiate national combatants. I don't want to to suggest a title really since as I say I am really unfamiliar with the topic, but perhaps "Circassian struggle for independence" or "Circassian rebellions" or something. I would like ideally for a title to be chosen that accurately reflects the struggle but also is as neutral as possible between the two competing viewpoints, I think this is important.
 * Russian occupation of Circassia?


 * I really don't want to provide much more input since I am almost uniquely unqualified to do so on this topic! I mainly just wanted to raise the issues and make you aware that perhaps some care should be taken with the article title and terms used such as genocide, these things can be awfully inflammatory if improperly or contentiously implied. I think some clarification is needed of circassia's political status, which would colour whether the article ought to b written from the point of view of an inter-national conflict or as an internal conflict between the state's military and  an ethnically-defined region that sought to establish independence.  Many thanks - PocklingtonDan (talk) 19:09, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * You make some very valid points, i will work first of all to tone down the use of genocide, and I will consult others on what topic title should be used. Hope you don't mind that i seperated your comments so i could put my bold points in between them. Cheers again! SGGH 19:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I can see that you have been working hard on the article to address various editors' comments and it is looking much better, keep up the good work! - PocklingtonDan (talk) 07:04, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I hope you make more comments as the work continues! :) SGGH 10:40, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Wandalstouring
Hadji Murat by Leo N. Tolstoy might help you to get a more Russian POV on the subject, although it is not exactly a scientific source. Wandalstouring 19:52, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Kirill Lokshin
First, on the topic of titles and such: it's a mistake to view this conflict as one between two defined states. Circassia was not a defined, centralized state in the conventional sense of the term; it's more accurate to consider it as a collection of related tribes and clans. Neither, however, was this a conflict internal to Russia; while some parts of the region were indeed already under Russian control when it began, others were entirely outside of it, and were invaded and annexed later on. In a sense, this was really an expansion of a centralized state at the expense of its non-centralized-state neighbors; a decent analogy would be the Samnite Wars.

In any case, the question of what the conflict is called is distinct from the question of what the conflict was. It's not immediately clear whether there's any really common name for the conflict in English-language historiography—I would have picked "Russian-Circassian Wars" or "Russian conquest of Circassia", personally—but, in any case, looking at the sources suggests that "Russian-Circassian War" is indeed a historically acceptable term, at least in the absence of a more common one. We shouldn't shy away from accepted terminology merely because it isn't quite "correct".

Beyond that, some more variety in sources would be nice to have; but I'm not sure what may be available, particularly in English. Possibly there are some general historical works on the Caucasus by Western historians that could be used, at least for the major details? Kirill Lokshin 20:03, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think combing the two concepts would be a good plan, keep the name of the article, but state that its wasn't a war in the conventional sense somewhere in the article. Will give it a go. SGGH 20:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

I have run through with one round of cleanups that hopefully makes things more understandable, and represents the conflict correctly, opinions are welcome! SGGH 21:14, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Have run through the whole thign cleaning it up. Thoughts? SGGH 13:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Anyone? SGGH 09:44, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * A few more citations in the "Invasion of western Circassia" section might not be amiss, I think. Kirill Lokshin 11:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Have done so, the dependence on that one resource is unfortunate but it is the only step by step account of the conflict that I can find. SGGH 12:01, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Would this make GA with one more copy edit? SGGH 08:43, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * GA tends to be unpredictable; but I don't see why not. ;-) Kirill Lokshin 12:32, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * that's true, but will also open up the article to further constructive criticism to complement this review :D will do it later. SGGH 12:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * It finally made it through the GA backlog, I want to add some references from non-circassian sources before attempting to get it further. SGGH 10:20, 5 April 2007 (UTC)