Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Bosnia and Herzegovina

Merger proposal lists of dukes of Bosnia
I propose to merge the following lists, or that a better distinction be made between the scopes of (some of) these lists:
 * 1) List of dukes of Bosnia ("dukes" from Stephen, Duke of Bosnia c.1084 to Michael of Bosnia 1271/2; "knez" from Pavle Radinović c. 1385 to Radič Sanković 1404). "Duke of Bosnia" currently redirects to Grand Duke of Bosnia, but "Dukes of Bosnia" currently redirects to List of dukes of Bosnia.
 * 2) Banate of Bosnia (from Ladislaus II of Hungary 1137, followed by Ban Borić 1154, to Tvrtko I of Bosnia 1377)
 * 3) List of monarchs of Bosnia (1 "duke": Stephen, Duke of Bosnia c.1082 to 1101; "bans" from Ban Borić 1154 to Tvrtko I of Bosnia  1377; 9 "kings and queen" from Tvrtko I of Bosnia 1377 to Stephen Tomašević of Bosnia 1463; 3 "pretenders and titular kings" from 1471 to 1476). "List of rulers of Bosnia", "List of bans of Bosnia", "Bans of Bosnia", "List of kings of Bosnia" and "Kings of Bosnia" currently redirect to this List of monarchs of Bosnia.
 * 4) List of grand dukes of Bosnia ("grand dukes" from Hrana Vuković c. 1380 to possibly Petar II Pavlović 1463)
 * 5) Grand Duke of Bosnia (from Hrana Vuković c. 1380 to Vladislav Hercegović 1482). "Duke of Bosnia" currently redirects to Grand Duke of Bosnia, but "Dukes of Bosnia" currently redirects to List of dukes of Bosnia.
 * 6) Kingdom of Bosnia ("rulers"/"kings" from Tvrtko I of Bosnia 1377 to Stephen Tomašević of Bosnia 1463).

Evidently, there is WP:OVERLAP between lists #1 and #3; lists #2 and #3; lists #3 and #6; and lists #4 and #5. Lists #1 and #5 refer to each other for more information, despite having an apparently very different scope, and the redirects are inconsistent. Two "bans of Bosnia" redirects which we might expect to go to list #2 instead go to list #3. A merger between lists #1, #2 and #3, and a merger between lists #4 and #5 may be the most evident, but other options exist. Edit: I just found list #6, which shows close affinity with list #3, but not at all with lists #1 and #2, making it all more complicated.

I've tagged these 5 6 pages under the name of "Lists of dukes of Bosnia", but that's just a placeholder name, because I do not know how many destination pages we need or what to call them; I just know that most of these people are called "(grand) dukes of Bosnia" in some way, shape or form. That's also why I decided to put this proposal to the WikiProject talk page rather than any of the list talk pages in particular, because I do not know which ones will still exist once this process is completed. It may well be that we could use a "list of lists" overview, with links to each of the separate lists that remain once this process is completed. Edit: With the addition of list #6, I'm certain that we need some kind of list of lists, like Lists of political office-holders in France, Lists of political office-holders in Italy, Lists of political office-holders in Vojvodina, Lists of political office-holders in Transylvania, etc., see Category:Political office-holders in Europe for more examples. While some of these six lists may be merged into each other, they are probably too different from each other to merge them into only one single list. While we're at it, List of Bosnian royal consorts is useful to add in such a list of lists' "See also" section.

Meanwhile, could someone explain to me what the differences (if any) are between Category:Grand Knyazs of Bosnia, Category:Grand Dukes of Bosnia, Category:Dukes of Bosnia, Category:Bans of Bosnia, Category:Kings of Bosnia, Category:Bosnian monarchs, Category:Tepčija in medieval Bosnia, Category:Bosnian magnates, and Category:Bosnian royalty?

And is there a difference between Category:Bosnian duchesses, Category:Bosnian queens, and List of Bosnian royal consorts? Is a "baness" and a "duchess" the same, or something else? E.g. Elizabeth of Kuyavia is called a "Baness of Bosnia", but is categorised as Category:Bosnian duchesses. List of Bosnian consorts currently redirects to List of Bosnian royal consorts, but arguably the duchesses/banesses consort of Bosnia weren't "royal". Is Helen of Bosnia the only queen regnant in Bosnian history, and were all other Category:Bosnian queens only queens consort? Edit: There is WP:OVERLAP between List of Bosnian royal consorts and Kingdom of Bosnia.

Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 11:38, 20 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Merge the list of grand dukes into the article on the title. Keep the (bare) lists at the banate and kingdom articles. Merge the (rather unhelpful) list of dukes into the List of rulers of medieval Bosnia (its current name). Ideally, I would discard the table for a simple list. The situation does get complicated in the late 13th century. comments? Srnec (talk) 01:36, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input! So @Srnec proposes to
 * A. Merge #4 List of grand dukes of Bosnia and #5 Grand Duke of Bosnia;
 * B. Keep separate #2 Banate of Bosnia and #6 Kingdom of Bosnia;
 * C. Merge #1 List of dukes of Bosnia and #3 List of monarchs of Bosnia/List of rulers of medieval Bosnia.
 * Is that correct?
 * I agree with A. I could agree with B, though I would prefer a merger between #1 and #2 (possibly #3). I don't see much of an advantage in C, but mostly because the scope of #3 is so poorly defined. I would prefer renaming/rescoping #3 to a list of lists à la Lists of political office-holders in Foo, which refers to all other lists named here. #6 can remain separate as proposed in B. Curious what Surtsicna thinks as well. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:29, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * PS: Do we need to discuss dukes/governors of "Herzegovina"/"Hercegovina" here as well? Or is that a separate topic? I suppose many readers may interpret "medieval Bosnia" as a pars pro toto of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Middle Ages, and not without reason, because medieval Bosnia redirects to it. So if the title of list #6 or any other list is to contain the words "medieval Bosnia", should we include Duchy of Saint Sava? And should we include Sanjak of Herzegovina? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:39, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * PPS: This is slightly off-topic, but is Herc/zegovina essentially a portmanteau of German Herzog ("duke") and South Slavic banovina ("land of a ban")? That would make a lot of sense. Herc/zegovina then literally means Dukeland. I never knew, even though I know the word Herzog and that the primary Subdivisions of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1939 were called banovinas. Interesting. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "Duchy of Saint Sava" is non-existent, only region called Hum was a factual, and a fiefdom of one family under a Bosnian domain until the fall of Bosnia to Ottoman conquest. Although we have that one article titled Duchy of Saint Sava, it is extremely contentious, full of inaccuracies, poorly refed POVs and imaginary claims, so it had to be properly tagged as an article whose factual accuracy is disputed as a temporary solution for an ongoing dispute. Unfortunately, that article is still maintained within a mainspace because of one (or two) editors's rejection of any argumentation to the contrary. As an entity which remained for nearly 2 decades after the fall of Bosnia, Hum, or Herzegovina, was ruled by only two generations of herzogs (father and son), but even their rule is discussed in historiography in a context of Bosnia and not in any separate context of its own (See Sima Ćirković, Herceg Stefan Vukčić-Kosača and his time, and History of Medieval Bosnia). Sanjak is separate historical context, it is a new paradigm and a new political order, under a new state.
 * And I misread this PPS. earlier, and commented in afirmative tone, however, Hercegovina is not a blend between "herceg" and "banovina" - Hercegovina is literally "land or domain of herceg", while banovina is state ruled by ban; Hercegovina was never banovina - actually, Hercegovina as a polity became official name only after the Ottoman occupation; it was Ottoman name for the land of Hum. It is worth noting that the last two local dukes/herzogs (mentioned as "father and son" above), as long as they could maintain their domain over that land, referred to it as Hum, not Duchy of St Sava, not Herzegovina, only Ottomans called it Herzegovina over that concrete period, and nobody referred to it as Duchy of St.Sava. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  22:52, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Santasa99 Interesting, thanks a lot! So it is the -ovina part which gives it the meaning "land"? As also found in Bukovina? Wiktionary has this etymology: Direct borrowing from Serbo-Croatian Hercegovina, from German Herzog (“duke”) + Serbo-Croatian -ov (possessive suffix) + Serbo-Croatian -ina (feminine suffix). So it's actually two suffixes that don't have meaning on their own, but add meaning to Herzog, namely "land" (signified by -ina, compare Vojvod-ina, or the Latin suffix -ia, e.g. in German-ia, indicating a country or region; but is not a noun like stran(k)a or krajina literally meaning "land/country"?) "of the" (-ov) "duke" (Herzog)? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:31, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I see that Talk:Duchy of Saint Sava is a bit of a battleground. I would like to avoid that. Let's keep it separate then, as you recommended. Thanks for summarising the situation. I had never heard of it before. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, no problemo :) As for the Herceg -ovina, well yes and no, or precisely it would be like this: -ovina is a possessive adjective for noun herceg, but yes it refers to land in this particular form as a proper noun (in other words, it could have different form and meaning, so -ovina is not necessarily and always a land) - another form: Herceg -ovo ( dijete, selo, mjesto, etc) would be Herceg's (child, village, place, etc). For instance, Herceg Novi got its name from the same historical herceg (herzog) by attaching his title herceg, by which this lord was known and how everyone simply referred to him (not by his name but by his title), to town's earlier name - earlier, the town was established by the Bosnain king and was named Novi (literally New), but at some point in history a king gave the town to his local subordinate and later it came to be known as Herceg's Novi, which stuck, hence the name Herceg Novi in local tongue.  ౪ Santa ౪  99°  15:17, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment - I will comment at this point, I didn't see discussion below the nomination and Srnec's reply, so I could return later with through argument if deemed necessary. Generally, I would not touch anything in context of the nomination, although some repairs could be necessary. In general, I agree with User:Srnec - including on pinging - except, being a creator of the List of Grand Dukes, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I am rooting for that list with a solid argument that Grand Duke is very, very distinct military-political feature of contemporary (medieval) Bosnia (it was an office for the first hundred yrs., more-less, but then it became hereditary and for life, likened to noble title); only, I also have to admit it is really a short one, being limited by a simple fact that only small number of Grand Dukes held the position. List about noble titles, like knyaz, Grand knyaz, dukes and hercegs is suposed to be different, and someone created the List of dukes with just few listed bios, which I tried to fill in but never finished the job - this is issue is really complicated because "duke" had different meaning in different eras; for instance during the early MiddleAges župans, knyazs and dukes were rulers of well-defined polity or state, and during the high and late MA this were just noble titles, which really abound in Bosnia in the late MA - it must be said that all Grand Dukes were also dukes by noble title, one was knyaz, two were hercegs (and even some Muslims commanders during the first decades of Ottoman rule were also titled dukes) - duke title endured under the Ottomans up until 19th century, mostly held by Christian timariots and Vlachs.
 * Ban and king, of course, are ruling offices - it is notable that in Bosnia and Serbia, both of whom inherited their peerage system from Byzantines but maintained it in more primitive form, with many local and Hungarian influences, kings were just kings without distinct noble title like in western Europe or UK (in Bosnia this also refers to ban office title)
 * Nederlandse Leeuw, yes, you are correct in your observation on Herzegovina, and former Yugoslavia has another "Dukes-land" which is Vojvodina.
 * On overlapping - it is unavoidable to have overlapping in this context, it is normal in the western context as well as in local; only in context of Bosnia it is smaller, much more limited in scope and number of bios, so it appears as if everyone pop-up everywhere. So-called tepčija is an office; magnat does not necessarily have to be nobleman, it can be clergyman; some "banesses" coming from the West to marry in Bosnia kept their inherited noble titles, hence baroness/duchess XY as baness/queen of Bosnia.
 * I didn't create all the categories, but I tried to make some sense of them during my tenure on the project - I don't think that segment is anywhere near to be perfect, but I believe that, at this point and this amount of bio and other articles, we have some ordered and sensible categories on these topics - I suggest that they be left as they are for the time being.
 * If we are to merge List of Grand Dukes into its article, then redirect should be left behind; I am not against merging List of Dukes into List of Rulers per Srnec suggestion neither, but since that one is potentially expandable, again redirect should be left behind.
 * I will stop for now, this post is already huge - Nederlandse Leeuw please, feel free to ping me if you need additional info or explanation. -- ౪ Santa ౪ 99°  16:34, 30 June 2023 (UTC)
 * @Santasa99 Your comment is very insightful, thanks very much! I think that the best solution would be to make clear what the differences between these offices were. The lists should be office-based, not title-based, because there is so much confusion about which titles there were, and how to "translate" them to English, if at all.
 * As just one example, in the past 1.5 years I've read and written a lot about knyaz, especially in the East Slavic historical context. The common English translation of that is "prince", except for Grand Duchy of Moscow, whose (velikiy) knyaz may also be translated as "(grand) duke" rather than "(grand) prince". Meanwhile, scholars such as Donald Ostrowski are arguing we should actually translate knyaz as "king", because it is etymologically probably related to Old Norse konungr and the reconstructed common root is *konungaz. So, when I found Category:Grand Knyazs of Bosnia, my first assumption was that it was probably the same as Grand Duke of Bosnia. But no. The 6 people in that category are completely different from the 8 people mentioned in Grand Duke of Bosnia, and the 11 people mentioned in List of grand dukes of Bosnia (the 8 people and 11 people do overlap).
 * So I think you are right that this issue is really complicated because "duke" had different meaning in different eras. Therefore, I am inclined to follow the primary sources rather than the English translations, because we can easily mix things up if we do not realise the differences between the original Slavic or German words used. I would suggest that every entry in each list (at least in cases where the translation of titles is contested) notes which titles have been used in primary sources in the original languages to make it clear to both us Wikipedians and to our readers which offices we are talking about. Does that sound like a good idea? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:58, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks NL. Yes, entire matter is dependent on many factors, from social-political development and context to era, from cultural context and tradition to outside influences. The worst thing is lack of peerage system and really primitive title system and structure; it was underdeveloped aristocratic hierarchy and murky expression of nobility in general within medieval.Balkan context - both Central Europe and Russian aristocratic hierarchies and peerage are very much different from Balkans, and much more developed. Usually, western aristocracy is divided between royalty and nobility; then, nobility is ordered by a rank system with a duke being highest and baron lowest. Eastern and /or Orthodox aristocratic hierarchy is much murkier, and it was, usually, inherited from Byzantines; in between we have examples like Bosnia, Montenegro, Albania and Serbia.
 * In medieval Bosnia, which is a topic I am most interested in, we have a knyaz as the lowest title among noblemen and duke as the highest, where the Grand knyaz is extremely rare and is more an expression of achieving a prestige if one's family could not reach the level of influence and economic power to call its most senior representative or chieftain a duke - but there is no rule set in some law, it was only a tradition which dictated or just guided these things and in most cases, but not necessarily, it had to be confirmed by Bosnian assembly of most influential and senior lords (called Stanak), even more rarely by a king. Similarly, herceg (herzog) appears only twice in Bosnia and once much earlier in Duklja (Montenegro), and was motivated by the same desire as explained for the Grand Knyaz. - the third overall, or the second example in medieval Bosnia was the last and it was a person related to this Hercegovina thing.
 * I wrote an article about him, and you can read at least some parts if you like at Stjepan Vukčić Kosača; you will notice that in his case nobody knows how he acquired the title herzog, or who gave it to him - guy, this Stjepan, was a Duke of Hum, and in one point he simply started calling himself "herceg" to make a distinction between himself and his local nobility which abounded in local duks all over the place this Stjepan ruled.
 * I hope that Surtsicna will eventually join in with his view on the matter, I just hope he will see that discussion is not a dispute, which under Balkan scope can be tiresome and repelling; Surtsicna could probably offer some ideas about it.
 * Yeah, adding notes could be helpful, it certainly won't hurt. I also believe that creating new and improving existing article concerning Serbo-Croatian language names for all the features of medieval societies in Balkans is the best way to explain all these distinctions and local peculiarities. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  16:43, 1 July 2023 (UTC)
 * @Santasa99 Very insightful, thanks so much! For now, I've got nothing more to add, and am curious what others think. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:40, 5 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Update Category:Bosnian queens was Renamed to Category:Queens consort of Bosnia. This has set a precedent for other "consorts" renamings. What everyone agrees on is that Helen of Bosnia was the only queen regnant of Bosnia in history, so all others should be called and categorised "queens consort" for clarity. We've decided to Keep for now Category:Bosnian duchesses because we couldn't yet agree on whether "duchesses" and "banesses" could be thrown together or not. Especially Maria of Bosnia calling herself Maria Herzogin von Bosnien from 1365 until 1399 remains an interesting exception, because she was married to a count and thus "countess consort of Helfenstein", but there's no reason to believe she was "duchess consort of Bosnia", which seems to have been independent of her marital status, and instead a result of being the daughter of Stephen II, Ban of Bosnia (died 1353). Her mother Elizabeth of Kuyavia was evidently a baness consort of Bosnia by virtue of her marriage to Stephen II, Ban of Bosnia (died 1353), but the article Tvrtko I of Bosnia claims his nephew Tvrtko (who came of age in 1357) succeeded him as Ban of Bosnia rather than his daughter Maria as Herzogin von Bosnien. Tvrtko's brother Vuk, Ban of Bosnia apparently also briefly reigned as ban in 1366–1367, just after Maria started calling herself Herzogin von Bosnien in 1365. So there's some sort of dynastic dispute going on in the mid-1360s that leads to Tvrtko's reign as ban of Bosnia to be challenged by his cousin Maria and his brother Vuk. Nevertheless, Tvrtko would go on to become the first King of Bosnia in 1377 (with the apparent support of brother Vuk, with whom he had reconciled by 1374), while Maria continued calling herself Herzogin von Bosnien until 1395. @Santasa99 Do you know more about this?
 * @Surtsicna did WP:BOLDly rename List of consorts of Bosnia to List of banesses and queens of Bosnia, which seems fine for now. But that will have an effect on our decision-making here, as well. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:34, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Talk:List of banesses and queens of Bosnia @Surtsicna @Santasa99 @Srnec FYI. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 08:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * On the subject of foreign nobility connected to the Bosnian court, which bore noble titles according to the European peer system, I think that Surtsicna is far better equipped than I am to explain something more about it. I can assert that Bosnian titles did not include high female noble titles, and that in Bosnia at that time there were no duchesses among the native nobility - at best there were princesses, who were called princesses in the native lingo, rarely if ever "kneginja", or "she-knyaz" so to speak. I think that Bosnian duchesses should have their list or category for all those women who came to Bosnian court with tittles. Feel free to ping me if and whenever you deem necessary. Cheers. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  21:34, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Comment - This has been up at closure requests for the best part of a year now. Does it need closure still? It appears that some kind of solution was being worked through. FOARP (talk) 16:18, 19 February 2024 (UTC)
 * @FOARP: To clarify, the closure requests listing was added on the 1st February by . Also pinging, who removed the merge templates from the articles earlier this month. Best, &zwj;—&zwj;a smart kitten[ meow] 19:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)
 * This should be closed. Proposal was made by editor who had limited understanding of the specifics, so much of it had little if any sense. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  14:36, 26 February 2024 (UTC)
 * gave a very accurate characterization when she said "messy", and I concur it wa(i)s messy. ౪ Santa ౪  99°  14:53, 26 February 2024 (UTC)

FAR for Olm
I have nominated Olm for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets the featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" in regards to the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Hog Farm Talk 02:20, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Women in Green's 5th Edit-a-thon
 Hello WikiProject Bosnia and Herzegovina:

WikiProject Women in Green is holding a  month-long Good Article Edit-a-thon event in October 2023!

Running from October 1 to 31, 2023, WikiProject Women in Green (WiG) is hosting a Good Article (GA) edit-a-thon event with the theme Around the World in 31 Days! All experience levels welcome. Never worked on a GA project before? We'll teach you how to get started. Or maybe you're an old hand at GAs – we'd love to have you involved! Participants are invited to work on nominating and/or reviewing GA submissions related to women and women's works (e.g., books, films) during the event period. We hope to collectively cover article subjects from at least 31 countries (or broader international articles) by month's end. GA resources and one-on-one support will be provided by experienced GA editors, and participants will have the opportunity to earn a special WiG barnstar for their efforts.

We hope to see you there! Grnrchst (talk) 12:45, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Request for input on post-Yugoslav-breakup election article naming
We had a discussion relisted at Talk:May 1992 Yugoslavian parliamentary election that could benefit from the input of people who have knowledge of this topic area, please check it out. --Joy (talk) 09:13, 13 November 2023 (UTC)

village name formatting
A while back, I discussed Request a query/Archive 2 with. Basically there's a bunch of village articles for Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Serbia that are named "Place (Municipality)" instead of the more normal "Place, Municipality" (WP:NCGN).

Since then, I don't think we did much work on this, but it occurs to me now that something that happened in the meantime was who made a bot that did a mass-update on Croatian populated place articles. Could I recruit you to think about writing a bot to try to do these kinds of moves? Or maybe just help generate a reliable list of entries that could be input for a WP:RM?

Thanks in advance :) --Joy (talk) 14:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * To avoid checking a long list of articles in those categories, I'd use List of populated places in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first iteration: insert a new line before every bullet, grep for lines containing anything in parentheses, use regex to extract article titles and create new titles. If there's anything left, it shouldn't be hard to spot the pattern in PetScan (filter by settlement infobox usage). WP:RM would be the place to go, bot approval takes much more negotiation. @Joy? Ponor (talk) 07:50, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The catch is, a lot of those articles has been moved somewhere since that list was created, i.e. a lot of those targets are now redirects. As I remember, the regex I proposed back then /\([A-Z].*\)$ worked well, producing a list of articles disambiguated with uppercase A-Z within parentheses. I can't get it to work now, however (not that I tried too hard). As for the process, I'm not sure... RM historically does not like handling so long lists, and the matter is rather trivial. Basically, we have had a consensus for that move for quite some time, but nobody could be arsed to do it since it's technically challenging. But where did your bot run for Croatian place names -- here or on hr.wiki? No such user (talk) 09:09, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Developing Countries WikiContest
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Best wishes, Wilhelm Tell DCCXLVI ( talk to me!/my edits ) 07:14, 19 May 2024 (UTC)