Talk:Battle of Vyborg Bay (1790)

Old talk

The articles is written solely from the Swedish point of view, extolling the Swedish courage, ignoring their heavy losses and Chichagov's genius, disfuguring the names of Russian ships and eventually presenting one of the worst defeats in the history of Swedish navy as its victory. Should be rewritten. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I would dispute the above statement. The source "Vyborg and Rochensalm" is a section of the book "The History of Russian Navy", available online. The other two print books cited are also from a historical, not a Swedish, perspective. I acknowledge the likely bias of the first mentioned sources, however, I included only those statements which were not contradicted or counterindicated by the other sources. Also, if you can find objective, reliable sources which would add relevant details to support the contentions you have made above, you are more than welcome to do so. I acknowledge that there were no books available to me presenting the Russian perspective other than "The History of Russian Navy", and this stub article, like all stub articles, is open for further expansion. robertjohnsonrj 16:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Swedes forced their way out and saved their navy and King, although with very heavy losses. I would not call this as one of their "worst defeats". In fact, I would not call this as a Russian victory, as Russians let their prize slip and lost a change to finish the war by one decisive victory. I think it is NPOV to call the result as indecisive, even if the Swedes were seriously beaten. 130.234.5.137 16:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Judging by your recent contributions, I conclude that your aim here is to propagate historical revisionism. Please be aware that original research and Russophobia will not be tolerated. Happy edits, Ghirla ^-трёп- 16:51, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

You make an absurd and offensive accusation. I love Russia, but I do not appreciate national-chauvinism anywhere - not even in Russia. I have nothing to do with revisionism. I just want to state that there exists two different interpretations of this battle.

130.234.5.137 16:53, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Who won?

Apparently the Russian military historians consider this battle as a great Russian victory. Well, this interpretation is not without base. The Russian Navy beat the Swedish one very badly, destroying a significant part of its fighting strenght; further Swedish attacks towards Vyborg or St. Petersburg were out of question, and Sweden had to adopt a defensive stance for the rest of the war.

But there is still the another interpretation, the Swedish one. According to this view, the Swedes fulfilled their tactical objective in this battle, and the Russians did not. The Russians had an unique chance to capture the whole Swedish Navy, including the King himself. If this would have happened, Russia could have dictated the peace terms. This did not happen, and the reason was (according to the Swedish view) "genial" Admiral Chichagov´s over-confidence and passivity. The Swedes forced their way out of the blockade, inflicted some losses on the Russians, made their escape and saved the King and the main part of their Navy. The Russians had a decisive victory on their finger-tips, and they botched it. Sweden could continue the war, although now with defensive strategic goals.

I realize that patriotic Russians might not like the Swedish version, just like the Swedes might not like the Russian one. If I have understood the idea of Wikipedia correctly, the Swedish and Russian versions are more or less equal here. For this understanding, I have been accused of historical revisionism, original research and Russophobia. I think it is ridiculous.217.112.242.181 10:45, 12 September 2006 (UTC)(Same as 130.234.5.137).

Dear anonymous, first of all, please login. This will make communications with you easier and will give you many more benefits (pls see WP:ACCOUNT for details). Besides, it will only take 10 seconds and even does not require giving and email address. Now, to the issue. If Russians would have totally destroyed the Swedish fleet, that would have been a decisive victory. NPOV does not mean giving equal weight to the "Russian" and "Swedish" POV. Similarly, while some people believe in flat Earth, describing their theory in the Earth article is not required. After the battle Swedes were on the run. This means Russians won. We can add a sourced statement in the text that Swedish historiography considers the battle where Sweden lost not all but half of its fleet a "Swedish victory". This is rather curious view, in my opinion, but if it is so widely accepted in Sweden it is noteworthy to be mentioned. --Irpen 11:10, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. after I finished that I saw your edit. I reverted this for the following reason. There is no need for an outcome field to be so verbose. This is all in the article. The alternative outcome to someone's victory is "inconclusive". Would you argue for that one? --Irpen 11:12, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

This was an outstanding Russian victory, a bad Russian failure, a Swedish military catastrophe and a fulfilled Swedish tactical operation at the same time...so maybe "a mess" would be the best estimation of the outcome! "Inconclusive" might over-do the Swedish success a bit, but I still would prefer it to "Russian victory", which is not altogether impartial and, IMO, necessitates a quite curious definition of a "victory". After all: If the one who runs after the battle is always the loser, guerilla warfare is always unsuccesful...the Swedes attacked because they wanted to run; the Russians tried to prevent them; the Swedes succeeded to run, although with badly reduced strenght.

As for the Swedish losses, they were heavy but "all but half of its fleet" is nonsensical exaggeration.

But I´ll withdrawn myself from the revert war. As a Finn, I do not consider it´s my duty to uphold the Swedish military glory, especially as I hate nationalism and militarism in all countries, including my own and the neighbouring ones.217.112.242.181 11:25, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Count Johan af Puke

I suspect that "af" in his name is similar to the German "von", so would the proper way to refer to him would be "af Puke"? Even if using the "af" is optional, I'd like to encourage using it because referring to the count as "Puke" is inadvertently humorous: it is a slang term in American English for vomit. -- llywrch (talk) 19:49, 11 February 2008 (UTC) ¨Well, he had not became a count at the time. In 1790 his surname was spelled Puke. 85.231.226.37 (talk) 18:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Rarely Worse

Can someone translate "Säallan Värre" properly? I'm rather skeptical of the possibility that Swedes were THAT pessimistic about the fighting power of their own ships. --Illythr (talk) 12:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

"Seldom worse" would be the most accurate translation. But I must say that I'm very skeptical to the distinctly Swedish habit of translating any and all Swedish terms when writing about Swedish topics in English. Ship names have little or nothing to do with performance or even design. I don't see that it really adds to the understanding of this particular article topic.

Peter ^Isotalo 10:39, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Losses in the battle

Regarding the statement recently added to the article, it should be noted that of the Swedish capital ship losses (8 ships) of the battle (ie. not the pursuit of the Swedish high seas fleet to Sveaborg) none were result of Russian action.

One ship of the line (Enigheten) was lit up and exploded due 'friendly fire' - ie. by fireship Postiljonen - and four other ships of the line plus three frigates (in addition to several galleys and few transports) were grounded (and later captured) due to the poor visibility resulting from the explosion of Enigheten. Only the capture of the two badly damaged Swedish ships of the line the Russian high seas fleet was able to caught up before Swedish high seas fleet reached safety of Sveaborg can be attributed to Russian action. Just stating that pressing the point that Russian fleets performance would somehow been good in the battle is highly misleading, Swedish breakout succeeded with main cause of losses being accidents rather than enemy action. - Wanderer602 (talk) 09:23, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Sources on the outcome

Hi, everybody. As follows from the discussion above the outcome of the battle is somewhat contentious. In most language projects it is formulated as follows:

Russian tactical victory, Swedish strategic victory. The Swedish navy managed to break out, but with heavy losses

Victoire tactique russe. Victoire stratégique suédoise

Taktisk rysk seger. Strategisk svensk seger då svenska skärgårdsflottan och örlogsflottan undkom

Taktischer Sieg Russlands. Strategischer Sieg Schwedens

But in the Russian one it is only Russian tactical victory (тактическая победа русского флота).

My attempt to correct the Russian article was reverted with rather emotional comments. So my question is: are there any courses, supporting the opinion of Swedish strategic victory? Thanks in advance for the answer. SlotJam (talk) 08:52, 6 December 2020 (UTC)