Talk:First Republic of Armenia/GA2

GA Review

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Nominator: Olympian (talk · contribs) 07:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: Borsoka (talk · contribs) 02:34, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

• ...the most commonly used term... Is this statement specifically verified by one of the 8 references?
• Why do we need 8 references?
• What is the origin of the alternative names (Ararat and Erivan)? (I guess they refer to Mount Ararat and Yerevan.)
• Link and introduce the Dashnaks.
• Link "Soviet-era" to the more specific Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic.
• ...the communist-influenced Armenian academic circles, namely... Delete.
  • ...the academic circles, including... Does the cited source explicitly verify the statement? If not, delete it.
• ...from Persia and Turkey... Link Persia to Qajar Iran, cChange Turkey to Ottoman Empire with a link.
• Owing to Russian colonial policy, more than 100,000 Armenians from Persia and Turkey repatriated to Russian Armenia—specifically, the Erivan Governorate "regained an Armenian majority for the first time in several hundred years", whilst "Armenians had already been a majority in some areas such as mountainous Karabagh"; these areas would later "form the nucleus" of an independent Armenia. Rephrase. (The long sentence should be splitted, and perhaps first Karabagh should be mentioned.)
• When quoting text from a scholar, the scholar should specifically named in the text.
• Link Caucasus campaign.
• In the context, I would say "Bolshevik coup in Russia" or "Bolshevik revolution in Russia" instead of October Revolution to make it clearer for readers.
• ...(which was formed by the Russian Provisional Government to oversee the Caucasus)... Perhaps "(a commitee formed in February by the Russian Provisional Government to oversee the Caucasus)"?
• ...signed the Armistice of Erzincan... With whom?
• ...the Transcaucasian Seim was established... By whom?
• Link Trabzon Conference to Trebizond Peace Conference, and introduce it.
• ...the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed... By whom? Use past perfect tense.
• Link Kars.
• ... Kars and Batum were ceded... Mention that the Bolshevik government of Russia agreed to cede the two cities to the Ottomans.
• ...which was only accepted... Make it clear that the Commissariats' delegates accepted it.
• ...a new peace conference was convened in Batum A link?
• ...the two states... Specify.
• ... "avenging" ... "offered" Why the quotation marks?
• ...due to the abandonment of the Georgians... Delete.
• The Armenian National Council comes out of the blue. Was this newly formed?
• The Dashnaks come out of the blue. Introduce them (perhaps in the previous section): when this group was formed, etc.
• ..."many urged"... "not distant" Rephrase to avoid quotation marks. Borsoka (talk) 04:36, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
• ...at least 8,000 young men were taken to Erzurum for slave labour, and 125,000 livestock, 30,000 "farm implement", 6,000 carts, and 18,000 tons of foodstuffs were confiscated. Are these numbers facts or estimations? If estimations, specify it, naming the scholar who made the estimation.
• ...the full significance of the saying, 'the Turk has passed here,' was bruisingly demonstrated"... Specify, this is an Armenian saying, and explain its meaning.
• Quotation marks should be decimated in section Armistice of Mudros.
• ...200 villages were "plundered", half the vineyards in the Aras River valley were "ruined", 200,000 large-horned animals were "driven away" in addition to thousands of carts of "agricultural implements", and 80 percent of households were deprived of a horse and "nearly half" deprived of a cow or ox. Are these numbers facts or estimations? If estimations, specify it, naming the scholar who made the estimation. At least one number (200,000 large-horned animals) seems to contradict the other list (125,000 livestock).
• Rephrase direct quotes in section Armeno-Georgian war.
• British toleration of the state dissolved after the latter defied its directives and Muslim insurgents backed by the latter resisted Georgian forces in the counties of Akhalkalaki and Akhaltsikhe, leading the Georgian government to unite with Armenia in opposing the state's existence. Rephrase it for better understanding, avoiding the use of the term "latter" and splitting the sentence.
• ...2-week... Delete.
• ...local Muslims of up to "ten thousand well-armed men" Rephrase to avoid quotation marks.
• British sympathy to the Aras Republic was reversed under the authority of Major-General William Montgomerie Thomson who suspected Pan-Turkic influence in Nakhchivan due to the presence of Azerbaijani and Ottoman envoys. Thomson believed that Azerbaijan and Turkey were scheming... Ottoman Empire/Ottoman and Turkey/Turkish are not obviously interchangeable. Please check the entire text from this perspective.
• ...(Dro)... ?
• ...which took place in mid-June... Why not past perfect?
• The town of Böyük Vedi and the village cluster around it served as a symbol of defiance for Muslims in Armenia. I do not understand the sentence. Were they the centers of defiance?
• As the insurgencies raged... Select a more neutral verb.
• ...—earlier, he had worked to forestall the Armenian annexation of Nakhchivan This info should be moved into a previous section where it is in context.
• Introduce Anton Denikin.
• Rephrase quotes in sections Armenian-Azerbaijani war, Diplomacy, Karabakh rebellion to avoid quotation marks.
• Section Diplomacy implies that massacre of Muslims by Armenian forces began only in 1919. Can we be sure that Muslims were not massacred and Muslim villages were not sacked during previous Armenian manoeuvres?
• Introduce the Six Vilayets.
• Some words about the March Days massacres?
• ...due to their overlapping territorial claims over Lori, Akhalkalaki, Ardahan, and Olti Delete.
• ...on account of the defeat of the Volunteer Army... Rephrase to make it clear that the Bolsheviks defeated the Volunteer Army in Russia.
• ...the League of Nations and the Supreme Allied Council formally recognised Georgia and Azerbaijan as de facto governments over the region... Rephrase it. (Georgia and Azerbaijan are nations not governments, and the reference to "region" is unclear.)
• ...to accept permanent inclusion within Azerbaijan... Rephrase (to accept the decision, or something else)
• Link and introduce the Red Army.
• ...was ordered by Yerevan... Yerevan?
• The Armenian army was ordered by Yerevan to assist the rebels, but an ultimatum by the Red Army—which supplanted the Azerbaijani army following the latter's sovietisation—prompted an Armenian retreat from Nagorno-Karabakh. Introduce the sentence with a reference to the sovietisation of Azerbaijan for a clearer chronology.
• ...accusing Armenia of attacking Azerbaijani settlements Was this indeed only an accusation? Did indeed the Azerbaijani forces accuse the Armenians of attacking Azerbaijani settlements?
• ...11-point... Delete.
• The parliament gave up its rights to the government since Armenia was under state of emergency. Rephrase (The parliament (?) declared a state of emergency, ...)
• Introduce Nersesian. Fedayee?
• ...some months after the Red Army invasion of Azerbaijan in April,... Delete.
• ...Armenia issued an ultimatum to the rebels outside Yerevan some 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) southwest of Yerevan to submit to Armenian rule Rephrase. Who are these rebels? Armenians/Bolsheviks/Muslims?
• ...to form a link with Kemalist Turkey... Some context and explanation?

2n opinion is needed: NPOV issues

There are several POV pushing issues in this article that are so apparent, it is hard to believe some of them are unintentional. One of the most immediately apparent issues is the "38% Muslims" ethnic group; Muslims are not an ethnic group. This is the exact same tactic that Armenian genocide negationists use: merging all Islamic ethnic groups (including Islamic Armenians) into one to make the Armenian population seem smaller than it is. Another major issue is the removal of maps of the republic based on the Treaty of Sèvres. The Sèvres map file had been used in the infobox and the stable version from 2013 to 2023. It was changed relatively recently during an edit war between two users who are now both blocked. There was never any consensus to change the map however, and I believe either the long standing version should be restored or a new consensus should be found before a GA status is possible. There should also be some consistency in format; the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic map includes every territory the republic claimed, even territories it never controlled. The Sèvres map of the Armenian republic was recognised internationally by the League of Nations, while the Azerbaijani republic borders were not. Another concerning difference between the articles is that the Armenian republic has many unofficial languages in the infobox, while the Azerbaijani republic infobox only has Turkic (which 80% of Baku did not speak). To recapitulate, there are recent changes to the article that seem intended to make the republic appear as small and non-Armenian as possible, and there was never any consensus for these changes. Before the GA process goes forward, the stable version should be restored. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 07:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Olympian: your thoughts? I think the above issues (if they are indeed issues) could be fixed easily. Borsoka (talk) 02:00, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi Borsoka, I will address the above:

1. “ "38% Muslims" ethnic group” concern:

(a) The 38% figure for Muslims in the First Republic of Armenia accurately reflects the description given in the cited Encyclopædia Britannica source (see also similar estimates by other sources in the article's population section, including by this journal article). In fact, this exact question was raised over a year ago and answered so it's surprising that it's being brought up again.

(b) Given that the source describes Armenians and Muslims in the same population breakdown, it is difficult to ascertain whether they should be represented as "ethnic groups" or "religious groups". This uncertainty has led to other editors changing the infobox, but I am open to amending it to either with more editors' input.

2. Map concern:

(a) Initially, the current map was added by me nearly two years ago in January 2023 and has formed the stable/consensus version since then; the current map accurately represents the First Republic of Armenia's territory at its peak in mid-1919 according to reliable sources such as UCLA historian Richard Hovannisian, whose works are heavily depended upon in the content of this article.

(b) The previous map sadly contained numerous historic consistencies with respect to its claimed territories, and this is demonstrated by 7 map-related complaints by editors in the article's Talk page: (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7).

(c) The cited Azerbaijan Democratic Republic article is sadly in a pitiful state and has significant issues, including with its map and lack of spoken/unofficial languages. I have been in the process of rewriting it, but using it as a benchmark for this review is inappropriate and conflicts with WP:OTHERSTUFF.

I hope the explanation is satisfactory, in the meantime, I will continue to address your feedback/remarks above. Thank you for picking up this review. Best, – Olympian ^loquere 06:29, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

@KhndzorUtogh: what do you think? Borsoka (talk) 01:10, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

Both the Britannica and "journal" sources are over a hundred year olds WP:TERTIARY sources. There is no consensus on Britannica's reliability and the other source does not even have an author. WP:AGEMATTERS and a reliable source from the past century is needed. This specific Britannica article seems to not only be unreliable, but also very biased. It blames Armenians for their massacres ("That the Armenians of Cilicia were blameless cannot be maintained") and very much reflects the pro-Turkish foreign policy of the UK that wanted to preserve the Ottoman empire. The author, William John Childs, was apparently a British espionage agent and "gentleman spy" who had no real qualifications and little is even known about his life.[3] Because we now know the Britannica article is a product of foreign intelligence gathering and not academic at all, the whole article can be considered unreliable.

The present map is unsourced and made on original research. The former longstanding map was based on the Treaty of Sevres and Wilsonian Armenia official recognition, and had a description that perfectly defined the map with image and text. And I am unsure what Olympian is trying to prove by linking 7 discussions that all happened before the former longstanding map file was created in 2013. Obviously those threads were not discussing that map. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 10:14, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

• We cannot say that Britannica is an unreliable source, unless offering specialised high-standard sources to verify alternative numbers.
• File:First Republic of Armenia.svg: its sources should be listed in the "Source" part of the "Summary" section in the Commons file ([4]). Borsoka (talk) 10:24, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

If there are concerns with Encyclopædia Britannica, it would best be addressed in a more appropriate forum, WP:RSN. Britannica bases its ethno-religious composition estimate of the First Republic of Armenia based on the fact that Armenia at the time mainly comprised the Erivan Province and Kars Province (see § Annexation of Kars and Nakhchivan). To back up Britannica's estimate, the UCLA Press journal article and Bournoutian sources both support similar significant figures of Muslims/Azeris in the First Republic of Armenia. Even if we excluded the three secondary sources for a moment and went purely by the 1917 census in the two linked province articles' demographics sections, there was a combined Muslim population of over half a million in the territory that the First Republic of Armenia inherited (being the Kars and Erivan provinces), supporting the claim that the republic was around 38% Muslim inhabited. Again, I'm struggling to understand how this is a disputed claim given that it is backed by three secondary sources and affirmed by a primary/statistical source; furthermore, the background of the article discusses the fact that the Armenians were uprooted from their homeland in the 1600s and returned in the 1800s, though no longer as the absolute majority due to Turkic settlement.

Regarding the map, I have added the relevant sources that I consulted to ensure its verifiability. It's worth noting that the previous map is completely unsourced and implies that the First Republic of Armenia incorporated the territory awarded to it in the Treaty of Sèvres, whereas the map authored by me shows the frontier of the awarded territories as drawn by Woodrow Wilson, so as to not generate any misconceptions regarding control. – Olympian ^loquere 10:38, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, my words could be misunderstood. Britannica is obviously a reliable source, but "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources, and to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources ..." Borsoka (talk) 11:50, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Borsoka, I'm not sure if it's clear from my previous (above) reply but there are multiple sources cited in the article that affirm what Britannica is stating (see the notes at the end of each source):

1. Bournoutian, George (2015). "Demographic Changes in the Southwest Caucasus, 1604–1830: The Case of Historical Eastern Armenia". Forum of EthnoGeoPolitics. 3 (2). Amsterdam. ISSN 2352-3654., p. 33
2. Smele, Jonathan D. (2015). Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916–1926. Lanham, Maryland. ISBN 978-1-4422-5281-3. OCLC 923010906.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link), p. 135
3. "New Republics in the Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaidjan, and Georgia: Their Mutual Relations and Their Present Status". Current History. 11 (3). University of California Press: 491–498. 1920. JSTOR 45325199., p. 498
4. Кавказский календарь на 1917 год [Caucasian calendar for 1917] (in Russian) (72nd ed.). Tiflis: Tipografiya kantselyarii Ye.I.V. na Kavkaze, kazenny dom. 1917. Archived from the original on 4 November 2021., pp. 198–201 & 214–221

– Olympian ^loquere 03:42, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

The perennial sources list shows there have been many RSN discussions about Britannica in the past, with there being no consensus on its reliability. The discussion summary notes that some entries are written by experts and some are not; in this case it is the latter. Let's focus on the (un)reliability of Childs specifically. All we know about him is that he was an adventurer that promoted British propaganda. In line with British interests, Childs has an obvious bias for the Young Turks and is very hostile to the idea of Armenian independence.. He refuses to blame the Young Turks for the Adana massacres and also suggests the massacres were the Armenians fault, which had been discredited 13 years earlier.

The original longstanding map is not unsourced, the same map can be found in reliable and expert source such as Robert H. Hewsen's "Armenia: A Historical Atlas" (2001) on page 236. On the other hand, the more recent map is based on Olympian's interpretation of other sources. And I could not find any confirmation of this map in chapter 29 of the Sarapov source, and four different chapters are cited for the Hovannisian book without much indication of what the map is based on.

The Smele source does not even mention the religion of the population. The "Current History" source says the Muslims population was 30%, not 38%. The fourth source is a primary source. Some of these sources even contradict the 1.51 million figure. I have also found another source (page 38) for "about 30%". If the population numbers are this heavily disputed among available sources, then it shouldn't be included in the infobox because infoboxes work best when they contain uncontroversial information that can be consumed at-a-glance, without needing explanation or nuance (because there isn’t room for elaboration). Anybody wishing to add claims to infobox should be prepared to demonstrate that it is universally or near-universally used by reliable source, which is clearly not the case here. Even the area numbers claimed by Britannica are disputed by other sources. The area after Armistice of Mudros is cited by Britannica as 45,325 km2, but in modern and secondary WP:RS such as this, it's 70,000 km2 (Chiclet, p. 167). Which is saying nothing about the Treaty of Sevres area of 160,000 km2 that Olympian just removed in their "rewrite" without a consensus, along with the 70,000km2 number that was supported by a superior source. KhndzorUtogh (talk) 09:21, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for providing that information about Britannica; as Borsoka suggested, lets wait for the 2nd opinion. With regard to the map, it is not "my interpretation", rather, directly what the text supports. I'm not sure which aspects of the map are disputed by you, as you haven't named any concerns beyond the fact that it's different from the one 2 years ago. Thanks for providing that YSU-published source supporting the proportion of Muslims in the republic figure, I think it may be added to the article to expand the demographics section. The 70,000 km² claim is the size of Armenia's claimed borders (in the Armenian delegation's proposal at the Paris Peace Conference), that includes territories that the republic did not directly control, such as the southwestern portion of the Tiflis Province and the central-highland portion of the Elizavetpol Province — in the areas that the republic did control at its territorial peak in mid 1919, its area was approximately 45,000 km² per Hovannisian. If the infobox allows, I'm open to adding both the de facto and claimed area of the republic, does that sound good to you? – Olympian ^loquere 10:25, 9 November 2024 (UTC) Olympian ^loquere 10:25, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello. Why use Britannica at all? There doesn't seem to be lack of much higher quality, more specialized sources. See also [5]. HistoryofIran (talk) 17:13, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

Borsoka, could you please strike your suggested changes/amendments? In my last few edits I addressed virtually all of them (including the two raised by KU). Thanks, – Olympian ^loquere 07:02, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

I do not want to make a decision on the neutrality issues raised above, so I sought a 2nd opinion before resuming the review. Borsoka (talk) 02:51, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Due to the content dispute, the article could hardly meet GA5. GAR is not a platform to reach a compromise, so I suggest the parties that they should seek assistance at a forum of dispute resolution. The article does not need significant changes to meet GA criteria, so I express my gratitute to the nominator for their hard work. Personally, I think all parties should accept that a map could present both the actual situation and claims. Borsoka (talk) 10:26, 9 November 2024 (UTC)