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Talk:Junayd of Aydın/GA1

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Reviewer: HaEr48 (talk · contribs) 04:06, 8 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing. HaEr48 (talk) 04:06, 8 May 2017 (UTC) Sorry for the delay. Overall looking good. My comments[reply]

  • The map in the background section: can you narrow down the timing? 14th century is a long period, do we know the decade or if it's early/mid/late? If early, can we use one that's closer to Junayd's lifetime?
  • Also, because the map is Turkish, probably it's useful to point which one is Ottoman, Aydın, and Smyrna - the key places in the biography.
    • I'm not too satisfied with the map either, as it attempts to condense several decades of territorial evolution in one snapshot. In other words, unless I am much mistaken, at no one time did Anatolia look like this. HHowever, this is the best map I could find, and the average reader will definitely need a map. My own sources are insufficient for me to create a map to replace it, which is what I would normally do. I have however added some explanations in the caption. Constantine ✍ 14:27, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can you describe in the text the relative location of Smyrna, Ayasoluk, and the Beylik of Aydin? A map of these places as well as other key places would be useful too.
  • "Start of the Ottoman Interregnum": The two middle paragraphs have nothing to do with Junayd. Can we summarize it, per the 3b criteria of GA?
    • It is already very condensed, and I feel it necessary as background information, necessary in order to introduce the historical setting, the constraints in which Junayd and his contemporaries operated, and also the main characters in his career. How else could I introduce the three feuding Ottoman princes, and why they were feuding? How could I explain the importance of Bursa? Or the stance of the other Anatolian rulers, and later on of the Byzantines and of Mircea? Constantine ✍ 14:27, 13 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are several instance of WP:EASTEREGG link, e.g. "Mehmed had defeated his brother and seized Bursa", "Mehmed defeated Musa". Please fix, given that they're discouraged by MOS:EGG.
  • “a brother-in-law of the vizier Bayezid Pasha that Junayd had executed” -> The passage about Bayezid’s death wasn’t so clear about who was responsible for the execution. It sounds like Mustafa executed him after being asked by Juneyd. Please clarify
  • Murad sent the beylerbey of Anatolia, Oruj, to combat him: Please reword to clarify: does this mean personal combat, or just regular fighting with armies?
  • How large is Junayd’s role in Mustafa revolt? Was he Mustafa's main commander, or just one of the smaller commanders?
  • "until the Genoese podesta of New Phocaea, Giovanni Adorno": can we add a short translation of podesta?
  • The battle at Akhisar: The article sounds like Junayd was present (but was forced to retreat after his son's defeat), but Mélikoff (1991) made it sound like Junayd wasn't in the battle and only his son was. Can you add an inline citation to the article (so that we know where it's referenced from), and is there any reason that source is preferred than the other source.
    • Not quite. What Mélikoff says is not incorrect: the main event of the battle involved Junayd's son, while it is unclear from Doukas (who provides the story) whether Junayd engaged at all. So there is no incompatibility between the sources. Constantine ✍ 11:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    Doesn't "Junayd thereupon retreated" imply that he was present? HaEr48 (talk) 06:51, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • “ Oruj died, and was succeeded by Hamza Bey, the brother of Bayezid whose life Junayd had spared, and İpsili was placed under siege” the relation between Oruj’s deaht and Ipsili’s siege isn’t clear to me, but this passage presents them as related.
  • Please clarify if Hamza Bey ordered or personally conducted the siege of Ipsili.
  • Junayd's death: The article says it's Hamza's men who killed him, while Mélikoff (1991) says it's Yakhshi as revenge for his sister. Should we perhaps mention both versions? And do we know what Hamza's motives were?

HaEr48 (talk) 04:36, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    • On Hamza's motives, we can only guess; Junayd was a thorn in the side of the Ottomans for many years, but more importantly, he was responsible for having Hamza's brother executed. Doukas certainly implies that this played a role (so does the article, when it mentions the fact along with Hamza's succession to Oruj), but does not say so explicitly. Regarding Mélikoff's version, it has been added. Constantine ✍ 11:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello HaEr48, thanks for taking the time to review this article! I'll get to work addressing your comments over the weekend, but a first comment about Mélikoff (1991): Zachariadou has demolished much oof Mélikoff's chronology (which in turn relies mostly on Akın). Indeed, she writes that "Akın [...] and Mélikoff [...] contain many inaccuracies and will not hereafter be cited". I began the article based on the EI2 aentry, but after I got access to Zachariadou I've not relied on it and removed it as a reference except for places where it is either in accordance with Zachariadou, for information not found there, or where it ppresents an alternative hypothesis that cannot conclusively be rejected (e.g. Hasan Agha being the subashi in 1405). Constantine ✍ 07:02, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Constantine: Understood, but if both are legitimate scholars and the works are published by reliable sources, why are we preferring Zachariadou over Mélikoff? Is her version more widely accepted (if so, how?)? From reading WP:NPOV looks like we should represent both opinions. HaEr48 (talk) 19:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ordinarily, yes. But this is not a matter of POV or equally plausible theories, it is about the reconstruction of events based on archival sources. Zachariadou is one of the greatest Turkologists of her generation, and her knowledge of Turkish, Greek and Western archives on the period is second to none. When she writes about inaccuracies, I don't think she means differences of interpretation, but inaccurate reading of the primary sources. What is certain is that her version is certainly the commonly accepted narrative for the events concerning Aydin among modern scholars for this period (cf. Kastritsis; also, in general, much of the current state of the art in the topic of Turkish-Latin-Greek history in the Aegean in the 14th-early 15th centuries can be directly traced to her). Where both sides present theories as such (e.g., as mentioned above, about the identity of the subashi) based on educated guesses rather than sources, I have left both stand. Constantine ✍ 21:07, 12 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi HaEr48! Sorry for the delay, I was really busy with work. I have addressed the concerns you have raised above. Looking forward to further feedback. The map of Smyrna and environs will take some while. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 11:11, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
If the map will take a while, is it perhaps possible to describe the locations in the prose? Just an idea. HaEr48 (talk) 06:51, 25 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi HaEr48! I've added a map, and fixed the one missing comment from above. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 12:38, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent map, Constantine. I moved the map's location in the article, feel free to revert if you don't like it. As for the GA, I'm happy to pass it now. HaEr48 (talk) 23:41, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by llywrch

Well, actually just one.

When I incorporated a lot of content from Doukas a while back -- has it really been two years ago? -- I added the book/chapter references to keep them independent of a specific translation. While it's doubtful that there will be another translation of Doukas in the foreseeable future -- although Magoulias' translation is 40+ years old & out of print, I doubt anyone expects medieval Greek historians to be a bigger market than, say, Harry Potter soon -- keeping those references does make it easier for the content to be reused in other languages, especially translating this article to other language Wikipedias. (Those languages will either have their own translations to use, or the Wikipedian may be fluent enough in medieval Greek to read the original.) So some readers would benefit from them if they were restored. Just a thought. -- llywrch (talk) 22:30, 1 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point, llywrch. I'll restore the references as soon as I have some more time. Constantine ✍ 12:38, 3 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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