Talk:Kievan Rus'/Archive 7

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Volodymyr the Great, not “Vladimir”

Change the name to its correct Rus’ form, Vladimir is a wrong transcription. 136.169.48.44 (talk) 23:42, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Keep in mind WP:COMMONNAME applies. It is written the way the majority of sources spell it, which may differ from how you personally spell it. TylerBurden (talk) 06:49, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

"Volodymyr" is also the Ukrainian spelling, which was not written then. Mellk (talk) 23:48, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

That’s a bit misleading. Володимѣръ was written then, which can be properly transliterated as Volodymǐr. The Ukrainian form is closer to the Old East Slavic while Russian Vladimir is closer to Old Church Slavic. —Michael Z. 15:59, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, you are right that "Vladimir" comes from Old Church Slavonic form, however I believe it is usually transliterated as "Volodimer" (this is at least how it is in the Vladimir the Great article and wiktionary), so quite a bit different. Mellk (talk) 16:09, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, often, technically, Volodiměr, with и →i reflecting Old East Slavic pronunciation, but the yat ѣ → ě reflecting a Russian WP:BIAS in the Western history of Slavistics (the legacy of “Russianists” in the nineteenth and twentieth century), the vowel having become je in Russian, i in Ukrainian, and ja in South Slavic. Here we see a systemic Russian bias that is invisible to non-specialists and even many specialists unless it is explained. —Michael Z. 16:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Wasn't yat pronunciation closer to e back then most likely? I would be interested in reading more about this however. Mellk (talk) 16:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I’d have to dig out Shevelov 1979 to see what he says about Old Ukrainian yat pronunciation. Anyway, the conventional transliteration is based on nineteenth-century Russian scholarship, long after the pronunciation diverged in the two languages. —Michael Z. 19:22, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Hm: I understand transliteration ě and sometimes ä has been used for the Common Slavic yat which may have been pronounced like [æ]. Transliteration chart in Shevelov 1979 (I don’t have the full text at hand) only gives this transliteration for Old Ukrainian yat but says the Middle Ukrainian sound was [i], or [’e] in northern Ukrainian. —Michael Z. 19:56, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I would also imagine there would be dialectal variation. In Wiktionary there are also alternative forms listed. "Володимиръ" for example seems to be in some texts. Mellk (talk) 17:52, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, but I think spelling was quite variable anyway. Only a reliable source can tell us which spelling or trend is dialectal. —Michael Z. 22:40, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

That is not related to dialectal variation. In Kievan Rus', Church Slavonic played the same role as Latin played in Western Europe: it was a literary language, so all records were in Church Slavonic. The difference between Rus' and Western Europe was that in Rus' both its colloquial language and its literary language belonged to the same family, and local people were able to understand Church Slavonic like modern Russians can understand modern Ukrainian. That is why some Church Slavonic forms were easily adapted by East Slavs (imo, especially by Russians).

With regard to dialects, the population of the territory that now belongs to modern Central and Southern Russia spoke the same dialect as the population that lived in modern Ukraine, so they pronounced this name as "Volodimer". I am not sure about Novgorod dialect, but, although it was different from the Southern dialect, it seems they pronounced it like "Volodimer" too.

Therefore,

• if we are concerned about a correct pronounciation, we should use "Volodimer".
• if we want to follow historical sources, we should use "Vladimir", for that is a correct form according to Church Slavic norms.
• if we want to emphasize the lack of continuity between Moscow Czars and the Ukrainian konung Volodimer (which seems to be a part of the ideological war between modern Russians and modern Ukrainians), then we chose the option that depends on one's political views, but I am not sure if that is allowed by our policy.

I think we should use Charlemagne as an example. He was a ruler of what is currently France, Germany and some smaller states, and his "correct" name is "Charlemagne" in French (let it be the analog of "Ukrainian"), "Karl der Große" in German (let's assume it is an analog of modern Russian), "Carolus Magnus" in Latin (that is an analog of Church Slavonic). Which name is used in English Wikipedia? Charlemagne. Why? Because it is the most common name in English literature.

And, for the same reason, Vladimir should be used in this article.

To speak about any "pro-Russian" bias in this case is as laughable as to speak about a pro-French bias of Western historiography in the case of Karl the Great's empire. Of course, by using the term "Charlemagne", English speaking historians do not imply that Charlemagne was a Frenchmen, and Aachen (his capital) is actually the French city. It just means that, for some historical reason, English acquired this work from French. That's it.

Do you guys seriously propose to count the number of historical names acquired by English during last thousand of years and, if these numbers do not correspond to the modern political map, to fix "the bias"?

In my opinion, attempts of foreign nationals (or non-native English speakers) to fix English to please someone's national pride are laughable. I can understand Bombay -> Mumbai, because majority of population of India speaks English (which is the official language in India, by the way, and the majority of English speakers in the world live in that country), but to teach native English speakers how to spell "Vladimir", which is the word of their own language, is ... I would say, not modest. Paul Siebert (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Language can change. Consensus can change. I can mention countless examples from toponyms to personal names that have changed in the past several decades (e.g. Courtrai to Kortrijk, Louvain to Leuven). So, just because English acquired some French exonym at some point long ago, doesn't mean it will always keep it. And as had been pointed out more times than I care to count (WP:KIEV), Kiev was once the dominant form of spelling the Ukrainian capital in modern English, but now it is Kyiv. Similarly, everyone agrees that the last German emperor was called Wilhelm II, German Emperor, and there are discussions ongoing (like, literally, this is almost all they talk about on the talk page) whether William I, German Emperor should actually be renamed Wilhelm I, German Emperor. Clearly, the English language is increasingly favouring endonyms over historical exonyms, although it tends to do so gradually, not radically, and only when and where appropriate. History is one of the areas where we should be cautious.

I, too, am the kind of person who thinks this should not be rushed, especially not in historical articles. As I have been explaining to fellow Wikipedian Mellk on my talk page: I tend not to change existing spelling in texts written by others (per WP:KIEV do not change existing content.); I only apply modern spelling in texts that I add myself. In some cases these are quotes from the sources that I cite, such as Katchanovski et al. 2013, which use modern spelling for historical subjects; e.g. 'no adequate system of succession to the Kyivan throne was developed' is a direct quote. I do not change spelling in existing content (unless the entire sentence is malformed/incorrect and unsourced, and I have to reformulate it based on a reliable source, then I might change it based on the spelling used in the reliable source). You'll notice I didn't remove "Vladimir", I just added "Volodymyr" in certain places when I added Katchanovski et al. 2013 as a source. In other cases I have added "Kievan" for practical reasons, such as a Main article template link from the redirect Mongol invasion of Rus' to Mongol invasion of Kievan Rus', because that is the current article title. Although this is somewhat inconsistent, it is an allowable variety and diversity in article content when there is no clear universal standard (...), except that spelling of existing text should generally not be changed. If anything, I think this helps the reader understand that there is this linguistic, historic and cultural diversity that has in some sense always existed (...).

[Some users argue] switching the entire article over to one spelling or another. I am not in favour of such a radical decision at all. Articles like this should grow and evolve organically, and varieties in spelling that may arise could simply be part of that process depending on the historiographic literature that is available to support it. Eliminating either one spelling wouldn't do justice to the diversity in good sources. E.g. Magocsi 2010 is another good source I have used, and he uses 'Kiev' and 'Kievan', which is fine; if I quote him, I'll follow his spelling.

Long story short, do not change existing content.. But if you are adding content, and the source you are citing (and especially if you're directly quoting it) is using modern spelling, you can use it in this Wikipedia article, too. If the spelling is very different from existing spelling, such as in the case of Vladimir and Volodymyr, consider doing what I did: Vladimir/Volodymyr. Ultimately, the goal is that our readers understand what the text is about. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:23, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I think your key mistake is that you mix two different things. Some foreign words, like "Kiev", "Moscow", "Prague", "Munich", "Rome" have become English words many centuries ago, and any change of their spelling in local languages have no effect on their English spelling: these words are different. For example, the modern Russian word "Moskva" is spelled and pronounced in this form during several centuries, but English retains an ancient form "Московъ", which was in use more than 500 years ago. And Russians do not complain. The same can be said about Belgrade (Beograde in Serbian), Lissabon ("Lisboa"), Warsaw (Warszawa in Polish), and so on. I would say, that is more a rule than an exception.

IMO, the explanation is as follows: the historical names, which are deeply rooted in the world history, are less prone to change and are more stable than other names. Two analogies can be proposed to illustrate this thought. First, as you know, some genes are less prone to mutations and are more conserved than others, and these genes are usually the ones that are vital to the organism's survival. Another example is English irregular verbs: as you know, all most verbs in old English were irregular, but they changed their form with time. Only the most important verbs remain irregular.

Historical names that are deeply rooted in the international culture resist to change, and are not affected by political changes (e.g. the current conflict between Ukrainians and Russians). And, contrary to your assertion, Kiev is still being used much more frequently. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Thus, in contrast to Kiev, transition from Lvov to Lviv went quite smoothly, because this name is much less important, and because it is the foreign word, so English speakers just transliterate the foreign word in its most common form. But, in contrast to Lvov/Lviv, Kiev is not a foreign word in English (interestingly, Kyiv is usually underscored by mist spelling checker as a typo). Paul Siebert (talk) 04:03, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Most of what you are saying is irrelevant to the subject at hand. A city's relative world-historic importance doesn't necessarily mean its spelling in English will always remain the same. Remember how Peking has become Beijing, and Nanking became Nanjing within the last decades, even though the former spellings were arguably deeply rooted in the world history. We still say Peking duck, and if you read or look at 1989 reports of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, you'll notice English-language media still write and say 'Peking'; and the Nanjing Massacre is still widely known as Nanking Massacre or Rape of Nanking (also due to the 1997 book). These are relatively recent changes in spelling of hugely important cities. We are not talking about small provincial cities (such as Lviv) the average English speaker has never heard of: both places were the capital city for long periods in Chinese history and are well-known; Europeans have just applied Southern Chinese spelling for centuries, because the Southern Chinese were their primary source of contact for centuries due to trade. (That's also the reason why Sichuan pepper was known as Szechuan pepper for centuries).

You refer to "foreign words", but all names we are discussing here are foreign words. From the point of view of the English language, both Courtrai and Kortrijk are "foreign words". The difference is whether it is an endonym (copied from the locally dominant language) or an exonym (a derivative invented by another language that has no major local presence). Courtrai is a French exonym now abandoned in English (except in certain historical contexts such as Battle of Courtrai (1918)), Kortrijk is a Dutch endonym recently adopted in English. The assertion that "deeply rooted historical names are not affected by political changes" is clearly incorrect. If Beijing hadn't become the capital city of the PR of China, but Nanjing, I think the locally dominant version of Chinese would have set the model for the national standard, and we would still be commonly talking about Peking and Nanking. If there hadn't been a Flemish Movement that successfully advocated for the federalisation of Belgium into language communities, and French would have remained the dominant (political) language in Belgium and no recognition would have been given to the Dutch-language area in which the city is located, I think we would still be commonly talking about Courtrai. If Ukraine hadn't become independent in 1991 and adopted Ukrainian as its state language, and especially if Russia hadn't been invading Ukraine since 2014, I think we would still be commonly talking about Kiev. Since 24 February 2022, countless more English-language media and publications have (often explicitly) switched to Kyiv for political reasons, and that process is very easy to document and verify. (I'm not going to argue with you about which name is more common; that debate has been settled at WP:KIEV long before 24 February 2022. I do have to say that your personal computer's spelling checker is the funniest argument I've heard so far. My spelling checker underscores 'Siebert' as a typo, but that doesn't mean it's a wrong name either.)

To get back on topic: Magocsi 2010 is one of the good sources used extensively inside this article (by myself and by many different users over the years). He uses Kiev/Kievan, but also Volodymyr. The Konstam 2005 book that I quoted yesterday also consistently writes Kiev/Kievan, but also consistently Volodymyr. Katchanovski et al. 2013 write both Kyiv/Kyivan and Volodymyr. This is still anecdotal evidence, but this might indicate that Volodymyr is actually more common in English literature about the Rus' than Kyiv/Kyivan.

I think we should simply follow what the source we are citing/quoting is saying by default, and allow for variety and diversity in this article without changing existing content just to change the spelling merely in order to favour our personal preferences. The most compelling reason for this is that the Old East Slavic language no longer exists, so it is no longer possible to adopt its endonyms, because it is no longer the locally dominant language. And there is no particular reason to pick any of the three main languages that sprang from it (Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian) as the eternal spelling standard for all Kyivan Rus' personal names and toponyms in English. For toponyms, an argument can be made to align these spelling standards with modern geography, because some of these cities and regions still exist today. E.g. Novgorod Land and Novgorod Republic retain the spelling Novgorod because Veliky Novgorod is located in modern Russia. But Novhorod-Siverskyi is located in modern Ukraine, so an argument can be made to change Principality of Novgorod-Seversk to Principality of Novhorod-Siverskyi, also to avoid confusion with Novgorod Land and the Novgorod Republic. "Principality of Novgorod" currently redirects to Veliky Novgorod, but I think it's better to make it a disamb. When it comes to personal names like Vladimir/Volodymyr (a person who no longer exists), I think it is a matter of frequency in literature, or simply following the source you happen to be citing/quoting from. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Chinese toponyms is hardly a good example, because that change is a part of a global transition in spelling of Chinese words.

WRT "You refer to "foreign words", but all names we are discussing here are foreign words", you are missing the point. Whereas Courtrai (or, e.g. Kharkov/Kharkiv) are definitely foreign words, "Moscow" is not. Otherwise, English speakers would have switched to "Moskva" long time ago. Indeed, if "Moscow" is a foreign word, then can you please tell me which modern language it was taken from? Maybe, from German ("Moskau"), but definitely not from Russian. Alas, "Moscow" is an English word, and this word may change only if Russians rename the city (e.g. to "Putingrad", which, I hope, will never happen). Imagine that Russians adopted new grammar rules, and the name of their capital became "Maskva" (which is closer to Moscow dialect pronunciation). Will it have any effect on the spelling of the English word "Moscow"? I see absolutely no reason why it should.

Let me reiterate it: when we are talking about some modern foreign names or toponyms that have no English equivalents (like "Vinnytsia"), we use a transliteration from a local language. If the original spelling changes (Kharkov -> Kharkiv), we change a transliteration accordingly (we use Kharkov in Third Battle of Kharkov, but we use Kharkiv for the modern name, for it was not renaming of the city, just a change of spelling).

However, for some historical names and for some cities we use English words if such words exist. The examples are "Kiev", "Moscow", "Prague", "The Hague" (not "Der Haag"), etc. As we can see, "Vladimir the Great" belong to this category. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:54, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

That would have been true if the issue with namings in Ukrainian history was not politicized by Russian state officials and state media. Which is why despite the presence of a historical name Kiev is now Kyiv, just as Vladimir the Great should have been Volodymyr the Great (its closer to the original East Slavic name anyways). DoctorWhutsup (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I think we are not discussing the bullshit that is being spread by Russian officials. We must clearly discriminate between renown Russian historians and official Russian pseudo-historiography.

WRT Kiev/Kyiv, both these names are modern. In the past, this name, most likely, was something in between. Just compare frequency of the three different spellings of this name in Primary Chronicle (a hint: "Киев" is the most frequent).

WRT Vladimir/Volodymir: during Medieval times, Old Slavonic was a spoken language, but Church Slavonic was a literary language. The difference between Vladimir and Volodymir is not a difference between "Russian" and "Ukrainian" versions, but between literary and colloquial versions of this name. Later, Russians adopted the Church Slavonic version, but that happened after "Vladimir" was adopted by Western languages. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:56, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Nonsense. English spelling from the 19th and 20th centuries is not based on the Primary Chronicle. It is based on a bunch of “renowned” Russian historians and their students who held views of Russian supremacy and Ukrainian inferiority. Here’s the link again,[1] but I doubt you’ll pay attention this time either.  —Michael Z. 21:44, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Really?

Then I am sure you will be able to easily demonstrate that some other spelling was predominant in pre-Karamzin era.

I am not aware of any "renown" (and even not renown) Russian historians before Karamzin (at least, no other earlier historian was influential in the West). Therefore, if you show me that some other spelling was predominant in English sources before Karamzin, then I am ready to discuss your claim seriously.

I would like to read more sources about "Russian supremacy": the sources available to me say that in Russian Empire there were no division on "Russians" and "Ukrainians": both Russians (Velikorosses) and Ukrainians (Malorosses) were considered as Russians: Imperial authorities did not take into account ethnicity at all, the two criteria that mattered were religion and estate. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:57, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Only other spellings were used before the 1790s, well into the imperial period. Kiev only became the single prevailing spelling well into the twentieth century.

No division? You mean Ukrainian national identity was denied and anyone who recognized it was violently oppressed. Ukrainian language was banned in print and public performance. Your denial of the well documented historical condition is pretty twisted.  —Michael Z. 03:38, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

"Kiev only became the single prevailing spelling well into the twentieth century." Ngram disagrees with you. You either provide documents or stop your nonsense.

"Ukrainian national identity was denied" You again return to your primordialist argumentation. There was no such thing as "national identity" in Russian Empire: it was an old style feudal state where people were not separated based of ethnicity: only religion and estate were important.

And, taking into account that no national consciousness existed in Velikorosses, Malorosses and other Orthodox subjects of His Majesty, there were no national identity to suppress. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:19, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I decided to dig sources by myself, and I've just started. So far, I found the following. Using this search phrase, I found this source (it was the second one in the list, and the first one in this list, so you cannot blame me of any bias or cherry-picking). The source says:

"The more culture-specific onomastic terminology is, the more variable its rendering becomes. An interesting example is represented by the sovereignonym “Київська Русь” (Kievan Rus’) and the related onym of “Давня Русь” (Old Rus’). The former term was formed by the combination of a Slavic root morpheme and an English suffix. The root morpheme was transcribed using the Russian spelling of Kiev, and not the Ukrainian formally accepted one of Kyiv. This can be explained, firstly, by tradition in translation, and, secondly, by the fact that the latter spelling appeared relatively recently and according to some native speakers is read with a diphthong [ai], and not the monophthong [i], the former not matching its Ukrainian phonological form. "

As you can see, these two Ukrainian scholars confirm that "Kyiv" is a recent spelling, and "Kiev" is a traditional spelling. Paul Siebert (talk) 04:50, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Kiev only became the single prevailing spelling well into the twentieth century. Ngram agrees with me.[2][3] Please stop just making stuff up and presenting it as an argument.  —Michael Z. 16:48, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. Let's take a look at the 1600 - 1800 period, and let's separate transcriptions that are closer to Russian and that are closer to Ukrainian.

Russians tend to pronounce the last "v" as "f", whereas Ukrainians tend to pronounce the last "v" as "v" or even "u". ("Kyiu").

In Russian pronunciation, the "i" in "Kiev" sounds like "i", in Ukrainian as "y".

In Russian, "e" in "Kiev" is pronounced as "e", in Ukrainian as "i" (I mean phonetic e and i).

Therefore, out of 8 different transcriptions, "Kiev + Kieff + Kiew + Kief" are closer to modern Russian pronunciation, "Kiow+Kiovia+Kioff+Kiof+Kiou" are clearly derived from Polish "Kijów".

All of that is totally consistent with the source provided by me: "Kyiv" is a very recent transcription, and there were virtually no "Kyiv" in the early English literature. Paul Siebert (talk) 17:16, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

The original spellings of Kyiv and Kharkiv never did change (certainly not since 1918 orthographic reforms which are irrelevant to this).

The original spelling of Moscow’s name did change: English Moscow is recorded from the 16th century and descends from Old East Slavic Московь (Moskovĭ). —Michael Z. 18:12, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

The original spelling of Kiev was adopted even before Московъ (not "Московь", as you incorrectly spelled it: the last letter was ъ, not ь), and that spelling was "Kiev" (the one that was used in Primary chronicle). Paul Siebert (talk) 17:59, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Which “original spelling” of Kyiv is that? In Church Slavic and Old East Slavic there was no standardization and it was spelled variously. Zhelezniak’s dictionary of chronicle geographical names gives Кыєвъ, Києвъ, Киевъ, Києвꙋ, Кїєва, Киева, Киеви, Києвѣ, Кыєвꙋ, Кыѥву, Кыѥвѣ, Кыѥвѣ, etcetera.

The OED says English Moscow and Muscovy come from Moskov′, accusative, 1177, “earlier in locative na Moskvě ‘on the Moscow river’ and in other oblique cases with loss of the second o".

The names of Kyiv and Kharkiv never changed. Their spellings have not changed in Ukrainian or Russian since the modern alphabets were adopted.  —Michael Z. 18:43, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Moskov′ and Moskovĭ are alternate romanizations of OCS or OES Московь. The hard sign ъ would be romanized <″> or <ŭ>.  —Michael Z. 19:22, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Michael, I remind you that we already discussed this question. The Primary Chronicle contains three major spelling, and Києвъ is the most frequent and most ancient. Therefore, we have no reason to claim that "Kiev" (which is a transliteration of Києвъ) was imposed by "evil Russian imperialists" on Western historiography/English language.

Yes "Moskov" means "....-upon-Moscow (river)", but, according to the grammar, teh last letter was ъ (pronounced like "Schwa").

"The names of Kyiv and Kharkiv never changed" Russian and Ukrainian alphabets were adapted after "Kiev" became an English word (unless you believe some earlier alphabet was adapted before Kulishivka). Paul Siebert (talk) 19:48, 2 May 2023 (UTC)

Are you saying English writers took the spelling from the Primary Chronicle? That’s nonsense. The spelling Kiev appeared in English at the end of the nineteenth century, when imperial Russian historians’ works were being translated by Russians into English. It persisted until most Western cultural elites became painfully aware of its colonial legacy and inappropriateness.[4]

Scores of sources tell us the spellings Kiev and Kyiv are derived from Russian and Ukrainian, respectively. You’re denying what sources say and deceiving yourself with your own stories about the Primary Chronicle that have nothing to do with sources about English.  —Michael Z. 21:55, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

And which spelling was used before that? Ngram finds "Kiev", "Keef", and "Kijev" (all of them are closer to the "Russian" version), and virtually no "Kyiv". I have no idea what "Russian historiography" existed during those times.

I may be wrong, and if you provide links to several pre-1980 books that use "Kyiv", I may agree with you. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:13, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Actually, I am really interested to see how do you imagine the "Russian Imperialist discourse" was working before 1800. Clearly, "Kiev" was dominating in pre-1700 English sources, but how could "Russian imperialists" impose their language on the Western Europe if the first Russian reform of the alphabet was si=tarted only by peter the Great, and Ukrainians had no own alphabet? Both Russians and Ukrainians were using Church Slavonic, and there were no specific rules for Ukrainian or Russian transcription.

I may be wrong. In that case I am respectfully request you to correct me. Paul Siebert (talk) 02:43, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

This was a really good reply. 2.223.224.156 (talk) 10:26, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Do you understand what endonym and exonym are? Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I do like how Snyder uses the kuningaz’s native name to bring clarity: “Valdimar was, to put it gently, not a Russian.”[5]  —Michael Z. 00:22, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That is exactly what I meant when I wrote "if we want to emphasize the lack of continuity between Moscow Czars and the Ukrainian konung Volodimer (which seems to be a part of the ideological war between modern Russians and modern Ukrainians), then we chose the option that depends on one's political views, but I am not sure if that is allowed by our policy".

Of course, Vladimir was not Russian, but that doesn't make him Ukrainian. He lived during the time when neither Russians nor Ukrainians existed, and he spoke the language that was spoken by common ancestors of Russians and Ukrainians. They all pronounced this name as "Volodymer/Volodymir'" (because "volo" was common for all East Slavs, and "vlad" was a South Slavic pronunciation: thus, the name of the first Vladimir's capital had always been "Novgorod", not "Novograd").

Therefore, even if Vladimir were Russian ("Velikoross") (which, of course, would be a weird assumption), his name pronounced as "Volodimer".

But all of that is irrelevant. What is relevant is how his name is written in majority of secondary sources. I am not an expert, but a simple ngram search confirms that "Vladimir" is much more common. The fact that it was taken from official Russian (actually Church Slavonic) tradition doesn't change anything. Thus, English sources use "Charlemagne" for Karl the Great, East European scholars (including Ukrainian ones) use the term derived from the German version of his name, but that does not means English speakers believe Charlemagne was a Frenchmen and Ukrainians believe he was a German.

I think we should stop this silly discussion. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:14, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That is not a silly discussion I started.

But as you mention it, his first language was likely Old Norse, and hence my reference to the endonym and how neatly it bypasses the politics you dwell on.

And as you attempted to characterize sources: English-language sources in the tradition of Ukrainian historiography have followed a formula like this for decades: “Toponyms are usually transliterated from the language of the country in which the designated places are currently located. As a rule, personal names are given in the forms characteristic of the cultural tradition to which the given person belonged” (Serhii Plokhy 2021, The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine’s past and present:viii). But sources in the imperial and Soviet traditions use Russian names. One of these days en.Wikipedia could figure out that its rule is not neutral, but has a WP:BIAS that automatically indulges the selfish imperial narrative, but I think it’s likely that Western scholarship will fix itself before Wikipedia does.[6]  —Michael Z. 04:43, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

@Nederlandse Leeuw: Good point. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:15, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Then I hope you understand it when I say that attempting to group names like Moscow, Kiev/Kyiv, Vladimir/Volodymyr and Courtrai/Kortrijk into categories such as "foreign words" and "English words" doesn't make much sense. Because they are both foreign and English at the same time: each of these words has an etymologically non-English origin, but it has been widely adopted into the English language and is thus arguably "an English word". (If you really want a toponym of native "English"/Anglo-Saxon/Germanic origin, you need something like Newtown. Lots of toponyms in England aren't "English" either, e.g. placenames ending on -by are Scandinavian, London comes from Latin Londinium, and York ultimately goes back to Celtic *Eborakon). Moscow was not "taken" from any language, but derived from Russian Moskva for use in English, but it is simultaneously just as "foreign" and "English" as Kiev, Kyiv, Courtrai and Kortrijk are, even though Moscow, Kiev and Coutrai are exonyms and Kyiv and Kortrijk are endonyms.

We can all agree that Moskva is currently not really an "English" word, because it's rarely used in English in this form, and as you noted Russians do not complain. But if Russians were to complain, I bet we are going to see an increasing use of Moskva in the next 10 years. A good example here is the Name of the Czech Republic: since 2016, the Czech government has urged English-language users to switch to Czechia instead of Czech Republic. (Strictly speaking, Czechia is still an exonym, because the Czech word for Czechia is Česko, but I digress). This has been increasingly successful. So even "deeply rooted historical names are affected by political changes". Language can change, and consensus can change.

Michael Z. here cites Plokhy 2011 in practice making the argument about using endonyms for toponyms that I said could be made in theory:

• I: For toponyms, an argument can be made to align these spelling standards with modern geography, because some of these cities and regions still exist today.
• Plokhy: Toponyms are usually transliterated from the language of the country in which the designated places are currently located.

That supports my suggestion to change Principality of Novgorod-Seversk to Principality of Novhorod-Siverskyi, for example.

Unfortunately Plokhy 2011's principle doesn't solve the personal name question: As a rule, personal names are given in the forms characteristic of the cultural tradition to which the given person belonged. Because both the Old Norse tradition of Valdimar (as reconstructed by Snyder) and the Old East Slavic tradition of Володимѣръ Volodiměrъ (as mentioned in his Wikibio) no longer exist, and the latter has brought forth three national standards: Uladzimir (Belarusian), Vladimir (Russian), and Volodymyr (Ukrainian). Linguistically, we can't categorise him into (just) one of these three cultural traditions. (That English-language literature has long favoured Russian spelling as the standard is mostly due to the fact that (apart from the Korenizatsya era of the 1920s) Russian had been the official language of all three countries from Imperial Russian times to 1991, but the last 3 decades have had a major impact, and this change in language and consensus is reflected in our recent English-language reliable sources). Geographically, it's also not so clear-cut: yes he was prince of Kyiv (in modern Ukraine) from 980 to 1015, but also born in Budnik (in modern Russia) and prince of Novgorod (in modern Russia) from 969 to 977. Hence my conclusion that nobody can claim Mr. "the Great" for themselves, and my suggestion that we should follow the spelling of the source we are citing/quoting from, and accept the resulting variety and diversity, which does justice to the reality that Kyivan/Kievan Rus' has a very diverse linguistic/cultural legacy up to the present that no single country or language can claim solely for themselves. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 10:58, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Moscow and Muscovy both derive from Old East Slavic Московь (Moskovĭ), derived by conjugation from the Common Slavic plural *mosky. In this case, the local name has historically changed more than the exonym. It’s an interesting etymology, analogous to the word for “church” whose root form tserky became tserkovʹ in Russian and tserkva in Ukrainian.

The additional reason that Western historiography has used Russian names is that Kliuchevksy’s students established Western scholarship on “Russia,” and resisted decolonization of history much longer for the Russian and Soviet empires than it did for other imperial states. There’s a blatant colonial WP:BIAS inherited in Wikipedia: can you imagine the huge discussions we’ve held over, say, labelling Mahatma Gandhi a “British revolutionary” because he was born in the British Empire? —Michael Z. 17:34, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that etymology is interesting.

I agree that Russian spellings and perspectives should not be the default, certainly not for toponyms outside of the internationally recognised borders of the Russian Federation. English-language historiography is gradually catching up to the new realities we find ourselves in (what you call "decolonisation of history"). In areas of uncertainty such as personal names, I think we should follow the source and allow some varieties for new content, but not change existing content. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes. But there is a lot of determined resistance to decolonization. There will always be three or more editors who point to sources from the 1970s that say so-and-so was a Russian painter, and pointedly refuse to respect a new one that says so-and-so was a Ukrainian painter of Greek ancestry that worked in the Russian empire. —Michael Z. 21:40, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

And when scholarship is decolonized, we should absolutely change outdated content.  —Michael Z. 21:41, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

That depends. It would be ridiculous to call Petliura "Soviet/Russian revolutionary" just because he was active in the territory of Russian Empire/USSR. But it would we equally ridiculous to call Trotsky or Dybenko "Ukrainian revolutionaries". And, wrt "decolonisation", read The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 by Terry Martin.

I see two trends in decolonisation of history. The first one, is rejection of an old feudal discourse (like "Moscow as a Third Rome", "re-unification of Slavic people under Russian rule" etc). The second one is composing/invention of the history by newly formed nations from the primodrialist point of view, which is totally ahistoric.

Thus, your example with a "Russian painter" is a demonstration of the second trend. What does "Ukrainian painter of Greek ancestry that worked in the Russian empire" supposed to mean? Do you mean that he was an ethnic Greek who lived on a territory of modern Ukraine? How does it make him Ukrainian? And how do you understand the term "Ukrainian" in this context? Clearly, no Ukrainian (as well as Russian) nation existed in XIX century. And the word "Russian" meant "an Orthodox subject of the Russian Czar (except Georgians)". Withing this group, there were Velikorosses (Greater Russians, people whose descendants are now called "Russians"), Malorosses (people who are now called Ukrainians) etc. And, obviously the word "Russian painter" meant not his ethnicity. Using your approach, we should call Karl Bryullov not a "Russian painter", but a "Russian painter of French ancestry that worked in the Russian empire", Aurelius Augustinus "An Algerian theologian of Berber origin who worked in a Roman Empire", and so on.

Again, your point of view assumes that nations are fixed and ancient, and it is a pure Primordialism, which is a generally discredited point of view.

IMO, the main problem with Russian-Ukrainian terminology is as follows. In English and Ukrainian, the term "Russian" refers to three different things: to the old feudal empire ("Russian empire") that became a cradle for several new nations, to the modern country ("Russian federation") and to the ethnic group ("Russian"). In reality, these three terms have totally different meaning, and in Russian they are different ("Rossiyskii/Russky"). Thus, I am sure the painter whom you are talking about is described as "Rossiyskii", not "Russkii", and the term "Rossiyskii" refers not to Russian federation, but to a totally different entity, Russian empire. Paul Siebert (talk) 03:18, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

[citation needed][citation needed][original research][citation needed][original research].  —Michael Z. 05:50, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

As I already explained to you, NOR is not applicable to talk page. Some minimal competence is especially required for admins, and that raises a legitimate concern about a validity of your admin status. Do you seriously want me to start that discussion on a relevant noticeboard? Paul Siebert (talk) 06:03, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

@Paul Siebert, maybe you made a mistake when you wrote Clearly, no Ukrainian ... nation existed in XIX century, which is factually wrong and on the surface, absolutely racist. Maybe don’t even try to explain your reasoning but just strike or delete it.  —Michael Z. 05:54, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

No. And, as you probably noticed, I wrote "No Ukrainian and Russian nations...".

You may be surprised, but no German nation existed until mid XIX century, and no French nation existed until late XVIII century. If you are not aware of that, why are you editing such a complex topics? Paul Siebert (talk) 06:05, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Ok, I'll try to explain it to you in more simple words. Yes, some ethnic group that considered themselves "Ukrainians" or "Malorosses" existed in the territory that belonged to Russian empire and Austro-Hungary. But that was not the nation, it was just an ethnic group. And this territory was much smaller than the territory of present-days Ukraine. People living in Novorossia (who spoke Russian or "surzhik") didn't associate themselves with ethnic Ukrainians. Population of Odessa (mostly Jewish, Greek, Russian speakers etc.) didn't consider themselves ethnic Ukrainians. I would say the real Ukrainian nation, which combine the whole population that is living in the territory of that country, is currently forming, and the war, unleashed by Putin, is a very active catalyst of this process.

Yes, someone's (falsely understood) national pride may require that their nation be ancient. But what is wrong if the nation is young? Nothing. Actually, the very phenomenon of "nation" is pretty recent. Give me an example of a nation that existed in, e.g. 1700. Paul Siebert (talk) 06:17, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:NOTFORUM, could we stay on topic please? If anyone wants to discuss Rus', Russian etc., Talk:Names of Rusʹ, Russia and Ruthenia is the place to do so. Here we are talking about the spelling of Vladimir/Volodymyr the Great inside this article, Kievan Rus'. As we seem to have concluded, toponyms fall in a different category of spelling rules, and so we can leave those discussions out. (Other personal names can still be invoked in order to draw comparisons, let's keep it at that). Do you agree with my suggestion In areas of uncertainty such as personal names, I think we should follow the source and allow some varieties for new content, but not change existing content? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:35, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, sure. To that, I would add that we should follow the whole body of high quality sources, and we should avoid WP:RECENT: even if some name has become predominant, we should not immediately follow this change. Paul Siebert (talk) 20:52, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Please stop spreading your personal views, @Paul Siebert. You adhere to inaccurate generalizations that imply pro-Russian conclusions. It is vaguely disturbing.  —Michael Z. 16:12, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Michael, on another talk page you asked me not to label you as a primordialist. In connection to that, can you please explain me why are you promoting primordialist views on this page?

As I already explained elsewhere, "Russian speaking Orthodox subjects of His Majesty Emeperor of Russia" and "Russians" (as a nation) are not the same, and , accordingly, "Ukrainian speaking population of Russian and Austrian Empires" and "Ukrainians" (as a nation, in a modern sense) are totally different terms too.

How can I promote "pro-Russian conclusions" if I claim that both Russian and Ukrainian nations didn't exist in XIX century? They both were in a process of formation, and we have serious reasons to claim that their formation has not finished yet.

One has to have a very rich fantasy or narrow thinking to claim these views are "pro-Russian".

It seems you stopped calling me a racist (as I already said, I consider as an apology, which I accepted), but now you decided to switch to another type accusations. That is not serious. Please, stop. Paul Siebert (talk) 16:59, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

You misinterpret what I wrote here, and elsewhere. And apparently also what I didn’t write anywhere. —Michael Z. 21:13, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Your statement is too short and too unambiguous to allow any misinterpretation. You accused me of spreading pro-Russian views. Is it correct?

If yes, then, please, provide a quote from me where I say that (modern) Ukrainians are just a subtype of (modern) Russians, or that Russians as a nation formed long before the Ukrainian nation started to form, or something of that kind.

That would be a pro-Russian nationalist view.

I am waiting for evidences from you. Alternatively, you may just stop blaming me of various nonsense, and that will be considered an apology. Paul Siebert (talk) 22:21, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Don’t put words in my mouth. That includes making up supposed accusations and fabricating supposed apologies.  —Michael Z. 22:08, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

Ok, do I understand you correctly that you never accused me of "pro-Russian views"? Paul Siebert (talk) 02:18, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I wrote what I wrote. Stop attributing things to me with quotation marks that I didn’t write. Stop making all kinds of straw-man arguments rephrasing and changing the meaning of things. You’re winning arguments against yourself, and I’ll not let you make me a participant in this.  —Michael Z. 16:45, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 07:22, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

• Snyder calls him Valdimar [7]. This is interesting. I did not know. Snyder is good. My very best wishes (talk) 19:55, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Google test

Google Books:

• Volodymyr the Great: 3,370 results ([8])
• Vladimir the Great: 17,500 results ([9])

Google Scholar:

• Volodymyr the Great: 502 results ([10])
• Vladimir the Great: 1,150 results ([11])

Ergo: Vladimir the Great is vastly more popular in English literature.Marcelus (talk) 07:14, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. Higher than I expected, and I believe higher than Kyiv when we changed the title of that article.  —Michael Z. 14:08, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

You misinterpret the Google Books results: see WP:SET. Go to the last page of results and see:

• "Volodymyr the Great": Page 46 of about 149,000 results (452 actually shown)
• "Vladimir the Great": Page 42 of about 722,000 (418)

 —Michael Z. 14:21, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Limit it to since 2020, and you get:

• "Volodymyr the Great": Page 3 of about 3,930 results (27)
• "Vladimir the Great": Page 2 of about 7,370 results (19)

 —Michael Z. 14:26, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

This is interesting too. The 1980-90s is an interesting period when "Volodymyr" started to prevail, but the situation quickly normalized. That is a demonstration of a danger of recentism.

In general, I still don't understand the reason for splitting hairs around this topic. Irrespectively to what language Vladimir was speaking (in Old Slavonic his name was closer to "Volodimir") Church Slavonic played the same role Latin played in Western Europe. Therefore, it is not a surprise that all historical East Slavic names are churchlavonized in English literature.

I think we should stop our primordialist exersizes and stick with what majority reliable sources say. Paul Siebert (talk) 15:01, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

In general, the best analogy is Charlemagne. We call him in a French manner not because the medieval history was "colonized" by France, and not because Germany was a colony of France. We call him Charlemagne because most English literature was under influence of Old French/Latin, not by German. In East Europe (including Germany), the same ruler is called "Karl the Great" (which is pretty much the same). That difference means nothing. It doesn't mean the the Charlemagne empire was dominated by French, or that Germany was "colonized". That situation has deep historical roots, and it does not affect noone's national pride.

In reality Franks spoke a language that was closer to Old Dutch, and the name of that king was by no means "Charles" (it was closer to "Karl"). But does it really matter? Paul Siebert (talk) 15:57, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

It’s not an analogy because Ukraine was colonized and its Western historiography was heavily influenced by the colonizer. This is well documented, as you know from links I’ve posted before.  —Michael Z. 16:38, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Michael, this is a primordialism: we are speaking about late Medieval events, when the very term "colonization" is not applicable.

"Colonization" in a moderns sense is applicable to colonization of, e.g. Africa by some European nation like France or Britain. It is not applicable to, e.g. acquisition of the land of Saxes by Charlemagne. There is a fundamental reason for that. In Medieval Europe (and in Eastern Europe in a XVII centuriy), no nations existed, so the Pereiaslav Agreement was an acquisition of Ukraine by the Russian tzar, not by Russians as a nation (which, by that time, never existed). Therefore, Ukrainians became the Tzar's subjects with exactly the same rights (or lack thereof) as other population of the empire. To speak about colonization in this context is a typical primordialism.

A colony, in its modern sense, is a territory that is dominated by another territory, and that includes economical, cultural and political domination. One important criterion is that the colony has a different legal status. As you probably remember, Ghandi, had limited political rights in the British Empire because he was an Indian. The same was not true for Ukrainians (except Jews and Poles), who had exactly the same political rights as other people in Russian Empire.

If Ukraine was colonized, then virtually every modern European state could be considered as colonized during some periods of their history, but no serious authors claim that.

With regard to "Western historiography was heavily influenced by the colonizer", that is, again, primordialism. In reality, what was a major event in the Russian tzardom? Schism of the Russian Church. Why did it happen? Because of the influence of Ukrainian church, who was more advanced culturally. Russian Church implemented new standards, which caused a strong opposition and resulted in the Schism.

Therefore, we can speak rather about a cultural dominance by the Ukraine in this case.

And, taking into account that spelling of Old Russian (Slavic) historical names solidified in Western historiography very early, it was influenced not by "colonizers", but by the literary sources, which were dominated by the Orthodox church (which, after Nicon's reforms, was under a strong influence by the Ukrainians). Paul Siebert (talk) 18:12, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Modern colonizers (under "modern" I mean XIX-XX centuries) are thinking in terms of "nation/nationality". To them, a colony is a territory populated by foreign nationals, which all are subordinated to the colonizing nation: any Indian was seen as inferior by any British national.

That didn't work for old Medieval style empires. To them, new territories are just territories, which are treated similar to other Crown's lands. The population of those lands is treated not based on their "nationality" (actually, ethnicity), but based on totally different criteria: estate and religion. If you are noble and you are Orthodox, then you have exactly the same rights as a Russian nobleman. That worked for Georgia, for Ukraine, and for other territories of the Empire. We can speak (to some degree) about colonization of territories populated by Lutherans, Catholics or Muslims, but not about the territories populated by Orthodox Christians. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:24, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

By having said that, I do agree that the modern stance of Russia is the worst example of a belated paroxism of colonialist thinking. That is absolutely unjustified and unacceptable. But that should not affect our understanding of the events in the past. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:28, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

No, you are speaking about late Medieval events. I am speaking of twentieth and twenty-first century scholarship about Ukraine. Here’s a link as a reminder.[12]  —Michael Z. 19:59, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

@Mzajac: Ok, I've checked the link provided by you, and now I understand what you mean.

I agree that old European countries (as well as the US and former UK dominions) inherited, to some degree, colonial thinking and colonial vision of their own history. However, there are two problems with that. First, some Western scholars have a tendency to universalise the "decolonisation" discourse. Simply put, they claim that "if my country was an empire and it had colonies in the past, then other big countries that fell apart must be considered as empires too, and they share the same colonial thinking as we did". And that is obviously not true. Even if we compare British and Russian attitude to the population of their provinces, we see a striking difference: there were virtually no mixed marriages in British colonies, whereas in Russian empire that was more a norm rather than exception.

Yes, there was a considerable imperialistic component in Russian Empire, but it was quite different from what we have in Britain or the US.

In addition, as soon as you mentioned recent scholarship, I recommend you to read this widely cited book - in reality, there were both imperial-chauvinistic and anti-colonial trends during the XX century in Russian/Soviet scholarship, and a wholesale rejection of their views would be just silly.

The latter is a mistake that you (personally you) are making. It seems that you implicitly assumed that everything that is associated with Russian/Soviet historiography is an "imperial/colonial" thinking, and everything that emphasizes Ukrainness is a "correct" anticolonial trend. That is not true: if some aspects of history need a revision, that doesn't automatically mean that any revisionist views are by default true.

We must carefully analyze each case and each issue and make a decision separately. Thus, I do agree that the standard classical karamsinian views that Russian Czardom is the direct and the only successor of Kievan Rus', etc is an official and imperial version of history, which is not supported by more recent studies (for example, because karamzinian concept ignores the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which was another Old Russian rival of the Moscow state). However, to claim that during XVIII-XX centuries Ukraine was a colony of Russia would be a similarly big mistake.

The history of Easter Europe is complex and unique, and when the descendants of Western colonizers try to project their own vision of their own colonial past on a totally different part of the world, that on itself may be considered as an example of colonial thinking. Paul Siebert (talk) 14:23, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Your personal theories have no place here. This is not a chat group. Please refer to sources.  —Michael Z. 22:21, 4 May 2023 (UTC)

As you probably noticed, I provided one. Have you read it? Paul Siebert (talk) 02:23, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

I'm getting the impression that you both might have strayed slightly off-topic. This section is about how to spell the name of Володимѣръ Свѧтославичь in English in this article. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:07, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

The whole t/p is mostly off-topic chit-chatting between @Mzajac and @Paul Siebert; kindly reminder that it's not a forum. Marcelus (talk) 12:58, 5 May 2023 (UTC)

Scholars name him Volodimer or Volodimir

In most of the recent scholarly publications (journal papers, books) I've been reading, his name is rendered as Volodimer (or Volodimir), because that is how it shows up in most of the oldest texts such as the Sermon on Law and Grace and Church Statute of Prince Vladimir (Володимира). I've been using that spelling consistently for some time now, or the long form Volodimer I of Kiev.

I think this is the most balanced form we can choose.

• It follows WP:KIEV
• It doesn't label him "the Great" or "Saint" (which has issues with WP:NPOV)
• And of course this doesn't force us to use either the modern Ukrainian or modern Russian spelling, or modern Belarusian spelling for that matter (which has massive issues with WP:NPOV).

I'm not suggesting we should immediately rename the main article Vladimir the Great to Volodimer I of Kiev. At least not yet. I'm just saying that when we are basing ourselves on such recent scholarly publications (WP:RS, WP:AGEMATTERS), this is an acceptable and perhaps preferable altname.

I would still recommend against changing whatever spelling is already there. This leads to pointless editwars. We best spend our time on writing something new. Like Calling of the Varangians which I published today, and wherein I called him Volodimer I of Kiev as well. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

To add: I just found out that the page Vladimir (name) already said: According to historian Donald Ostrowski (2017), Russian scholars tend to prefer "Vladimir", while Ukrainian scholars tend to prefer "Volodimer". However, "Volodimir" tends to occur as much in the primary sources as "Volodimer", and significantly more often than "Vladimir". Ostrowski, Donald (2017). Portraits of Medieval Eastern Europe, 900–1400. Christian Raffensperger. Abingdon, Oxon. p. 10. ISBN 978-1-315-20417-8. OCLC 994543451.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

This closely mirrors my own anecdotal observations. Whenever I see him named "Vladimir" in an English-language scholarly paper, it's usually from before 1960. Already in the 1980s you can see scholars like Lunt and Ostrowski in English writing Volodimer (and occasionally Volodimir) more often than Vladimir. Unfortunately for Russian scholars and non-scholars, Vladimir just very rarely occurs in the primary sources about the chap. Unfortunately for Ukrainian non-scholars (and anyone else who sympathises with Ukraine for all sorts of reasons), Volodymyr is rarely used by scholars, even by Ukrainian scholars, who generally prefer Volodimer. Although I don't think Volodimer is the common name outside scholarly circles yet, it seems to be overwhelming in major academic collections like JSTOR. I try to follow whichever source I'm citing, and that is usually Volodimer (but sometimes Vladimir or Volodimir). Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:56, 7 May 2023 (UTC)