Talk:Time of Troubles

4 November

It is ghost date. Battle for Moscow took place on October 22 Old Style. Now (In 2006 year ) October 22 by Julian calendar correlates to 4 November by Gregorian calendar, but in 1612 gap between Old Style and New Style was smaller, it was November 1 by Gregorian calendar.

See en Russian ru:День народного единства and "ЧТО БУДУТ ПРАЗДНОВАТЬ В РОССИИ 4 НОЯБРЯ 2005 ГОДА?" --ajvol 18:48, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

See also Great Soviet Encyclopedia [1]: "...победа предрешила судьбу вражеских гарнизонов в Кремле и Китай-городе, которые капитулировали 22-26 октября 1612" --ajvol 10:07, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Unreliability

The article language shows it is obviously based on 1911 article, thus the 1911 pov tag. Usage of 19th century nationalist sources for some massacres, not mentioned in FA-class Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618) is a 'no-no'; please provide proper reliable sources if you want to keep such unknown massacres in the article. Usage of such sources was demonstrated as very unreliable at FA Warsaw Uprising (1794), among other pages.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, so you think your "amateur" work (amateur meaning "you're not a professional historian, are you?") is better than Britanica? Spare me that kind of stuff, please. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:35, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Grafikm, I am very sorry to have to say to you, out of all people: please, no WP:NPA and stay on topic. What "amateur work"??-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I can repeat for those who just skip messages: amateur meaning "you're not a professional historian, are you?". I repeat: you're not a professional historian. Consequently, exposing your works as a reference, besides being a self-reference (which is forbidden on WP) shows, as far as I can tell, nothing but a highly inflated opinion of yourself. Your article, even if FA, won't change the historical science. I would also note that this FA went through extensive NPOV cleaning since it was first promoted, despite heavy resistance from some people before being brought to an actually suitable condition.

And Warsaw Uprising has nothing to do with this particular period and is entirely another story.

I know that your POV is all about Poles being angels and bringing culture and civilization to barbarian Muscovites (we've been there before on Polish-Muscovite War and Enlightenment talks), but while this kind of behaviour is OK for your personal point of view, it cannot be held on a neutral encyclopedia such as Wikipedia. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Please argue about articles, not editors. Per our policies of NPOV, RS and V, this article is unreliable and not neutral. The 1911 tag is self-explanatory. Per WP:RS: The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it. If you want to keep the material in this article, provide reliable sources. 19th century books are not reliable. End of story. PS. Although this may be going off topic a little, per Giles, Jim (2005). Internet encyclopaedias go head to head. Nature 438, 900-901 (15 Dec 2005) [2] Wikipedia quality equals modern Britannica; it is quite certain it exceeds 1911 Britannica (see also Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/1911 verification). As the FA has been reviewed and accepted by the Wiki community, it deserves consideration at least on the same level we give 1911. That said, of course per no self references policy it should not be used as a reference, but it is certainly worth discussing on talk.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Grafikm -spare as such language.Xx236 16:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

No revert war please

Instead of revert warring over tags, please adopt my strategy and reference the article with proper reliable and verifiable references.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:42, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Your tags are pure and simple WP:POINT so far, as you didn't produced any evidence backing up your statement (aside from a WP article which is a forbidden self-ref). -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't need to: you have to provide reliable sources.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  16:55, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

And who decides what sources are reliable? Certainly not you, but the policy. And the policy says nothing against using Solovyev as a source. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Per my comment above: WP:RS: The obligation to provide a reliable source lies with the editors wishing to include the material, not with those seeking to remove it.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It has been now clearly shown - on talk, as well as in the unfortunate revert war on article - that there is no consensus article is reliable or neutral. Thus the tags should stay until there is consensus the problems have been addressed. Per my comments above, the problem will not go away if the tags (and edits) are reverted; what is needed is expansion and better references.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

1911 vs 2007

The world has changed since 1911. Get some reading and write an article.Xx236 16:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the world has changed, we now have computers and stuff. Still and all, EB is a respectable source, and certainly more respectable than some newspapers and modern POV-ed "research" (Suvorov just to mention one, even if it's from a later period). -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 16:52, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was a beautiful time when one was able to travel from Paris to Moscow without realizing any Poland. Now some small and green creatures with big eyes claim they used to live somewhere around Russian fortresses, but no humans remeber them. They also say thet Brtannica is sometimes biased.Xx236 17:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Xx236, I would ask you to stop provocative declarations like that one. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

What, like yours about " about Poles being angels and bringing culture and civilization to barbarian Muscovites" and my qualifications? Both of you are going too far, and none is helping the article.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:21, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

There is a reason why 1911 EB has a specific non-neutral template developed for it ({{1911POV}}). That's because it is not neutral and reliable.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:10, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry guys but 1911 is not a fully reliable source nowadays. Or do you think refering to Papuans as "vicious cannibals with less intelligence than white man" and many others like that, is an example of todays professional academic work? - Darwinek 17:09, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Briefly: coming from the perspective of someone who does a lot of work here with opera/classical music articles, I've found the 1911 Britannica to be a bit of joke: very POV, very Anglocentric, and way too flowery. Avoid at all costs. As to the rest, no opinion due to ignorance. Moreschi ^Talk 17:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Comment: modern Britannica has article on ToT. It would be acceptable reference. It mentions no 'brigands' or 'massacres'. On another note, assuming this is the 1911 article, the 1911 issue is not that crucial - although language of that article indicates it probably incorporates other 1911 articles (more general 'history of Russia' probably). Update: as history of Russia mentions WWII, this is probably not a 1911 article...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:45, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

In the hope of convincing everyone that Britannica 1911 edition might not be the best source for Wikipedia, let me cite a few sentences from its article about Ivan the Terrible. ([3])

... His father died when he was three, his mother when he was only seven, and he grew up in a brutal and degrading environment where he learnt to hold human life and human dignity in contempt ... Hitherto, by his own showing, the private life of the young tsar had been unspeakably abominable ... By this time, Ivan had entered upon the second and evil portion of his reign ... But admiration of his talents must not blind us to his moral worthlessness, nor is it right to cast the blame for his excesses on the brutal and vicious society in which he lived .

Q.E.D., I hope. Balcer 20:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

19th century sources... not quite

There is a policy, that Solovyev can be oposed.Xx236 17:04, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Link please. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:06, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

You have to prove that Solovyov cannot be oposed.Xx236 17:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

WP:NPOV. 19th nationalistic century sources are dubious, biased and definitly show 'undue weight'. Some of their facts may be correct, most of their views are obsolete and non-neutral. See also Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/examples#History.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:08, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Why do you call Solovyev a nationalist? Just because he's Russian? Yeah sure... <_< -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 17:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If we like, we can have a section about the historiography of the Time of Troubles, and discuss what 19th century Russian historians thought and wrote about it. The work of Sergey Solovyov can be cited there. But we simply cannot use the work of that author, who died in 1879, as the primary source here for events described in the main body of the article. There is such a thing as progress in historical research, and Wikipedia should endavour to provide its readers with the latest research information, not dig up works written over a century ago, and completely corrupted by the POV prevalent at that time and place.

After all, were we to allow this, the next logical step would be citing works of authors from the American South written before 1861 "proving" the inferiority of African-Americans, or citing 19th century British works lauding the British Empire for its benevolent and enlightened approach to the natives. Balcer 18:05, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Ineed, Balcer. I'd also like to direct readers attention to Polish-Muscovite_War_(1605–1618)#Modern_legacy, where we note that that period of history was greatly misrepresented in local national histories (Russian and Polish). It is a normal approach to treat old local historical sources carefully and balance them (WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, WP:RS#Exceptional_claims_require_exceptional_sources come to mind). This article should be referenced with proper modern (not reprints!) academic works, preferably from neutral historians (i.e. Western English are best for English Wikipedia). Claims of massacres certainly cannot be supported by 19th century sources alone; inserting such claims backed with dubious sources is simply fringe POV pushing. If those massacres happened, use better references which cannot be disputed - as mentioned above, if you want this info to stay, providing proper refs is your responsibility, anybody can dispute unreferenced or unreliably referenced information.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:30, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I would have responded to the one more entry on this kind of double standards, but I have already recently elaborated on this exactly at the page which Piotrus and Balcer have surely read. I will rewrite the particular piece to reflect the concerns of my friends so much concerned about NPOV and serioussness of sources. Regards, --Irpen 18:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless you can point out where we are using 19th century sources and argue they are reliable, please don't try to hide behind some unlinked old discussions and accusations of 'double standards', and address our points raised above.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:50, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The claim is confirmed in three more modern books I just checked including George Vernadsky, A History of Russia (Yale) ISBN 0-300-00247-5 . I will add this to the article later today when I have a little more time. I am glad we are getting this important article better referenced. --Irpen 19:15, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Please don't forget to add page number; Google Print link would be helpful. Also consider if such details should be mentioned in such general article - is that massacre more notable than the massacre of Polish garrison in Moscow? Consider, please, your favourite WP:TE#Undue_weight... Vologda battle (?) should be mentioned in the article about military campaign first, here only second. Same with details on any casualties during the battles for Moscow (maybe we will finally write them...).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:25, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The page number in English edition is 119. Google print does not load this page. I can give you a page number of the Russian edition. I will comment out the Vologda incident for now since I have no more time at this moment. Any further fact you want to dispute, please bring it to talk. I am positively impressed by the amount of info available on this in my books and online and I will sure expand article to every particular fact you will be checking. I am sorry, that you seem unhappy with the first ref being confirmed. I wil expand more on the Kitay-gorod pogrom since its importance does not receive enough coverage. So far, modern research confirmed the only significant fact you challenged. Unless more facts are challenged (and please in good faith only) the tag is not justified. --Irpen 19:45, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I will take a look at the source soon to verify it for myself. As I wrote above it is not only the facts that are disputed, it is also their relevance to this article that is questioned, and their neutrality - their inclusion represents a very one sided part of the story. There are comments inline in article that needs addressing, too. But I am glad we seem to be moving beyond disputing tags and to addressing concerns raised. If there was a massacre, it should be described (but, again, maybe not in this article unless it was really relevant to ToT).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:51, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

"I will take a look at the source soon to verify it for myself." --Piotus

Nice, do it. You don't have to trust me and you seem not to anyway. (at the side note, please stop at least this constant ABF accusations and AGF invokations against others, please stick to single standards).

As for the relevance, the event is much more relevant that I even thought, as I see from a recent reading and you will soon see in the forthcoming expansion. It is also highly relevant to the entire Russo-Polish war as this was a turning event in a way (not of the military operation but in the resolve it brought.) I will make sure it is reflected there but I won't do it to verbosely, as a habit some do it here and there. --Irpen 20:01, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I will most certainly look at this reading, since you say we missed such a 'crucial' event in the entire Featured article on the war. Such a crucial event certainly should be mentioned in Vologda article, too. Of course, if it is such crucial, you will have no difficulty to show it is stressed as such by several other sources, right? Interestingly, I cannot find a mention of Vologda in this context... and even more interestingly, I can access page 119 - it makes no mention of Volgoda, or any massacre. I can provide a photo of that page if desired. Assuming good faith, I will put the fault at different edition (even through the ISBN is the same): please quote here the relevant part so I can look for it. Thank you,-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  20:07, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

It's merely a typo. The page is 118, sorry. And I find it hilarious that you now accuse me if adding stuff around without discretion. This attempt to turn tables does not warrant a response. As for two more dubious tags, they merely point to a date. This is plain ridiculous, to add merely dispute a date. Why would a serious academic falsify the date in your opinion? I can see that he may call a liberation an occupation or otherwsie due to a POV or call a siege a massacre. But a date? Please stop disrupting an article. It does not earn you any points, especially since this very habit of yours is discussed in the projectspace. --Irpen 20:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesing. P. 118 you say? Sorry, must be a typo again, since no massacres or any casualties in general are discussed there either. And your attempts to turn this into a discussion about editors, instead of facts, are not a good strategy to deflect problems with your references.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  21:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

"Your attemtps to turn this into.." bla-bla-bla ignored. P. 118 does not load in google books by my PC but I realize now what's wrong. The google version of the book is of an abridged version. I should not have used its ISBN. If you look at the bottom page 119 paragraph that starts with "The first calls of national unity..." the beginning of this paragraph is before the March 1911. The full version speaks that Patriarch Hermogenes' letters were sent out in December 1910. The google books than, as you can see, speaks about him being imprisoned and starved to death and immediately proceeds to the Russian relief force coming to Moscow in summer, thus omitting, the spring events. Full version devotes several pages to spring. I will change the cite accordingly. --Irpen 22:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Your incivil comments ignored. I find it very interesting that your book would have the same ISBN but different text that the one I have. Google Books doesn't publish 'abridged' versions, they have the full scan. Please provide full reference to this, showing how can one locate the two different versions of this publication in the libraries, or provide photos of the pages you are refering to. Until than your 'non-abridged' version is not verified.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  03:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

In the future, if you accuse me of incivility, please care to cite the specific WP:CIV clause or just the clause from the common sense or dictionary definition of civility. As for the book, perhaps I was not making myself clear. Of course the ISBN defines the book uniquely. No doubt about that. The point is that this particular edition (happens to be indexed by google) is an abridged one and I have a full edition which does not have an ISBN. I simply added an ISBN I found on google books to make the checking easier without realizing that the particular edition may matter. I will correct that. --Irpen 03:53, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

No i figured what happened. Verndadsky wrote his 5-volume History of Russia while at Columbia University and it was published both in full and in an abridged version. Only abridged version is frequently republished to this date and is widely available in English. In Russia, the full version in 5 volumes (translated) is the most widely circulated one. I have not realized the existence of two versions and added to my ref an ISBN of the first version that popped up while I was making a search for the English version of the Vernadsky book. I located the section and the paragraph exactly and pointed there, but since my bookview was not loaded for the next page I gave the number of that page for those whose google books will load the page. Of course it was careless not to check that I am looking at the right version. I apologize for trusting the top links of the search engine too much. I am now looking for the right version of the book to give a ref to instead and I don't want to rush since I want to be sure I make it right this time. The citation itself is totally correct, however. Vernadsky indeed wrote these exact words. --Irpen 04:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, finally got it cleared up. The LOC catalog did not mention which LCCN, ISBN or LCC refers to which edition, the single volume abridged one or the 5-volume one. In fact, the first edition (first four volumes was published for the first time in 1943) and was revised for multiple editions that followed. Each volume had a title on its own in addition to the generic History of Russia V.2 or other.

However, the fifth volume in two parts was published by Yale U Press only in 1969. The book in Russian I am reading says that it is a translation of this 1969 version.

The English version is too old to have ISBN. LCC DK40 .V44 points to a first four volumes in LOC. The code for the separate fifth volume apparently cannot be found in LOC but I found it in Saint Anselm College library under [4] (hope the link works for you.) The Russian edition I am reading is published in 2001 under ISBN 5-85929-016-0 . Thanks again, Piotrus, for motivating me to clear this up. --Irpen 04:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a nice work clearing up this problem, thank you. It is certainly a notable piece of information for a detailed subarticle, but unless you can show it is mentioned in equivalent summaries of the subject, it should not be touted in this artcle (nor in History of Russia), just as casualties of Battle of Wołodarka are not described in Polish-Soviet War article... (or per my examples and arguments below and above). Or an even better example: Controversies of the Polish-Soviet War (feel free to start Controversies of Times of Troubles if you want...).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:05, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, so now you switch from attempting to strike the info based on sources to attempts to strike the info based on relevance. Huh? Are you saying the the slaughter of 7 thousand people in the early 17th century is not so a notable event to be in the articles about the war itself and should only be in the article of their own. What do you think was the population of Moscow then? How far would you go to suppress the info, I wonder. --Irpen 05:07, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Sigh. The event is not mentioned in almost any sources, that's a big red flag for notability. Wikipedia is about providing reliable and neutral info, not historical curiosities or one's personal POVs about how good or evil somebody was. If you want to turn this article into a list of greviances... then sure, we can add massacre of Poles by Shuisky, right? And how the half of Polish garrison in Moscow was "butchered after surrender", right? Let's not leave out the "predatory bands of Swedes", after all, it was not only a Polish-Muscovite party, right? Or the "pillaging and murdering Cossacks"... And of course we can add more and more. Is this what you want?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:34, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Contoversies of the PSW was [not started by me and you know that. My mistake was to create that section in the PSW article instead of properly integrating the relevant info in the text and the less relevant info to the proper subarticles. Not only this choice of me was stylistically poor but it allowed you to simply remove it all from the article in one step in a convenient way. I will certainly merge the content with the articles according to the degree of relevance when I have time and won't repeat that mistake again. Artificial sections, like "trivia", "controversies", etc, damage articles more than I realized back than. They are actually more harmful as sections than as articles. The latter is just a bad by design article, no big deal to have it on a backburner. The former is also a damage to an article that may otherwise be good. For what it's worse, I even created the delete proposal of tl:Trivia in Russian and Ukrainian Wikipedias. --Irpen 05:28, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Off topic, but this article was the only way to preserve information that would be too unnotable, controversial and poorly referenced in the main article. I'd prefer to merge it to relevant articles on people, military unit and battles, as I don't consider 'controversies of anything' to be encyclopedic, but since some insisted this needs to be collected in one place, that's the best compromise that we were able to achieve. And if you don't want to create a 'controversies of ToT' article, may I suggest you keep such massacres and terrors and slaughters to articles about battles and perpatrors? There is a reason they are not commonly found in most books (not to mention encyclopedic entries) on those subjects.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  05:38, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

18th century sources

And now, great news, I found the war diary of rotmistr Mikolaj Marchocki "Historia Wojny Moskiewskiej", a witness of these events. It has been republished in Russian in 2000. Maybe you can find a Polish version. Or Halibutt who owns an impressive library can get his hands on this one? Of course we can't use his own speculations and conclusions since he obviously lacked perspective and hindsight available to later historians but it would be very useful for fact checking, won't it? The online version of the Russian translation is available. It is published along with amazingly interesting MM's correspondence with Shuyski, Zborowski, etc., supplied with foreword, maps and plenty of annotations. BTW, do you want to know what word is used for the March 1911 event? In the Russian translation it says "Резня" (literary "slaughter") and he gives some quite graphic account. Should we replace the massacre by slaughter by any chance? I think in Polish it would be "Rzeź" but I have not seen the Polish version. I would like to thank you again for prompting me to bring more sources to WP. --Irpen 22:33, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds interesting, but to be consistent, since I objected the use of a 19th century source, by the same token I also have strong reservations about using a source from the first half of the 17th century. Especially one written by a rotmistrz, a person of rather low rank who would have at best a very local view of the whole conflict. Is it really so difficult to find books by modern historians written after, say, 1990, which would corraborate all the claims under dispute here? Something in the vein of the comprehensive Russia's First Civil War: The Time of Troubles and the Founding of the Romanov Dynasty by Chester S. L. Dunning published in 2001, for instance? I will try look up that book in my university library. Balcer 22:57, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Balcer, about usability of the books written by the low-level war participants, I invite you to have a word with Halibutt at the talk of Battle of Volodarka. There he argues that the rotmistrz can even conclude where the global outcome of event lyes. I agree with you that this source is valuable solely while keeping in mind that this was a local view. We can't say who won and who lost a conflict based on what the Rotmistrz says, but if he writes "we set the city on fire" or "Muscovites corpses where lying on top of each other like the rolls of fabric in Krakow Fabric Market" this is a kind of local view that cannot be dismissed. --Irpen 23:12, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

If a major city was destroyed by fire set by Polish forces, or a large and significant massacre occured, surely it would be possible to find a mention of this in modern historical works devoted to the subject. It would be quite irresponsible to rely for the confirmation of these facts solely on the memoirs of a seemingly rather insignificant Polish captain, who was likely suffering from a healthy dose of Polish and Catholic POV, and who was writing in the 17th century, when the standards for historical scholarship and accuracy were low. Balcer 23:23, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

But since we have a prominent confirmation of this by several academics most prominent specialists in the history of RU, adding the reference to the witness dairy will only add to the credibility and usefulness of the article to the reader. So I do not see what we really are arguing about. The Vernadsky misunderstanding above is purely due to the lack of clarity between editions. I will figure out the ISBN of the book and will correct it as I obviously did not falsify it, no matter what Piotrus tries to hint. And, please help us remove the captain's speculations on who won the battle of Volodarka (definitely not the "local-view" level of competence). --03:02, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

That battle was a rather obscure episode, in which I have no interest or expertise in. Quite frankly, I find the disputes around that article rather childish (it's mostly about one word in the infobox, right?). The Time of Troubles, on the other hand, was one of the key events in European history, and its importance for Russian history simply cannot be underestimated. Thus I hope you will agree that the standards for references here should be much higher.

Anyway, I will borrow the book by Dunning, which I think you will agree is at this point the most up to date and complete work on the subject, and use it to improve the article. Balcer 03:24, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

First, from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/examples, a word of caution: On many historical topics there are memoirs and oral histories that specialists consult with caution, for they are filled with stories that people wish to remember — and usually recall without going back to the original documentation. Editors should use them with caution. Second, I found a Polish pdf of this work (long since out of copyright), English online translation would be a good addition. Third, per Balcer, we are still waiting for references for those 'crucial' events in a little more reliable source than 18th century memoir. Fourth, per comments above and RS reminder, this is not a very reliable source. I am suprised you seriously are considering it - such sources are no better than Britannica quoted above about Ivan. Fifth, yes, this would be acceptable reference to mention in the articles on the battles/massacres in those cities - but per my above comments, to refer to minor events in big articles is indeed undue weight (it is as relevant as mentioning the canibalism among and massacre of Polish Moscow garrison after it surrendered, for example - interesting for subarticles, not important but controversial and inflaming for the big picture).-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  03:48, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

The thing most needed right now are not arbitrary mentions of random massacres (which sadly were standard practice in early 17th century warfare), but some estimates of the total number of people which perished during this entire period. Does anyone have any numbers on this? Balcer 04:10, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

I am assuming we are talking about the loss of life caused by the entire turbulent Times of Trouble? Those would be different from the military losses for the PMW. And at those times any estimates of civilian deaths would be few and very unreliable. As you noted, the armies pillaged and murdered, and for most population (peasants), it didn't matter much if it was army of their king (tsar), other king of some pretender; they were as likely to kill him and take his food as any other (no wonder Britannica mentions that 'Polish, Russan, German and Swedish brigands roamed the countryside - and they miss Cossacks, occasional Tatars, Ruthenians and really, it doesn't matter much). Heck, just remember one of the primary reasons Zygmunt III gave a go ahead for this campaign: to give something to do to unruly soldiers and lower szlacha in Commownealth, who if not given a target outside would continue to pillage their 'homeland'... Back to your question, my estimate of the ToT death toll would probably be over tens of thousands, and I would not be suprise to see hundreds of thousands mentioned (that's based on my comparisons to casualties of the TYW and Deluge)-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, the biggest killer was hunger. Dunning states that the famine of 1601-1603 alone wiped out up to a third of Russia's population, or about 3 million people. This disaster was a major contributing factor to the collapse of legitimacy that opened the door to the pretender. Balcer 04:36, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Wow, that's huge. The population estimate is more or less right (although I'd give Russia in mid-16th closer to 6-7 than 9 but that's not a big difference). But 33% - 3 million - to hunger alone? The only hard reliable estimate I have is map from Pogonowski's atlas for 1618 ([5]) giving Russia 8m after Truce of Dywilno. In that Truce about 1-2m were transfered into Poland (see some recent discussion on Talk:Polonization for details). That would give them 10m near the end of ToT - a little difficult to get if they would have 6m after 1603 wave of hungers... that said, historical demographics is pretty close to stumbling in the dark, as far as scientific branches go :) I will be expanding that stub soon, and Historical demography of Poland is not bad, but note that there is no other histrical demography of... article on Wiki :( Historical demography of Russia would be great, but I am not holding my breath...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:47, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Seven thousand are cited by both Vernadsky i Solovyov. --Irpen 04:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes, 19th century goes to the section above, and not to article, neither. Just as we don't cite Polish 19th century (or even early 20th century) sources about how the attempt to liberate Muscovy from yoke of tsars and Orthodoxy failed. And just as we don't try to put references to the massacre of Polish garrison after surrender in Moscow, or the thousands of death caused by Vasili Shuisky's coup d'etat against first Dmitri, or how the Second Dimitrii got cremated alive and shot from the canon, or many other colorful but unimportant to the big picture details. As a person who has brought up the case of unimportance of Załuski's Library for Russian Enlightment, I am sure you can see the parerells. So please, go ahead and write articles about those battles, or add the information to history of city articles - but there is nothing indicate those events are notable for a major history period article. PS. We are not talking about one massacre, we are talking about the entire death toll for ToT. That would certainly be a good addition to the article (not one colorful/tragic event). Now, how many such massacres took place during ToT, and how can we estimate the death toll in the countyside and in the armies...-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  04:25, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Piotrus, we are talking not the opinions here (liberated vsoccupied) but mere facts. A serious historian of the 19th century used the same sources than the modern one (few chronicles were dug out from the library stacks, fewer than the number of chronicles lost in fire.) Solovyov is certainly a reputable historian. He may have had a POV but he certainly would not lie. Any book on the Russian history refers to him frequently. Same applies to Karamzin and Kostomarov. Please do not be ridiculous. --Irpen 05:12, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

So I gather you will have no problems with using John Stevens Cabot Abbott work that describe "indiscriminate massacre of all who were, or who looked like Polanders", how "murderers ransacked the palace, penetrating every room, killing every Polish man and treating the Polish ladies with the utmost brutality" - after all, according to him, "nearly two thousand Poles perished in this massacre." this article by Polish historian Jerzy Besala has lots of interesting details about this event, but I can just follow your strategy, ignore the important historical information (reasons, politics, effects) and just concentrate on quoting colorful descriptions of how Poles were 'sundered apart of crucified' by the mob. Personally I think adding such selective details is damaging the article, but if you insist... -- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  17:41, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and just FYI, second Dmitri was shot when trying to escape and died on the spot from the wound, cremated dead afterwards and his ashes were shot from the canon towards Poland wence he came from. This is a very well referenced fact. You do not read apparently the article you call "yours" even. And this is certainly a very notable event. And, btw, I am not adding the toruring of Voivod Mikhail Shein to a random set of articles. Just to Shein until we figure where else it belongs. --Irpen 05:15, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

rv these are fully reliable sources

These aren't. It's you turn to prove they are reliable. Xx236 12:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Please do not be ridiculous

and don't use offensive language.Xx236 12:19, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Muscovy

Piotrus, did you read the Muscovy article? Both in WP and in EB? Also check Tsardom of Russia. Please do not reinstall the anachronistic term. Thank you. --Irpen 19:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

An acceptable compromise on this would involve you piping each changed [[Muscovy]] link to [[Tsardom of Russia|Russia]]. Links to Russia are much less helpful to the reader than links to Muscovy.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:30, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

I did not link to [[Russia]] anywhere, I double checked again. I linked to Tsardom. The rest of your edit is an overall unexplained revert with the removal of well referenced and relevant info. I am restoring the info. Please note that article does have inline refs. More can be added by the tl on top is out of place. Stop attacking the article whatever your motivations are. --Irpen 19:33, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Muscovy is a redirect, the article is Grand Duchy of Moscow.Xx236 11:54, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

This article must be really improved

When reading this article from Finnish viewpoint it is still missing lot of reliable information. If start from Vasili Shuiski´s agreement with Sweden made in Viipuri (Viborg) located in Karelian Isthmus in Finland (then part of Swedish Kingdom) in 1609. In this agreement Vasili Shuiski promised to cede Käkisalmi (Kexholm) province to Sweden-Finland if Carolus (Charles) IX would help him (Vasili) in the battle against Carolus own brother, Sigismund III, The King of Poland. The main reason for this was religion, Vasili was an Orthodox, Sigismund an Catholic and Carolus an Lutherian. Vasili knew that the Lutherians had no claims to convert Othodoxs in "Whole Holy Russian Land" to Lutherian fate, as the Catholic Sigismund had, with the warm support of Holy Seat in Rome. After this agreement was signed the commander of Swedish-Finnish forces, supplemented by some, in number less than 1.000 pay soldiers from Netherlands, Scotland and France (Hugenots), Jacob (Jaakko) De la Gardie, son of Pontus De la Gardie, and a young Finnish Evert ( Eevartti) Horn of whose main body were Finnish soldiers, started its march from Northern Estonia (so called Virumaa) which Russia had to have ceded to Sweden in Treaty of Teusina (Täysinä / Täyssinä) in 1595. This army of about 14.000 to 15.000 soldiers marched through Pihkova (Pskov / Pihkva / Pleskau / Pleskavas etc) and arrived to Novgorod where it stopped for couple of weeks. Of course Carolus (Kaarle) wanted at first by personal family reasons to avoid any open confict with his brother´s army, the United Polish-Lithuanian Personal Union´s Forces which operated against the Russians in farther sourhern direction. After a stop in Novgorod this Swedish-Finnish army started to its march to Moscow where it arrived in early 1610. It repressed all disturbances in City and repressed the open mution by some Russian factions against Vasili Shuiski. Its participation to the battle of Klushino in summer 1610, and particularly its huge losses claimed by the Russians is questionable. If there would have been a destroying an armed force of nearly 15.000 men, most of them Finns, there would have been "land sorrow" in Finland. Instead of this, main force of Jacob De la Gardie´s army left Moscow (exact date still to be verified) and returned to Novgorod. It did not move nowhere from Novgorod until the Treaty of Stolbova was signed in 1617. From this "Army in Beeing" in Novgorod without doing any important military operations Jacob (Jaakko) De la Gardie received his nickname "Lazy Jacob or Laiska Jaakko". Here again, from military point of view it would be impossible to defend the Novgorod and Pihkova areas against the Russian attacks with only 200 men. Meanwhile some Finnish troops captured Käkisalmi in 1611 without fight, when the Karelian chief of Käkisalmi Fortress ceded the castle to approaching (Swedish-)Finnish troops which kept it until the Peace Treaty in Stolbova was signed. How all this could have been possible with only 200 men which were left to Jacob De la Gardie and Evert Horn after the Battle of Kjushino, (according to Russian sources) to have Novgorod and Pskov areas occupied and Käkisalmi captured both in 1611 after the Battle of Kjushino. Maybe the only ones who perished from Jacob De la Gardie´s army where the pay soldiers to whom the foreign origin Moscow merchants collected money to join to the Russian forces and had a well known tendency to change a side to that side which payed the best salary. Anyway, Battle of Kjushino is not marked in Finnish military history in any importance. Only a mention that Jacob De la Gardie´s battles in Livonia were not a success against the combined Polish-Lithuanian forces. The article rises more questions of its relibiality than gives answers to the people interested in Russian history.

Peharps some interested could seek more information by name of Ponce Scorperier from Lancuedoc in France. He was Pontus De la Gardie, Jacob´s father who drowned into Narva River on November 5,1585. The Swedish Wikipedia says that Jacob was buried in Sweden, but his grave is also in Tallinn Dome Church together with his father´s grave. Was his coffin later removed from Sweden to Tallinn or by that time better known as Reval? There reads Jacobus De la Gardie. Evert (Eevartti) Horn died in 1615 at the age of only 21 in the Siege of Pihkova (Pskov). He is buried in Turku (Åbo) Dome Church.

For the non Swedish and non Finnish it is sometimes difficult to sepatate who was Swede and who was Finn by their names. The Finnish upper class adopted Swedish names and there were also Finnish-Swedes, descenders of Swedes who moved to Finland in 1100-1200 for separation of Riksvensk ( State Swedes) living in Sweden not Finland.

Regarding the Russian sources, I have found those published in Imperial Russia before the Bolshevik revolution very trustable when the Panslavonic propaganda is omitted, but nearly all 1918-1988 Soviet sources untrustable in viewing historical events. I think that in all edge states Turkey, Roumania, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland this have been clearly remarked. It is a pity that most of Russian historians are still prisoners of this era propaganda fullfilled stories, only created to serve one course the Russian history of areas which were not originally Russians.

For example, how many of the writers in these pages know that there was a fluorishing town, the capital of Grand Duke of Purgaz, named Obranjosh located on the confuence of Rivers Oka and Raw (Russian Volga). Complete destroyed by one Vladimir Prince in 1221. Most of the defenders including also women and children committed mass suecide by voluntarely drowning themselves to Raw to avoid serfdom under Russian Princes and pajars (bojars). More then half of the population escaped behind Raw. Capital of Grand Duke was removed to Arzamas. The Russians founded a new Russian Nizhnij Novgorod to the place where former Obranjosh had been. No wonder that many joined to Tatar-Mongolian troops during Mongol-Tatar invasion in 1237-1240.

JN

updated history of Time of Troubles

Chester Dunning's Russia's First Civil War would be an excellent source to update this article.--Mcpaul1998 07:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Bolotnikov's uprising

The article is very good. But! Where is the describing of the Bolotnikov's uprising? It was a very important part of the time of troubles. Chulman (talk) 16:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Master of the...

I'm not an expert here but just a reader. However, the term I have usually seen (in other cultures and histories) is always given as "Master of the Horse," not "Master of the House." It's possible "Master of the House" is a translation of a legitimate Russian term, but followed by the word "equerry" it makes me think this is either a typo or a flat-out mistake and should be "Master of the Horse." Just putting this here for the experts to review. 2601:5CC:C900:345:50F1:ABA9:666:8826 (talk) 13:52, 10 April 2023 (UTC)