Talk:Dragoman of the Porte/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: Cplakidas (talk · contribs) 12:19, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 12:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Enjoyable as ever -- a few pointers on prose and content, then images and sources. Will get to spot checks once we've gone through this lot. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Consider adding a transliteration to the Greek in the lead, to aid pronunciation. Should the μέγας be moved a bit later, to where we talk about it sometimes being called the Grand Dragoman?
• From the position's inception in 1661 until the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821, the office was occupied by Phanariotes,: I'm not sure this was quite true (the Ghica family don't sound like Phanariots?) and, at any rate, it is much stronger than the framing we have in the body, that almost all subsequent Grand Dragomans of the Porte were of Greek origin.
• We never actually explain what "the Porte" was -- I think that would be helpful.
• In the same way, I think it would help to explain who the Phanariots were at some point, and perhaps a touch about their wider importance to the Ottoman Empire.
• proficient in the 'three languages': very optional for GA, but I think the MoS would prefer double quotes.
• a mere interpreter: mere might be a little harsh on interpreters, who are after all very skilled people.
• As such the post was the highest public office available to non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire.: not really an as such: it doesn't follow from the Dragoman's wide responsibilities that there was no higher office available to non-Muslims. From what I remember, there was quite a delicate balance of power as to which ethno-religious groups held which high offices -- is there something to be said about that here?
• We haven't explained what a Grand Vizir was, and I think that's important.
• The salary of the Dragoman of the Porte amounted to 47,000 kuruş annually: can we give an idea of how much that was?
• I'd suggest that a very brief biographical sketch of each dragoman might just qualify as a "major aspect" of the topic per the GACr.

Images

By the nature of the beast, quite a lot of these.

• Could crop the image in Panagiotis Nikousios to get a portrait of him?
• John Mavrocordatos has a (not great) portrait in his article.
• I haven't looked too hard for images of the rest, but any that exist online should be fair game by reason of age.
• File:Louis-Dupre-Pacha.jpg, File:Ion Vodă Caragea.jpg, File:Alexander Hangerli.jpg, File:Alexandru Sutu.jpg, File:Konstantinos Ypsilantis.JPG, File:Alexandru Callimachi.jpg, File:Alexandros Mourouzis.jpg, File:Μαυροκορδάτος ο φιραρής.jpg, [:File:Constantin Moruzi.jpg]], File:Alexandru Ipsilanti.jpg, File:Gregoire Ghyka, hospodar de Moldavie.jpg, File:Ioan Callimachi.jpg, File:Матeі Гіка Вв în AnȢл 1753.JPG, File:Nikolaos Maurokordatos 1721.jpg, File:Alexandros Maurokordatos o ex aporiton.JPG,  : a formality, but all need a US PD tag. You can use the PD-Art-two template for this.
• File:Grigore II Ghica.jpg: need to use PD-Art here, as it's watermarked, so clearly this image itself wasn't published 100 years ago. Also needs a US PD tag.
• File:Dragoman, or Chief Interpreter.jpg: ditto.
• File:Scarlat Callimachi.jpg: this has almost no information as to its provenance (and no US PD tag). Can we get some idea of where it's from, who made it and when it was published?
• File:Le Prince de Moldavie - Choiseul-gouffier Gabriel Florent Auguste De - 1822.jpg: licence works, but the US PD expired template would be simpler.
• I'm not sure that File:Stamp of Moldova md412.jpg: here, we could use PD-because to explain that the copyright holder (the Moldovan government) has waived its rights?
• Some of the images have no sourcing for their author info (e.g. File:Μαυροκορδάτος ο φιραρής.jpg). For GA, I'm happy to take on trust when it's given, but you might consider tracking down something more authoritative than a Commons editor's word.
• File:Reisülküttab.jpg: we have this down as a 2013 publication. None of the source links work, but last I checked, that was long after the end of the Ottoman Empire, so we need to work out which, if any, licence we can use here.

Sources

Sourcing looks generally solid.

• An endash needed for the hyphen in Strauss 1995.
• Eliott 1900 is not a scholarly source and is very old -- it is only used twice; any way to swap that out?
• On Ottoman-Greek matters, my eternal question is whether Mark Mazower has written anything of relevance -- he has quite a lot to say about the Phanariots in general across his works (I remember reading a few for Kyriakos Pittakis)
• Optional for GA, but I would put Hart et al in the bibliography -- I see the logic, but it's odd to treat only one source differently to the others.

Nice work -- I always enjoy reading your articles and learning something more about topics I thought I was getting a handle on. Spot checks to follow once the above is addressed.