Talk:Smolensk

Medieval population

Of course, the number of 200.000 for Smolensk's population around 1400 is spurious, to say the least! Eevn Moscow did not reach this number before the late 18th century. And around 1400 not even Paris or Venice had 200.000 inhabitants.

Probably you are right, but I don't like your idea that Western European cities were necessarily larger than the Eastern ones. Judging by the sheer size of urban area, Sarai was the largest city of Europe in the 14th century. --Ghirlandajo 14:00, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Of course, I would not deny that some early Russian towns were among the largest of Europe, like Novgorod Veliki, with 30.000- 50.000, or 12th century Kiëv with almost 50.000.

I would not exclude the possibility that Smolensk around 1400 would have been in the same order of magnitude, but I find it unlikely that it would be much more. Lignomontanus 12:27, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Smolensk was the largest city of Lithuania-Poland which was the largest state in Europe at that time. But Novgorod was larger than that, and larger than medieval Paris, for that matter. They say that modern Novgorod occupies smaller area than the medieval one. --Ghirlandajo 15:06, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

On one of my trips to Russia, my guide told me in Yaroslav that it was the second large city in Russia in the 17th century (after Moscow, of course). When I asked her how many inhabitants the town had at that time, she replied me "around 30.000". That would be a size I would find believable for Smolensk around 1400. Lignomontanus 12:27, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Yaroslavl was the 2nd largest city of 17th-century Russia, and the territory of its central part hasn't expanded since then, although the current population is 620,000. --Ghirlandajo 15:06, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

It is all based on a website by a somewhat biased amator local historian, written in rather bad English. Should WIKIPEDIA be an instrument in spreading this MYTH? (It is also epidemiously infecting Wiki's in other languages).

Could a reliable historian expert be found to give us more reliable information about the mediaval population of Smolensk???

Lignomontanus, 31.08.2005

I took the liberty of changing the very unlikely "the population of 200,000" into "a populatiom of several tenths of thousands of inhabitants", which - being somewhat elastic - has a good chance of being true.

Lignomontanus 12:59, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

Minor mistakes in english plus some historical inaccuracies

I don't really feel like editing this page myself at this moment but, in the first paragrpah, river names always take THE so it out to be the Smolnya river. yet I don't really know where you got info about this river because to the best of my knowledge no such river exists or ever existed either in Smolensk or anywhere near it. The tar version seems to be the accepted one, since Smolensk was a layover poitn of sorts for boats traveling from the Baltic down to the Black sea, the famous route from the Varyags to the Greeks. They sailed up the western Dvina as far as they could then they pulled thier boats out onto the ground and dragged them along to the upper Dnieper. Smolensk was where they supposedly mended any leaks and small holes that mught have appeared in their boats from being dragged on the ground and they used tar to do that. Thus the origin of the name. I'll leave it at your descretion whether or not to include this info in your article, Ghirlandajo. You somehow fail to mention that for the very first time Smolenks is mentioned in a Novgorod chronicle depicting a military tour by a Novgorod duke down to Csargrad, which was what they called Constantinople back then. In 863 they approached Smolensk but decided against messing with the city on account of it being big and with a lot of people, they decided not to waste time on it. Why this date is significant is because 863 is the year that's officially used by the city authorities to calculate the city's age. As for Oleg, you write in your article that he captured Smolensk, but it isn't true technically, because no force was used, Oleg sort of took Smolensk in passing, on his way to Kiev where he then proceeded to seize the throne and later united Novgorod and Kiev into what was later to become known as Kievan Rus. At Smolensk he simply set camp next to the city and waited until representatives of the people of Smolensk pledged loyalty to Novgorod. The word capture usually implies use of force, Oleg didn't have to use force in Smolensk. Mongols - even though the city was never destoryed by the mongols it was taxed by them until it became part of Lithuania. this phrase "With a population of several tenths of thousands of inhabitants" is poor english, rephraser it to something like tens of thousands of people. I also agree it's highly unlikely the population could have been 200 thousands, most defnintely it would have been under 100 thousand. Back then a city of 10000 was considered big. So it's likely that there were even fewer than 50000 people living in Smolensk at the time. Of the three Smolensk regiments only one was really from Smolensk, the other two were from the SMolensk voevodstvo, I know for sure one of the was formed in Polatsk, I can't remember where the other one was from, might even have been Vietebsk or Minsk. The so called Kremlin wasn't technically a Kremlin at all, because basically a Kremlin is an equivalent of a castle and a castle normally fences in only a relatively compact patch of land. The Smolensk wall, by contrast went around a relatively large area, I don't remember the exact stats, but its total length of the wall was several kilometers. Technically it was a city wall, there were several fresh water springs within the perimeter of the wall which in part enabled the defenders to hold out over a relatively long period of time - 20 months. HAd it been just a castle Sigmund III's troops would have been able to capture it in less time. For some reason you never mention the Vladimir Monomakh cathedral which stood in the place of the modern Assumption Cathedral and was destroyed in the seige.This bit "Apart from other military monuments, the central square of Smolensk features the Eagles monument, unveiled in 1912 to mark the centenary of Napoleon's Russian campaign." is simply false, the eagle monument is not on any square, it's located in a small park that runs parrallel to Dzerzhinsky street, in fact in Smolensk there's no such thing as a central square per se, there's at least two squares that are regarded as euqally "central" and the eagle monument is certainly not on either one of them. Lenin square is still dominated by an impressive granite figure of V.I. Lenin, and Smirnoff square boasts a fairly recently constructed unorthodox monument of Terkin and Tvardovski, sitting on a log facing each other, Terkin with an accordion and Tvardovski with a notepad in hand. WWII - there was never really much fighting in the city itself during the wall. The hostilities that later became known as the battle of Smolensk in actuality took place east of the city after the city itself had been taken by the Germans, so saying that 93 percent of the city got destroyed in the battle of Smolensk, whcih can be inferred from your phrasing is plain wrong. The majority of the damage to the buildings was done by air raids and a lot of that damage was caused by Russian air raids which were more or less regular during the time the city was under German control. In fact in spite of all this quite a few buildings in central Smolensk survived the war, among them was the Assuption Cathedral. As for the hero city status awarded to Smolensk in the late 1980's, with all due respect it doesn't reflect in any way the real course of events of the fall of 1941. The very first cities to have been given the hero status were Odessa, Sevastopol, Leningrad, and they were the real ones because they were each under seige and held out for different lengths of time. Moscow's hero status was basically a bit bogus, it was given to Moscow just on account of it being the capital which is the way things are done in Russia. The hero status of Smolensk can only be rationalized with the air raids the city had to endure but not with the battle of Smolensk which was so named because Smolensk happened to be the closest more or less majore city in the vicinity, the biggest dot on the map, so to say, none of the actually fighting of the WWII battle of Smolensk, unlike the 1812 battle of Smolensk, actually took part within the city boundaries. I feel compelled to add here that in light of the more recent events the hero city status ought to be bestowed upon Grozny.

I accepted some of your corrections and additions, while discarding the stuff about the city not being heroic enough for your standards, about the kremlin not being kremlin, about the mysterious "Vladimir Monomakh cathedral", and about the purported fictitiousness of the Smolnya, which is cited by no less authority than Max Vasmer. --Ghirlandajo 12:16, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Monomakh cathedral

the original name of the first cathedral was the Assumption Cathedral, it was referred to as the Valdimir Monomakh cathedral because Vladimir Monomakh was the person at whose orders construction work on began in 1101. It was the first stone temple in Smolensk. I take it you can read Russian so I guess you might, for example look at this page

http://admin.smolensk.ru/history/kep/Smolensk/history/index.htm

on the page below there's a mention of that same cathedral getting damaged by a near by explosions of ammunition stockpiles at the end of the 1609-1611 seige

http://admin.smolensk.ru/history/kep/Smolensk/history/index.htm

I haven't seen any pictures of the old cathedral and don't really know if any survive.

Concerning Max Vasmer and the Smolnya river issue, Vasmer was a linguist etymologist rather than a historian. Are the words Smolensk and Smolnya etymologically related? They sure are. Does this etimological link necesseraly mean that the name of the first derived from the name of the river or vice versa? I don't know an answer to that. The question is though where is/was this river? Are there any maps or something like that. Obviously it doesn't exist any more but when it did exist did it flow near enough to the city to warrant the connection?

The crux of the matter is that the origin of the name of the city is simply unknown and in all probability it won't ever be discovered. There are versions, the tar version seems a bit more probable to me because I'd never heard of the river version before I read your article here, and second because I'd never heard of a river with this name ever having flown thru or near Smolensk, if you google for Smolnya , the majority of the hits will be links either to your article here on wikipedia or to its different copies on other web sites. Mind you, the tar version too is no more than just a version and in reality the name might have come about for reasons no one would have thought of today.

the 1941 Battle of Smolensk: the basic idea is that the battle began on July 10th and went on until September 10 and Smolensk fell on July 16th. The major setback that the Germans suffered during that two month operation was the Yelnya counter offensive (August 30, 1941- September 8, 1941) Yelnya was probably the first Russian town to be retaken by Russian troops in WWII (they had to retreat from it later though). By that time Smolensk had been occupied for weeks and it wasn't to be recaptured by the soviet army until September 1943 in Operation Suvorov.

I'm not saying Smolensk doesn't deserve the hero status at all, after all it was pretty much levelled.But it's a status more akin to that of cities like Coventry or Dresden, rather than of those like Leningrad, Odessa, Sevastopol or Stalingrad.Smolensk never had to live thru a blockade the way Leningrad did and never saw the sort of fierce house to house street fighting that went down in Stalingrad, though it did get more than its share of air raids and imho it has to be mantioned, if you want to be fair that is, that it was raided by both sides due to its relative logistical importance. But so were Orsha and Minsk. But on the other hand if Minsk is a hero city then Smolensk deserves that status too. It's just that from your article one might get the impression that the battle of Smolensk was something like Stalingrad but on a smaller scale, well it certainly wasn't, it was later named the battle of Smolensk simply because it took place inthe general vicinity of the city, mostly to the south east. You know how long it takes to get from Smolensk to Yelnya by car? I'm told more than 5 hours and Yelnya rather than Smolensk was the real focal point of that particular battle in the fall of 1941. [1]

I added the appropriate data into the Assumption Cathedral in Smolensk. --Ghirlandajo 06:59, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Smalensk

THIS CITY IS BELARUS CITY AND EVEN THOSE WHO FLED TO MOSCOW HAVE BELARUS FAMILY NAMES, GDL WAS RIGHTEOUS STATE TO HAVE THIS LAND TOGETHER WITH MOZHAISK, BUT SLAVIC NAZIS AND KILLERS TOOK IT FROM BELARUS OR GDL. Kiev Rus was not slavic, but Baltic state, later slavic parasites even stole the name Rus in order to conquer whole this territory of ancient Kiev Rus in which lived Baltic tribes Krivichi (in Lithuanian language 'pagan priests'), Viatichi (in Lith. 'local people') and others. Even Pskov was Baltic before slavic appearance in Novgorod. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.14.43 (talk) 15:39, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Dear User:Ghirlandajo, As you have probably noticed, in the Wikipedia for cities having been under different rules or just having different names in different languages due to their being close to state borders all possible names are given. For example, you can find Russian equivalents of the names of Riga, Minsk, Kyiv and Tallinn. There are German names given for Strasbourg, Gdansk and even Kaliningrad. Please stop deleting the Belarusian name Смаленск from this article.--Czalex 19:19, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear User:Czalex, you should leave your ridiculous nationalism in the Belarusian wiki. Your naive attempts to "belarusianize" Smolensk will not be accepted in this international project:

1. The so-called Belarusian is not spoken anywhere within hundreds of kilometers from Smolensk, and you know that. The state language of Belarus is Russian. You may provide a Chinese spelling if you like, but this data will be deleted as absolutely irrelevant.

2. The Russian and Belarusian pronunciation of the city name seems to be identical: Smalensk. That the Russian spelling follows more closely the ancient East Slavic norm and the Belarusian strays from that norm to demonstrate its questionable identity doesn't matter that much.

3. The instances you provide are completely irrelevant, because all the towns you named belonged to Russia and Germany for hundreds of years and were known internationally under their Russian or German names. In Riga, more than 50% of population is ethnically Russian. In Minsk, Russian is a state language. In Kiev, it will be shortly. Smolensk, on the other hand, was never Belarusian, and its Belarusian name is not known to anyone living outside Belarus.

4. Stop flooding the article with factual inaccuracies to the effect that Smolensk used to be a part of Belarus in 1919, which is simply not true. I don't care which nationalistic leaflet provided you with the crap you'd like to insert in the article, but anyway don't forget to cite your sources. --Ghirlandajo 19:41, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Dear User:Ghirlandajo,

1. The area of Smalensk was part of ethnical territory of Belarus even in the beginning of the 20th century (I could provide you Russian ethnographical maps proving that, but I hope you'll beleive my words). The history of Smalensk is closely connected to the history of Belarus and was hundreds of years long part of Belarus (being Grand Duchy of Lithuania), so a Belarusian spelling is more than right to be here. BTW, Belarusian is a state language of Belarus (check the article!)

What a pity that Smolyane haven't been aware of their happiness at being "part of ethnical territory of Belarus", especially when thousands of them died defending Russia. This is called blatant nationalism, dude. --Ghirlandajo 21:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

To cool down your patriotic pathos here a Russian etnographic map. Your ignorance is really shocking :( --Czalex 22:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

This map of unknown provenance and 19th-century date lists Białystok and Suwalki as part of Belarussian territory, thus demonstrating the ignorance of those who compiled it and those who exploit it for their racist purposes. I also liked their idea of placing the whole of Latvia under the Lithuanians section. I wish you could persuade our friends from Riga that they are ethnically Lithuanian... Honestly, your argumentation shows that you need to grow up before making any wikiedits. --Ghirlandajo 10:57, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Honestly, your language style makes me pessimistic about the Wikipedia full of such 19-th century views hysterical Russian Nazis. If you have nothing to say, let us stop this discussion and your vandalism over the article.--Czalex 20:29, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

They are hysterical ultranationalists, aren't they? Yoy! (Joj!) Space Cadet 01:49, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

2. Belarusian and the so-called Russian are different languages, and writings of the namings are different as well. I hope I don't have to prove that

Different languages or not, but the pronounciation of Smolensk is identical in both languages. Adding Belarusian spelling there is just like adding English spelling for Paris to the article on

the French capital. --Ghirlandajo 21:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Do you understand the difference detween writing and spelling?--Czalex 22:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

3. Russian will never be a state language in Kyiv again, unless in some Russian nazi dreams. And "historical recognition" under a certain name is not the reason for giving a city's name in different languages - the reason is just usage of the name and relevance of a historical tie of the city with the language I hope I have pointed in pt. 1.

Nevertheless, all three Uke presidents swore to make Russian a state language in the country where more than 50% of population speaks Russian as first language. --Ghirlandajo 21:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

4.Here I give a map of the Belarusian National Republic of 1918. On this image you can see the borders of the BNR. I hope the region of Smalensk is clearly seen as a part of Belarus.

OK, I see clearly that your only authority for belarusianizing the core Russian city is your own map and your own fantasies. --Ghirlandajo 21:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not the author of the map! :))) I advice you again to follow the blue underlined words that say Belarusian National Republic.--Czalex 22:05, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Please stop cencoring the article in an international project according to Russian chauvinist POV. In Wikipedia tolerance, pluralism and multiculturalism are the principles to be followed. If the Belarusian name of Smalensk will be there in the article, the city won't stop being part of Russia, believe me!--Czalex 21:16, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it will not return to the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth either. There is no Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth right now, sleep well. Space Cadet 01:53, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Guys, let's stop this offensive rhetoric. The sole point here is that Smalensk English usage is non-existent. Much less than Varshava or Warshawa which are nowhere near the first line of the Warsaw article. Therefore, Smalensk belongs to historic part of the article in the context, but not the first line. --Irpen 03:32, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, at least this is better than nothing--Czalex 19:20, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Why to delete belarusian name?

I can't see a point in deleting Belarusian name of the city. It is near Russian-Belarusian border, it was part of Belarusian state for centuries, and a lot of Belarusians live in it right now (for sure the most important minority in the city); this makes Belarusian name relevant for the city enough to put it to the first row, as is usually done in Wikipedia geography articles. Thanks. --Monkbel 20:54, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

"it was part of Belarusian state for centuries"? LOL! --Ghirlandajo 09:02, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

The only reason is that Smalensk has no English usage. The name appears at the top if it is either a native name of the country of the location or if it has some English usage. Smalenks isn't used in English, that's why. It does not prevent us to mentioning the name inside the article in the context, as it is done. But not in the first line. For more, please see the talk above as well as the ref to talk:Kiev. Thanks, --Irpen 21:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

The question is not about Smalensk and its English usage at all, of course Smalensk isn't used in English. But you deleted not Smalensk (or may be you're addressing to some other change?), but Смаленск, which is proper Belarusian name, and should be noted as per above. --Monkbel 21:50, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Well, cyrillic name without English tranliteration is usually meaningless in en-wiki. However, note, that similar issues were discussed to death and we should just follow some consistency rules. The outcome of past discussions were briefly summarized at Talk:Kiev#Summary_of_older_discussions_over_names_in_the_articles. Feel free to join the discussion there. --Irpen 21:56, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Cyrillic name without transliteration is meaningless, but transliteration could be added. I don't think that Belarusian name should be there, except if there is significant Belarusian minority in the city. Now, there is a question of how significant is significant? If the language is recognised by local administration it is significant. At least, that's what we are doing for cities in Serbia (see Novi Sad for example). Nikola 08:32, 3 November 2005 (UTC).

Lithuanian name

I would rather ask for what reason Lithuanian version of the city name is used in the article? Or you think that since Smolensk was a part of the GDL it is necessary to use the name in the Lithuanian language which has never had any significance in this state and had never exceed a status of a local language? A. Snieckus

Lithuanian name would be the same as Belarus name Smalininkai or Smalenskas...Smolensk is a russified name for the Belarus city. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.14.43 (talk) 15:47, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Civility

Boys. Please don't start the conversation by insulting someone's language or orthography, accusing them of nineteenth-century hysterical Russian nazism, or pretending to laugh at something they wrote. Let's remember that our mums and dads instilled a bit of culture in us for a little while, before abandoning real discussion and starting to blow shit out of our mouths. (no, please don't tell who started it, just behave) —Michael Z. 2005-11-1 23:28 Z

Please

1. Stop the revert war and work out a compromise on this discussion page
2. Stop the name-calling and discuss this like adults (hint: talk about the facts and not about the person you're talking to)

—Michael Z. 2005-11-11 20:48 Z

Names

I suggest that if in doubt how to name a person, we should use the name from the main article, not a redirect. Thus, we will use Sapieha but Vytautas the Great (or simply Vytautas). Any objections? abakharev 11:11, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

SSMA

WHy hasn't any one mentioned about Smolensk State Medical Academy???

Unbalanced: too much his history and too little information about the current town

I think we could solve the lack of balance by creating history of Smolensk and summarize it here. Andries (talk) 20:23, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Anecdote deleted

Deleted the following from the body of the article: "(i am from russia my self and actualy from smolensk and its name comes from (smola) which only means pine sap. where the city is located is right on the river, and it also has alot of pine in the area so when boats came through the city they used the sap to water proof their boats and that is where the name came from)"

True or not, we need a little more to go on than an anecdote, and the language used is absolutely unsuitable for an encyclopedia anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.208.120.38 (talk) 02:54, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Of cause Smalensk comes from Lithuanian word for a sap of pines 'smala' (in russian would be 'smola'), but the ending is of Lithuanian origin Vitebsk (Vyteviske, like 'teviske' meaning the fatherland and 'tevas' means the father), Smalensk (Smaleniske), Pinsk (Pyniske), Minsk (Mainiske) and this '-insk' is a subtraction of Lithuanian ending '-iske'...do you have russians more questions???? by the way Kaliningrad is russian or Prussian city??? and is Prussians slavs or balts (we know from the very Prussians that they kept themselves as Lithuanians)??? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.14.43 (talk) 16:06, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Testimony of mayor at Nuremberg about Katyn

I would like to know for one whether the mayor testified honestly, that is, whether he named the Soviets as a perpetrators. Historian932 (talk) 16:37, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I am in the middle of watching "World War II Confidential" Episode 6 which contends that, in contrast to Boris Bazilevsky who testified to Soviet lie, Boris Menshagin would not and therefore was imprisoned, and kept in the gulag for decades. This appears to be inaccurately recounted on the Wikpedia page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:989:4200:8D6:3138:8A20:C53:CD93 (talk) 18:39, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

wrong flag?

The Russian and German wikipedias have a different flag. They have the flag which is used here as the oblast flag. Could it be an error, that this English version would've accidentally used the oblast flag instead of the city flag? 82.141.95.20 (talk) 01:37, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

The flag here was wrong; I've replaced it with the correct one. Thanks for catching this.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); April 7, 2015; 15:56 (UTC)

External links modified

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The Soviet period

I added a couple of "dubious" tags as much of that section is rather muddled. I don't mean to add any sturm und drang to a contentious article, but I believe the two month delay in the German advance was due less to the Soviet counter attacks and more to German troops being diverted toward Kiev. Also, I don't understand why Goering would have been the one who ordered the destruction of the city. I also don't understand why Camp 126 is mentioned and not explained. __209.179.9.46 (talk) 22:29, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

when did Smolensk which was a soviet Belorussian town become a Russian town?

as opposed to other minor points this is completely unclear and unexplained — Preceding unsigned comment added by Polyushkopolye (talk • contribs) 17:56, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Смоленск во время оккупации.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 23:36, 7 July 2019 (UTC)

It is not occupation, but liberation from russian occupation — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.140.159.110 (talk) 09:32, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII (r. 913–959) recorded its name as Μιλινισκα (Miliniska).

How can you prove that it was not Moscow or Vilnius, but Smolensk?

Katyn Massacre

In 1940, 18 km (11 mi) from Smolensk, the Katyn Massacre occurred.

– This standalone sentence in the 'Soviet period' section is ludicrously short and uninformative. Most younger Eng.-lang. readers will have no idea what the Katyn Massacre was, infamous though it is.
– We should have an explanatory paragraph on the Katyn Massacre, which took place just west of Smolensk in the Smolensk Oblast, and in which some 20,000 captured Polish Army officers were murdered by the NKVD with Stalin's and Beria's approval. Secret documents confirming this were released to Poland by Yeltsin in 1990. – Sca (talk) 18:32, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

There are 2 climate sections on this article

Cretaceousa (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Request to change to picture of Church of St. Nicholas

The image used on this page apppears to have been clearly edited upon. It has huge white scribbly marks all over the sky and appears vandalised. If any replacement can be found, it would be appreciated. Disabled Lemon (talk) 19:30, 10 February 2024 (UTC)