Talk:Talyshstan (region)
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Merge proposal
editThe following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Formal request has been received from Smpad to merge Talish (region) and History of Talysh and Talyshstan (region) into Talyshistan with i (Talyshistan) (with removal of the redirect from Talyshstan to Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic). Please discuss the proposal here.
Proposer's rationale: Talyshistan = Talysh, that is the land of Talysh people. Everything is simple. Felix QW (talk) 14:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose Talish/Talysh/Talesh for the name of the historical region is much more WP:COMMON NAME than "Talyshistan/Talyshstan". However, I would support that History of Talysh and Talyshstan (region) get redirected to Talish (region). --HistoryofIran (talk) 15:06, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
- Comment: While the name of the merger target has been opposed, there remains the actual merger proposal of the three pages into one. Felix QW (talk) 08:59, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
Collapsing discussion about the name, in which proposer ultimately agreed that Talyshistan is not (yet) the common name. Felix QW (talk) 07:23, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
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«In JSTOR for example, it gives 388 results for "Talish" (though admittedly "Talish" is not only used for the region but also the language and people)» — and yes, that's a big problem, because it denotes not only Talyshistan proper, but the people, the language, the surname Talish (e.g. Shihabuddin Talish), the byname (Abdal Beg Talish, Khadem Beg Talish...), an adjective (Talish khans etc), villages with the name Talish in Azrbaijan (one of which became popular due to the Karabakh war) unrelated with the Talysh people, Talish Mountains, Talish district of Iran and so on and so forth. Some of the articles with "Talish" in JSTOR are not in English at all, but in French. A significant part of the references to «Talish» are simply title mentions, for example, the title of the work Talish and the Talishis (The State of Research). Such a polysemy, of course, gives so many results :) But how practical is it? Talyshistan, in turn, refers only to the region, and nothing else. Bournoutian considers the use of the word legitimate:
But even if Talish is indeed more common (which is in doubt, because also Talysh and Talesh, etc. are just as widely used) than Talyshistan, this is due to one of the most terrible acts of ethnic squelch in the recent history of Eurasia. I have long wanted to write a full-fledged article about the forced Turkification of Azerbaijan (which began under Bağırov and continues today under the Aliyevs) in a Russian or Ukrainian Wiki, and then translated into other languages, but so far I haven't had time for this, although there are enough good sources. In the USSR, Russification hit hard only on Ukraine and Belarus, while minorities in other republics suffered so much not from Russification, but from the forcible imposition of the culture and language of the people after whom a particular republic was named. For example, Christa Goff's book excellently describes state assimilation practices in the Transcaucasus with a focus on Azerbaijan. The main milestones were as follows: the elimination of korenizatsiia, the official renaming of "Azerbaijani Turks" into "Azerbaijanis" (to make them and their language the most important in Azerbaijan, purely eponymously), the purge of established historians who particularly emphasized Turkic migration in the formation of Azerbaijanis, repression of intelligentsias of indigenous peoples, liquidation of some autonomies (for example, Azerbaijani Kurdistan), deportation of some non-Turkic peoples, the creation of revisionist narratives and an official theory of the ethnogenesis of Azerbaijanis (which removes the focus from the Turkic migration to the assimilated peoples of Azerbaijan, arguing that the Azerbaijanis (that is, the Azeri Turks) are indigenous to Azerbaijan, because they were formed before the migration of the Turks, and then simply switched to their language (this made it possible for Azeri historiography to retrospectively Azerbaijanize everyone who has ever lived on the territory of Azerbaijan)), conversion of schools with native language into Azerbaijani (Turkic) and of course, unlimited falsification of censuses. These measures made the Azerbaijanis the fastest growing people in the USSR, whose growth was 2.5 times higher than the average for the state, which was largely achieved by recording indigenous peoples as Azerbaijanis on the basis of their knowledge of the Azerbaijani language, which was the only language they were taught at school along with history based on the official theory of ethnogenesis (which told them that they are in fact Azeri Turks). Talysh people have been the people most suppressed by the Azerbaijani authorities since the introduction of the policy of Turkization. They were silenced after the repression of their cultural leaders. Then the unprecedented began: the creation by the state apparatus of an official narrative about the "complete assimilation of the Talysh into Azerbaijanis without a trace". First, a massive underestimation of their number to only 85 (not 85 thousand people, but 85 people). Goff, Nested Nationalism, p. 136: Subsequently, they completely disappeared from the censuses. They wrote letters to Moscow about the censuses, but received from there "such a people does not exist, it has long been assimilated, read the works of ethnographers." Therefore, they were completely deprived of the support of their identity, and the Azerbaijani authorities tried to hush up their presence and identity as much as possible. This created "dark ages" for the Talysh for decades. The most forgotten people of the USSR, which officially "does not exist." A large people about whom incredibly little has been written, because the production of information about them was not encouraged. For more, see Krista A. Goff Making and Unmaking Nations in the Soviet Caucasus (especially the part The Discursive Erasure of Talyshes). Also there is a good article Ethnography, Demography and Assimilation – How Talysh Community was Made to Disappear in Soviet Azerbaijan, but unfortunately it is only in Bulgarian. Returning to toponyms. The perceived high prevalence of the term Talish, and not Talyshistan, is not provoked by some conscious consensus in the academic environment, but by gatekeeping of an incredible scale. Most of the Talysh live in Azerbaijan, not in Iran. But to this day, the Talysh in Azerbaijan are suppressed more severely than the Kurds in Turkey. They are completely devoid of any means of self-expression and self-declaration. Data about them continues to be falsified. The use of the term Talyshistan in Azerbaijan is very dangerous, because the authorities are afraid of something similar to the story of the Talysh-Mughan Autonomous Republic. And the Talysh are too intimidated. From my own experience, I can say that when I privately ask the Talysh themselves, they prefer Talyshistan. And since an article with the name Talyshstan existed, then there are enough reliable sources for the name with -stan, indicating purely the territory. From Введение в историю и культуру талышского народа by Garnik Asatrian: So, when writing in Russian, Asatrian uses Talyshistan very often. It's a secret for me why he doesn't do this in his works in English :) but at least the term Talyshistan is not marginal for such an authoritative author, albeit not in English spelling. Sincerely. Smpad (talk) 23:52, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
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- HistoryofIran, btw I also want to discuss some more things, if we're already here. For example, why can't the Talysh language come first in brackets in the preamble in the article? And if we mix all the articles into Talish (region), can the "fatified" spelling Talyshistan be presented in the preamble? Respectfully. Smpad (talk) 01:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- I never paid attention to it, but yes the Talysh spelling should deffo come first. And do you mean "falsified"? I have nothing against the spelling "Talyshistan" and I don't consider it inaccurate/wrong - I have no problem in mentioning it as a variant in the Talish (region) article. --HistoryofIran (talk) 01:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- HistoryofIran, no, I wrote fatified, like fat, to fatify (to make fat) :) To make the word look this way — Talyshistan, using '''. Sincerely. Smpad (talk) 01:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- I see. Variant names are usually fatified/written in bold in the lede, so I deffo think it should. --HistoryofIran (talk) 01:44, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- HistoryofIran, no, I wrote fatified, like fat, to fatify (to make fat) :) To make the word look this way — Talyshistan, using '''. Sincerely. Smpad (talk) 01:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- I never paid attention to it, but yes the Talysh spelling should deffo come first. And do you mean "falsified"? I have nothing against the spelling "Talyshistan" and I don't consider it inaccurate/wrong - I have no problem in mentioning it as a variant in the Talish (region) article. --HistoryofIran (talk) 01:33, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- HistoryofIran, btw I also want to discuss some more things, if we're already here. For example, why can't the Talysh language come first in brackets in the preamble in the article? And if we mix all the articles into Talish (region), can the "fatified" spelling Talyshistan be presented in the preamble? Respectfully. Smpad (talk) 01:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- Oppose per HistoryofIran. Benyamin (talk) 18:55, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- @Benyamin: Just to clarify: In his earlier post, HistoryofIran actually expressed that he is in favour of only retaining a single article, opposing only to the name suggested by proposer. Does your opposition also extend to merging the three pages? Felix QW (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- @Felix QW Talyshistan is not covered by mainstream academic sources. The name of the region is Tālīsh which translated as Talysh in Russian sources. George Bournoutian had explained the matter. Thus, I suppose merging the three pages into Talish (region). Benyamin (talk) 18:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
- @Benyamin: Just to clarify: In his earlier post, HistoryofIran actually expressed that he is in favour of only retaining a single article, opposing only to the name suggested by proposer. Does your opposition also extend to merging the three pages? Felix QW (talk) 19:14, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- HistoryofIran, I also wonder what to do with this article — Talish-i Gushtasbi :) Smpad (talk) 22:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not sure. --HistoryofIran (talk) 22:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)