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Maria Trubnikova edit

Maria Trubnikova (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

As of 9 May 2024, 18:04 (UTC), this page is active and open for discussion. An FAC coordinator will be responsible for closing the nomination.
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Nominator(s): —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Maria Trubnikova, an early Russian feminist and activist. She was part of a group of three friends and allies known as the "triumvirate", alongside Nadezhda Stasova and Anna Filosofova. Trubnikova mentored them and was well-known internationally, but suffered from illness towards the end of her life and died in an asylum.

Note: if this nomination is successful, I hope to subsequently nominate Stasova's and Filosofova's articles for FA as well, in that order. The three articles have very similar sourcing, so any reviewers interested in this one may be interested in those as well. —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:42, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@FAC coordinators: not sure if there's a standard time to wait to make sure no additional reviewers are forthcoming, but looks like all 5 reviewers are satisfied and it's been a couple days with no additional comments. I'm hoping we're ship-shape for promotion. Thanks! —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:38, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to still need a source review. I have added it to Requests. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thank you! —Ganesha811 (talk) 19:02, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

serial edit

An absolute Markievicz, a Luxemburg, in her breadth of thinking and involvement. The triptych sounds fine also. Some minor thoughts.

  • Tweaked to add link.
  • "consequently been sent": Might be able to loose that second "been".
  • Done
  • "Ivasheva grew up alongside three siblings." seems redundant when we have been told she was "the second of four children".
  • Removed
  • For clarity, perhaps tweak "Both her parents... childbirth"; something like "Both her parents passed away when she was very young: her father in 1839, her mother, in childbirth, the following year".
  • Tweaked as suggested.
  • Her princess aunt, can you identify her relationship with the royal family, if any?
  • Comment: I've been unable to, no.
  • Link Richard Stites.
  • Why "historian Richard Stites" but "the historian Rochelle Rothschild"?
  • Tweaked
  • Stites is not "another historian"—you've just mentioned him!
  • Commment, whoops, that probably got mixed up as sentences were moved around.
  • I take it Olga is potentially WP:N, then...?
  • Comment: Potentially, assuming the Russian article is well-sourced it could be used as a guide.
  • It might be worth quoting Ruthchild, re. MT's "salon within a salon, perhaps tied to the following quote of RR's re. empowerment.
  • Question could you expand on this comment a little more? Not sure what you're suggesting precisely.
  • First names on first use; then second. So e.g. just Ruthchild now. And like you do do with Novikova!
  • Done
  • Do we know why she was abroad in 1861? Vacation, research, speaking tour...?!
  • Comment As best as I can recall none of the sources specify, but in general it was common for wealthy Russians to spend summers or other long periods abroad.
  • "...the Tsar (then Alexander II)": Just "Tsar Alexander II" will do.
  • Done
  • The "however" is unnecessary, as it's not contrasting anything.
  • Removed
  • "leading figure of the Russian women's movement." > MOS:LQ.
  • Comment: I believe this is in compliance, as the period appears in Novikova.
  • Excellent use of an adversative conjunction opening a sentence; cf. Lies My Teacher Told Me.
  • Suggest the mention of MT's inheritance as coming from her aunt is moved to where it's first mentioned (so "Trubnikov, using Trubnikova's inheritance from her aunt for funding" in Early Life).
  • Done
  • Worth glossing Perovskaya. She wasn't just a revolutionary; she was executed for assassinating Alexander II—whom you've already mentioned, of course—and so hiding her was a far worse offence than her just being a revolutionary might imply.
  • Added
  • Clarify why her daughters were arrested, briefly.
  • Comment I'm not sure - Rappaport is the only source to mention this, as best I can recall, and does not give a reason for the arrest. We can probably guess it had to do with the general crackdown following the assassination of the Tsar, but no specific evidence for this.
Additional note: Ruthchild writes that When her daughter Olga joined the revolutionary groups Black Repartition in 1879 and then People's Will in 1881, she [Trubnikova] held meetings and stored illegal literature at her house.
Fantastic topic. Cheers, ——Serial Number 54129 19:40, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Serial Number 54129: FYI, I've added a paragraph of content at the end of 'Early life', if you want to take another look since your support. —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maestro, Ganesha811, an excellent addition. Is there any chance of a 'for example' after Trub's despotism gets mentioned? ——Serial Number 54129 13:25, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Engel writes: She could not defy Trubnikov, a perfect despot at home, who was unrelenting about such things. "It was impossible to change Father's mind, and he demanded his wishes be met," wrote their daughter, Olga. Trying to live with her husband amicably eventually drove Maria to a nervous breakdown...". Meanwhile Ruthchild writes: The man who enchanted her by his erudition and ideals proved to be threatened by, and then openly hostile to, her feminist ideals and erudition. Trubnikov undermined not only his wife's intellectual but also her material and physical well-being. He completely mismanaged Mariia's inheritance money through bad investments and diverting resources to his second family." . Incidentally, this is the only reference to a second family for Trubnikov I have seen, so not sure what's going on there. I'm not sure if any part of this makes a good example, but I might go back and strengthen the language a little to illustrate the depths of his opposition to her work and his general mistreatment. —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:37, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Image review edit

Paintings are not necessarily "published" in the meaning of copyright law (but you can't necessarily assume they are unpublished either). You will need US tags for the mother & father images. Honestly, it is not clear to me the encyclopedic relevance of what her mother & father looked like; I would just remove these images. (t · c) buidhe 19:49, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Removed - I added them simply because the article felt under-illustrated with just the lead image, but don't mind removing them as I agree they are not strictly necessary. —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:40, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Gog the Mild edit

Recusing to review.

  • Citations: Kaufman needs a publisher location.
  • Added
  • Infobox: suggest running the first two paragraphs together.
  • Comment I assume you mean in the lead? I'm not sure that would be an improvement - the first sentence provides the most general overview before we get into a condensed summary of her life in the next two paragraphs.
Apologies, yes. I strongly urge you to merge them. It would improve the look and prose quality of the article
Done!
  • "and consequently sent to". Perhaps 'and was consequently sent to'?
  • Adjusted as suggested.
  • "Both her parents passed away". MOS:EUPHEMISM has "Euphemisms should generally be avoided in favor of more neutral and precise terms. Died and had sex are neutral and accurate; passed away and made love are euphemisms."
  • Modifed
  • "later became a stock trader and founded a newspaper". Later than what?
  • Comment: The sources state that he was a property owner and government official, though they are non-specific on both counts. It's a couple sentences back in the paragraph.
You state that he "later became a stock trader and founded a newspaper. If you are going to use "later" then you need to state or indicate what it was later than. This is nor currently clear, at least to me.
Fixed, I hope - I removed the word "later" and I think the sentence is now clearer in context.


  • "Trubnikova's woman-only salon".I thought that 'women-only' was the normal usage.
  • Modified
  • "Trubnikova mentored other women interested in feminism ... Trubnikova, however, actively sought to educate fellow women on feminist issues". This seems to repeat much the same thing three sentences later.
  • Fixed, I hope. That paragraph was a bit of a Frankenstein - I've simplified and reorganized it slightly to address this comment.
  • "Trubnikova, Nadezhda Stasova and Anna Filosofova became close friends and allies". Is it known how they met?
  • Modified - they met via Trubnikova's salon. I've added a parenthetical.
  • "as it was then-called". I don't think you need the hyphen.
  • Fixed
  • "In contrast to the Russian nihilist movement". Suggest 'In contrast to the contemporaneous Russian nihilist movement' or similar.
  • Modified accordingly
  • "The reduced group's charter was approved in February 1861". By whom? What if anything were the implications of this approval?
  • Modified - my understanding from the sources is that it was approved by some body of the Tsarist government, making it a legal society as opposed to an illegal one.
  • "While abroad in France" → 'While in France'.
  • Done
  • "the cooperative focused on writing and translation". Did members of the cooperative do the writing?
  • Comment: Yes, although they primarily focused on translation, I recall the sources also stating that it published original works.
  • "it published a wide variety of books, including textbooks, scientific works and children's stories." Any examples?
  • Comment: Novikova gives the examples of Darwin's On the Origin of Species and Hans Christian Anderson's Fairy Tales, but that might be overdetail for this article.
Your call, but that was just the level of detail I was fishing for and which I think would both enhance the article and assist a reader.
Added!
  • "The cooperative lasted until 1879." What happened in 1879?
  • Comment: I'm not aware of any specific incident, but Novikova says that with both Trubnikova and Stasova abroad, "the activities of the cooperative came to an end."
Note: Novikova says that this was in the 'early 1870s', which fits with both Stasova and Trubnikova abroad. Ruthchild however gives more detail. She writes: The artel's charter was never approved by the government; no reason is listed even in the official records, and innumerable appeals to high officials by Filosofova failed to reverse this decision. But there were additional problems. Two of the group's most active members, Trubnikova and Stasova, withdrew. Trubnikova had begun to show the signs of mental illness.... leaving Filosofova to manage the artel on her own. Finally the bankruptcy of the bookselling firm that had carried much of the artel's inventory contributed mightily to the [organization]'s financial woes.
It may be worth adding a short summary of this. Your call again, but I would.
Added good suggestion.
  • "Trubnikova also worked at the paper founded by her husband, Birzhevyie Vedomosti, as a translator." Which languages?
  • Comment: I don't recall any source mentioning a specific language, but French and German would be reasonable guesses.
  • "The campaign began with a meeting at Trubnikova's apartments". Should "apartments" be singular?
  • Comment - good question. Stites uses the word 'apartments', and I think this makes more sense to convey that this is not what we would think of as a modern apartment, which is usually smaller than a house - these would have been grand rooms at the top end of the Russian scale. However, happy to modify if the current wording is unclear.
Ho hum. I take your point. How would you feel about actually describing the situation at first mention? Eg something like 'large and spacious apartment'.
Hmm, a bit tricky, since none of the sources actually describe them with terms like that, it's just assumed. I've instead gone the other way and simply said "Trubnikova's home" since it is, in the end, not really key to the reader to know what kind of home it was. —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:46, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "inconsistent due to the competing impulses of rival ministers". "impulses" seems an odd word. 'interests'?
  • Comment: State policy was highly personalized and somewhat arbitrary under the Tsar, so impulses isn't inaccurate, but I think 'interests' is clearer to the reader and also accurate. Modified accordingly.
  • "Tolstoy countered by allowing the lectures at his own apartments". "allowing" or compelling?
  • Modified to make this clearer.
  • "and she struggled with money." 'for money'?
  • Fixed
  • "Sophia Perovskaya (who planned the assassination of Alexander II)." "Planned" or 'coordinated'? I thought Andrei Zhelyabov did (most of) the planning?
  • Modified accordingly.
  • Comment: I suspect a lunatic asylum, though the earlier sojourn abroad probably involved sanatoriums - Novikova writes that she had a "nervous breakdown" in 1881 but remained active as a translator, but that the flu of 1893-4 led to "recurrent psychosis".
Not a huge issue, but "asylum" seems to beg a question. If we are reasonably sure as to which of the alternatives it was, it would be helpful to both specify and link.
Added a wikilink. —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:46, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Cracking article. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:27, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • @Gog the Mild: FYI, I've added a paragraph of content at the end of 'Early life', as you take another look at the article. Thank you for your comments and suggestions! —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some come backs above. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:24, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I believe everything has been addressed - thanks for your additional suggestions! —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:46, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support from Averageuntitleduser edit

First FAC review, this seems like a fun one:

  • "Trubnikova was orphaned at an early age, and subsequently raised by a wealthy relative." — remove comma.
  • Done
  • "At 19, she married; she and her husband, Konstantin, had seven children." — I sense too many pauses, an easy fix would be: "She married at 19" or "She married at the age of 19".
  • Done
  • Fixed
  • "Trubnikova was influenced by the writings of French writers such as Jules Michelet and Henri de Saint-Simon." — this feels a tad out of place; in what way was she inspired? If they influenced her management of the salon, perhaps it would work better before (or somehow combined) with the sentence about her recruitment of other women.
  • Comment: Good question, this relates to how *she* became a feminist but it's not very well-placed. Let me revisit the sources and I will adjust it shortly.
  • Second comment: I've added a paragraph of content, including this sentence, to the end of 'Early life', which I hope addresses the issue and provides more context. Let me know what you think! —Ganesha811 (talk) 13:20, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • I quite like the addition, it definitely puts the inspirations into a clearer perspective. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 17:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Done
  • Done
  • "although she continue to perform" — "although she continued to perform"
  • Fixed

Second round of comments:

  • "Triumvirate" could be a useful link, especially as its in quotation marks, somewhat referring to the word itself.
  • Added!
  • "Trubnikova and Stasova began pushing, in 1867, for Russian universities to create courses for women." — this is sad to say, but these could be construed as women-targeted courses or women-only courses, perhaps: "courses accepting women".
  • Continuing from above, this paragraph feels a little vague on what the courses entailed. Did the women promote any specific subject ares? What were the petition's requests? Rappaport highlights her support of setting up public lectures to prepare women for university, which I imagine could help. Of course, it's alright if the sources inhibit this comment; I actually think it's quite minor.
  • Fixed, I hope: Good point - Stites writes (p.75) that their initial petition "requested that special coeducational be established at the University of St. Petersburg." Johanson goes into similar detail and states that the triumvirate definitely wanted these to be "serious", in-depth courses, and that the public lectures that Tolstoy allowed at first were a step down. I've added some detail to the two paragraphs on the push for higher education - let me know what you think. —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:40, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Despite the limited sources available, this is a lovely, precise read. Not sure I'm comfortable enough with the criteria to support just yet, but later on, I'll have another look through to make up my mind. Averageuntitleduser (talk) 23:31, 18 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments thus far! —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:01, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A confident support, very engaging and accessible. Well done, Ganesha! Averageuntitleduser (talk) 21:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ajpolino edit

Thank you for an interesting read on a topic I knew nothing about. Comments below (pulled away from the computer halfway through, but will return by end of day):

  • "a wealthier aunt, the Princess E.N. Khovanskaia." awkward to read "the Princess" with no context. I see above we're not sure what makes Khovanskaia a princess. Clicking ignorantly through the Google Translated Russian Wikipedia articles, this one (on her paternal grandfather) claims Trubnikova's father had a sister Ekaterina (1811-1855) who married a "Prince Yuri Khovansky, the son of Prince Sergei Nikolayevich Khovansky. If it's possible to confirm and add something, that would be nice.
  • Comment - yep, that looks like the right connection. I'll see if I can find a good reliable source, maybe from the Russian page. I suppose the thing worth noting is that Prince/Princess didn't imply direct relation to the royal family in the Russian Empire - it was a generic "noble" title. I think linking to our fairly high-quality article on it (Knyaz) will help, so I'll add that to start. —Ganesha811 (talk) 18:00, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very helpful context. Appreciate the footnote. Ajpolino (talk) 13:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Engel describes Trubnikov as 'a perfect despot' in domestic affairs." - I wasn't sure what this was intended to mean, so I took a peek at the source on archive.org. Engel's take on Trubnikov here is a bit darker than what this sentence gets across. Suggest either adding a few more words to clarify, or cutting it (Engel's negative sense of Trubnikov returns more clearly in the Later life section anyway).
  • Comment: Yeah, I modified the phrasing some to clarify - hopefully it's improved! —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:23, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Much clearer. Thank you.

Other than that, everything looks good. Thanks again, looking forward to seeing the next two installments in the series. Ajpolino (talk) 13:51, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Support Well-written and informative. Ajpolino (talk) 02:15, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mujinga edit

  • Nice article! Most of the ground has already been covered, just some nitpicks below. Some things are already fixed since I read through the article the other day, eg I agree on the knyaz footnote being a decent touch, since also got caught by reading knyaz in the text
  • "was consequently sent to a Siberian exile" - reads weirdly to me, is it perhaps a US/Br Eng thing? i would prob say "was consequently sent into Siberian exile"
  • Fixed, I hope: this was also mentioned above - I've changed it to "exiled to Siberia", which is simpler and hopefully clear on both sides of the Atlantic.
  • "Trubnikova, however, actively sought to educate fellow women on feminist issues, seeing her new salon as a "venue for empowering" them" - is Ruthchild saying this about Trubnikova or is it a direct quote from Trubnikova?
  • Fixed - the former - I've modified the sentence to make this clearer.
  • "She died at Saint Petersburg's asylum "in the arms of her youngest daughter" on 28 April 1897.[4] Trubnikova was interred at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Saint Petersburg, and remembered by her colleagues as "the heart and soul" of feminist activism in Russia.[4]" who is saying the things in apostrophes here?
  • Comment - those are quotes from the source, Novikova. I added a subordinate clause to help make this clearer.
  • On references, you have a mixture of title case and sentence case eg Encyclopedia of women social reformers vs The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilsm, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930
  • Fixed - went with title case.
  • There's eight refs with publisher location and two without, or would you argue Princeton University Press and University of Pittsburgh Press don't need a location?
  • Comment: - yep, I'd say those two are clear from the publisher, as Princeton is a town too and not just a university.
  • And finally (with an apology for this level of nitpickiness) I do see some variation in book titles as regards the formatting of subheadings Mujinga (talk) 15:13, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Would this be the missing colon in the Pashova cite? Or something else? Hopefully fixed! Thanks for your comments. :) —Ganesha811 (talk) 16:58, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes and I made this change, feel free to revert. Mujinga (talk) 19:39, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This all looks pretty good now, just one last query, what is "General references"? I glided over that before thinking it was "Selected works" Mujinga (talk) 19:41, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a reference which isn't used to support any specific piece of information but generally supports the article. I haven't used as a specific cite both because of its age and because I can't read Russian, so would have to rely on Google Translate. —Ganesha811 (talk) 20:26, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think because the FA is supposed to be comprehensive, then I'd rather it was either used to cite something or removed, otherwise I'd be worried that there could be a useful addition which hasn't been made. For what it's worth, it machine translated ok for me. Mujinga (talk) 10:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point. I've changed it into a Wikisource link using the template. —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:01, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An elegant solution, great stuff, changing to support Mujinga (talk) 15:05, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Source review edit

Given the total absence of Russian language sources, I kind of wonder about the completeness of the article. What is "Athens: Epikentro"? Other than that looks like we are dealing with prominent books and sources, although I wonder about "The Gambler Wife: A True Story of Love, Risk, and the Woman Who Saved Dostoyevsky." what that is. Source formatting seems consistent as well. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:07, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm loathe to rely on sources in languages I cannot read, since machine translation can be misleading or inaccurate. However, I'm fairly confident the article is comprehensive, The Novikova source was written as a biography, and so would have covered all major elements of her life. They are all covered here. The Brockhaus & Efron external link and her entry in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia also help convince me we are not missing anything major.
As to other questions - Epikentro is a Greek publishing house based in Athens (site). As far as I can tell they are reputable and publish a wide variety of books including on history and other academic topics. The Gambler Wife is a biography of Anna Dostoevskaya. The author, Kaufman, has a PhD in Slavic language and literature and formerly taught at UvA. He appears to be reliable and Penguin is a good publisher. The book spends some time talking about the publishing artel that Trubnikova was involved with. —Ganesha811 (talk) 11:25, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus, any further comments? —Ganesha811 (talk) 06:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I was wondering if there are any Russian language folks at FAC that could verify a machine translation. Something to ask for at WT:FAC perhaps? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:37, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s a good idea - in general, though, as I outlined above, I’m confident in the comprehensiveness of the article. —Ganesha811 (talk) 12:15, 2 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Let me know if there's any other items you'd like to me to address so you feel able to support on source review. —Ganesha811 (talk) 06:38, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus, is there anything else, or are you comfortable supporting? —Ganesha811 (talk) 10:17, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am pretty uneasy at signing off a source review for a Russian topic with not one Russian source used, sorry. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:26, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Novikova (a primary source for this article) is Russian and affiliated with Yaroslavl State University. Anastasiya Pashova also appears to be Russian. Almost all of the other scholars cited also used Russian sources and evidently could read and examine Russian sources. There are Russian sources (direct or indirect) throughout the article - there are just not any Russian-language sources, because I cannot read or write Russian and would find it difficult to evaluate the reliability of Russian sources or verify the accuracy of machine translation.
I don't think there's a problem with relying on English-speaking Russia-focused scholars to do that difficult work of filtering and evaluating Russian-language sources for us. To insist on a Russian-language source strikes me as arbitrary. I cannot find any evidence that there is any significant part of Trubnikova's life or career missing from this article. If you can, then I will be abashed. I think we are in agreement that the existing sources are reliable and high-quality. —Ganesha811 (talk) 10:41, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To expand, I think Novikova is the best example of what I mean. It is a biographical entry designed to be a complete summary of Trubnikova's life and career, written by a Russian scholar and based on (p.587) exclusively Russian-language sources, 7 of them. It was then edited by another Russian scholar (the coordinator for that country) and a team of three academic editors. Novikova is a primary source for this article. Her work is reliable, Russian, and comprehensive. I'm not going to add a Russian-language source just so I can say there's a Russian-language source. What value would that add to the article? —Ganesha811 (talk) 10:48, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Meh, OK, if the delegates are fine with this... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:15, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ok! I appreciate you taking the time to look over the sources. @FAC coordinators: if you could take another look, that would be great - thank you! —Ganesha811 (talk) 17:41, 8 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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