Talk:Armenian Oblast

Population statistics

The population statistics section seems overly large, and vague in parts, and without enough references. We are told that immediately before 1828, the population of Yerevan and Nakhichevan khanates included 25,500 Armenians. But ware not told the overall population. Why not? We are told that in 1832 there were 82,000 Muslims and 82,000 Armenians. This would seem to be a claim that the Armenian population has increased by 56,500. If it is a claim, why is it not openly stated as such? We are also told that between 1828 and 1836 57,000 Armenians migrated into the oblast. Why is the 1836 date mentioned, given that, based on the previous info, the migration seems to have been completed by 1832? That 57,000 figure is also contradicted here, http://www.umd.umich.edu/dept/armenian/sas/bour2.html It gives a figure of 49,090 (45,207 Armenians immigrated to Erevan (23,568 from Iran and 21,639 from Turkey), and 3,883 to Nakhichevan (3,856 from Iran and 27 from Turkey). Much of the rest of the text contains vagueness as well as off-topic material inserted for possibly POV reasons. For example, why is it stated in this population section that the "Erivan Governorate (roughly corresponding to most of present-day central Armenia, the Iğdır Province of Turkey, and Rayons of Sadarak and Sharur in Azerbaijan's Nakhichevan exclave)" when the article is not about the Yerevan Governorate and similar wording is already in the introduction section? Meowy 21:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Ismail-Zade and Svante Cornell are not reliable sources. Even McCarthy who is anti-Armenian claims that this is baseless and statistically impossible. As for the Armenian term, just because Azerbaijani lobbyists claims it as historically Azerbaijani, it doesn't mean that Wikipedia should follow their rules. VartanM (talk) 21:15, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Armenian pre- and 1914

It seems that the pre-1914 and during Russian occupation sections of the Armenian Oblast's name are the exact same. I may be mistaken, but I would like to possibly highlight a possible troll? --Justin J. Liu (Dylan Smithson) (talk) 02:03, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

New Map

New map

Hello. I found the current map used in the article quite problematic and inaccurate as it was using modern names for some cities, rivers, lakes. So, I made a new map that has its borders based on the map currently used on the article, but the city names changed to fit how it was at the time of the oblast's existence. If you have any feedback, feel free to give them. — CuriousGolden (talk·contrib) 21:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I will go ahead and add the map as per WP:BOLD, if anyone in the future sees a problem with it, you can write it here. — CuriousGolden (talk·contrib) 21:34, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Replacing everything with Turkish/Azeri names is not using "modern names". Nice try. --Steverci (talk) 20:58, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

"Nice try"? Really? Do you even try at least a little to assume any good faith? I'll ignore that for now and suggest that you don't make any similar remarks to me nor anyone else in the future.

About the map. Not sure if you realize this but Armenian Oblast had Muslim-majority and most names in modern-day Armenia at the time had been Turkic/Persian origin names. Don't believe me? Here's a map of Caucasus from that period of time: [1]. Still don't? All you need to do is read the articles for the city names that have been changed. Let me show you some:

1. Gavar#Etymology - "The town was known as Nor Bayezet or Novo-Bayazet until 1959"
2. Yeghegnadzor#History - "By the beginning of the 19th century, Yeghgnadzor was known as Keshishkend."
3. Vanadzor#Etymology - "Vanadzor was known as Gharakilisa (alternatively Karakilisa) -meaning the black church in Turkic- at its foundation during the days of the Russian Empire."
4. Vardenis#History - "Until 1969, the town was officially called Basargechar."

Do I need to go on? — CuriousGolden (T·C) 08:33, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

I haven't checked the map in detail, but it would appear that these were actually the contemporaneous designations:

• "It is important to note that prior to the formation of Soviet Armenia, tsarist officials kept almost all the former place names that were used in the Yerevan Khanate during Iranian rule. Although most of these villages had had Armenian names in the past, various Turcoman tribes that had settled in the region following the Timurid period had renamed a great number of them. Armenian officials, during the Soviet period, restored some of the historic Armenian names wherever possible. Other villages had been abandoned or were absorbed into new collective farms (kolkhoz), sometimes named after Armenian, Russian, Georgian or Azeri communists. Some of these place names changed once again after the fall of the Soviet Union." -- Bournoutian (2018). Armenia and Imperial Decline: The Yerevan Province, 1900-1914 . Routledge. page xiii[2]

- LouisAragon (talk) 02:45, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

On the contrary, you should consider yourself lucky that I haven't decided on showing this blatant example of POV pushing to the administration noticeboard yet.

Please abide by WP:COMMONNAME and stop making up your own guidelines. Your map isn't even consistent. Were Russians the majority of the population in Elisabethpol? --Steverci (talk) 05:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Steverci, unfortunately, we don't use modern names in historic maps. I thought this would be pretty common sense, but seems I have to explain it. If we were to use it, we'd be putting "Istanbul" on a historic map of the Roman Empire and "Nursultan" on a map of Central Asia during Russian Empire period. As LouisAragon pointed out above, names in the map are contemporaneous designations, they're not based on ethnicity (which is why it's Elisabethpol and not Ganja). — CuriousGolden (T·C) 17:20, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

If those are the contemporaneous names then it should be fine. --HistoryofIran (talk) 19:36, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

If it had nothing to do with ethnicity, then why did you base your changes on it? Seems you're just POV pushing the names you prefer. If the names are supposed to be contemporaneous, you would've spelled Nakhichevan and Surmali. Yerevan was also often anglicized as Erevan. Gharakilisa and Nerkin Gharanlugh are also better anglicizations. "Gerysui" is just a Turkic distortion of Goris. Lake Sevan was also commonly named Sevanga on foreign maps, this map should reflect that more neutrally. --Steverci (talk) 04:34, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Steverci, I haven't based it on ethnicity as I already pointed out in my previous comment. I'll change it to Nakhichevan, sure. However, Surmali is not the same place as Igdir, that'd be Sürmeli, Mudurnu. Yerevan at the time was anglicized as Erivan, it only started to being anglicized as Erevan in a later period. I've already shown you a map from the period of the Armenian Oblast which shows which names were used at the time ([3]), so if you think I'm making these names up, then so is Joseph Grassl's map from 1856. — CuriousGolden (T·C) 07:10, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

good day, a dont see Basargechar on the map ([4]).--NikolayLukas (talk) 12:45, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Non-neutral edits to the article

BaxçeyêReş I am puzzled by your recent linguistic edits to this and other related articles. Firstly, you remove Azerbaijani name of Armenian oblast, although Azerbaijanis (i.e. Tatars) comprised almost half of the oblast's population , according to [5], and included the territories of modern-day Azerbaijan, arguing that it is not notable. Despite of that, you still included an Armenian name to the Ganja khanate article opposing the very same argumentation.

Secondly, you changed the historically neutral map which reflected Turkic names of certain settlements within and outside the Armenian oblast, which back then were known as common names of these settlements, according to Russian history books. Basically, with these edits you are not helping, but actually distorting the neutrality of this and other articles.

I do not aim to personally attack you, but I want you to reconsider your views on what Wikipedia is and what it should be. Edits like that are just so unfair. --Mastersun25 (talk) 00:49, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi there, Mastersun25. I very much appreciate that your aim is to lead healthy and respectful discussions, which is unfortunately not the case with many other Wikipedians. Be assured that I, too, do not aim to attack you personally.

Adding the current Azerbaijani name to the Armenian Oblast makes little sense as 1. the area was designated as the sole Armenian homeland by the Russian Empire (albeit with naturally imperialist intentions to serve as a Russo-Ottoman buffer zone), and 2. there is no evidence for a term as "Erməni vilayət" being widely used, and especially not in the current Azerbaijani Latin alphabet; that would be anachronistic and thus a form of WP:SYNTHESIS. As long as there is no evidence for actual non-modern usage of the term, it cannot feasibly included, and not under the designation "Azerbaijani", since that group didn't come into existence until the late 1910s for political reasons.

Lastly, Armenian (and to some extent Russian) names were in common usage on the territory of the Armenian Oblast until Soviet times, when they were replaced by Turkic names (partly as to appease the Turkic and Iranian Azerbaijani nations and to possibly pull them into the Soviet sphere of influence). A perfect example is Vardenis, which was initially known as Voskeshen, only to be replaced by Basargechar long after the abolition of the Armenian Oblast. That, again, is pure anachronism by CuriousGolden (seemingly to push their POV) and thus not suitable for Wikipedia. BaxçeyêReş (talk) 21:58, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

You have a very vague understanding of who Azerbaijanis are as an ethnic group, and Armenian oblast was not juridically designated as an autonomy for ethnic Armenians within Russian empire despite its name (unlike, for example, NKAO in Soviet Union). This implies that Armeian language did not have an official status in this unit, same as Azerbaijani. Honestly, it seems that you don't have sources providing any of your claims that makes it look like just your personal opinion. If you do have sources, you can pin them in the article and edit freely, nobody would say anything to you. Otherwise, it just looks like your another POV edit. --Mastersun25 (talk) 15:20, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Since you are a Russian citizen, inquire for your government about what Turkic-speaking people in the South Caucasus were once called. "Azerbaijanis" did not exist in the Caucasus, so neither would their language be "official" in the region, nor would it be called "Azerbaijani". Nevertheless, if the oblast literally acts as the singular homeland for Armenians, its name must be included in the article. It really should not be this difficult for a rational person to grasp, no? BaxçeyêReş (talk) 22:02, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Bottom line: Unfortunately (and obviously) turned out to be a pointless discussion with an Armenian sockpuppet (and probably a teenage troll). Especially funny that the guy pretended to be a Karabakh Kurd. Restored the original version of the article. --Mastersun25 (talk) 16:09, 1 August 2021 (UTC)