Talk:Swedish Livonia

Requested move

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was Move Parsecboy (talk) 02:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Duchy of Livonia (1629–1721) → Swedish Livonia — — Termer (talk) 14:54, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support pr WP:NC--Termer (talk) 14:59, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Any additional comments:

RE: Thomas Blomberg The reason this article is called Duchy of Livonia instead of lets say Swedish Livonia is that in respect to WPFC it would be important to refer to subdivisions according to the official names. And there are enough refs out there that spell it out very clearly.

In 1621 Gustavus Adolphus offered William the whole Duchy of Livonia on condition that he accept Swedish suzerainty [1]

The name 'Livland' (Livonia) could mean a number of different things in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the Duchy of Livonia [2]

also see Historisk tidskrift By Svenska Historiska Föreningen Den 9 februari 1686 vardt han omedelbart, med förbigående af generalmajorsgraden, utnämnd till general-löjtnant af infanteriet, och dagen därpå till guvernör öfver »det kungliga hertigdömet Livland och staden Riga.»

and "Hertigdömet+Livland"&dq= Arsbok By Karolinska förbundet Adeln utfäster sig att motaga hertigdömet Livland some län av polske konungen med fullt bibehallen sjävstyrelse, religionsfrihet etc.

Also the Swedish kings did hold the title Duke of Livonia [3] that was later inherited to Tsars of Russia.

--Termer (talk) 20:27, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

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The last Swedish principalities (all of them within Sweden and Finland) were handed out in 1560, and by 1622 they had all reverted back to the Crown. Since then, Swedish princes may be called dukes, usually called the Duke of Halland or some other Swedish province. This is, however, just an honorary title, as the prince has no right whatsoever to that province. Similarly, Swedish kings in the past used to call themselves "hertig" (duke) over dominions that had some independence from Sweden, or areas that Sweden had claims to but didn't control.

So, Livonia was not a Swedish principality, nor Ingria (which you also claim). It is also very doubtful if Estonia was a Swedish principality. There are hardly any sources to be found backing such a claim outside Wikipedia. Swedish Wiki talks about Swedish Estonia being "a former principality", and I suspect it's actually a reference to the fact that under Denmark it was a principality.

Your quotes above do not support the claim that Swedish Livonia was a Swedish principality.

1. The first quote refers to a deal Gustavus Adolphus tried to do with Wilhelm Kettler, the second duke of Courland in 1621, i.e. eight years before Livonia officially became a Swedish dominion. What they had just conquered was the Polish Duchy of Livonia, and until Poland ceded the territory in 1629, that was of course its name.
2. The full sentence of your second quote is: The name 'Livland' (Livonia) could mean a number of different things in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: the Duchy of Livonia, Old Livonia, the Trans-Dvina regions, Swedish Livonia, or Polish Livonia. Exactly! The Duchy of Livonia refers to the 1561-1621 Polish principality, Swedish Livonia refers to the one we're talking about, and Polish Livonia may also refer to the 1561-1621 duchy, but it usually means the Inflanty Voivodeship, i.e. what remained of the principality after 1629.
3. Your third quote I can't comment on, as I can't make Google Books to show it. I realise it refers to Jakob Johan Hastfer.
4. Your fourth quote refers to an article about Patkul and his activities 1699-1701 as leader of the Livionian nobility. Obviously he would call the territory "hertigdömet Livland" (although he probably said Ksiestwo Inflantskie when speaking to his former king) when discussing the matter with Poland.
5. Your fifth quote refers to the titles that Charles IX of Sweden was given at his coronation in 1607. Yes, he would probably have called himself Duke of Estonia, as Swedish Estonia came under Swedish rule already in 1561 and as it had some independence. If he also called himself Duke of Livonia it must only have been a political statement of intent, as Sweden wouldn't conquer Livonia until 14 years later.

Unless you can show any encyclopaedia or established history book - Swedish or English - that states that Swedish Livonia was a Swedish principality, the text as well as the name of the article should be reverted back to "Swedish Livonia". The same goes for Swedish Ingria and Swedish Estonia. Thomas Blomberg (talk) 02:04, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

First things first, I've never claimed Ingria was a Swedish principality or called "Duchy of Ingria". I've never found any reference to this and have edited the article accordingly [4] and it seems like a mistake made by [5] Domino theory and in case it can't be backed up by any sources it should be called either the Governorate of Ingria or whatever was the name of the territory at the time.

Now, nobody has claimed that Duchy of Livonia was a principality, and not during the Swedish and during the Polish periods either since the duchies were always run by governors and not ruled directly by Dukes or Princes of Livonia, meaning the Kings of Poland and Sweden respectively.

You should clearly see that the quote The name 'Livland' (Livonia) could mean... the Duchy of Livonia is mentioned together with Swedish Livonia, or Polish Livonia but still you agree with one but not with another?

Inflanty Voivodeship and "Ksiestwo Inflantskie" are 2 separate things from 2 different periods not like you seem to suggest. The Inflanty Voivodeship was an administrative unit left to Poland after the majority of Livonian Duchy was annexed with Sweden after the Polish–Swedish War (1621–1625). Or are you saying more or less the same?

The bottom line of this, "Swedish Livonia" is a descriptive name. What we need here is what was Livonia called officially within Swedish Empire? And nobody questions that more sources are going to be needed. But first lets see what Domino theory has to say about the subject since he renamed the article in the first place.--Termer (talk) 03:08, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

PS. You also seem to suggest that the duchy should have had some sort of independence? that wasn't the case even with the Duchy of Estonia during the Danish period since it was a possession of the King and the duchy itself was administered by governors, more precisely by the Lieutenant (Latin:Capitaneus)--Termer (talk) 03:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is a book saying the following Under Swedish rule, northern Estonia was incorporated into the Duchy of Estland [6] it just doesn't say what did they call Livland exactly--Termer (talk) 03:41, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

OK, here is something that clearly refers to the Swedish period: superintendent-general of the duchy of Livonia, who edited the Bible of 1689--Termer (talk) 03:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, in case the territory wasn't called Duchy of Livonia during the Swedish era, please help out with what was it called exactly? "Duchy of Livonia" is the formal name for "Swedish Livonia", just like the "Kingdom of Sweden" is the formal name of Sweden. Note the references to Duchy of Livonia: 56 hits in Google books Martintg (talk) 05:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

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I'll answer both of you (Termer and Martintg) together, as your questions overlap each other.

First of all, Termer, I'm sorry I claimed that you had called Livonia and Ingria Swedish principalities. I had written to Domino theory's talk page a few hours earlier and in my haste thought that your comments here was his reply. He is the person who has been changing the article names and inserting "Principality" as form of government in the infoboxes.

"Duchy of Livonia" is NOT the formal name for the Swedish province, but the established English name for Ksiestwo Inflantskie, i.e. the northernmost principality within the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which the commonwealth had 1561-1621. For the period 1629-1721, most English text books refer to that area as Swedish Livonia. As everyone seems keen on using Google Book Search as proof for various claims (although 2-3 lines of text taken out of context can be very confusing), just have a look at [[7]]. If we go to hard copy books, I just found that Encyclopædia Britannica (1965 edition) also refers to it as "Swedish Livonia" in its article about Livonia.

Incidentally, in the same article Britannica calls Inflanty Voivodeship for Inflanty Polskie, and translates it as "Polish Livonia" (which was what I was referring to when I said that Polish Livonia may refer to the duchy but usually refers to the voivodeship). I just did a check and noticed that this is also what Polish Wikipedia calls it under Inflanty and Łatgalia. But in English Wiki, Polish Livonia redirects you to Duchy of Livonia (1561–1621), although an earlier version of the Inflanty Voivodeship article, when the article name was "Principality of Inflanty", says that "The part of Inflanty remaining in the Commonwealth was informally known as Polish Livonia (Polish: Inflanty Polskie) and was roughly equivalent to today's Latgale,"[[8]], and in the current Latgale article, one sentence says that "Creation of Polish Inflanty is the birth of the region we know today by the name Latgale.". Obviously, there is a lot of work needed here as well.

As for a formal Swedish name, there doesn't seem to have been one. Official government texts from that time refer to it only as Lifland or Liffland (spelling varied a lot in those days), just as they simply referred to Swedish Estonia as "Estland" and Swedish Ingria as "Ingermanland". Swedish text books and encyclopaedias have since tended to add the prefix Swedish to the area names when describing the Swedish time, in order to distinguish it from other periods - and English text books seem to do the same.

They were all Swedish dominions, not principalities or vassal states, and at least Swedish Livonia and Swedish Estonia were given a comparatively high degree of independence, with local diets dominated by local nobility. Sweden also opened the first university in the region, in Dorpat in However, when Sweden tried to abolish serfdom and also strengthened the legal status of free farmers, the opposition became immense from the local nobility, and its leader Johann Patkul pledged allegiance to Poland and intrigued with Denmark, Poland and Russia to jointly attack Sweden.

As for the article names, English Wikipedia rules say that articles should be given the most common English names for the subject matter. Consequently, the article name for the article about Sweden is Sweden and not "The Kingdom of Sweden", the article about "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is simply named United Kingdom, the article about "United States of America" is named United States, and the article about "The Islamic Republic of Iran" is named Iran. As we already have an article for Danish Estonia (which actually was a duchy), I think the articles about Swedish Estonia, Swedish Ingria and Swedish Livonia should have those names. Thomas Blomberg (talk) 11:40, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Everything makes sense to me. There is one thing that needs to be pointed out though, "Polish Livonia/Inflanty Polskie" may refer to either 1.Ksiestwo Inflantskie meaning the duchy and later 2. the Voivodeship, that's the way I've understood it and edited the page accordingly as a disamb page until Domino redirected it straight to the Duchy only for reasons unknown: [9]. I'm going to roll back the Polish Livonia page. This one needs to have a requested move back to Swedish Livonia, and then it can say in the article content, sometimes referred to as Duchy of Livonie and that the Swedish kings hold the honorary title Duke of Livonia.--Termer (talk) 14:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

PS. I've filed the requested move.--Termer (talk) 14:58, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

This looks good. I just checked the Polish Livonia disamb page, and it's exactly the right approach. So now, let's hope the move back to Swedish Livonia goes through quickly. Regards Thomas Blomberg (talk) 13:30, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.