Talk:Silent Sejm

A fact from Silent Sejm appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 1 September 2011 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that both the Tarnogród Confederation and the Silent Sejm were engineered by Russian Tsar Peter the Great to strengthen Russia's influence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2011/September. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Silent Sejm.

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Silent of Muted?[edit]

Wouldn't the better translation of niemy be 'muted'? After all, 'silent' is cichy in Polish. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 11:29, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Self-answer: silent is the most popular in literature, followed by dumb and mute, at about 50:10:5. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:56, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

some comments[edit]

"The Wettins, used to an absolute monarchy" - not really accurate. For one thing they weren't monarchs/kings at the time, just electors.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:16, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some problems with use of definite/indefinite articles "a" and "the" throughout the article.

Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:17, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- Wettins: that's what the source stressed... Articles: sure, I am Polish, you know :) I can never get them 100% right... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:22, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reworded it to preserve the sense of the statement but avoid the use of the word "monarchy".Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This part is a bit awkward: "To prevent the use of liberum veto from disrupting Sejm proceedings, the session was turned into a confederated sejm.[1] (It was also classified as a pacification sejm). Threatened by a strong Russian army, with Russian soldiers 'guarding' the proceedings, the Silent Sejm, known as silent because only the speaker (marshal of the Sejm) Stanisław Ledóchowski (podkomorzy krzemienicki), and the Deputy reading the compromise resolutions, were allowed a voice, outlining the terms of the settlement." - it should briefly explain what lv was, and maybe same for confederated Sejm - should "sejm" be capitalized in these cases too? "it was also classified" - by whom? "The Silen Sejm, known as silent..." is messy stylistically. That sentence is also long and unwieldy and probably better to break it up.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:33, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- What "lv"? Sejms are linked, and I think we have a practice of referring to types of sejm without a capital letter, so it is sejm walny, just like it is parliament. A type of an institution is not a given name, I guess. Fixed the last sentence, I hope. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

lv = liberum veto. This is the first time it occurs in the article and while it is linked, for those who just want to keep reading this one, a short description of what it was might be useful. Non-Poles are not going to be familiar with it. But this is essentially a stylistic concern. Last sentence sounds good.Volunteer Marek (talk) 23:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is probably a GA level concern, but in the Sejm section there's that long bullet-ed list- it is my understanding that these kinds of things are generally frowned upon. I realize that in this case the difficulty is that there's quite a number of things that war established so it's hard to present them efficiently in some other way. Still, a paragraph of prose should probably cover the most important points, while the rest could be put in a shortened "Additionally, the Sejm also..." list.Volunteer Marek (talk) 01:09, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Personally I tend to like bullet points for that, but your MoS point is taken. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 15:21, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Misleading statements by Norman Davies[edit]

Norman Davies is completely wrong, Peter I the Great was never a guarantor of Warsaw Treaty assumed by Silent Sejm (see Historia dyplomacji polskiej, t. II 1572-1795, Warszawa 1982, s. 369) and PLC was independent state till 1768, when became protectorate of the Russian Empire. Mathiasrex (talk) 04:20, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In the Polish edition, which I have with me right now, on p. 655, t.1, ND writes: "Ze swojej strony car zobowiązał się do zagwarantowania zawartego układu w formie pisemnej konstytucji." (English original is "The Tsar undertook to guarantee the agreement in the form of a written constitution"). In Heart of Europe he states "The Silent Sejm of 1717 marks the point when Peter the Great guaranteed the existing constitution, and imposed a protectorate over Polish life..." He is not alone in this; [1] states: "The Polish Sejm (parliament) of 1717, the so-called 'Dumb Sejm', had incorporated a Russian guarantee of the Polish constitution into the constitution itself.". [2] states "in return for the Polish-Lithuanian nobility's 'silent conent' to statutary limitation of the size of Commonwealth's armed forces... This humiliating agreement was underwritten by Russia, which also undertook to guarantee the much-devalued 'liberties' of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility". I should be able to verify other sources soon, but could you please cite from the HDP book the part that tells you that the Russian tsar was not a gurantor of the 1717 Sejm agreements? As the protectorate was never an official state, historians vary with regards to when we can call it a protectorate; Lukowski and Zawadzki cleary say that "The Commonwealth had been reduced to a de facto Russian protectorate" after the Silent Sejm.["The Commonwealth had been reduced to a de facto Russian protectorate" after the Silent Sejm]. I am not crystal clear what is it that you are disputing, but both the Russian tsar's gurantee and the term protectorate are reliably sourced. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 14:16, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wbrew powtarzającym się często w historiografii poglądom, Piotr I nie stał się gwarantem traktatu warszawskiego - wymówili to sobie zarówno król, jak i konfederaci... O odrzuceniu zarówno przez Augusta II, jak konfederatów tarnogrodzkich proponowanej gwarancji carskiej dla traktatu pisał wyraźnie Dołgoruki w relacji do Piotra I z 2 X, 19 X, 9 XI 1716 roku. Historia dyplomacji polskiej, t. II 1572-1795, Warszawa 1982, s. 369

Piotr I chciał wykorzystać swoją rolę pośrednika jako pretekst do ingerowania w politykę Augusta II, występując jako obrońca interesów szlachty. Jednakże zarówno konfederaci, jak dwór królewski odrzucili stanowczo propozycję objęcia rosyjskimi gwarancjami porozumienia warszawskiego. Jacek Staszewski, August II Mocny, Wrocław 1998, s. 199. Mathiasrex (talk) 06:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the refs and quotes, I've modified the article accordingly. Can you provide the chapter name and author of the edited Historia book? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:53, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]