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Talk:Dragoman of the Porte/GA1

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GA Review

[edit]
Passed. UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:09, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The 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.

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Nominator: Cplakidas (talk · contribs) 12:19, 11 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: UndercoverClassicist (talk · contribs) 12:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]


Enjoyable as ever -- a few pointers on prose and content, then images and sources. Will get to spot checks once we've gone through this lot. UndercoverClassicist T·C 12:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Consider adding a transliteration to the Greek in the lead, to aid pronunciation. Should the μέγας be moved a bit later, to where we talk about it sometimes being called the Grand Dragoman?
  • From the position's inception in 1661 until the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821, the office was occupied by Phanariotes,: I'm not sure this was quite true (the Ghica family don't sound like Phanariots?) and, at any rate, it is much stronger than the framing we have in the body, that almost all subsequent Grand Dragomans of the Porte were of Greek origin.
    • The phrasing is deliberately chosen in the lede, as the Phanariotes were not just Greeks. As you say, they included families like the Ghica, who were not ethnic Greeks, but were culturally Hellenized and intermarried with the Greek Phanariotes. These are included within the ranks of the Phanariotes as 'Hellenized Balkan Christians'. Constantine ✍ 08:50, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we have a citation somewhere to use the word "Greek" in connection with the Ghica? I trust your knowledge here, but can also imagine this being a magnet for the various flavours of nationalistic IP editors who like to flock to Balkan articles. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:30, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Have edited this somewhat, to hopefully also explain what the Phanariots were. Constantine ✍ 19:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • We never actually explain what "the Porte" was -- I think that would be helpful.
  • In the same way, I think it would help to explain who the Phanariots were at some point, and perhaps a touch about their wider importance to the Ottoman Empire.
  • proficient in the 'three languages': very optional for GA, but I think the MoS would prefer double quotes.
    Under MOS:SIMPLEGLOSS, a gloss comes after the foreign-language word, but this is hardly a major issue at this level. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:31, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Rewrote this slightly. Constantine ✍ 19:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • a mere interpreter: mere might be a little harsh on interpreters, who are after all very skilled people.
  • As such the post was the highest public office available to non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire.: not really an as such: it doesn't follow from the Dragoman's wide responsibilities that there was no higher office available to non-Muslims. From what I remember, there was quite a delicate balance of power as to which ethno-religious groups held which high offices -- is there something to be said about that here?
  • We haven't explained what a Grand Vizir was, and I think that's important.
  • The salary of the Dragoman of the Porte amounted to 47,000 kuruş annually: can we give an idea of how much that was?
  • I'd suggest that a very brief biographical sketch of each dragoman might just qualify as a "major aspect" of the topic per the GACr.
    Thanks for giving me the final push to finish with this. The situation is quite complicated in some cases, as sources disagree with each other, Stamatiadis is missing some entries altogether or has inconsistent level of detail. I had to go looking for other works, and found only the encyclopedic entries that I have now included. Not ideal, but enough. Constantine ✍ 11:27, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Images

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By the nature of the beast, quite a lot of these.

Sources

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Sourcing looks generally solid.

  • An endash needed for the hyphen in Strauss 1995.
  • Eliott 1900 is not a scholarly source and is very old -- it is only used twice; any way to swap that out?
    • Eliott has been replaced. OTOH we now have an even older source in the article (Stamatiadis), but at least it is a specialist source (with all the caveats about a work written from a nationalist POV). Constantine ✍ 11:37, 27 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • On Ottoman-Greek matters, my eternal question is whether Mark Mazower has written anything of relevance -- he has quite a lot to say about the Phanariots in general across his works (I remember reading a few for Kyriakos Pittakis)
  • Optional for GA, but I would put Hart et al in the bibliography -- I see the logic, but it's odd to treat only one source differently to the others.

Nice work -- I always enjoy reading your articles and learning something more about topics I thought I was getting a handle on. Spot checks to follow once the above is addressed.

Thanks, your reviews are always very well-considered and helpful. Constantine ✍ 19:10, 25 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Cplakidas: Any success with the images? UndercoverClassicist T·C 20:37, 15 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spot checks

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I am not having much success with the sources: would you mind giving the quotation that supports:

  • The post was the highest public office available to non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire: (note 11; Strauss 1995, p. 190)
    • "for the office of Translator of the Imperial Divan...the highest public office open to non-Muslim subjects in the Ottoman Empire at that time"
  • In practice, the latter [the office of Dragoman of the Fleet] often served as a stepping-stone to the office of Grand Dragoman (note 15; Vakalopoulos 1973, p. 243)
    • "με τη δημιουργία ενός νέου αξιώματος, του δραγουμάνου του στόλου, που συνήθως αποτελεί την προβαθμίδα για τη μεγάλη διερμηνεία"
  • As few Ottoman Turks ever learned European languages, from early times the majority of these men were of Christian origin—in the main Austrians, Hungarians, Poles, and Greeks (note 1; Bosworth 2000, p. 237)
    • "It still remained rare for Turks to have any knowledge of a Western language. The first mention which we have of a Turkish diplomat with such skills seems to be that of Sa'id Efendi, who had accompanied his father Mehmed Efendi when the latter went as ambasador to Paris in 1721 and who apparently acquired a good facility in spoken French. Only in the early 19th century did it become reasonably common to know a European language, usually French".
The discussion above 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.
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