Talk:Selckë

Edit summary needs explanation

This edit summary needs some explanation since it contradicts the correspodent inline reference [[1]]: De Rapper explains that the village was "full of filo-Grek" & filo-Greek was a term used in "Albanian propaganda" as per quote I've provided to define this part of the local population that supported the concept of Union of N.E. with the Greek state.Alexikoua (talk) 12:54, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I was hasty and didn't see this. Explained at length below. Cheers. --Yalens (talk) 15:19, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Hi Alexikoua, here's what the cited text area in De Rapper says :

These people are called in Albanian propaganda filogrek and seem to have been powerful enough at some times to force pro-Albanian families to leave Lunxhëri. It the interwar period for instance, the village of Selckë is said to have been ‘full of filogrek’ and an informant told me the story of her husband’s father, who secretly left the village one night with his wife, after a cousin told him that his pro-Albanian commitment did not please a powerful pro-Greek family. They left for America, while the pro-Greek family eventually left for Greece.

Here's what the text that it cites says:

According to Albanian historiography, during the Interwar Period the people of Selckë were strong supporters of the Greek national ideas and opposed Albanization

Does the source talk about "Albanian historiography? No. Indeed, filogrek is a bit of a colloquial term as the preferred term for supporters of Greek claims is in fact "shovinistë"-- chauvinist, equating Greek sentiment with outright bigotry and even racism. Yes I likely agree with you this is biased Alexikoua, but this is what "Albanian historiography" actually says. To be fair, sometimes you can find an Albanian source using "filogrek", but "shovinist' is the preferred academic term. The one mention of "Albanian historiography" in de Rapper discusses the term shovinist, not filogrek.

Does the source support the statement that " the people of Selckë were strong supporters of the Greek national ideas and opposed Albanization"? Some of them. Even in Selcke, a town the text notes that other Albanians in the region accuse of having many so-called "filogreke", it notes that there were indeed families of strong Albanian sentiments, who were forced to flee by powerful filogreks. Btw this is the hometown of Pandeli Sotiri as much as it is Zervas' hometown. But more importantly, the source says nothing about the region being "Albanized" which is typically taken to mean that a group of people that was once didn't speak Albanian became Albanian speakers by language replacement through force or other means. Indeed, de Rapper notes that throughout the modern period, the language of the region is Albanian, making it categorically impossible that such a process could have occurred in the modern era (in medieval times-- maybe, we do have Greek placenames here, but no source claims this that I know of). Hope that's all clear, it's more than clear to me, I think I've explained it quite thoroughly. Thanks. --Yalens (talk) 15:17, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Also on "already" -- this is clear peacock and isn't encyclopedic. Sometimes sources use peacock language but we shouldn't just uncritically reproduce it? Is 1868 is not particularly "early"? Afaik the Greek schooling system was much more advanced than that. . --Yalens (talk) 15:49, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

In the source by Kallivretakis (p. 34) notes that when it comes to the villages how demographics were in the 19th century for the most part are still the same today. De Rapper refers to shift toward Greek sentiments in the course of the 19th century not the other way around through Greek schooling etc and the Orthodox Aromanian element (some with Greek sentiments) being new arriving during communist rule. I am also curious about this sentence: "The village lies on the slopes of Mount Nemërçkë and is part of the Upper Pogoni (Greek: Άνω Πωγώνι) region, which is the northern part of the Pogoni region." Apart from the Greek source being inaccessible to double check, De Rapper notes that it belongs to Lunxheri in a ethnographic/geographic sense. The Albanian government only has added Selcke to Pogon commune (now added to the new Dropull municipality) in an administrative sense. Yet that sentence in the article implies that Selcke is part of the ethnographic/geographic region of (Upper) Pogoni. The sentence needs clarification and a link to the source be checked.Resnjari (talk) 19:35, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Yalens: According to the inline reference: Lunxhëri was actually included in the definition of Northern Epirus as a land of Hellenism that should have been given to the Greek state in 1913, and many families left the area, and Albania, during and after the First World War, to avoid becoming citizens of the new Albanian state. These people are called in Albanian propaganda filogrek. De Rapper offers a clear definition on what's filogrek, thus I won't disagree to change this part. Rapper also states that the specific villages is said to have been ‘full of filogrek’. To sum up: Does the source support the statement that " the people of Selckë were strong supporters of the Greek national ideas and opposed Albanization"? According to De Rapper "it is said that during the Interwar period Selckë was full such people". There is no reason to remove a perfectly cited part, De Rapper meets wp:ACADEMIC & SECONDARY. If you have a specific proposal to reword this part it's ok(I won't disagree about giving the neutral definition about filo-grek, although the text doesn't mention this). Nevertheless a complete removal of this part is inappropriate in this case.Alexikoua (talk) 22:50, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Filogrek is the Albanian equivalent of the English: Hellenophile. The past sentiments of Selcke being pro Greek are in no doubt, heck even Hammond came across that in the interwar period. However Kallivretakis notes the demographics of villages being the same in the 19th century and in the modern period with few exceptions. If "Albanianization" is included here, what does that mean in this context considering that the villagers have been speaking Albanian as a mother tongue for a long time (before the Albanian state) and De Rapper notes of Lunxheri that the pro-Greek sentiments about national ideas etc begins mid-to late 19th century through Greek schools, church etc (i.e Hellenisation).Resnjari (talk) 23:11, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Hellenophile does not contain the same pejorative connotation of national treason (to say the least) that filogrek does. Great that everyone seems to agree on removing the bit about Albanization. If we're going by what the source (de Rapper here) says, then we could add back the statement in the form of what he actually says -- that the village is said by others to have many filogreke. Of course the same source does note (as per sayings and family histories) that there were also people of Albanian sentiment there. All of this hearsay is not optimal and of course we don't have poll data from 1915. Of course Hammond might have some slightly more extensive and primary hearsay. Personally I don't think any of this nationalist controversy discussion belongs on the page about a tiny village, a wiki page that has almost nothing on it write now that doesn't in some way relate to nationalist disputes. It's one thing if it's on Albanian nationalism or even Korce but this is a tiny village and all the info about it is this one issue. Greeks don't really change how they treat someone based on if their great grandparents supported North Epirus, Albanians however... can make an issue of it within tribal village, confessional and regional politics, so having their village presented as "filogrek" can cause problems for real life people, even if its based on certain true facts. However, there is no BLP on Wikipedia for the inhabitants of small villages, and I might be outnumbered here, so I may have to accept its return, as long as the wording is backed by the source, if it's very important for the other parties that this material be here. Of course if my concerns here are well-taken, that is preferable. --Yalens (talk) 01:40, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Apart from the full removal about the fluit identities in the village including participation in both Greek&Albanian national movements (as De Rapper notes) a couple a new issues emerge: why is a non-Albanian speaker (especially English) supposed to understand the meaning of kurbet, as well as the Albanian translation of "autochthonous" (points to indigenous peoples per disambiguation page).Alexikoua (talk) 10:51, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Kurbet: Meant to link this but the link pointed to some Roma creole. Imo people reading about Selcke should probably know what it means. Better safe than sorry though-- I changed it to "emigration".

Identity fluidity: No, the page did not talk about identity fluidity before, instead it cherrypicked (intentionally or not) what de Rapper said so it could talk about some Greek patriots who opposed (OR!) "Albanization", while the pressuring of at least one pro-Albanian family to leave by a pro-Greek in Selcke (more elsewhere in Lunxheri) as well as Pandeli Sotiri (both explicitly mentioned by de Rapper!) were omitted. As it stands there is still plenty of discussion of Greek nationalists in the village, including probably undue mention of this "Dimitrios" who doesn't have his own page. However, if you want to add in what de Rapper actually said -- that the village's neighbors talk about many so-called "filogrek" in the village historically, (he also mentions pro-Albanians being discussed from Selcke, but this somehow didn't make it into the page) sure, as long as it is what he says and not more OR "Albanization" blurbs. Also, moving forward, we can talk about the "fluidity" of identities if you want because de Rapper does mention that. That's not nearly as damning as calling a whole village traitors. (Indeed, if we're going to talk about "identity fluidity" on Wikipedia in general, perhaps it is also important to note that many of the Orthodox didn't adhere to any one particular nationalism and were instead pragmatic or "moderate", even many Greek speakers were quite comfortable with the Ottoman state, and of the Orthodox peasantry many weren't exactly nationalist but simply were land starved and would back whatever faction offered them land... rather than anachronistically projecting modern forms of national identities back in time :) )

Autochthonous: use of that word is central to Lunxhot identity, especially as a way to differentiate themselves from the "newcomers", i.e. the Labs and the Vlachs who they won't marry and won't let into their cultural organizations. Of course, I'm aware that thanks to it also being used ad nauseam by wider Albanian nationalism, some neighboring peoples have become allergic to the sight of it. Sorry I may be feeling a bit feisty today in the commentary :). How about "native" instead? --Yalens (talk) 15:21, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Sure change to native will be ok. Alexikoua (talk) 20:53, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

@Alexikoua, do you have a link to the Koltsida source to double check the sentence on Lunxheri being part of Upper Pogoni (to verify whether he meant the ethnographic/geographic region or administrative one in Albania)?Resnjari (talk) 04:33, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

There is already a link in sources section. You can click also here (read online and then to p. 90 "Πάνω Πωγώνι" paragraph) [[2]]Alexikoua (talk) 09:00, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Recent Changes

@Khirurg: Regarding the changes to Selcka's article. They are general civil registry numbers and are by no means determinative. Under the table of the source its written "Data provided Communes and Municipalities, former local administrative unit before the Territorial Reform, in Albania." So the municipality has no information at all how many Greeks or Albanians there are, this would be inconceivable both in legal and logical terms. Imagine if the Albanian-majority municipalities say how many Greeks there are in their area. Check this also. We know from many sources that there are Albanians there, I even suggest that one day you go there and see it with your own eyes. If you add the figures to the source you presented, they appear more than they are in the civil registry of the same year. At least those numbers are not reliable.Bes-ARTTalk 18:35, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Professor of linguistics (in Tirana university with several publications) claimed unreliable and removed on sight

Strong claims need strong arguments and Spirou is definitely correct in this case and reliable. Simply removing RS with abstract arguments because he simply doesn't support a specifc national POV falls into non-productive editting. Ktrimi has a weird taste of RS since he supports authors with a clear self-declared POV tendency (Pearson a self declared pro-royalist [[3]]) while Spirou has never received negative reviews among the scholarly community.Alexikoua (talk) 18:21, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Already 3 diferrent editors are coordinating their efforts removing Spirou. No talkpage participation, just increased revert warring firepower as a reponse.Alexikoua (talk) 18:25, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

This was discussed back in October or November and there is no need to return to this every now and then. Spiro in the same sentence says that Greek is the first language in Delvina, which is obviously wrong. Such a claim could be expected somewhere other than an academic book. As such that sentence in Spiro is far from the standards of an excyclopedia. The reliability of a source depends on the context. Some statements might be reliable, others just not. As a village with 3 ethnic groups, this needs much better sourcing. Selckë nowhere in academic studies is mentioned as having Greek its first language and Albanian as the second (what about Aromanian btw?). Ktrimi has a weird taste of RS since he supports authors with a clear self-declared POV tendency (Pearson a self declared pro-royalist) Not sure what you are trying to say, but anyways. Your addition was Spiro was opposed by other editors too. You can also open an RfC and seek output from the community, though as an obscure village this is not likely to draw much attention and input. Ktrimi991 (talk) 18:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

I fail to see a case in RSN which Spirou is turned non-RS, that's your personal abstract speculation. Is there any issue with Spirou's claim about this article? Definitely not, but still you remove him on sight. Ktrimi has a weird taste of RS since he supports authors with a clear self-declared POV tendency (Pearson a self declared pro-royalist): You remove sources because they simply don't serve a specific national POV but advocating in favor of Pearson a self-declared pro-Zogist.Alexikoua (talk) 18:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)