On Wed, Oct 29, 2003 at 07:03:56PM -0800, Delirium wrote:
This makes sense for some of the names, but I
don't think for all. For
example, "Danzig" was until 1945 the generally accepted English name for
that city, so I think speaking of someone like Arthur Schopenhauer (a
German born in 1780) being "born in Gdansk" is a little bit
anachronistic, and speaking of him being "born in Danzig (modern-day
[[Gdansk]], [[Poland]])" is more accurate. I think we should generally
use the name that would've been used by the person if it's clear, and
otherwise prefer the modern name. So, Constantinople (not Istanbul) for
the Byzantines; Danzig (not Gdansk) and Koenigsberg (not Kaliningrad)
for 18th-century Germans, but Warsaw for everyone in all time periods, etc.
The main impetus behind this suggestion is that it seems odd to say
someone was born in a city that they wouldn't have called by that
name--if Schopenhauer thought he was born in Danzig, and in fact
mentioned Danzig in his writings, then that's what we should call his
birthplace.
However, I do think your argument has convinced me to use the modern
names when discussing the general history, if former names are unclear,
which I think is how it currently is: [[Gdansk]] refers to the city by
that name throughout the history section, including the
16th/17th/18th/19th centuries. That seems fine to me. It's be wrong to
refer to 16th-century [[Kaliningrad]] though.
So perhaps unfortunately we need to do it on a case-by-case basis?
Gdansk definitely was never a "German" city. Its Slavonic name is original,
and Slavonic inhabitants of that city has been always calling it that way.
That Germans living there used different name doesn't matter much (it wasn't a
"different"
name, it was just a phonetical transformation of Slavonic name). It'd be silly
to use the name "Gdansk" for period from medieval times to about XVIII century,
when it was taken over by Prussia, switch to "Danzig" for XIX and early XX
century,
and then back to Slavonic name in XX century back - people living there
didnt't all suddenly turn German. And it's completely idiotic
to use name "Danzig" before it existed.
"Poznan'"/"Posen" is in similar situation,
but it was even less German than Gdansk.
But Kaliningrad is completely different matter - it wasn't a Russian city before
after the Second World War. But it had a Polish name of "Kro'lewiec" too.