The last change switched "Tartu, or Dorpat (in German)" to "Tartu (formerly Dorpat)", which is of course wrong, because it simply depends who says what, or better, who uses what language, rather than on the time. Dorpat is the German, not the historical, name for Tartu, which, e.g., older Estonians, when speaking German (such as Lennart Meri), will still use today, just as the Baltic Germans will. It's interesting here because internationally, it was just much more used in any non-Estonian writing (incl. about all English-language one) until 1918. On the other hand, there was never a time when everyone was saying "Dorpat", as the current version implies. I'm just afraid that this change seems somehow politically motivated, and it's not sensible to get into a fight over this, at least not for me. Andres, if you read this, what do you think as the Estonian EE expert here? Clossius
- I agree with your point. I think that in the English Wikipedia "former name" means "former English name", and then this is not wrong, though not the whole truth. As to the German name, of course, Dorpat is the German name, but in German the name Tartu is used for political reasons. Lennart Meri apparently wanted to stress the historical closeness of Estonia to Germany or Germans.
- I think the situation cannot be explained by any short formula but a whole section should be dedicated to the names both in this article and in the article Tallinn where a similar change occurred. Andres 22:56, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)
Hi, I made the change. My main concern was that "Dorpat" and "Reval" should be bolded and close to the beginning of the article (and in the latter case, separated from a bunch of other alternate names that were never particularly used in English), since anyone reading an older English work would see the older name, and I think it's important that it be clear that these are indeed the same cities. The issue of names in places like this is obviously a difficult one. But surely "Dorpat" and "Reval" are closer to being former names than they are to being current German names. As far as I understand it, before 1918, the German names were primarily used in the west, as well as by the elites of the city themselves. After the independence of the Baltic states in 1918, the Estonian names, already in local use, became the official names. But would it be wrong to say that Dorpat and Reval were the official names of the cities before 1918, and that it was only after that that the official names were changed to Tartu and Tallinn? john 00:25, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)
- The official names of Tartu (in Russian) when under Russia were Derpt and then Yuryev, the official name of Tallinn was Revel. Under Soviet Union (except last years), the official name of Tallinn in the West often was perceived to be Tallinn, as this was the Russian official name. Andres 07:47, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)