Talk:Saxony

Split up Saxony and Free State of Saxony?

I think the history of upper and lower Saxony needs to be kept completely separate, otherways it gets confusing

--Yak 13:56, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)

This article is about Saxony, one of the sixteen German Bundesländer. It is not a country. Lower Saxony is another Bundesland, and is also not a country. Upper Saxony I've never heard of. -- Timwi 14:19, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

if it is an article about the german Bundesland, it should start in 1990, when it was created. But the section obviously referrs to the electorate/kingdom of Saxony as well. Upper Saxony was used from the 16th century onwards to distinguish the Meißen area (in the electorate of Saxony) from lower Saxony.

I simply find a reference to the Saxon tribes of the early middle age confusing in an article that deals with a German Bundesland. The Name "saxony" for the present day bundesland arose for dynastic reasons, there is no "ethnic" or whatever connection to the Saxon tribe or the population of Niedersachsen

--Yak 14:32, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)

i claim that all references to the historical (and nebulous) Saxony should be linking to Duchy of Saxony, not Saxony. for example, Charlemagne conquered Saxony, which page should be linked? he didnt even conquer all of what is now called Lower Saxony and referred to by 'Saxony', and was nowhere near (Upper) Saxony which is the link provided. Burgher 04:11, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why not retitle the article Free State of Saxony and make an article about the historical use of the term under Saxony?

I agree. Started new article Saxony (disambiguation). There is also another new article called History of Saxony. Petri Krohn 19:28, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Bundesland

"Bundesland" is German and means "Federal Country" in English. All states in germany are basically independent countries with their own flags and anthems. The states decided to give up their souvereignity and form a federation but basically every state is able to leave the union whenever it wants.

Not true. Articles 31, 32 and 37 of the German constitution (Grundgesetz) make it pretty clear that the states are subordinate to the federal government and cannot leave the federation. "Land" can mean country, but that's not its only meaning. --Chl 22:35, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Is the anonymous poster above suggesting that the term "Bundesland" is used wrongly or translated wrongly in the article on Saxony, and if so, which part of the article is he or she referring to? BTW, the article on States of Germany explains what they are pretty well. Saint|swithin 09:33, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

What does this sentence mean?

"After 1918 Saxony was a state in the Weimar Republic and was the scene of Gustav Stresemann's overthrow of the KPD/SPD led government in 1923, during the Nazi era and under Soviet occupation." Candidus 13:41, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Meaning of “Freistaat”

Freistaat does not mean free state but republic. See de:Freistaat. Ulf-S. 11:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

The official translation, used by the state itself, is "Free State". Republic is a more general term. See Free state (government) clearing the german meaning. Geo-Loge 20:41, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I know, but that is nonsense. I love my language but I do not see any reason to germanise the English language. It is the same with articles like Minister-President. I do not want German state officers to regulate the English language. Ulf-S. 22:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Compounds are very exact regulated in German, due to that grammer the best translation of Ministerpräsident would be "the minister's president" (if there is everytime only one other member of government, the german term would by "Ministerspräsident" too ;-) ). To transfer the word sense behind the cruel transformation would be a way of avoiding wrong german nouns in the English language in my opinion. (For example the german noun for "prime minister" is Premierminister.)

Freistaat is a historic term as like "Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg" or "Free and Hanseatic City of Bremen". "Free State" or "Free and Hanseatic City" are the objects discribed by the Lemmas! Bundesrepublik is not exactly the same as "Federal Republic". Lost in Translation: The german nouns Union, Föderation and Bund differ in their (historic) aspect of meaning.

"Free State of Saxony" is a proper name as like "Federal Republic of Germany" or "District of Columbia". As a proper name it has to be used aslike official declared and official translated! By the way: "District of Columbia" is also the name of the area in German language and not the "Kolumbianischer Distrikt" due to the fact that any word in german could concur exactly.

Some translation only generates weltschmerz... ;-) Geo-Loge 01:29, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary. If native speakers of the English language use some words of German origin, the lemma is the same as in German. But it is ridiculous that German editors who like to see German lemmas in an English dictionary decide what lemmas to use. We do not need here a translation of “Ministerpräsident”. Such person heads (in French présider, from Latin prae and sidere) an administration consisting of ministers. That is in English prime minister.

Saxony is in fact a republic. Let us call it what it is. That Germans sometimes prefer “Freistaat” and sometimes “Republik” does not matter English readers at all. Please find another place for presenting the German language to English-speakers. Ulf-S. 13:49, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

"Minister-President" is used in English sometimes, while sometimes "Prime Minister" or "Premier" is used. When we are being formal and trying to stick close to the original, "Minister-President" is best. In other contexts, we should perhaps prefer "Prime Minister." But it's nonsense to suggest that it is never used in English. The French, by the way, use or used Président du conseil des ministres in much the same way. Again, this is sometimes translated as "Prime Minister" or "Premier," but at other times the more formal and exact "President of the Council of Ministers" i s used. It depends what one's exact purpose is. As far as Freistaat, I've never seen that translated as "Republic." "Free State" is always used, as far as I am aware. Saxony is a republic. But it is called the Free State of Saxony, not the Republic of Saxony. The United States is also a federal republic, but the Germans don't call it the Bundesrepublik Amerika. They call it the Vereinigte Staaten. Ulf, given that you are not yourself a native speaker of English, it is odd to see you calling out your fellow native German-speakers for supposed crimes against English. I'm a native English-speaker, and I've certainly come across both "Free State" and "Minister-President" in English. john k 00:54, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

I never heard anyone (not in the official constitution of the Free State of Saxony nor in common speech) calling the Free State a “Republik” or saying “Republik” instead of Free State nevertheless the Free State is a kind of republic. The Germans never prefer “Republik”. Geo-Loge 07:56, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Move to Free State of Saxony

I have moved the article from Saxony to Free State of Saxony. Of almost 2000 links to Saxony only some 25 where about the modern federal state. I have changed these to link to the Free State of Saxony. I have also redirected Saxony to Saxony (disambiguation) and updated the dab page. It should in fact be renamed Saxony.

There are now some 2000 links to disambiguate. This will be a difficult task, as it is sometimes impossible to know which Saxony is refered to in the older sources. Dates do help. -- Petri Krohn 08:07, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I underestimated the number of articles related to the Free State, there are 178 articles on the catergory Towns in Saxony, most of these autogenerated stubs also inclueded in Category:Saxony geography stubs. I am working on disambiguating these, so far I have gone through the letter A :-( -- Petri Krohn 08:59, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this way is not very common: Germany is not the same as the Federal Republic of Germany and so Saxony is not the same as the Free State of Saxony. The Federal Republic and the Free State are the bodies covering the geographic areas. Saying "Bund" or Freistaat germans mean the bodies (consisting of the political institutions, authorities etc.) and saying Germany or Saxony they mean the more comprehensive nations and countries. Geo-Loge 11:40, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I think this move to "Free State of Saxony" is a bad idea. IMO the most common present use of "Saxony" is the present federal state of Germany, and not the pre-1918 kingdom or the medieval Saxonies. Same for Bavaria and Thuringia (also Freistaaten). I don't think confusion with Saxony-Anhalt and Lower Saxony is an argument, they're covered by the disambiguation. Markussep 11:22, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Markussep and think that present-day use should prevail. In present-day use, Saxony means the current state. The high number of links pointing to medieval Saxony or the Kingdom of Saxony is probably caused by imports from the 1911 Britannica (the Free State didn't exist yet in 1911), which points to a problem with the wikification of the 1911 articles, and not to a problem with the naming of this article. (Note that Kingdom of Saxony could reasonably be merged into this article -- the Kingdom is identical to the current state, except for the change in constitution.) Chl 16:38, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

The Free State of Saxony is, basically, the same thing as the Kingdom of Saxony, just as the French Republic is the same thing as the Kingdom of France. Why should there be separate articles on two territories which shared exactly the same territory? john k 22:45, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

There are separate articles on French history, including articles on the French First Republic (1792–1804), the First French Empire (1804–1814), July Monarchy (1830–1848), French Second Republic (1848–1852), Second French Empire (1852–1870), French Third Republic (1870–1940), all corresponding to the time period of the Kingdom of Saxony. -- Petri Krohn 11:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

The federal Free State of Saxony was created after the DDR, it has very little political continuity with the previous Free State and even less with Kingdom of Saxony. It shares the territory as Kingdom of Saxony after 1816 but not from 1806 - 1816.

You are free to propose merging Kingdom of Saxony to Free State of Saxony. I would however strongly object to calling this combined article Saxony, as most links to Saxony in Wikipedia are either general or to previous states located in other locations. -- Petri Krohn 11:06, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Here's my basic issue: the Electorate of Saxony as it existed from 1547 on, has a continuity with the Kingdom of Saxony which was created in 1806, with the Free State of Saxony between 1918 and 1945, and (with an interval during the life of the DDR) with the current Free State of Saxony. It seems that it is this entity which ought to be dealt with at the article Saxony. There are other meanings of Saxony - notably the old Stem Duchy, which ought to be dealt with on their own. Separate articles on separate past manifestations seems appropriate. But to have Saxony as a disambiguation page seems wrong. France is not a disambiguation page, nor is Bavaria. john k 15:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Here is mine: The Saxons were once among the mightiest people in Europe. They conquered England, ruled Holy Roman Empire as the Ottonian Dynasty, dominated the Hansa, and lent their name to the whole German people in some languages. Their own language was understood, if not spoken and writted from England to the Gulf of Finland. If history had turned out differently, I believe the Saxons, or their modern successors the Low Saxons and Baltic Germans would have a far better claim to a separate national identity and history, than say, the Ukrainians.

The inhabitans of the Free State of Saxony are not Saxons but Germans. (If they are, it is only by name.) They speak the High German language, very different from the Low German of the Saxons. The Free State is south of the Benrath line and thus unlike "Low" Saxony it went through the High German consonant shift.

I would define "Saxon" primarily as speaker of the Middle Low German language. The "Free State Saxons" fail this test. -- Petri Krohn 05:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

P.S. I would rename History of Saxony to Saxony, or at least redirect Saxony to History. The EB1911 Catholic Encyclopedia based article is however in such a sorry state that it is almost unusable. It sould be completely rewritten, starting from the material in Free State of Saxony. Most of the present CE material should be split and merged with the corresponding "XX of Saxony" articles. On the other hand, there is plenty of disambugution work to be done, so it may be a good idea to have Saxony redirect to the disambiguation page for a while, to get this work started. -- Petri Krohn 06:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

To judge from the above discussion, it doesn't look like the move from Saxony to Free State of Saxony -- and especially the fact that Saxony is now a redirect to History of Saxony has met with much support at all. Kusma has also objected to it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany#Saxony, and I concur. I think Free State of Saxony should be moved back to its original name of Saxony. —Angr 08:41, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The page should be moved back. The name Freistaat Sachsen is also almost unused in Germany. Saxony is the correct title for this article, just like Bavaria is not at Free State of Bavaria. I understand that there is a disambiguation problem, but it is the same kind of problem that Germany has (and we don't let that be a disambiguation page either). Kusma (討論) 08:45, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I have continued the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Germany#Saxony. -- Petri Krohn 05:11, 4 November 2006 (UTC)