Talk:Zachlumia

who lives in Hum in middle ages

Yea, in his very broad synthesis "The Late Medieval Balkans", on p.20 Fine speaks of Serbs in Hum. However, he refers to ruling class, which will become much clearer later, first in the same book and then in other writings. But, to banish any and all doubts, we will use same researcher, Fine, only his much later and much more focused research - instead of his synthesis from 1987, we will use his monograph from 2005, titled "When Ethnicity Didn't Matter", in which he analyses this very particular issue in much more focused and direct approach. So, Fine abandons nomenclature used in 1987, and changed ethnonym "Serbs" in favor of label "Slavs" in 2005 - see "When Ethnicity Didn't Matter", pp.94 - 98, or if interested you can broadened your reading all the way through pp. 67 to 174, which comprises two chapters. By the way, we are obligated with a WP:AGEMATTERS to use most recent scholarship, whenever that seems reasonable or possible - in this case we have one and the same scholar and his two books from different periods, with different view.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 18:51, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

First of the book is from 1994 not from 1987, second there is no direct rule on [WP:AGEMATTERS] when exactly age is to old to be applied, third it is funny you did not removed Vlachs even though he does not mention them but you removed Serbs. I am restoring according to source and fourth there are other sources from Fine where he mentions that Zachlumia was a Serbian land. See early medieval Balkans Theonewithreason (talk) 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I am adding a source here (open access) pg 20 so that everybody can read what is written [[1]]. Theonewithreason (talk) 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Why should I remove Vlachs? J.A. Fine changed his view, if one can even say that, on one label not the other. And no, age matters very much, especially with scholarship/research. Yes, early region was ruled by Serbian dynasty sometimes, sometime by Croatian, and sometimes it was governed by local indigenous župans, who were not Serbs (gospoda Srpska) nor Croats. However, it appears that article is characterized by a tug-war between two groups of editors, whose competing view is based on injecting ethnicity into a narrative describing medieval topic. This mostly revolves around enduring misunderstanding, or confusing ruling elite use of labels, which we today recognize as ethnic, with peasantry, which never developed any kind of sense of common identity beyond tribal and local.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 20:16, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Vlachs should be removed because they are not mentioned in this particular quote or in source and because even Fine goes on saying that they were more of shepherd community with mixing of Slavs and Vlachs since 12. century, Fine did not changed his opinion because even in the book "When ethnicity..." he translated the views of Goldstein and some other regional historians and the views were presented mostly around the land that surrounded Dubrovnik not whole land of Zachlumia actually the whole book deals only with what is today Croatia and wath authors are talking about Croatians and Croatia, Hum was more than just Dubrovnik, especially not the inner parts, peasantry did identified itself at that times with their lords and the lords during that part of history were Serbs, there are other sources from 11. century that are calling different regional rulers "archons of Serbs" meaning that ethnic identification started in that period, giving also the fact of influence of Serbian orthodox church in the area, it is obvious that Serbs did inhabited Zachlumia. Theonewithreason (talk) 21 July 2021 (UTC)

I have to check it again, but as far as I remember, Fine 1994 says on page 19 that Hum's population had Slavic speakers and Vlachs. On page 20 he says that the largest part of the interior had Orthodox Serbs, while the areas near the Adriatic, including the capital, had mixed Orthodox and Catholic populations. He does not specify whether those Orthodox people, and especially Catholics, were Serbs or not. Check the source on both pages. I will do the same. Ktrimi991 (talk) 20:49, 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes inner parts Serbs, around Ston mixed catholic and orthodox population Theonewithreason (talk) 21 July 2021 (UTC)

Everything I said earlier is confirmed by introduction of yet another messy line in the article, where the editor unnecessarily insists on a non-existent ethnicity and labels. The editor also ignored WP: AGEMATTERS, which in this case and in this particular context is really blatant - we use one and the same author and his two books, one from 1987 and the other from 2005 in which he updated his attitude on ethnicity by completely rejecting it. Editors, guided by their emotional (irrational) motives, persistently insist on introducing ethnic labels into the article, which is wrong because these labels are absolutely unknown in a given space at a given time (Middle Ages) when used in a manner known to us since 19th century to this day. In this way, the article (sentence, paragraph) puts readers in a situation to deal with contradictory claims, which are referenced to two good books by the same author, but ignoring the fact that this author has, in the meantime, completely revised some of his views, especially those concerning ethnic labeling in the sense of modern ethnic names, and which the author in this second, 20 years newer book, which also represents his far more extensive, detailed and focused study-research on the topic of ethnicity, completely and absolutely rejects! (See my first two TP posts.)--౪ Santa ౪^99° 08:18, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I am not ignoring anything, the source is clear, claims are definitely not contradictory because the book "When ethnicity did not matter" by Fine deals only with the territory of today Croatia, meaning Dubrovnik and surroundings, not mentioning inner Zachlumia and also Fine in the book only transfers what Goldstein thinks, Fine did not change his opinion, the formation of Serb identity was already present earlier and known, because lot of these rulers were called "Archon of Serbs" or "Lords of Serbs" by the Byzantines, so the fact is that the WP:RS is the main policy to be respected here. And Fine is reliable source. Theonewithreason (talk) 22.July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, you do, all that and some more - you are trying to squeeze the author’s view of the ethnicity he has abandoned. The fact that you are now trying to plant the extremely incorrect (both ethically and factually) understanding of his research in the book, one that is more recent one, is a matter of the editor's integrity and ethical approach to the project (Wikipedia). As for the development of identity among the South Slavs, there are two approaches: one is anachronistic and nationalistic, abused by politicians, generals, but also academics and intellectuals; the other is an expertly, scientific, which gave us everything that we could learn about it, considering the development of the research branch itself. You refer to the former, which can be read from your misunderstanding of the medieval notion of labels "Serb(s)" (Gospoda Srpska), "Bosnian(s)" (Dobri Bošnjani), while Fine's book "When Ethnicity" speaks the most about medieval Croats. After all, trying to talk about identity the way you do it is hard sell on the English Wikipedia, because there are too many high quality sources available on the Internet in refutation of such views - here, just this book by Fine shatters such illusions, and there are far better ones, written by historians and anthropologists who deal exclusively with ethnic identity - but for a start read “When Ethnicity” on Google books, it’s almost entirely in their preview, or at least its Introduction.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 10:02, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

He did not abandoned anything. That is your opinion and it goes under WP:SYNTH because you are using misinterpretation of the sources (quote: do not make conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources.), you are quoting the book that has nothing to do with Zachlumia (most of it, but present day Croatia), you are giving your personal opinion about the author not knowing anything about them and by removing Serbs from the list (even though it is well sourced) and yes there are other authors that also mentioning Serbs living at that time in Zachlumia like Stephenson, so no it is not a hard sell on english wikipedia because it is well and clearly sourced by foreign authors, and I did read the book and its introduction and it clearly deals only with the territory of present Croatia, that excludes inner Hum, Fine is clear, source is also clear. Theonewithreason (talk) 22.July 2021 (UTC)

You should at least read (and try to understand) these policies first (like WP:SYNTH), before you decide to cite them. Back to Fine - And in fact such political “Croats” (or Serbs or whatever) may, as we shall see, have actually identified themselves as “Slavs.” ; But if these incorporated individuals feel that they are still part of a Croat community even though they now live beyond the borders of a Croat state and that they are, therefore, Croats—and in this example not Hungarians — then they are on the way to acquiring an ethnic identity. Such feelings, or at least evidence of them, as we shall see, were very rare in the Middle Ages; thus I shall argue that most South Slavs mentioned with specifc national-type names in our sources were such by political affliation, namely that the individuals so labeled served the given state’s ruler, and cannot be considered ethnic Croats, Serbs, or whatever.--౪ Santa ౪^99° 11:59, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

More Fine: My research on the Balkan peoples in the Middle Ages indicates that an identity label like “Croat” or “Serb,” when we do find it in medieval texts, was drawn from the geographical region or more frequently the state name in which the identified person lived..--౪ Santa ౪^99° 12:09, 22 July 2021 (UTC)