Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Slavic cultures

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎. leaning Keep. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:41, 21 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of Slavic cultures

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WP:OR WP:UNSOURCED WP:CROSSCAT of language family – Slavic languages – and geography – almost all items in this list are named Culture of Fooland. The only one for which this does not apply is Lusatian culture, an archaeological culture which has been hypothesised to be linked to the Early Slavs, but the evidence of this (as with most archaeological cultures) is inconclusive.

The Slavic language family is WP:NONDEFINING for these countries, so this list is a WP:CROSSCAT. There is a strong consensus building on a long series of precedents to not mix up language families and countries/states, see the landmark decision Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Turkic dynasties and countries for an anthology. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:41, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Language, Geography, and Lists. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:41, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Europe-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 17:27, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Why the melodrama? There is no "landmark" decision, nor is one deletion discussion a "strong consensus building on a long series of precedents". This is about culture, not territory. Category:Slavic culture shows these culture articles listed there. These articles mention the slav people influencing these cultures. So totally different situation here. Dream Focus 00:57, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This is about culture, not territory. Well, let's have a look, shall we?
- - Belarusian culture redirects to Culture of Belarus
  - Russian culture redirects to Culture of Russia
  - Ruthenian culture redirects to Culture of Kievan Rus'
  - Ukrainian culture redirects to Culture of Ukraine
  - Bosnian culture redirects to Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina
  - Bulgarian culture redirects to Culture of Bulgaria
  - Croatian culture redirects to Culture of Croatia
  - Macedonian culture (Slavic) redirects to Macedonians (ethnic group)#Culture, whose "main article" is..... Culture of North Macedonia
  - Serbian culture redirects to Culture of Serbia
  - Montenegrin culture redirects to Culture of Montenegro
  - Slovenian culture redirects to Culture of Slovenia
  - Czech culture redirects to Culture of the Czech Republic
  - Kashubian culture does not exist
  - Lusatian culture is the only exception, but is not necessarily "Slavic"; its identity is disputed
  - Polabian culture redirects to Polabian Slavs, a medieval people, not a "culture"
  - Polish culture redirects to Culture of Poland
  - Silesian culture does not exist
  - Slovak culture redirects to Culture of Slovakia
  - Sorbian culture does not exist
See? It's all about territories, more specifically: countries. And these countries are overgeneralised as if they are entirely or most importantly defined by the language family to which the language spoken by the majority of native speakers in each country belongs to. That's it. That's all there is to it. This is a plainly trivial fact. We might as well be making a List of countries whose name ends on -ia. Other than this majority-of-population-of-country-X-are-native-speakers-of-a-language-belonging-to-the-Slavic-language-family link, these countries do not have anything uniquely "culturally" in common. In that sense it is exactly original research like the "Turkic" deletions before. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:32, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Despite Nederlandse Leeuw's claim culture and language are inextricably linked and many sources treat them together. Thus this article is very different from a cross categorization of political organization by language family. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The articles in question are about countries. Take the demographics of North Macedonia:

58.4% Macedonians

24.3% Albanians

3.9% Turks

2.5% Romani

Etc.

So Macedonians make up barely half of the population, while native speakers of non-Slavic languages make up about a third. How can we then say that Culture of North Macedonia is, by definition, "Slavic"? Seriously? We can't. This is just overgeneralisation and Wikipedia:Original research. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 06:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete a list of ethnicities would make more sense (though I don’t support it per listcruft). “Culture” is used on Wikipedia to refer to the culture of an area or group, not that area or group. This list makes no sense. Dronebogus (talk) 14:55, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge and redirect to Outline of Slavic history and culture#Culture. This quasi-disambiguation list is not useful as a standalone page, though this seems like a plausible search term, and this is an appropriate target article to redirect to. For now, at least, not sure if there are plans for AfD-ing or revamping the said article too, but the merge should be done regardless. –Vipz (talk) 07:48, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 23:26, 30 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Outline of Slavic history and culture#Culture as suggested by Vipz. I think this will improve both articles. —siro χ o 08:45, 31 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Strange list of countries with predominantly Slavic populations. Analogous to it would be List of German cultures, List of Baltic cultures, or List of Finno-Ugric cultures. I don't see the point of either redirecting or merging, too. Suitskvarts (talk) 17:49, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep. I hate list articles and even I see a strong value here. The list is about cultures, not territories. Nederlandse Leeuw's assertion otherwise completely ignores the last four decades when many of the those precise Slavic cultures attempted to cleanse each other. They thereby created territories and named them for the cultural identity they were claiming, not the other way round. Suitskvarts, are you saying we should AfD Germanic culture, Western Baltic culture and (although it's not the precise title) Andronovo culture? The articles exist and are pretty solid. Or is the problem the fact that it's a list? Attempting to pretend that (for instance) Elbeans and Bosnians had the same culture (and writing such an article) would raise howls of rage, but they each have a culture, and each has Slavic roots. Thus a list makes perfect sense. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 18:58, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Last1in I myself have Slavic roots and cultural studies is my specialty. I wouldn't mind a meaningful Slavic culture article, but this particular list is artificial. And one can keep repeating that it's allegedly not about territories, but it's obvious that these "non-territories" somehow coincide with modern states. And Slavic states in their modern form haven't existed that long ago. If tomorrow Belarus, for example, breaks up into Northern Belarus and Southern Belarus, we will immediately add to the list of articles North Belarusian culture and Southern Belarusian culture? Another serious issue is that apart from a language of common genesis, the Slavic countries don't have much in common. Their cuisine, religious tradition, literature, history, and culture (which is what we are focusing on here) often differ from each other more than from Slavic countries and their neighbors. Serbian culture is more similar to Hungarian culture than to Belarusian one. Poles have more in common with Lithuanians than with Macedonians. And so on, and so on. Suitskvarts (talk) 05:59, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear! Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 09:03, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CycloneYoris ^talk! 00:18, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 21:19, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's a plausible search term, especially the incoming redirect Slavic culture, so just redirect it to the better place and be done with it. --Joy (talk) 22:59, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment We could move this list to Slavic culture and turn it into a set index. —siro χ o 05:10, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Bulgaria-related deletion discussions. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 21:55, 8 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Merge and redirect to Outline of Slavic history and culture#Culture as proposed above. --Nk (talk) 07:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Final relist. My gut instinct is to close this as Merge to Outline of Slavic history and culture#Culture but there are strong arguments for Keep and Deletion that might lead to a No Consensus closure by another closer.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 01:09, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as it is useful to have a list of cultures here and it is of useful to have it for navigational purposes. DaniloDaysOfOurLives (talk) 05:45, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep A possible search term which works better as a list than a category. No problem with any proposed AtD, including merging. SportingFlyer T·C 11:24, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep, to echo Dream Focus, why the melodrama? This is only a navigational aid. A lot of people have no idea what countries contain people considered Slavic. It's impossible to sort out the extent to which a people is defined by their language or by their current geographical boundaries, or by their cookery or anything else; and the definition of a particular region, people, or culture gradually changes over time anyway, as boundaries move, people move, and people mix their ideas with their neighbours. Rather than arguing over what constitutes or defines Belarusian culture, lets accept that our readers may be interested in what cultural activities are associated with Belarus (the current country), with people who identify as Belarusian, or who speak Belarusian. And let's give them this list as a tool to find out more. Elemimele (talk) 12:19, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.