# Talk:Elisabeth Bagréeff-Speransky

Dickinson noted in 2019 that Russian Wikipedia contained a variant story of Speranskaya's life. Having read the source, it is based on a diary entry by Korff from 23 January 1843 and refers to a single incident in her life and his speculation about it. The diary remained unpublished for 161 years, but Korff did write other articles about her which were published. His statements do not appear to be supported by published accounts of her life in other sources, including Korff's own published information about her. Duret specifically refutes the claims made by Korff and gives a completely different version of Speranskaya and her husband's meeting in 1842. As the information appears to violate WP:UNDUE for English.wp, Korff's private thoughts and unsubstantiated claim from his diary should not be introduced to the article. SusunW (talk) 14:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC) SusunW (talk) 14:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Elisabeth Bagréeff-Speransky/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Lingzhi.Renascence (talk · contribs) 06:36, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

 
Hi SusunW. I'll take a look at this. Please be aware that I am just re-starting GAN reviews after a hiatus of years, and have forgotten many things. But I hope I can do a thorough job. § Lingzhi.Renascence (talk) 06:36, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Lingzhi.Renascence thank you so much for picking this up. It was a challenging article to write and had it not been for all of the language and sourcing help by GRuban and Kusma, she would likely never have been written. Between all of the Elizabeths, the old Russian and German scripts, the family secrets, it was perhaps one of the most difficult biographies I have written. It did help that Kusma and I had spent a long time ferreting out sources for her grandmother and Planta great-aunts. I look forward to collaborating with you to improve it. SusunW (talk) 13:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Wow there are 13 instances of "Elizabeth" and 9 of "Elisabeth". I'll need to check those.
LOL. This family was very fond of the name Elizabeth/Elisabeth. (Her grandmother, and mother were both Elizabeth Stephens and her grandmother (née Planta) also had a sister also named Elizabeth. Who would name two living children the same name? Nightmare to sort.) But, I titled the article as she signed her works, assuming she knew what she wished to be called, Elizabeth refers to her mother, and Eliza to her grandmother. SusunW (talk) 13:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
This is our unfinished draft for grandma Eliza and here is Eliza's sister Elizabeth. Both Eliza and Elizabeth worked for the same employer. As Susun said, a bit of a nightmare to sort, but a very interesting family :) —Kusma (talk) 14:10, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
And I didn't even mention that Eliza (the grandmother) was actually Anna Elizabeth and had a different sister named Anna who moved the the United States. o.0 SusunW (talk) 15:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
There are several references to places she traveled. Are these stops all noteworthy?
Hard question, but I think the fact that we know all the places she went is noteworthy in and of itself. In this time period, knowing anything about women is pretty rare. In any period, traveling as much as she did is unusual (for anyone). So, I kind of fall on the side that we need them to show how extensive her travels were, but am glad to discuss it further. SusunW (talk) 13:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Is there a difference between "Sparanskaya" and "Speranskaya"
Sorry, just a typo. Fixed. SusunW (talk) 13:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
"She sold her jewels to repay his business debts and her father had to renegotiate his debts to prevent the loss of their estate at Velyka Burimka" I see the part in body text where she sold her jewels, but not where her father renegotiated the debts... will keep looking... § Lingzhi.Renascence (talk) 07:16, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
The loans were in Speransky's name, thus he had to renegotiate the terms to prevent the foreclosure. If you think that approaches OR, I can say "She sold her jewels to repay his business debts in 1824 and a decade later had to renegotiate Frolov-Bagreev's debts to prevent the loss of their estate...", but I am fairly sure that a woman, particularly a married one, at that time would not have been able to negotiate with a bank.  SusunW (talk) 14:27, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Alas, unless there is a source about Bagréeff-Speransky which specifically links her medical condition to the source "Alexander, J. Browning (December 1953)" (the stuff about tuberculosis), you may be running afoul of WP:OR. But fear not, I won't quick-fail. Seems to be a tiny instance, easily rectified. § Lingzhi.Renascence (talk) 07:26, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Okay, so first the note does not refer to the subject (Bagréeff-Speransky) but to her mother Elizabeth Stephens Speranskaya. Because we are dealing here with very old sources, and in a time period where medicine and even anatomy wasn't well understood, the question Kusma and I were dealing with was whether it was even possible for tuberculosis to occur from an injury. As multiple sources made the claim, it seemed necessary to confirm whether it was based upon something real, or a misunderstanding/lack of knowledge of the disease. Browning confirms that the claim was indeed possible. I did not draw a conclusion that Browning was referring to the mother, but felt that the situation had to be addressed. Since both Kusma and I wondered if an injury could have caused her tuberculosis, it seemed reasonable that other readers would have the same question. Happy to reword it if you think it needs to be done, but to my mind, it is a necessary explanation. SusunW (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Your References etc. are all quite well-formed. Kudos to you. [Hands up who's a nerd... that would be me...] § Lingzhi.Renascence (talk) 07:28, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
Thanks, I'm a bit (okay maybe a lot) OCD. SusunW (talk) 14:45, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
"Her novel Irene focused on the benefits of education and was compared by Blackwood to the works by Maria Edgeworth."{{sfn|Blackwood|1874b|p=292}} As nearly as I can tell, the page is 167, and Blackwood is not comparing the novels of EBS to Edgeworth; he is comparing EBS herself to Edgeworth. Are all the Blackwwod pages wrong, or am I wrong about the page? § Lingzhi.Renascence (talk) 12:24, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
There are two articles, part I (February) and part II (March), in Blackwood. He does say she might "become a Maria Edgeworth" on 167, but on p 292..."'Irene,' a novel on the benefits of education, which only saw the light in 1867, and which is perhaps the most Edgeworthian..." SusunW (talk) 15:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)
I am happy to discuss any of it further, as the goal is to make it comprehensive and verifiable. As I said, it was incredibly confusing with all of the name sames and archaic writing styles. That was compounded by all of the various language sources, with slightly different interpretations of events. I appreciate your work to help improve it. SusunW (talk) 15:04, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

SusunW and Kusma, I am a little pressed for time today, but I have a potentially helpful suggestion. I have a vague feeling that there are perhaps extraneous details in this article and in the working drafts that Kusma linked to. I may be wrong; I will look more closely later. I know it's difficult to choose "what to leave in and what to leave out". Following the "murder your darlings" philosophy, one approach is this: Make a timeline of all the major events in the subject's life (and only the subject's life!). Actually draw a line with points on it on a scrap piece of paper. Then at each point, write below it any people who directly influenced that particular event. Forex, the starting point of "birth" is obviously directly influenced by "mother and father". :-) Then there are additional and more nebulous considerations, but even with these, merciless cutting is good. For something as nebulous as "philosophical influence", forex, nail down exactly what specific kind of influence was exerted, in a brief list of bullet points. Then by each bullet point, name who and how influenced the main subject in that aspect. Then stick briefly to those details when discussing the person who philosophically influenced the main subject. This approach helps trim away rabbit trails and additions or supplements that do not have a direct, observable (and verifiable in WP:RS) impact on the main subject. Once you have the bare bones version of the article, you can (very sparingly!) add in a ruthlessly small number of the things you've deleted but think "really just can't be left out". Sorry to type so much, but not sure I can look at the article in detail today. § Lingzhi.Renascence (talk) 02:37, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
I agree that when preparing an article for FA, I follow a similar approach – basically rewriting it from scratch. Although, I think most women did not have the luxury of being influenced by people and following a passion. Generally speaking, their lives were dictated by constraints of custom and family. IMO, that makes writing about historical women much harder because the context of custom and law which limited their lives is not widely taught or known. In my experience, most people do not easily recognize how remarkable what appears to be a meager accomplishment was in their era. Thus, figuring out what context is missing is an extra challenge. One of the reasons I take an article through a review process is to discover what context is needed, as often what I think is general knowledge is not well known. SusunW (talk) 15:31, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Some initial suggestions for deletion:
"Hers was an unhappy marriage according to family members and produced only one son, Mikhail Rodionovich Cantacuzène [ru], who was born in "
Removed some of the text and rearranged some of the text. SusunW (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
"For a second time, she chose to travel to distract herself from distress over the loss of her son. She left Velyka Burimka in January 1846 to take a cure for gout at Baden bei Wien. After four months in Vienna, Speranskaya spent two months in Paris and then traveled on to Brussels, Basel, Geneva, Florence and Venice, before arriving in Trieste where her daughter was married that year on 19 November. After the wedding, Speranskaya resumed traveling, going to Egypt and Palestine"
Travel for her was an obsession and coping mechanism. (Blackwood p 292 "travel grew at once into a habit and a passion".) It was also the inspiration of many of her written works. (Blackwood p 293: "she  travelled to Egypt, to the Holy Land — whither she had vowed to make a pilgrimage — to England, to Vienna, to Paris, to Brussels, and to Hungary. These travels form the ground-plans of many of her novels.") Likewise Duret gives even more details of her travel. As I said earlier, I fall on the side that the detail is necessary to show how extensive her travels were (especially as a woman traveling alone) and to tie them to her writing. SusunW (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
"Traveling through Galicia, she and her daughter made their way through Podolia to Volhynia and Kyiv before arriving in Poltava near her estate"
See above. SusunW (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
They went to Bavaria and stayed at Bad Kissingen and then Bad Gastein before wintering in Frankfurt. They returned to the Bavarian baths in the summer of 1840. She also took short trips to England to visit her family there and to Darmstadt in Germany.[89] Speranskaya and her daughter then visited the Duchy of Salzburg and traveled by steamboat down the Danube to Vienna. In May 1841, they left the Austrian capital and traveled to Styria, continuing through the Illyrian Provinces to Lucerne in Switzerland and on to northern Italy.{{highlight: Keep this:  During her travels, she wrote poetry in English.[90]}} They returned to Austria, staying first in Baden and then wintering in Vienna. In answer to a letter from her husband, she advised that they might return to Saint Petersburg in the summer of 1842.[91]
See above SusunW (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
"  In 1815, Speransky sent Eliza to live in Kyiv, where she died at the end of the year.[45][51] Speranskaya returned to Saint Petersburg, where she resided with a family friend, Maria (née Amburger) Weikard, the wife of the Shuvalova family's physician.[5][52][53]"
I think this is contextually necessary, 1) it marks her return to Russia and 2) Weikard's son was the man she chose to marry, but who her father rejected. SusunW (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
"when he was promoted to serve as an "Assistant Minister of Justice, as Governor of Finland, as Privy Councillor, and as Secretary of State"[26] to Alexander, the new Tsar of Russia.[27] Eliza was in Vienna when her daughter died. Her charge, Alexandra Shuvalova [ru], had married Franz Joseph, Prince of Dietrichstein in 1797, and relocated there.[10]" § Lingzhi (talk) 17:11, 7 April 2023 (UTC)
Again, I think it is contextually necessary. It shows the weird relationship between Stephens and her son-in-law and granddaughter (and her somewhat narcissistic tendencies). Eliza didn't return when her daughter died. (Russian Wikipedia says, although I could not find a source, that the position with Dietrichstein was ending because the couple were divorcing.) She didn't return because she wanted to help, Speransky had to ask her to come because of his promotion. SusunW (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
I'll keep pondering on the detail about her travels, especially if I decide to take it to FA. If it was in a time period where nations had been established, one could say she traveled to # countries, but this was a time of duchies and principalities, so making that statement would border on OR to my mind. Her travel was excessive and one of the things she was known for so I still think the details are necessary. Perhaps the places could be retained by taking them from the body and placing them in a note. Things to think about for future development. I don't think the detail at this point violates any of the GA criteria, but if you disagree, happy to discuss. SusunW (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

SusunW, two thoughts here, one about GA and one about Speranksy: My idea of GA (which may be different than other editors') is that everything should be well-formed. GA is a looser standard than FAC. So for me, well-formed means no WP:CLOP, yes WP:V, no omission of controversies or major events, no glaring WP:NPOV or hagiography problems, references that are in pretty good shape, etc. This article seems to meet my standards and I am currently very strongly leaning to "pass GA". As for Speransky, one thing you said above jumped out at me: "Her travel was ... one of the things she was known for". Find references where people say her travels were one of the things she was known for, and then suddenly all is golden. :-) Having said that, I'm not gonna fail GA based on what I see as a modest amount of extra fat in this article. I need to try to check for WP:CLOP and WP:V, which will be a little difficult because many sources are old and non-English. But I will try. § Lingzhi (talk) 23:04, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
Yes, Ling. Same here. I always start a review as if I were preparing it for a FA, meaning I check all the sources for copy-violations and verification. Then I read it and ask for clarifications and suggest what could be done. Reviewing is hard for me, but I try to make clear what is required and what is just something I would do. To my mind, it is always a collaboration, aimed at improving. (And I genuinely am thinking about reducing all the places to a note, but am still weighing whether doing that reduces the obsessional aspect of her travel.)
I think the only controversial thing I left out, but noted on the talk page, is that entry in Korff's private diary. I pondered it for a week bouncing different solutions off of Kusma and GRuban. Finally decided as there was no support for the private speculation of promiscuity in any other source, I didn't want to introduce it to the biography. I think scandal is fine, it is how real people live, but unsubstantiated rumor, whether the subject is living or dead has no place in an article. For the record, GRuban speaks Russian and Kusma, French and German, if that helps. (My Spanish was pretty useless in this article.) The hathitrust and archive.org sources you can search in pdf and then use a machine translator from the text version. (We were kind of surprised that google translate works on old Russian, but it mostly does and in the few instances it was hopelessly garbled, GRuban came to the rescue.) SusunW (talk) 14:24, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

It is reasonably well written.
a. (prose, spelling, and grammar): 

b. (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): 

It is factually accurate and verifiable.
a. (reference section): 

b. (citations to reliable sources): 

c. (OR): 

d. (copyvio and plagiarism): 

It is broad in its coverage.
a. (major aspects): 

b. (focused): 

It follows the neutral point of view policy.
Fair representation without bias: 

It is stable.
No edit wars, etc.: 

It is illustrated by images and other media, where possible and appropriate.
a. (images are tagged and non-free content have non-free use rationales): 

b. (appropriate use with suitable captions): 

Overall:
Pass/fail: 

(Criteria marked  are unassessed)
Pass GA, but with reservations. I really think you need to read WP:NOR with respect to the 1953 journal article about tubreculosis. And there are many, many details in here that probably need to be deleted. Forex, her mother was wedded because pregnant, etc. Good luck. § Lingzhi (talk) 23:25, 14 April 2023 (UTC)