Talk:Baltic states/Baltic Republics

message: Were the Balkan Republics really treated as independent nations?  I mean, Ukraine and Belorussia had seats in the UN, even when part of the USSR, but the Balkans didn't.  -- Zoe
::I think you mean Baltic ;) Thanx 68.39.174.150 03:58, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: No, that sentece means that de iure US and western Europe didn`t recognise those countries as part of USSR.
The term "Pribaltika" is still correct and valid Russian word (Прибалтика), regardless of Soviet period. 84.245.217.181 22:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

message: I can only speak for myself, but keeping the articles separate and having some place to fold together Finland and Estonia for cultural purposes (in Baltic states) would be extraordinarily useful. It would also give all of us a (welcome) place to develop content away from the ceaseless WP:IDONTLIKEIT tagging. Just my perspective. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 19:16, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Myself, I would be for the merge. I personally often use "Baltic Republics (of the USSR)" when referring to the Baltic states in the historical context. Otherwise, I use "Baltic states". Nevertheless, in some Russian-language sources one still sees the term "Baltic Republics" being used to refer to the present-day states. Perhaps this is just a harmless old habit, or perhaps it is an intentional attempt at undermining the continuity with the pre-1940 states by stressing the continuity with the former SSRs. Who knows? (There are some Wikipedia editors out there who also seem to prefer this interpretation as well.) Anyhow, I think everything contained in this article could easily be summarised in a section of Baltic States. To the casual reader, this may well look like a WP:FORK (though not necessarily a POV fork!), as the essential difference between "Baltic states" and "Baltic republics" can be hard to spot for someone from an English-speaking country. As for making Baltic States include Finland, that would probably amount to WP:OR; instead, we could probably use good article on the Baltic Sea Region, — Zalktis 17:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: There is an article on Baltic region. The Finland was discussed in pre-WWII perspective (please see discussion on Talk:Baltic states), I suggest you don't get too carried away with this, it seems that even then Finland wasn't always taken to be Baltic (as the Kalingrad isn't today), honestly I don't think it should be mentioned outside the section explaining use of the term. In its current state the article has a defined scope - it deals with a region within USSR, as such it is linked to from articles dealing with USSR, I don't see how redirecting all these sites to Baltic states could diminish Russian "habits". If you think this is too easy to confuse with Baltic states article should be renamed. --Xil...sist! 17:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Please, leave alone the title, Baltic states is a popular term (Note: I'll be mostly refering to Baltic states now). We don't have to change well defined scope of an article just because one guy said something, it might be worth to research this Nordic Estonia idea and mention it in the article. I have folowing idea how it should look:
*Baltic states are Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, everything else should be mentioned only in "Etymology and usage of the term" (except perhaps for Nazi-Soiet fact mentioning Finland as Baltic could be left in history section)
*I think history section there is fine and does not need expansion, just a copyedit 
*Language and culture could be split in two sections, the Estonian difrences can be analysed there, certanly lead section is meant to summarise the article, not to introduce facts that are not found in rest of the article
*That article needs politics section
Now it seems that most agree that the articles should be merged, also it seems that there acctualy was consensus for merge previously, but nothing was done, so let's merge them. If you agree with my idea about how Baltic states should look - large chunk of this can be used to form politics section, everything else can be added to language and culture, and the remainder could be compered to history of Baltic states, but I think it can very well be deleted Xil...sist! 23:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, but I would remove links to this article from some pages. As for politics - I meant to include modern politics as well, I think that there won't be any problems if that section gains a bit of historical perspective Xil...sist! 00:28, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

text: Agreed on merge. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 00:41, 6 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merged versus not