The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Should references to Istanbul/Constantinople during the Ottoman Empire time period (1453-1922) and the early Republican period (1923-1930) use "Istanbul" to refer to the city instead of "Constantinople"? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion[edit]

A user argued that because most modern English-language scholarship refers to the Ottoman city as "Istanbul", Wikipedia articles should follow suit and refer to the Ottoman city as Istanbul. I would be interested in double-checking that determination, and it would mean a literature review. I have seen multiple noted authors like Donald Quataert, Vahakn Dadrian, and Taner Akcam use "Istanbul" to refer to the Ottoman city. I had collected some examples in Talk:Constantinople#RFC_on_whether_to_change_the_end_date_of_this_article_to_1930 but I haven't seen one of them yet say explicitly that the standard in international scholarship is to use "Istanbul" for the Ottoman city.

Professor Edhem Elhem (who is contactable by e-mail) noted in an encyclopedia article about Istanbul that it is politically incorrect in modern Republican Turkey to use "Constantinople" to refer to the Ottoman city even though at the time the name was used. I am interested how this influence should be weighed in an RFC.

The Sublime Porte (Ottoman Empire government) officially used "Konstantiniyye" and "Istabul" in different documents in Ottoman Turkish. In French, English and ethnic minority languages it used "Constantinople" only (such as in this book about Byzantine poetry and in the official French version of the Ottoman constitution ("Stamboul" as used in French/English at the time meant the inner walled city only). The significance of the naming comes from differing ethnic compositions: the time the city had a much larger ethnic Greek and Armenian population than it does today and "Constantinople" is still used in Greek (not sure if the naming changed in Armenian), and the Empire was intentionally multi-ethnic, while modern Istanbul is heavily Turkish.

This issue reminds me of another RFC Talk:Zhang_Xueliang#Summary_of_points_so_far that there are political implications and the idea of weighing modern scholarship over the historical use and whether the subject itself used the name (the "summary of points" is key reading)

I stated 1930 as the end point since the US State Department changed the references to Istanbul in that year as it was around 1929/1930 that nationalists in Turkey requested that Western sources begin using Istanbul instead of Constantinople (see ""ISTANBUL": The Correct Way of Writing Constantinople". The Manchester Guardian. 1929-11-15. p. 11., also mentioned in "MISCELLANY: The Name-Changers". The Manchester Guardian. 1929-11-16. p. 11. )

I'm pinging some contributors who may be interested in this discussion: @Johnpacklambert: @Cplakidas: @Rjensen: @Macrakis: @Srnec: @Nizolan: @Nedim Ardoğa: @TU-nor: @Future Perfect at Sunrise: @P Aculeius: Also I want to contact the Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Greece (for ethnic Greeks in the empire), and Armenia (for ethnic Armenians in the empire) projects/task forces. WhisperToMe (talk) 15:04, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment as long as we are not debating the title of an article dedicated to the Ottoman period of the city's history, I think this is academic: both names can equally well be used. And I say this as someone who very often has to redirect instances of [[Constantinople]] to [[Istanbul|Constantinople]] in Ottoman-related articles.

On the political correctness in modern Turkey, thank God we are not subject to the whims of the Turkish government (especially the present one). Our only guide should be common usage in English-language sources. In academia the tendency, in Ottoman studies at least, is to use 'Istanbul' (both in line with the increasing tendency to use non-anglicized/'native' name forms and, one suspects, at least to some degree to ingratiate themselves with the Turkish government, which after all controls access to the treasure troves of the Ottoman archives), but this usage is not so clear-cut in non-Ottomanist works or in general, non-academic literature.

And there is another reason to be cautious of recent trends since, as WhisperToMe correctly reminds us, there is already a very large body of English-language literature contemporary with the Ottoman Empire, which uses the forms "Constantinople" or "Stamboul". It would be incorrect, for example, to have all these "Treaties of Constantinople" renamed to "Treaties of Istanbul". This sort of retroactive 'correction' is definitely not something an encyclopedia should do. We had this most recently after Kiev was moved to Kyiv, where the RfC recommended "For unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive), do not change existing content". The same should apply here.

So the best thing IMO is to go forward as we have done thus far: use both forms, exercising our best judgment according to context. E.g., in an article about a Turkish pasha, one would expect either form, but more likely 'Istanbul', but in the context of an Armenian, Greek, Levantine subject of the empire, the form would probably be 'Constantinople', since that would also be the form most likely used in the relevant sources. Above all, editors should adhere to established usage in an article, and not go about changing it. Constantine ✍ 15:33, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Comment One note is that I've changed [[Constantinople]] and [[Istanbul|Constantinople]] to [[Ottoman Constantinople|Constantinople]] which means they're going to History of Istanbul (specifically about the city in the Ottoman period) so I'm hoping that retargeting does well

I'm open to RFCs about the use of Constantinople/Istanbul specific subjects as well (the article in question was Madame Bey who was an Ottoman Armenian woman who moved to the United States with her Ottoman Turkish husband before World War I)

WhisperToMe (talk) 15:40, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure whether to object to the proposal on the grounds that it's anachronistic, revisionist history, or an attempt to enshrine nationalist editing in Wikipedia policy. But in any case, I think it's wrong. P Aculeius (talk) 15:34, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with P Aculeius above. This clearly seems to be revisionism. Ottoman powers themselves used Constantinople in their productions in English or French, and remember that French was the lingua franca in the Ottoman Empire, for instance in the press, up to the late 19th and early 20th century. In the article cited in example, about a 19th-century Ottoman Armenian, using anything else than Constantinople (in English text) would be anachronism. Place Clichy (talk) 15:55, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Articles from Johann Strauss which I cited in Languages of the Ottoman Empire indeed show that post-Tanzimat French was a lingua franca as many of the minority groups and educated people adopted it. I am aware that the official language of the government was Turkish and that government employees were required to learn Turkish, but it is clear that the French usage is important in regards to considering currency with the Ottoman government (after all the French version of the Ottoman constitution was the basis of translation for Christian minority language versions). WhisperToMe (talk) 18:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• No way per The Four Lads and They Might Be Giants (see video). More to the point, you will have to show that Istanbul is the English common name used by reliable sources about the city pre-1930 or thereabout. I am sure this has been discussed before, but I do not want to waste time looking for earlier consensus, since it is rather obvious that Constantinople is the name used, especially in scholarly sources, about the city up to (and even after) the official name change. --T*U (talk) 16:52, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment I don't think this is controversial, but just to make it clear, I don't think much weight should be given to the name used up to 1930, but only to the name used now to refer to the city during that period. Wikipedia's language is based on the English used in the present in "reliable sources". If it is found that the current consensus is to refer to the city as "Istanbul" in the pre-1930 period, Wikipedia should follow suit, even if the name wasn't used at the time. Doing otherwise would be similar to calling the Byzantine Empire "Rhomania", because this is the most common contemporary endonym found in primary sources, or "Greek Empire", because that is the most common name used in the Western sources. --Antondimak (talk) 17:38, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • That's a valid point to bring up: The historiographical difference between "Rhomania" and the pre-breakup Roman Empire is huge. There is also a big historiographical difference between the post-Tanzimat Ottoman Empire (1836ish-1922) and current Turkey, and that is more ethnic diversity and a bigger presence of Greeks and Armenians (Of course there is also a historiographical difference between the Byzantine and Ottoman periods). I think looking at the why behind using Istanbul for Ottoman Istanbul/Constantinople is something to consider at as well (possible influence from Republican Turkey). WhisperToMe (talk) 19:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Call it Constantinople - T*U's comment re "you will have to show that Istanbul is the English common name used by reliable sources about the city pre-1930 or thereabout. I am sure this has been discussed before" seems like the right rule. Really, this should be written into WP:COMMONNAME (i.e. When referring to an historical location, use the COMMONNAME that reliable sources use for that historical location). NickCT (talk) 18:48, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Constantinople in the Ottoman period. This was the standard nomenclature in English and French diplomatic usage and standard Ottoman references to the city was the Turko-Arabic form of Constantinople. In fact right next to me, in my desk, is an Ottoman 40 para bronze coin, dated 1277 AH, with the mint location given in the Turko-Arabic form of Constantinople, "Qanstantiniyah" - Istambul or Stambul were casual non-official references to the city or at least certain portions of it. However when it comes to the early republic period the usage most definitely should be Istanbul. It's historically apparent that Istanbul was a preferred form right away with the formation of the Turkish republic, as a definitive break with the Ottoman past. KJS ml343x (talk) 00:55, 15 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • While "Istanbul" was used in the Ottoman Turkish version of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 I don't know if this meant the old city (Stamboul) or the entire city (Constantinople). The official French version of the document, the basis of the Christian minority versions, uses Constantinople. WhisperToMe (talk) 20:32, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Constantinople throughout the Ottoman period. Istanbul did not become official until the 1930s, and it is an anachronism to use it before that period. Dimadick (talk) 02:16, 16 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Constantinople up to 1930 using the U.S. State Department declaration as the cutoff WhisperToMe (talk) 04:37, 19 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment Do we need it to be systematic? I would suggest that both are ok. Boynamedsue (talk) 23:21, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]