Talk:Gdańsk

@user:JeanClaudeN1, if you are going to remove the statement which explains the ethnic population shift in Gdańsk which says "The Teutonic knights then proceeded to massacre the 10,000 inhabitants of Gdańsk, mostly Kashubs, and replaced them with ethnic Germans." you need to have something in it's place. I've added "According to historian Stefan Maria Kuczyński, ethnic Germans only achieved a majority in the town after the local Polish population was massacred and the settlement was rebuilt by Teutonic Knights.".

I'll also like to highlight the fact that you removed this statement a couple of days ago "The knights colonized the area, replacing local Kashubians and Poles with German settlers." you are scrubbing the article of any references which say that the local Polish/Kashubian population was massacred and German settlers were brought in. I don't consent to it, either the original sentence gets restored or you keep the sentence I proposed now.

If the article highlights the fact that Germans fled or were expelled from Gdańsk after 1945 and that's why the population shifted, you need to be clear that the Polish/Kaszub population was massacred and that's why after 1308 the population of Gdańsk changed. PJK 1993 (talk) 12:00, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

@PJK 1993: The Polish-language source you cite is from the communist era. Its scholarly relevance to this subject is negligible, given its outdated nature (your reference indicates 1987, although the author appears to have passed away in 1985). In addition, the work does not even primarily deal with the history of Gdańsk. Verification is further complicated by the absence of a direct quotation.

Aside from that, there is no reason to cite completely outdated sources, because there is a substantial body of more recent scholarship by experts on the history of Gdańsk that reflects the current state of research. As one of the authors has noted: "[…] many things have changed meanwhile: not only because of the political transformation in 1989, but also because of permanent progress in historical studies."^[1] Current scholarship is quite clear on this matter — the town was already predominantly inhabited by Germans prior to 1308, see for example:

• Śliwiński, Błazej; Możejko, Beata (2020). "Exile and Return?: Gdańsk in the Aftermath of the Teutonic Order's Actions in Pomerelia during the First Half of the Fourteenth Century". East Central Europe. 47 (1): 29–38. Most of the burgher families who lived in Gdańsk came from Westphalia, Lower Saxony, and the Rhineland, though before reaching Gdańsk, the majority of them had settled earlier in Lübeck. […] Only a minority of the burghers came from the local Pomeranian (Slavic) population […]. In 1307 some of Pomerelia's knights, headed by the wealthy Święc family, rebeled against the Polish duke Władysław Łokietek.

• Smoliński, Marek (2021). "The Gdańsk Massacre in the Medieval Historical Narrative". Quaestiones Medii Aevi Novae. 2021: 91–128. Thanks to the favour of the Gdańsk townspeople, mostly of German origin, the Ascanians managed to capture the city of Gdańsk during this expedition.

• Loew, Peter Oliver (2024). Gdańsk: Portrait of a City. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 25. ISBN 9780197603864. After all, it was not the Polish citizens who were fighting for their "Polishness," but rather predominantly German townspeople, alongside Brandenburg's troops and Pomerelian knights […].

In other words, the sources do not support your narrative. The fundamental problem with your edits is that they seem to be based on personal opinion rather than verifiable evidence — and your perspective appears to be strongly influenced in a particular direction. My recommendation is that you thoroughly acquaint yourself with the relevant scholarship. For this purpose, it is best to rely on high-quality secondary literature authored by experts, which accurately reflects the present state of research. In the context of the GA review, the quality of the article improved significantly in recent weeks through the work of multiple editors, until you chose to undermine this process. From now on, please refrain from disrupting the constructive improvement of the article, including the removal of reliably sourced content, the addition of false information, and the alteration of cited material in ways that reflect personal interpretation. JeanClaudeN1 (talk) 02:39, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

You are showing a clear bias in your edits, you're removing details about Polish history of the city and saturating the article with German subject matter, here are examples , . Also, you find every excuse to belittle Polish sources just to make an excuse to remove text related to Polish history. I'm reverting and restoring the text "The knights colonized the area" there is no consensus to remove this longstanding statement. --PJK 1993 (talk) 05:58, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

Fact check: There are many excellent works by Polish authors on the history of the city. The edits I have made in the past rely primarily on the works of Polish scholars from the University of Gdańsk. I even backed up my earlier remark about the problematic use of outdated sources (see above) with a quotation from a (Polish) expert on the city’s history from the University of Gdańsk (since I expected your false accusations beforehand).

I don‘t even think it is necessary to include the ethnicity of the town‘s population before 1308 in the article (it was not addressed in the article before you started your changes). I‘m merely citing these reliable sources here, because you keep adding false narratives to the article („(10.000) Kashubs were killed and replaced by Germans“).

I can see that you are attempting to construct a national conflict here (which strongly reminds me of a certain user from the past), but such a conflict does not exist. The actual line of conflict runs between several reliable scholars (most of them Polish) and your personal (highly biased) opinion — supplemented by a single, completely outdated source.

Once again: you are disregarding multiple recent, reliable secondary sources by experts on the history of Gdańsk, while cherry-picking a single, thoroughly outdated source (which does not even primarily deal with the history of the city) that best fits your narrative.

To return to the actual content: since you appear to have access to the Polish-language source you cite, could you please provide the exact quotation? (per WP:NONENG)

And one more thing: as it is obvious that you are not a new user, could you please also disclose your previous accounts? Thank you. JeanClaudeN1 (talk) 10:08, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

I also see that you continue to make extensive edits to the article, reflecting the same problematic patterns of behavior mentioned before (in particular, disregard of recent scholarship and alteration of cited material). Could you please refrain from doing so? JeanClaudeN1 (talk) 10:57, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

"The Polish-language source you cite is from the communist era.". That's a crock of unscientific BS. You're not exercising scholarship by blanket dismissing all sources between 1945 and 1990. No source in all of history is automatically excluded based on any "ism". Sources are judged on their scientific merit, not economic or (geo)political favoritism.—Loginnigol 17:52, 29 September 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps I could have worded it more clearly, but I wasn’t referring to the political or economic system itself — rather to the long period of time and the circumstances that have since changed. I also supported my statements with a quotation from a reliable secondary source. JeanClaudeN1 (talk) 08:10, 1 October 2025 (UTC)

I added the picture of the Green Gate (due to it's connection to Polish monarchy) because Gdańsk entered its Golden Age after it's return to Poland and receiving the status of a Royal City. This arrangement between the Kind and the city created the circumstances which propelled the city to new heights. While under later Prussian and German rule Gdańsk's prestige and wealth deteriorated, after the Vistula trade was cut off and the city lost its importance. Funny how a city with a predominantly German population was better off in Poland, not to mention that later after being annexed by the German Reich in 1939 it was completely destroyed in a maniacal war, and then carefully rebuilt and restored by Poles. PJK 1993 (talk) 06:24, 6 September 2025 (UTC)

This article need to be reviewed and revised to ensure neutrality, unfortunately a series of edits in the last month or so, resulted in the removal of details which covered the Polish history of the city all the while more information about the Germany history has been added.

Some really egregious examples include:

1. Change to section title "Early Poland" to "Prehistory and early history"

2. Having references to the Hanseatic League, Prussia and Germany in the introduction paragraph, but no referenes to the Duchy of Poland, the Kindgom of Poland or even the contemporary Polish state.

This is crushing circumstantial evidence that there is a clear bias in the article, and it does not end on just those two examples. PJK 1993 (talk) 09:23, 6 September 2025 (UTC)