Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2018 October 21

Trying to organize the results in Russian Constituent Assembly election, 1917, but the main English-language source (Radkey) appears to use a division of the 81 constituencies in a way that might not have corresponded exactly to terminology used in Russia at the time: Northern, Northwestern, Baltic, Western-White Russian, Central Industrial, Central Black Earth, Volga, Kama-Ural, Ukraine, Southern-Black Sea, Southeastern, Caucasus, Northern Asia or Siberia and West Central Asia or Turkestan. Was there any well-defined regional divisions in the late Russian empire, grouping guberniias together? --Soman (talk) 13:03, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Unfortunately our article on the History of the administrative division of Russia is overly focused on the 18th century. Dimadick (talk) 14:07, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

:The thing is that I know the administrative divisions (guberniias, etc..). The question is whether there was any well-established formula to group these into larger blocs at the time? --Soman (talk) 19:02, 22 October 2018 (UTC)

::The only thing I could find was at [https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SyogLC4SdRsC&pg=PA19 Kalmykia in Russia's Past and Present National Policies and Administrative System] by Konstantin Nikolaevich Maksimov (p. 190), but I suspect not the detail that you're looking for. Alansplodge (talk) 09:43, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Hello, in the intro of the above article, you find the statement: {{"|Arche ... is a Greek word with primary senses ..., and later "first principle" or "element", first so used by Anaximander (Simplicius in Ph. 150.23), principles of knowledge (ἀρχαί) (Aristot. Metaph. 995b8).}} However, I am not quite sure what exactly the part at the end ("principles of knowledge (ἀρχαί) ...") is supposed to refer to. Can somebody here perhaps resolve this issue?--Neufund (talk) 20:34, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

:I think it is trying to say that "arche" was used to mean "principles of knowledge" in Aristotle's Metaphysics. I don't know if that is a true statement or not. This phrasing entered the article with [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arche&diff=612938651&oldid=610876676 this edit], but it is very poorly written. The text from before this addition made much more sense. --Khajidha (talk) 21:39, 21 October 2018 (UTC)