Talk:Mary Karadja

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Dclemens1971 talk 01:48, 10 September 2025 (UTC)

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• ... that Mary Karadja claimed that her poem Mot ljuset was based on a vision she had beside the grave of her husband and son?

• Source: "Poemul mistic Mot ljuset (Spre lumină) este de fapt o viziune pe care autoarea susţine că a avut-o în 1899, în capela Castelului de la Bovigny, când se ruga la mormintele soţului şi băiatului lor cel mare."

• • ALT1: ... that Mary Karadja founded the Christian Aryan Protection League to deport European Jews to Madagascar? Source: "she founded the Christian Aryan Protection League with the goal of deporting European Jews to Madagascar"
  • ALT2: ... that Mary Karadja claimed that her poem Mot ljuset was spiritually dictated to her after she prayed beside the graves of her husband and son. Source: "Prinţesa Karadja afirmă că cine citeşte poemul ar putea crede că este rodul unei îndelungi meditaţii, dar de fapt acesta i-a fost „dictat” în acea noapte de Sânziene, din 1899"
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Rent a Bridesmaid
  • Comment: Feel free to suggest improvements

Created by Spiderpig662 (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 6 past nominations.

Spiderpig662 (talk) 21:32, 5 August 2025 (UTC).

• Not a review I took the liberty of adding more from the Romanian source, as well as other stuff in general; it caught my eye that what the source actually says is a bit more interesting than what the hook reduces it to: outisde of the snippet, Stănculescu renders Karadja's claim to have not just had a vision, but to have actually been automatically dictated the entire poem (Prinţesa Karadja afirmă că cine citeşte poemul ar putea crede că este rodul unei îndelungi meditaţii, dar de fapt acesta i-a fost „dictat” în acea noapte de Sânziene, din 1899). Make what you will of this. Dahn (talk) 09:11, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

This is a very promising article, Spiderpig662. Frankly, this is one of the cases where I am stunned that we did not have an article about the subject before. I strongly suggest creating an article about the Christian Aryan Protection League, which need not be as detailed as the biography of Karadja, to nominate alongside this article. Such a double hook would do great on the Main Page. I also suggest expanding the lead to explain her career a bit more. Surtsicna (talk) 17:55, 15 August 2025 (UTC)

• • @Surtsicna: I have expanded the lead section as suggested. I am going to research the Christian Aryan Protection League and see if there is enough information for an article. Per Dahn's suggestion I have also added a more accurate alt hook. Spiderpig662 (talk) 21:44, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
    • A minor point: I have located the original quote from Mary Karadja, where she adds more detail -- apparently, she used "inspired" for the process that Stănculescu describes as "dictated", and makes a point of noting that the two are not the same thing. So perhaps a tweak is needed, but not necessarily toward "dictated". Dahn (talk) 21:47, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
    • Also: I feel that the poem's name should be in italics, if we use the original title -- since quote marks are only used for English titles, whereas foreign expressions are generally italicized. Either that ore use "Into the Light". Dahn (talk) 22:06, 15 August 2025 (UTC)
      • @Dahn: Would "spiritually influenced" be more appropriate? Spiderpig662 (talk) 12:31, 17 August 2025 (UTC)
        • @Spiderpig662: Yes. I could also suggest "assisted by a spiritual entity". Dahn (talk) 13:53, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

  ALT2a: ... that Mary Karadja claimed that she was spiritually influenced to write the poem Mot ljuset after praying beside the grave of her husband and son? Source:

  ALT2b: ... that Mary Karadja claimed she received assistance from a spiritual entity to write the poem Mot ljuset after she prayed beside the grave of her husband and son? Source: Spiderpig662 (talk) 19:40, 17 August 2025 (UTC)

@Surtsicna: Please address the above. Also, @Spiderpig662: - were you still planning on making this a double?--Launchballer 23:15, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

@Launchballer: @Surtsicna: I've looked into the league and I am unsure if it meets the notability criteria per WP:ORGCRIT. I can only find references a few single sentence references to it and not significant coverage. Spiderpig662 (talk) 23:44, 27 August 2025 (UTC)

This article has grown a lot since I last checked it. Wow. I hate to nag, but I think it can produce much hookier hooks than claimed spiritual influences. Anyone can say that sort of stuff, and if the poem itself is not notable, then it's just a little meh. The idea to deport European Jews to Madagascar is so ridiculous that it would make a great hook, and I think there are more such gems in this article. If you cannot bother to dig them up, Spiderpig662, perhaps we can go with ALT1, perhaps remove "Christian Aryan Protection League", just briefly define her, and state her goal. Surtsicna (talk) 18:55, 28 August 2025 (UTC)

One could technically make the hook hookier by condensing the part about it being inspired by a spiritual entity or whatnot and adding that it briefly made her Sweden's "most popular author" (per the slightly tongue-in-cheek account by Hjalmar Söderberg). There are other facts to mine, though -- consider her being sued by her dad, or her prophecy about "volcanic action" destroying most of the world (juxtaposed, perhaps, with her later turning to Nazism). As a side note: the Madagascar suggestion, while somewhat weird, was not unheard of (that article could use an expansion about where the idea originally came from, and Karadja could be mentioned there -- I also came across the many aspects of the Madagascar project, most surprisingly, when researching Otto Roth). Dahn (talk) 14:00, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

• ALT1a: ... that Mary Karadja founded the Christian Aryan Protection League to deport European Jews to Madagascar, despite previously advocating against antisemitism? Source: "Étincelles ou les aphorismes français de Mary Karadja" p. 108

  ALT1b: ... that Mary Karadja founded the Christian Aryan Protection League to deport European Jews to Madagascar, despite previously advocating against antisemitic prejudice? Source: "she founded the Christian Aryan Protection League with the goal of deporting European Jews to Madagascar", "Étincelles ou les aphorismes français de Mary Karadja" p. 108

  ALT3a: ... that writer and spiritual medium Mary Karadja was sued by her own father for 38,220 Swedish kronor? Source: "she founded the Christian Aryan Protection League with the goal of deporting European Jews to Madagascar", "Scandia. Notes". Iowa County Democrat. 1902-01-23. p. 7.

  ALT3b: ... that writer and spiritual medium Mary Karadja was sued by her own father to recover a loan of 38,220 Swedish kronor? Source: "Scandia. Notes". Iowa County Democrat. 1902-01-23. p. 7.

@Surtsicna: I have expanded ALT1 to be more hookier and have added some hooks about her being sued by her father. Spiderpig662 (talk) 20:17, 29 August 2025 (UTC)

@Spiderpig662 and Surtsicna: What do you think of ALT1c: ... that the Christian Aryan Protection League was founded by a former antisemitism advocate?--Launchballer 11:18, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

I actually like ALT1a best. I find that naming the person and explaining what the "league" was about works best in this case. I think this is now good to go! Surtsicna (talk) 19:18, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

Dates

@Spiderpig662: I really need to ask: how did it generate you full dates for the books you used as references? What does this signify, for instance: "Nilsson, Ulrika (9 February 2021)"? Are these full dates accurate in any way, a script error, or what? Because in any case they seem redundant and puzzling: books do not have, nor need, full dates of publication, just years. Dahn (talk) 08:58, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

@Dahn: The Ulrika Nilsson dates are from the Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon encyclopedia website, while for some of the books such as Hilma Af Klint by Julia Voss I got the publication date from Google Books. I've noticed that for some newer books they list the full publication date. Spiderpig662 (talk) 13:15, 18 August 2025 (UTC)

Can an aphorism contain an epigram?

I’m puzzled by the “sic” in this line in the Literary works section:

• who is again and again the butt of the epigrams [sic]."

Why “sic”? Can’t an aphorism contain an epigram, or be described as one? Is there a rigid literary divide between an aphorism and an epigram? Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 04:15, 20 September 2025 (UTC)

Because no other reviewer describes epigrams as being part of that book. So this source either reviewed some that were not commented on by others, or works with an obscure definition of "epigram". Either way, they add no more detail to this. Dahn (talk) 17:03, 20 September 2025 (UTC)