Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Savely Govorkov

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. (non-admin closure) asilvering (talk) 04:41, 14 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Savely Govorkov[edit]

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No evidence this fictional character meets WP:GNG. What we have is a pure pot summary, and a strange listing of further sources that gives this a veneer of academic respectability, except that as far as I can tell those sources do not contain any SIGCOV meeting discussion of the character. I did find a sentence of analysis at [1], but the snippet view prevents me from checking if this is in-depth or passing comment, nor from figuring out what article in this journal collection is relevant (the text of that snippet is not indexed by Google or Google Scholar). Can anyone find anything to rescue this?

The usual disclaimer applies: sources may exist in Russian, although ru wiki article is very bad (reads like a bad fandom article, filled with quotes and trivia).

If nobody can find sources that show how this meets GNG, WP:ATD-R would be to redirect this to the creator, Viktor Dotsenko. A more complex solution might be to create an article on the book series he features in, but this would need to be done mostly from scratch, and neither this article nor the stub about their writer even tells us what this series might be called. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Fictional elements, Science fiction and fantasy, Literature, and Russia. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:17, 7 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The journal collection is questionable, but there are certainly instances when he's discussed in detail as an archetypal protagonist of post-Soviet detective novels: 1, 2. Not opposed to a move to an article about the book series. PaulT2022 (talk) 02:40, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - If the character is as described on the page, a breakout character, then a redirect to the author may not be sufficient, and in Russian culture this would be a character that potentially is like Tarzan or James Bond, breakout characters sensibly treated in their own articles. The question is whether he does have that reach, and there are a list of "further reading" sources on the page. The first of these, Eliot Borenstein (2008) Overkill: sex and violence in contemporary Russian popular culture, says a lot about this character (spelled Savelii) and certainly meets all the requirements of an independent reliable secondary source. The second book on the list I tried was Michael L. Bressler (2009) Understanding contemporary Russia, and I couldn't find any mention in that one, which is disappointing. I don't have access to the other books, nor the periodicals, but based on Borenstein, I would be surprised if there is not already information on the page to fully meet GNG. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:42, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The first source just mentions him in the context of plot summaries, but I did not see any analysis there? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:03, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. For instance, what looks like plot summary on page 92 is, in fact, analysis on the subject of the re-emergence of prostitution in the context of the section, "Perestroika Prostitutes" (because prostitution was supposedly eradicated in the soviet era). So on page 92, "A prostitute named Natasha is also crucial for the redemption of the hero of Viktor Dotsenko's best-selling series of action novels, Savelii Govorkov" and following summary is analysing the plot to further the thesis of the book, which is about sex and violence in contemporary Russian popular culture. The same is true of other mentions. E.g., chapter 6 is about Men of Action and focusses closely on this character. The whole chapter is about this character, but is analysing the plots to make points about violence in the culture, discussing tropes and themes etc. Page 176 has a section about the character's metaphysics. It is a lot more than just plot summary. Chapter 6 alone, all about the character, is 35 pages of both plot and analysis. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:39, 9 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.