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I need to cite several Russian mathematicians in a paper and I would like some advice on how to write their names and how to write the bibliography. My main concern is to respect the name they were given or using, because I find it stupid (though convenient) to translate names in English (or any other language). I also want to cite them properly in order to ease the work of the potential readers that would like to access that information, which I think can be hard from personal experience.

Here are specific questions:

  • What should I write in the bibliography of a Russian written reference? I think I should provide all the information in the original language, together with a translation in the language of the article (English). Is that right?

  • How should I refer to them in the body of the article? Should I use the most common English spelling of their name? Should I give at least once their Russian name?

  • In case the author publishes several articles where their name is spelled differently, should I say somewhere that these persons are the same?

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    $\begingroup$ This: academia.stackexchange.com/q/1913/78612 and references therein should answer your question. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 28 at 20:48
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    $\begingroup$ @Kostya_I thank you for the link, but my main concern is not about what publishers want. Rather, I wish to respect the authors and make it easy to access the information. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 28 at 21:06
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    $\begingroup$ Knuth cites people using their name in their own script, (www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news19.html "Let's celebrate everybody's full names"), but this makes things difficult for people who don't read that script, and you should respect your reader as well as respect the people you are citing. You can try using their proper name in the bibliography with the customary translation/transliteration added to help readers. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 29 at 1:15
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    $\begingroup$ To give an original name and latinized when somebody appears for the first time in the text, like "P. L. Chebyshev (П. Л. Чебышев) proved that there is always a prime between $n$ and $2n$. Chebyshev's proof had great impact." $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 29 at 4:17
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    $\begingroup$ "Rather, I wish to respect the authors and make it easy to access the information." It is disrespectful to pronounce the name Khinchin without a voiceless velar fricative? Clearly it's not, since the sound simply does not exist in English. By the same logic, it is not disrespectful to write Khinchin instead of Хинчин when writing an English text, because the letters Х, и, н, and ч simply do not exist in English. It's literally the same thing, except in written instead of spoken language. There is no need to overthink what "respect" means here. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago

3 Answers 3

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I think, unless the journal or publisher require you to do otherwise, the best practice is to follow the MathSciNet citation standard, as in this example:

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-- with the title of the publication translated into English, the name(s) of the author(s) and the name of the journal transliterated, and a reference to a translation (if available) given.

Transliterating the title or using Cyrillic would hardly be helpful.

Alternatively, I think a reference to a translation (if available) would suffice.

Adding the MR number or the Zbl number (if allowed by the journal) could also be helpful.

As someone who has published in Russian journals in Russian, I cannot envision any disrespect issues if these suggestions are followed.

As for "In case the author publishes several articles where their name is spelled differently, should [one] say somewhere that these persons are the same?", I think this would make sense and will certainly not hurt.

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    $\begingroup$ @blamethelag : In my decades-long career in the US, I do not remember one case when Cyrillic was useful to me in searching. Google Search understands transliterated Cyrillic quite well -- see e.g. this. Also, some journals may not accept Cyrillic (I have never tried that, though, in my submissions to non-Russian journals). Also, this citation format is the MathSciNet standard and thus seems to be the most broadly accepted standard in mathematics $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 29 at 0:51
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    $\begingroup$ For a reader who doesn't speak the language and isn't familiar with the script, the transliteration still has a few benefits: (1) some hope to recognize cognate words; (2) some hope of pronouncing it phonetically; (3) easier to remember. Also, if trying to find it in search results, other lists of references, etc, it's easier to visually recognize strings in a known script and unknown language, than in an unknown script. $\endgroup$ Commented Oct 29 at 4:16
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    $\begingroup$ @IosifPinelis There have been times when I had trouble identifying an obscure Russian journal because all I had to go on was a highly abbreviated version of the English transliteration of the journal's name. Though even in this case, I suspect that the unabbreviated English title would have been good enough, whereas a highly abbreviated Cyrillic title might not have been good enough. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
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    $\begingroup$ @blamethelag I just entered "Privalov's Cauchy Integral" into Ecosia word for word, and the second result was the list of Privalov's theorems on Encyclopedia of Mathematics. Is it not this? encyclopediaofmath.org/wiki/… $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
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    $\begingroup$ @NateEldredge Let me add (4) easier to re-type. If I have a printed copy of a paper and I want to google for one of the papers in the bibliography, it is easier for me to type "teor. veroyatnost. i primenen" on my English keyboard than "Теор. Вероятност. и Применен". $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
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The basic rule applies to all publications with a non-roman script:

For the most complete citation, you want to cite the original publication exactly as it appeared, transliterated, followed by an English translation of the title in brackets and, if available, the translated journal name.

I. M. Gel'fand and M. L. Tsetlin, O nekotorykh sposobakh upravleniya slozhnymi sistemami [Some methods of control for complex systems], Uspekhi Mat. Nauk 17, 27–120 (1962); English translation. in Russian Math. Surveys 17, 95–117 (1962).

Many journals prefer to omit both the title in the original language and the original foreign language publications, giving only the English title and the English language source.

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I follow these rules.

  1. To mention a name in my paper, I choose the English spelling that the author used him/herself, if s/he published at least one paper in a language with Latin alphabet. This shows respect to the author.

Of course, there are difficult cases, like P. L. Chebyshev who spelled his name differently when publishing in French and in German. (It is a nice problem in combinatorics, how many ways are there to spell his name in Latin alphabet. There is a whole book (by Philip J. Davis) which addresses this. Zbl knows only 12 ways.)

If s/he never published in a language with Latin alphabet, I use the English spelling which is used in Mathscinet or Zentralblatt.

  1. In the reference list, I use the format and spelling given in Mathscinet (first preference), Zetralblatt (second preference). If the paper is not in these databases, the best thing on my opinion is to give a reference in Cyrillic, with a translation of the title. The guiding principle here is to simplify for the reader finding the text.

  2. In the case that there is a translation, I usually refer only to the translation, except some rare cases when it is necessary to emphasize the date of original publication, in which case I add a reference to the original paper, sometimes simply writing "translated from the Russian original of 1840").

One general advise. When you refer to a statement in a book which has been translated, try not to specify the location with page numbers (which are usually different in the original and in the translation). Use chapter, section, theorem/formula number instead.

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  • $\begingroup$ I think the issue with different transliteration can arrise with almost anyone, not just Chebyshev. Were your number Russian, it could also probably be transliterated Yeryomenko, Jeremenko, Jerjomenko... Not sure about Ukrainian. $\endgroup$ Commented 2 days ago
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    $\begingroup$ @Vladimir F: I am not related to Russia, though I published some papers in Russian in my youth because I had no choice. Speaking of my name, it even has two different spellings in Ukrainian (Єременко and Єрьоменко). But I took special care that there is only one prevailing English version in Mathscinet. $\endgroup$ Commented yesterday
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    $\begingroup$ Chebyshev's inequality states that no two authors spell his name the same way. $\endgroup$ Commented yesterday
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    $\begingroup$ Imagine if Gaddafi had been a mathematician... $\endgroup$ Commented yesterday
  • $\begingroup$ @TimothyChow Gaddafi might not have been one himself, but the same problem (to a lesser degree) probably exists for some Arabic academics. The reason for the many different spellings of Gaddafi was because there's no generally accepted standard for romanizing Arabic. $\endgroup$ Commented 17 hours ago

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