Kingfisher Macmillan Children’s Books replies to Ankakh weekly’s enquiry.

October 20, the “Ankakh” newspaper had sent a letter to the British «Kingfisher Publications» and the Russian «Махаон» publishing houses requesting denied Russian «Большая иллюстрированная энциклопедия географии» Encyclopedia of Armenia included false information.

No response to capital city, we tried to contact one of the authors of the Encyclopedia, but for a long time did not receive any respond. And now, today, December 1, British «Kingfisher Publications» publishing representative Catherine Brereton responded to the letter sent by the “Ankakh” on the unjustified excuses surprising submit false information put on, noting that they occasionally allow mistakes, but in this case they are true.

Brereton’s response letter also was clearly distorted the contents of the letter sent by the “Ankakh” to substantiate our claim, we write. Armenia’s population of 96% of the Armenians, the remaining 4 percent are Kurds, Greeks, Ukrainians, Jews, Russians, Kurds, etc. Meanwhile Brereton says in the response letter. “You have said that Armenia’s population of almost 98% of the talking in Armenian, and the rest from the Yezidi, Azerbaijani and Russian.

In fact, the British Encyclopedia false information to justify the Brereton to another bogus, distorted, presenting the contents of our letter.

Here we represent Brereton’s letter in full:

Dear Sir

Thank you for your enquiries about the Kingfisher Geography Encyclopedia, concerning inaccuracies in the book’s presentation of Armenia, in this case in the Russian-language edition of the book.

If I may, I’ll reply to your three points in turn.

1) the text says that the main languages in Armenia are Armenian and Azeri. You and others have pointed out that almost 98% of the population speak Armenian, with others speaking Yezidi, Azeri and Russian. In the encyclopedia, we do often include minority languages and this is not necessarily based purely on number of speakers. We could delete the reference to Azeri but this would imply a monoglot culture, which we don’t think is right. So we will be keeping this in the UK edition.

2) the text says that the main religions in Armenia are Armenian Apostolic Orthodox and Shia Islam. Again, in the encyclopedia it is the general rule not just to list official religions but also other religions where significant, even if they are only a minority. Armenian Orthodox here are again the vast majority, at nearly 95%, but it is perfectly legitimate to mention Shia Islam and we will not be changing the UK edition at present.

3) you point out that the text says ‘In 1988-1989 there was an armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia’. This information must have been introduced in the Russian translation, I think, since there is no such sentence in the UK edition. The UK edition contains the following sentences about relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan:

[on the Armenia page] ‘Since independence in 1991, Armenia has been in conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh, an area of Azerbaijan with a largely Armenian population.’

[on the Azerbaijan page] ‘Azerbaijan and Armenia’s border is complex with enclaves of both nations surrounded by the lands of the other and some territory disputed. The largest disputed area, Nagorno Karabakh, was the subject of violent conflict during the 1990s.’

These statements are true, correct and neutral, as my consultant confirms. I think from your comments that the Russian translation says something different about conflict. The Russian translation is the copyright and responsibility of the Russian publisher, and I speak no Russian myself, so I’m afraid all I can do here is to pass your concerns to the Russian publisher.

I hope I have understood your points correctly – they came through from the website in small pieces so I hope I have attended to everything. I hope you think that my response is satisfactory. I am sure that you can understand that it is quite an undertaking to produce a geography encyclopedia that is correct in all its facts as well as being balanced and neutral, and also understandable to young readers. We do make mistakes from time to time but we do think we are correct in this case. It is never our intention to cause any offence to any individual or group.

Many thanks again for taking the time to contact Macmillan Children’s Books.

Yours faithfully

Catherine Brereton

Editorial Manager, Kingfisher

Macmillan Children’s Books

20 New Wharf Road

London

N1 9RR