The British publishing house goes on denying its mistake, but shows willingness to compromise

In October the editorial staff of  the weekly ‘’Ankakh’’ sent a letter to British and Russian publishing houses requesting that the false information about Armenia published in the British encyclopedia be denied. The letter comprised detailed information on both language and religion, as well as the conflict of Nagorno Karabakh. On December 2, ‘’ Macmillan Children’sBooks ‘’ editor-in-chief  Catherine Brereton answered ‘’Ankakh’’ ’s letter  saying that they were right and were not going to change anything.

The second letter was sent to Brereton, this time by ‘’Ankakh’’ and the initiative group ‘’Against the encyclopedic fraud’’.

On December 15, while the members of the initiative group ‘’Against the encyclopedic fraud’’ were having  a protest march claiming that the false information on Armenia shuold be denied, ‘’Ankakh got an answer from Brereton.

Here is the letter from Catherine Brereton.

Thank you for contacting me again regarding the Kingfisher Geography Encyclopedia.

Firstly, I would like to make one general point. I want to assure you that it is absolutely not our intention to cause any offence to any individual or group. It is also absolutely not our intention to publish wrong or fraudulent information, and I do not believe that we have done so. I also want to reiterate that Kingfisher has worked with expert geographical consultants on this encyclopedia, both in its original edition and in response to the concerns you and others have raised.

Languages:

I have amended the UK edition so that it reads simply “Main language: Armenian”, with no mention of other languages. There is not room to give the full list includng Yezidi/Kurdish, Azeri and Russian, which together make up only 2%. Since the inclusion of Azeri in the original edition is so objectionable to Armenians, we have decided to remove this from the forthcoming UK edition and from any forthcoming editions in other languages. I hope this is satisfactory.

Religion:

As we have discussed, the original UK edition gave the main religions as Armenian Apostolic Orthodox and Shia Islam. As I explained, it is the general rule in the encyclopedia not just to list official religions but also other religions where significant, even if they are only a minority. Members of the Armenian Apostolic Church currently make up nearly 95% of Armenia’s population. According to my expert consultant Shia Islam is the largest minority religion but it is a small minority, followed by less than 2% of the population. Again, we feel it would be perfectly correct to leave this information in the UK edition, but since it is causing so much offence we have decided to remove it from the forthcoming UK edition and from any forthcoming editions in other languages. It now simply reads: “Main religion: Armenian Apostolic Orthodox”. You mention below that this too is an error and that the most correct wording would just be “Armenian Apostolic”. My understanding is that the full name of this church is the One Holy Universal Apostolic Orthodox Armenian Church, and therefore that to describe it as “Armenian Apostolic Orthodox”, while not perfect, is not objectionable. I would happily amend this further if I were able to, but it is now too late for me to make any further changes to the forthcoming UK new edition.

Nagorno-Karabakh:

You reiterate that the UK edition describes this region thus: “It is an Azerbaijani region inhabited mostly by Armenians.” I do not know what I can say, because the UK edition I have in front of me simply does not contain these words. It says this region is “an area of Azerbaijan with a largely Armenian population”. This is true I am sure. Legally Nagorno-Karabakh is an area of Azerbaijan, although of course its status is disputed and it is claimed by Armenia. Your point that it is de facto independent is not mentioned, as we don’t go into much detail about this region, but the information we give does not contradict this in any way. Nagorno-Karabakh is shown as a disputed area on the map. We do not mention its historical status or make any statement about its true ownership.

As I mentioned in my previous email, I think that some of the statements you and others have found fault with are in the Russian edition and not the English edition. As I have said, I speak no Russian and all I can do here is to pass your concerns to the Russian publisher. It is my understanding that they will be responding to the Armenian authorities, or may have already done so.

I do hope that these responses are satisfactory.

Yours sincerely

Catherine Brereton

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Catherine Brereton

London  N1 9RR