I start the presentation with the caveat that I will certainly not say many new things, and that I will probably repeat myself with my colleagues for some. The topic “Encyclopedias from which we learn” is a comprehensive one, and there is a lot to talk about. Our wish is to show with this exhibition that the “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” is in many ways an institution that draws from world experience and although it cannot be compared to encyclopedias with centuries-old traditions such as the French national encyclopedia “Larousse”, the English-language “Encyclopaedia Britannica” and “The Hutchinson Encyclopedia”, the Russian “Bolshaya Encyclopedia”, the German “Brockhaus” and “Meyer’s Lexikon”, the American “The New Columbia Encyclopedia” and others of this rank, it strives not to be inferior to them in terms of informational possibilities. Therefore, each editor in the encyclopedia, working on his section, gets acquainted with how the materials of his field are presented in other encyclopedias, mostly general, but also branch ones, and together we discuss the way in which the materials can get a complete look and most fully and accurately convey the information to the reader. Of course, in the half-century anniversary, many things have changed, and especially with the advent of information technology, encyclopedias have taken on a different look in modern times. Electronic encyclopedias have appeared recently, but due to the possibilities they have such as quick access to information, they have conquered the market. However, there is a category of readers who remain faithful to the book, and “traditional” multi-volume, single-volume general and branch encyclopedias still have their considerable space on the book market. The major publishing houses market quite a few translated encyclopedias. However, national encyclopedias are something that every self-respecting country should own. First of all, because 30% of it reflects what concerns the country in which world information is published and reflected, again from the point of view of what excites the readers in the respective country. However, this does not mean that it has a subjective nature, since, compiling the dictionary of a common encyclopedia, we editors from “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” review quite a few world editions in order to orientate ourselves in the most current issues and try to convey them to our readers. Thus, in time, colleagues from the “History” editorial office made a review of the edition “Chronique de l’humanite” of “Larousse”. Drawing experience from this edition, they proposed a completely new reading of historical events back in 1986, when completely different systems and categorizations were chronologically presented in our editions. With this fact, I want to emphasize that the editors at “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” have a modern approach to presenting information, regardless of the conjuncture of the time. Naturally, we have drawn exclusively and mainly experience from Russian encyclopedias as the closest to a way of presenting the facts in the years when we were a socialist bloc, as well as those of the CIS countries such as Yugoslavia, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Ukraine, GDR and other. Of course, general ideas about the development of the world contributed to this. Ideological and partly linguistic affinities contributed to the compilation of the materials for the “Bulgarian Encyclopedia”. “Bolshaya sovetskaya encyclopedia” in 30 volumes with alphabetically arranged articles and “Soviet encyclopedic dictionary” were like a bible for us. The large staff of qualified editors, the many famous scientists participating in the editions of “Soviet Encyclopedia” respected and were a good example of how to make encyclopedias at the academic level. These encyclopedias became the basis for the release of extremely interesting and diverse encyclopedic editions in various fields of human knowledge, as well as those of a temporary information nature, such as yearbooks, etc. in the Russian Federation, from which we also draw experience today. Today we have many more encyclopedias to choose from to learn from. In recent years, the best of the world’s encyclopedias have been offered on the Bulgarian market. The breakdown of ideological barriers, the advent of the Internet and online connections have also contributed to a much greater exchange of information regarding our encyclopedic publications.
“Encyclopaedia Britannica” today is one of the most authoritative encyclopedic publications in the world with more than 230 years of history – it is the oldest and largest general encyclopedia in the English language. After a series of changes of its owners from 1901 it was bought by American publishers, and in the period 1902-1909 it was also sponsored by the London Times newspaper; since 1940 it has been published in Chicago, USA.
The first edition of “Encyclopaedia Britannica” was in 3 volumes and was published in 1768-71 in Edinburgh, Scotland. In subsequent editions, it increases its volume and gains great authority. Among her famous publications are: the ninth in 24 volumes (1875-1889), known as the “Encyclopedia of Scientists”; the eleventh in 29 volumes (1910-11), in the creation of which more than 1,500 experts from around the world participated and where for the first time the traditionally long treatises were divided into more detailed articles; and the fifteenth edition in a row (1974), which is unique in its structure and consists of three parts – “Propedia” in 1 volume, “Micropedia” in 10 volumes and “Macropedia” in 19 volumes, i.e. a total of 30 volume. The uniqueness of the 15th edition consists in the fact that the arrangement of the material was achieved in alphabetical order and by topic, and, on the other hand, both principles were carried out at the same time: the reference – through short articles with references, and the educational – through extensive and in-depth articles. In “Propedia” there is a scheme-classification of scientific knowledge with the corresponding sections and subsections, and at the beginning of each section there is an overview article; an index number indicates the exact location of the material sought in the relevant article or articles in the Macropedia volumes. In the “Micropedia” are given the short articles with references by index numbers, and in the “Macropedia” are the long articles. Over 4,000 contributors (including many Nobel Laureates), hundreds of editors and more than 200 scientific consultants from the Universities of Chicago, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Edinburgh, Toronto, Tokyo and the Australian National university.
From 1974 onwards, partially updated reprints of the 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica appeared each year, with a major revision in 1985. The latest version of the 15th edition from 2005 is in 32 volumes – 2 volumes “Propedia”, 12 volumes “Micropedia” and 18 volumes “Macropedia”, and contains over 65,000 articles; it is also available in an electronic version on compact disc (CD-ROM) as well as “on-line” by subscription.
The Scientific Information Center “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences monitors the reference editions of other publishing houses and countries and, studying their criteria, we try to apply them according to our interests and possibilities. After briefly presenting the structure and working methodology of the encyclopedia “Encyclopaedia Britannica”, it is more than clear that we could not measure up to such a world edition, but the practice of linking encyclopedias to large newspaper publishers is currently used and this practice is turns out to be very good. On the one hand, the scientific potential of the Academy of Sciences is used, on the other, the media capabilities of such a serious and large-scale publishing house as the “Trud” publishing house. For the practice of using the achievements of other encyclopedias, we will refer to the studies of colleagues from the “History” editorial office made in 1986 regarding the “Chronicle of Humanity” and “Chronicle of the 20th Century” of the encyclopedic publishing house “Larousse”. On the basis of the “Chronicle of Mankind” it is found that the mechanical categorization in periods is not the best solution, and that each continent has its own development, and what applies to the European development of civilization cannot also apply to the Asian continent , as they should not simplistically include periods such as Renaissance, Enlightenment, Colonialism, Imperialism, Socialism, etc. within precisely defined centuries and years, since each individual people and continent have their development not always coinciding with world processes taken for template. This was a revolutionary for its time change in the approach to presenting the historical events reflected in our one-volume encyclopedia. This experience was applied very well in the electronic edition of the “Bulgarian Encyclopedia”, where the chronological table is comparable to those in the world encyclopedias as information. In “Chronicle of the 20th century” the publishers’ desire to restore not only purely historical moments, but also purely human ones was noted. It richly illustrates political, sports, artistic and theatrical life, the greatest technological discoveries and scientific conquests that have influenced everyday life. It also offers meetings with famous people who have marked the 20th century for better or worse, which we suggest to remember in an original and curious way. Wars, uprisings, politics, sports, art, fashion, cinema, science, weddings, funerals, negotiations, trials, mysteries – everything that has excited man in the past century is represented in a scientific, but at the same time attractive way. Unfortunately, “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” has not yet produced such an edition. In this year, an edition concerning the chronological events of the past century for Bulgaria was published, which, although declared to be unique, is boring and not that informative. We know that such editions require, in addition to encyclopedic experience, a lot of resources invested in illustrating the events, and what we consider to be below the level of world encyclopedias for “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” is the weaker illustration, although the main topics are very well represented in the appendices of Dominique and Michel Fremy’s 1988 one-volume encyclopedia, or Tout pour tout, published by A-Z. In this sense, electronic encyclopedias have an advantage in visually complementing the texts. Another interesting study is by the “Quid” publication Robert Lafon and the “Quid” Encyclopaedia Society in Paris, which partially covers the notion of an encyclopedic dictionary… but not quite. It is more of an encyclopedic yearbook, selling more than 4,500,000 copies. It is one volume and covers facts, dates and figures from all areas. In Latin, the term means “what”. The first edition of “Quid” was published in 1963. It contained 632 pages with 2.5 million characters. The 1988 edition has 1,920 pages and 29 million characters. According to the authors’ definition, it is a methodological encyclopedia, according to our classification, it is thematic. The articles and data are not grouped alphabetically, but by topics and within sections /sectors/. A similar edition was printed in 2005 in Russia and was called “Big encyclopedia of absolute and relative knowledge”. It is something in between “chronicle” and “Quid” as a way of presenting information and, in my opinion, is the first attempt to break the model of traditional encyclopedic editions. It contains a unique collection of figures and facts in which reality finds its brightest expression. The task is to provide the reader in a convenient and systematized form a huge amount of information from various fields of human knowledge. Contains 3 major sections: Universe with subsections – Time and Space. International System of Units, Microworld, Cosmos, Earth; Life and Civilization with subsections – History of mankind, Philosophy, Mythology, Religion, Natural science and technical development, Economy, States and peoples, Russian Federation. In “Quid” there are 20 sections – In the last hour. The world. Life. The sciences. Literature. Arts. Religions. France. Politics. Countries and territories. The information. Society. Education. The economy. The practice /everyday life/. The national defense. The finances. The personalities. Sports and games. Index. The “World” section has subsections: astronomy, astronautics, physical geography, meteorology, demography. In each of these subsections there is a rubric of history of the problem, general data, definitions. The tables – Space law, Space projects, Victims of space disasters, for all earthquakes are interesting. “Life” is divided into the following departments – the human body, medicine, animals, plants. There is a section for parks and gardens, for pets. The tables about left-handed people in the world and their diseases are interesting. In the “Science” section there are departments for mathematics, physics and chemistry, systems, measures of time /hours, clocks, calendars/, scientists, discoveries, societies, awards. Scientists are listed alphabetically by year of birth. The years of their lives and the fields in which they work are noted. The discoveries are by topics and years. In the section “Literature” there are: authors and works, separate literatures, philosophy, academies, awards, bestsellers, publishing activity. The tables for literary movements and for science fiction works and science fiction authors are very interesting. The arts are divided into – plastic arts, architecture, fine arts, sculpture, other arts – by territories and by genres, works of art /with their prices/. The stolen art table is curious. The remaining departments are music, theater, dance and a very well developed “Cinema” department. The “Religions” section broadly advocates the types of religions, saints, terminology, prayers, there is a table for popes in the Roman Catholic Church. The “France” section is the largest and spans 240 pages. It is divided into: geography, population, history, institutions, justice, administrative division. The “Politics” section includes definitions of political topics, international organizations, assassinations, etc. “Countries and Territories” contains information on newspapers, telegraph agencies, print, television and radio. The “Society” section is very interesting – in it you can read about noble ranks, orders and medals, Freemasonry, clubs and societies, addresses to nobles and church officials. In the section “Education” there is a lot of useful data about educational institutions /oldest universities/ and others. “Economy” is divided into: agriculture, transport, tourism, energy, third world, economic conditions. “Practice” contains abbreviations of most used concepts, characters, numbers, alphabets, covers livelihood, insurance, associations, consumer protection, family economy, environment, family, table of name days, necessary documents that a person must have, human rights and freedoms, housing, health care, social security, labor, trade unions, etc. The “Finance” section covers the departments French Finance, International Finance, Banks, Money, Bonds, Wages, Prices. In the section “Personalities” in 4 columns, famous names are listed in alphabetical order / the index for their occupations, nationalities, etc., years of life/. In “Sports and games” there is data on sports and gambling games, on sports results and Olympics. The index completes the “Quid” volume. The tables are abundant, and the form of their printing is free. The included portraits, diagrams and drawings are in black and white, with and without titles. The publication also contains advertising materials. Feedback is also thought of. A correspondence slip is printed at the end of the volume, which can be torn off and sent with the appropriate note by readers of the publication. For the time being, in “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” some parts of this edition are used, such as tables and others, but in general it is not printed. However, this type of publication could also be considered. It is not so academic, but it is very readable. A classic encyclopedia is the one-volume “Columbia”. It contains more than 1 million words in 15,000 articles, 1/3 of which are biographical. It is updated periodically every two years. The text is spread over 943 pages in two columns per page. Its layout is based on principles suitable for a comprehensive yet concise reference book. Terms that would only contain a definition-definition and can accordingly be found in another dictionary are not included, as well as review articles / e.g. American literature/ on a subject whose depth and scope preclude adequate elaboration in a single encyclopedia article. Information on such a topic is presented through articles from its various aspects / e.g. E. Dickinson, W. Faulkner, novel, satire, etc./. In this case, we have borrowed this approach in our one-volume encyclopedia. Where aspects of a wider topic are not so obvious because of their specificity, a list of references is given after the title of the article to guide the reader /eg. Education – see Adult Education, Audiovisual Education, Lyceums and Universities, Ethnic Education, Kindergartens, Open Classroom, etc., as well as biographical Conon James, Montessori Maria, etc./, or Modern Art – see Abstract Expressionism, “The Bridge “, Constructivism, Cubism, Dadaism, Nazarenes, Post-Impressionism, Suprematism and others. In our one-volume encyclopedia, references are widely used in review articles and as links between smaller ones. The abbreviations used are significantly fewer than those in our one-volume A-Z encyclopedia. The volume of articles in “Columbia” is not always an indicator of the importance of a term. Often, information about individuals and topics of the same magnitude is reflected in articles of different volumes. Some individuals have a more complex life path or contributions in several fields of human endeavor, or the explanation of a technical subject or some controversial issue requires the presentation of several points of view, etc. For example, as a ratio, James Joyce -20 years, Balzac – 11 years, Byron -20 years, Goethe – 37 years, Shakespeare -66 years, Leonardo da Vinci – 45 years. In music, Bach -30- years, Mozart – 40 years, Beethoven – 26 years, in science – Einstein – 27 years, Newton – 24 years, Kant – 36 years, etc. in politics – Lincoln – 43 years old, Lenin – 46 years old, Brezhnev – 26 years old, Mitterrand – 8 years old, Marx – 25 years old. The authors of the articles did not adhere to a strictly defined scheme, the exposition is too free. Words and expressions are used that we consider inappropriate for the encyclopedic style. Biographical articles have a lot of details, interesting facts from life that are related to the creative path of the author are also included. The encyclopedia also includes a significant number of tables and diagrams that present the information in a more concise form and allow the reader to grasp at a glance interrelated facts that would otherwise be scattered throughout the publication or, due to its limited volume, not included at all. What tables are there – Vitamins, Ballet Dancers and Choreographers, UN Member States, Libraries, US Presidents, World Languages, Olympic Games, National Parks, etc. In this case, we can say that in the electronic edition of the encyclopedia we have greatly benefited from the experience of foreign encyclopedias in making tables, and we have also applied our own unique approach in relation to Bulgarian history and culture. When making general encyclopedias, the work of the editors of “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” is not inferior in terms of methodology and aspiration to that of the editors of the major encyclopedic editions. In the library of the scientific information center there are many encyclopedic editions, which are a source for constant references and comparisons. Personal contacts with foreign encyclopedias also contribute to research and application of the latest achievements in the field of encyclopedic work. The publishing house “Glorier Incorporated”, which prepares many multi-volume reference books for different audiences and in many languages with the chairman Mr. Wallace Murray in one material reflecting the editorial policy of his publishing house dwells on the work of the encyclopedic editor. We will focus on two main points that are identical. This is the way in which we structure our current activity, namely that each of our publications has a lead, the constant editor-reader relationship and reporting of possible gaps in the publication. Constant updating of materials is also one of the main duties of encyclopedic editions. Editing in the encyclopedia is not just working on a manuscript. The encyclopedia editor’s job is to keep track of the latest information pertaining to his sections, as well as to verify the veracity of that information. This means that the encyclopedic editor is unique in its choice of updating, and this has not yet been achieved in computer programs. Therefore, in a really good encyclopedia, the composition of the authors, reviewers and the best possible specialists in the field of any human knowledge is very important. Therefore, the place of the “Bulgarian Encyclopedia” is precisely in the BAS, because it is in this structure that the encyclopedic editor can find the most accurate collaborator for the departments in which he works. The teamwork in Bulgarian Encyclopedia almost repeats that of the editors in “Grolier”. The finale of this material ends with the words of Mr. Murray “I believe that the editorial teams of “Grolier”, as in other encyclopedic publishers, always strive for the highest quality and are convinced of the value of what they do. It serves as our motivation and inspiration to meet the daily, monthly challenges of trying to present the world’s knowledge in a clear, precise, well-organized form, at a time when the rate of expansion of this knowledge almost exceeds the limits of human understanding.” I think that this sentence can be repeated on behalf of “Bulgarian Encyclopedia”. And this is proof that all of us at the encyclopedia strive to apply the best of the world’s encyclopedic experience. How successful are we? That’s what our readers will say.
Zoya PAPRIKOVA-KRUTILIN
editor in the editorial office “Humanitarian
and social sciences”
Velo CHERNIRADEV
editor in editorial
“Natural, mathematical and technical sciences”,
