Great Encyclopedia "Terra"

The scientific and editorial council of the encyclopedia, headed by academician Gennady Andreyevich Mesyats , vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences , consists of 10 academicians, the entire team of authors consists of more than 500 people. The articles in the encyclopedia are not signed (in contrast, for example, from the 3rd edition of TSB , BDT or the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary ), at the end of each volume is only a list of authors. Sergey Kondratov, editor-in-chief of the encyclopedia, explained this decision by the fact that it was easier for compilers to maintain a neutral position ^[1] .

According to the publisher, the articles in the encyclopedia are deideologized and are purely factual in nature, not including political, ethical, as well as any positive or negative assessments of personalities and phenomena of world history and modernity ^[3] .

The great Encyclopedia Terra is original in concept. A larger volume (with other things being equal) has those articles whose information on the subject matter is, in the opinion of the editors, more difficult to obtain ^[1] . For example, an article about N.V. Gogol in the encyclopedia occupies half a column, and an article about Boris Viana - one and a half ^[1] . In addition to the article about the poet Byron , there is an article about the singer Byron .

Information in the encyclopedia is given for 2000-2005. For example, there are articles about the August putsch of 1991 , the October events of 1993 . The creation of the encyclopedia was not funded by the state and was carried out through private funding. This was reflected in the composition of the biographies presented - articles devoted to such personalities as L. Sliska (vice-speaker of the State Duma), A. Pugacheva , B. Abramovich and others.

In the last volume of the encyclopedia, after the articles with the letter “I”, the so-called “Latin block” is placed. Here, in order of the Latin alphabet, there are articles from languages ​​with the Latin system of writing used in the modern Russian literary language. The most striking example is Latin winged expressions, as well as some technical terms that have not yet been mastered by the Cyrillic writing system, for example, DVD , Dolby Surround , the names of foreign music groups and more.

The editors planned the release of the Yearbooks of the Great Encyclopedia, in which new information was to be given, which was not included in the main publication; In 2008, the first and only two-volume Yearbook 2007 was published. In addition, on the basis of the Great Encyclopedia, it was planned to publish a number of industry encyclopedias with detailed vocabularies and detailed articles on this topic. ^[1] As of 2010, the Encyclopedia “Revolution and Civil War in Russia 1917-1923” in 4 volumes, the Encyclopedia “Fascism and Antifascism” in 2 volumes and the 15-volume “Encyclopedia of Painting” were published.

In 2008, a resident of Severodvinsk Vladimir Gordienko discovered more than 260 errors in the multi-volume book of the Terra encyclopedia. He wrote to the publisher, but it ignored his claims. Then the reader filed a lawsuit, demanding a refund of the amount paid for the encyclopedia. In December 2010, the Severodvinsk City Court, relying on the expertise, recognized that the Big Encyclopedia did not meet the standards of the reference publication and satisfied the plaintiff's claim. In favor of V. Gordienko, OOO Terra Publishing House was charged 99,900 rubles (cost of books + compensation for non-pecuniary damage). In addition, the publisher was fined 50 thousand rubles ^{[4] [5] [6]} .

In March 2010, the Human Rights Ombudsman in the Chechen Republic, Nurdi Nukhazhiev, appealed to the Council of the Federation of the Russian Federation , the State Duma of the Russian Federation , the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation , the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation with a request to withdraw the 58th volume of the Great Encyclopedia from circulation and attract responsibility of the editor-in-chief ^[7] . According to N. Nukhazhiev, the article “The Chechen Republic” “deliberately compiles the entire set of negative stereotypes about Chechens”, the events in Chechnya are covered “without observing the principle of historicism”, and the Chechen people are said with “hatred and neglect” ^{[7 ]} . In addition, N. Nukhazhiev and a number of human rights organizations of the Chechen Republic turned to Moscow lawyer Murad Musaev , who collected and systematized a number of expert opinions that sharply criticized the content of the article “The Chechen Republic”. So, for example, the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences considered that the authors made an intentional falsification of the history of the Chechen people ^[8] . Lawyer M. Musaev initiated a petition to the court declaring the article "Chechen Republic" extremist. Speaking in court, M. Musaev stated, in particular, that "children and young people, drawing from the encyclopedia the basics of their own knowledge of the world, should not become an audience of xenophobes and chauvinists breathing hatred of entire nations." On April 5, 2010, the Zavodskoy District Court of Grozny declared the article “The Chechen Republic” extremist and decided to confiscate the 58th volume of the Great Encyclopedia ^[9] . On May 25, 2010, the Chechen Supreme Court rejected the cassation appeal of the publishing house ^[10] . In accordance with the court decision, the 58th volume of the encyclopedia was completely withdrawn from sale ^[11] .

In 2011, a Moscow resident named Yashenko, who paid for but never received the 58th volume of the Great Terra Encyclopedia, filed a lawsuit in court, demanding compensation. The court ruled that the Publishing House Terra LLC should compensate the plaintiff for moral and material damage in the amount of 100,000 rubles ^{[12] [13] [14]} .

• Very "Big Encyclopedia"

Criticism

• Alexey Kupriyanov. Michurin Encyclopedia Creation Techniques
• V.V. Naumkin , A.K. Alikberov , M. Yu. Roshchin , A. Yu. Skakov . Scientific expert opinion on the falsification of Russian history in the article “The Chechen Republic” in the “Great Encyclopedia” (M .: TERRA, 2006. Volume 58)