In 2012 Friends House Moscow received a major grant from The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, which provided three years of funding for translation and publication of Quaker texts.
The work was not finished by the end of year 3 (2015), partly due to delays in obtaining copyright permission for translations. It was extended into 2016 with the agreement of the Trust.
Meanwhile, because of movements in the exchange rate since 2013, we had a large portion of the original grant money left over (it has taken fewer pounds to generate the required amount of Russian roubles). This has enabled us (again with the agreement of the Trust) to continue the work with extra publications that were not included in the original grant application.
Translation and publication work in progress in 2016 included:
> Translation and editing of Reflections from a Long Marriage by Roger and Susan Sawtell (Swarthmore Lecture 2006)
> Translation and editing of (part of) Fox’s Journal
> Translation and editing of Beyond Majority Rule by Michael J Sheeran
> Professional e-formatting of the Russian translations of Elizabeth Fry – a Biography by June Rose and Norwegian Diary 1940-1945 by Myrtle Wright
> The final editing and layout of Rethinking War & Peace by Diana Francis was finished and it was published electronically.
In addition to these books, we increased the provision of online information about Quakers by
> the translation of 52 short pieces for the Russian language website quakers.ru;
> 3 translations for Russian Wikipedia of English Wikipedia articles about Quakers. This brings the total number of Quaker articles on Russian Wikipedia up to 88.
As well as online publication we are exploring the scope for limited print runs of
selected books. The preference for reading electronic versions means that we require a
specific reason and a defined distribution network to justify a paper copy. We decided to
print Rethinking War & Peace because there are networks which can be used for distribution,
and we have acknowledged a demand for peace texts.
Online outreach
Our online outreach includes our Russian language website quakers.ru, which hosts both
our online library of books and a regularly updated series of short articles about different
topics relevant to Quakerism. As noted above there is a growing volume of content on
Wikipedia. We also have a presence on Russian social media, especially Facebook and Vkontakte, which has resulted in online discussions on nonviolence and social justice.