Work on Alexander Svoboda's Journal of a Journey has been a team project of many years and has involved a large number of people working on many aspects of the project ranging from historical and linguistic research to the development and application of digital methodologies for the production of our "new book". Very few of the people who worked with us were compensated financially for their efforts and those who were gave far more effort to the project than could ever have been repaid.
The vast majority of the hands-on work of the project was carried out by teams of exceptional undergraduate researchers, most University of Washington students. We consider the following students (and any we may have forgotten) co-authors of the project: Meg Ainsley, Jeffry Barton, Austin Bell (Carleton College), Alex Brooks, Jeremy Caci (Western Washington Unversity), Emily Cimber, Jessica Claycomb, David Cronkite, Rukia Fahim, Ariella Fish, Daniel Hart, Sara Hefny, Maggie Wollman Hellis, Seunghae Jane Kim, Khanh-Hoa Huynh Luong, Jenessa Markland, Grace Mitchell (University Prep High School), Patrick Mullen, Kayhan Nejad, Mew Ophaswonge, Khadija Qader, Anna Robinson, Davis Shepherd, Cameron Sparr, Jessica Tarabay, Matthew Wright, Evan Wyse, Kecen Zhou.
Much of the teamwork in the latter stages of the project was managed by our graduate student managing editors Connie Cannon and Monica Meadows Morrice. Another University of Washington graduate student, Joshua Crowgey was instrumental in building the on-line version of the journal and the Svobodapedia. The print on demand version of the journal is generated by programs created by Jon Crump and designed by Patti Treger who also designed the New Book website with the assistance of Shruti Santosh More and Padmavathy Nageshbabu Vaithyam.
The support of the Svoboda family throughout the process has been invaluable. We are greatly indebted to them for allowing us to share their family story and for their kind cooperation at every stage of our work. We owe special thanks to Carole Boucherot Düster, Veronique Svoboda, Evelyne Boukoff, and Louis Svoboda.
A number of people have seemed to emerge sought and unsought to offer their help to the project. We are immensely grateful to Ali Wahab who has generously shared his Iraq and Svoboda memorabilia including postcards produced by Alexander Svoboda during his adult life and to John McKeown who allowed us to use images of a painting by Alexander Sandor Svoboda, our Alexander's uncle. Our thanks also goes to Kanan Makiya and his mother Margaret Makiya for sharing Mrs. Makiya's transcriptions of the Joseph Mathia Svoboda Diaries and allowing us to digitize ten J. M. Svoboda diaries which they rescued from Iraq.
There are many more people who deserve mention among them our colleagues at the University of Washington and throughout the world who have offered advice and assistance when asked. We are especially grateful to Prof. Jane Hathaway, an expert on the Ottoman Empire in Arab lands, who was willing to offer her support whenever asked.
Institutional support was provided by the staff of the Iraq National Manuscript Center, the Digital Initiatives Program of the University of Washington Libraries directed by Ann Lally, the UW DxArts Department, the Center for Advanced Research and Training in the Arts and Humanities, and Administrator Ourania Abell and the staff of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilization Department. Partial funding of the project was provided by grants from the University of Washington Royalty Research Fund and the National Endowment for the Humanities' Digital Start-up Program, and funds provided by the UW Office of the Dean of Humanities.
In a project that depends on so many people for its success, we are certain that some people who richly deserve our heart-felt thanks will go unmentioned. We hope that they will accept that thanks and forgive us for unwillingly and unwittingly omitting the recognition they merit.
Lastly we would like to dedicate our work to the memory of Prof. Henry Alexander Svoboda who is in most ways the father of this project.
Nowf A. Allawi
Walter G. Andrews
