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Exhibition to feature fifty-four Holodomor artworks by
Ukrainian artists
Ukrainian
National Museum, Chicago, Illinois, Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, October 17,
2008
25
. "OUR DAILY BREAD" HOLODOMOR
EXHIBITION TO OPEN IN CHICAGO OCT. 24
Exhibition to feature fifty-four
Holodomor artworks by Ukrainian artists
“They put a gun to your head
and made you swear you would bring in grain the next day.
Everyone cried. There was
nothing left to bring!” Hanna Ikasivna Cherniuk, Holodomor survivor
Ukrainian National Museum,
Chicago, Illinois, Wednesday, October 15, 2008
CHICAGO - “Our Daily Bread”,
an exhibition of artworks commemorating the Ukrainian
Holodomor-Genocide, opens Friday, October 24th at the Ukrainian
National Museum, 2249 West Superior, in Chicago.
“Our Daily Bread” officially
opens at 6:30 PM with a program that features a short video by
Ukrainian singer Oksana Bilozir and an opening statement by the
granddaughter of a Holodomor survivor, Ms. Oryna
Hrushetsky-Schiffman.
In 1932 and 1933, between
seven and 10 million Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death
during the “Holodomor” - or death by starvation. This genocide was
masterminded by Joseph Stalin and his inner circle, and was carried out
by Soviets who confiscated every last bit of food from Ukrainian
peasants who were resistant to collective farming - and who represented
the backbone of the Ukrainian people.
This year, 2008, marks the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, and the
government of Ukraine as well as Ukrainians around the world have been
organizing events in an effort to expose and publicize this crime
against humanity while there are still survivors young enough to recall
its horrors.
EXHIBITION FEATURES 54 HOLODOMOR ARTWORKS
In Chicago, the latest event commemorating the Holodomor is an
exhibition at the Ukrainian National Museum opening Friday, October
24th. “Our Daily Bread” features 54 artworks that are part of the
“Holodomor: Through The Eyes of Ukrainian Artists”
collection.
The founder and trustee of
the unusual collection, U.S. businessman Morgan
Williams, gathered the over 350 original Holodomor artworks in
the collection during the last 11 years in Ukraine. Williams
is director, government affairs, Washington, D.C., for the
SigmaBleyzer private equity investment group and serves as president of
the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council (USUBC).
Most of the artworks were
created after 1988, when Ukrainians were finally free
to evoke the suffering and horrors of the Holodomor in the last days of
the USSR, right before Ukraine declared independence in
1991. Before 1988 no one was allowed to talk about this
tragedy let alone express themselves through artwork or
writings. Many Ukrainian artists may very well have only
learned of the Holodomor at that time, after decades of extreme Soviet
suppression of the atrocities.
The government of Ukraine
has officially declared the Holodomor a genocide against the Ukrainian
people and is asking the United Nations to do so as well. Just this
past September, the United States House of Representatives passed a
Resolution condemning the Holodomor and the former Soviet government’s
deliberate confiscation of grain harvests, which resulted in the
starvation of millions of Ukrainian men, women, and children.
It was a devastating chapter of Stalin’s reign of terror that wiped out
one quarter of the peasantry - and later included the intelligentsia
and other leaders of Ukrainian society who were shot and exiled by the
hundreds of thousands in an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian nation.
And it was carried out at a time when Ukraine, then officially the
Ukrainian SSR, had one of the richest farmlands in the world - “the
breadbasket of Europe.”
The exhibition will also include a room depicting what life was like in
Ukraine prior to enforced collectivization—as well as an evocative
walk-through installation depicting the horrors of the Holodomor.
The "Our Daily Bread"
Holodomor exhibition is on view through Sunday, November 30, 2008. The
Museum hours are Thursday to Sunday from 11:00 a.m.
to 4:00 pm. The Ukrainian National Museum
is located at 2249 West Superior Street in the Ukrainian Village
neighborhood. Call 312-421-8020 or visit the Museum's website,
www.ukrainiannationalmuseum.org for more
information.
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26
. UKRAINIANS OF RUSSIA
STARTLED WITH RUSSIA'S BAN FOR HOLDING INTERNATIONAL
ACTION
EVERBURNING CANDLE IN COMMEMORATION OF HOLODOMOR
1932-1933
Ukrinform,
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, October 17, 2008
KYIV - The Community of Ukrainians in Russia (CUR) and the
Federal National-Cultural Autonomy (FNCA) of Ukrainians of Russia
express regret and surprise at the actions of Russian authorities that
practically made it impossible to hold the international action
Everburning Candle by Ukrainian organizations in Russian regions, the
statement of CUR and FNCA reads, UKRINFORM own correspondent reports.
The events on commemorating the victims of Holodomor 1932-1933 planned
for October had no political ground, Ukrainian organizations in Russia
emphasize. However, Russian authorities prohibited holding the mass
educational commemorative events within Everburning Candle which
arrived in Russia from Kazakhstan on October 8 on various reasons.
Only Ukrainian organizations in Moscow and Saint Petersburg
managed to hold large-scale events, even the Russian Orthodox Church
refused (except Moscow) to hold commemorations and called them
"inexpedient".
As UKRINFORM earlier reported, in 2008, on the initiative of the World
Congress of Ukrainians, in view of the 75th anniversary of Holodomor
1932-1933, Ukrainians from all over the world are holding the action
Everburning Candle. Its route covers all continents and countries where
Ukrainians live.
On October 6, the Russian Foreign Ministry sent a diplomatic note in
which the Russian party, referring to Ukraine's position regarding
Holodomor, made a condition either to hold events in line with Russia's
position on this issue or to cancel the action.
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