UkrInform - International Life, Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, October 25, 2008 

KYIV - A decision of the General Committee of the UN General Assembly to postpone adoption of a recommendation on including an issue about the Holodomor of 1932-33 in Ukraine into the agenda of the present UN General Assembly was taken during the days when the world community celebrates the 63rd Anniversary of the UN Foundation.

 

Ukraine, the USSR member at that time, was one of the UN founding countries. Ukraine was among the first countries to sign the UN Charter and was included into a group of its 51 founding countries.

Despite restrictions existing during the Soviet epoch, Ukraine was considered to be a sovereign state de jure and carried out active political activities at the UN, which gave it the only opportunity to realize its foreign policy at that time. Just thanks to the UN membership Ukraine actually had no difficulties with recognition in the world following declaration of its independence.

The people of Ukraine, over 90 percent of its citizens, confirmed the country's independence at the all-Ukrainian Referendum on December 1, 1991, that was recognized by the UN and immediately following it - by many world countries

Ukraine was three times elected as non-permanent member of the Security Council (1948-1949, 1984-1985, 2000-2001), five times - as member of the Economic and Social Council. Ukrainian representatives have been elected to leading positions in the main committees of the General Assembly sessions. In 1997, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Hennadiy Udovenko was elected Chairman of the 52nd Session of the General Assembly that is known in the history as the “session of reforms”.

Ukraine joined the Global Anti-Terror Coalition having emphasized readiness to counter terrorism within the framework of the UN activities. The Ukrainian delegation stated a number of initiatives aimed at intensification of international cooperation in this sphere at the 56th General Assembly Session and at meetings of the UN Security Council.

Since July 1992, Ukraine is a contributor of the military units and personnel for the UN peacekeeping operations. Over a period of Ukraine's independence, about 28 thousand of Ukrainian servicemen participated in peacekeeping operations under the UN auspices. In 1994, Ukraine became an initiator of the Convention on the Safety of the United Nations and Associated Personnel.

Presently, Ukraine is a member of such UN authorities as the Human Rights Council, Executive Committee of the World Food Program, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Programs (UNDP) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and others.  Today, Ukraine pays to the UN Regular Budget 0.039 percent of total expenditures of the Organization.

 

UNIAN news agency, Kiev, in Ukrainian 0818 gmt 24 Oct 08
BBC Monitoring Service, UK, in English, Thursday, October 24, 2008 

KIEV - The Russian Federation, using "pressure and blackmail", attempts to deny Ukraine its right to submit the issue of the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine [Holodomor] for consideration by the UN General Assembly.

The press service of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine told the UNIAN news agency that on 23 October 2008 the General Committee of the UN General Assembly, after a heated debate, refused to put the issue of the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine on the agenda of the current session of the UN General Assembly.
"The Russian Federation, using its levers of influence as a permanent UN Security Council member, through direct pressure and blackmail, attempts to deny a country-member of the UN [Ukraine] of its right to put an important issue on the agenda of the UN, which is the most representative international organization. These actions contradict the very letter and spirit of the UN Charter and the procedure of the General Assembly," the Foreign Ministry said.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that the counter-productive stance of Russia contradicts the approach of the world community in evaluating the famine.

"This has been reflected in the resolution on commemorating the victims of the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine, unanimously adopted by the European Parliament on 23 October 2008. The resolution recognizes the famine as a 'terrible crime against Ukrainians' and 'the crime against humanity'.

 

The resolution also condoles Ukrainian people who suffered from the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine," the ministry said. The work on putting the issue of the 1932-33 famine in Ukraine on the UN General Assembly's agenda continues.

 

Itar-Tass, Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, October 28, 2008

UNITED NATIONS - The United States is trying to set people of Ukraine and Russia against each other with the Great Famine issue, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vitaly Churkin said on Tuesday.

He said the United States was thus "resolving the hard task of pushing Ukraine into NATO while 80% of Ukrainian citizens objected to the Ukrainian
drawing into the North Atlantic alliance."

The U.S. and British delegations were rude and kept interrupting the chair of the UN General Assembly's General Committee, which was considering the Assembly agenda, Churkin said. The General Committee discussed the possible attachment of the Ukrainian draft resolution on the Great Famine to the agenda.

"The Great Famine and Ukrainian genocide claims create a certain background for another mainstream ideological action of the Ukrainian administration, i.e. glorification of Ukrainian accomplices of the Nazi," he said. "The most illustrative example of this glorification is the Hero of Ukraine title posthumously awarded by the Ukrainian president to one of the most notorious leaders of Ukrainian Nazis, Shukevich, in 2007."

"The Babiy Yar tragedy is the most vivid symbol of Holocaust," Churkin said. "Plenty of those who killed Jews in Babiy Yar were Ukrainian accomplices of the Nazi."

All that "is totally discordant with the United Nations Organization, which was established amid the victory of the anti-Hitler coalition, and principles of this organization," he said.

 

"Russia has been fighting against the phenomenon for more than three years. Each year it offers a resolution that condemns the appearance of new forms of racism and glorification of nazism, and each year the resolution gains support of the UN General Assembly. We hope that the resolution will enjoy broader support this year than in 2007 when it was approved by 130 states."

"European nations regularly abstain in the vote on the draft Russian resolution that condemns glorification of the Nazi. Maybe, the United States, which has taken up history and has become hyperactive in the Great Famine issue, will finally support the resolution. So far, only two states ­ the U.S. and the Marshall Islands ­voted against our resolution last year for reasons I would call inexplicable," Churkin said.

 

By Yuri Shapoval, Historian, Professor, The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tue, Oct 28, 2008

 

This is a truly unusual book. There is a great deal of public interest in the Holodomor in Ukraine. Poland is also interested in this subject. Polish literature on the subject is considerably smaller in scope than Ukraine’s.

 

Although Polish studies dealing with the period of collectivization in Ukraine were published even before the Second World War, owing to well-known circumstances researchers in Poland were able to begin studying the Holodomor only after 1989.

Today, we are working together on a volume of unique documents. Key among them are documents and materials written by Polish diplomats, intelligence officers, and officials in charge of voivodeships that were adjacent to Ukraine. We are also publishing interesting documents from the HDA SBU on the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR.

 

These include various instructions and data prepared by the Chekists during the tragic events of 1932-33, as well as documents relating to foreign diplomatic missions in the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR. The supplement will include entries from journals kept by several Holodomor eyewitnesses.

 

POLISH INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL REMEMBRANCE
Every day we worked with our colleagues at the Polish Institute of National Remembrance, primarily with the historian, Dr. Jerzy Bednarek, the head of the IPN’s department of archival studies and sources, and Marcin Majewski of the Bureau of Provision and Archivization of Documents.

 

All of us read the texts. This was a task easier said than done, as these documents paint a horrific picture of a heinous and — what is even more terrible — well-thought-out and implemented concept for the annihilation of Ukraine.

For example, a letter slipped into the Polish consulate’s mailbox in Kharkiv reads: “Reigning in the country of freedom and inviolability of the individual are executions, penal servitude, and incredible exploitation...Robbery is rife. Peasants are robbing peasants, workers are robbing workers.

 

"If a peasant has a chicken or a piglet, he has to sleep next to it at night, so that someone who is not blessed with this ‘fortune’ will not steal it during the night and eat it together with his starving family by morning. The peasants (80 percent of the population) do not have any stimulus to work on the land because they know that everything will be taken away from them anyway.”

 

POLISH CONSUL WRITES ON MAY 11, 1932
The Polish consul accredited to Kyiv writes on May 11, 1932: “I am reporting that with every passing day I am receiving increasingly more news about the famine in Right-Bank Ukraine, which is felt particularly acutely in the province. According to the latest information, cases of people who are fainting from weakness and exhaustion being collected from the streets are being recorded in such cities as Vinnytsia and Uman. The situation is supposed to be worse in the countryside, where, according to information from a reliable source, banditry and murders resulting from the famine occur every day.”

Rural areas were not the only ones that were affected. A document from the Consul General in Kharkiv on March 16, 1933, states: “We have witnessed various city workers, who bring wood, coal, ice, etc., for the Consulate General in Kharkiv, pouncing on potato peelings and other food scraps found in the consulate’s garbage, while in the last few days the workers who remove this garbage have eaten the food prepared for our dogs ...” If this was happening in the capital city of Ukraine, what must the realities have been like in the countryside!

Our Polish colleagues are occasionally surprised by certain things and request more detailed explanations. We provide these, engage in dialog, and offer clarifications, and all the while we and the Poles encounter the same accursed question: Why did the world keep quiet, knowing what was really happening in Ukraine?

Some Polish diplomats stressed the particularly catastrophic situation in Ukraine, which was significantly different from that in Russia’s southern regions.

 

The following is an excerpt from a report prepared by Poland’s Consul General after a journey that he made from Kharkiv to Moscow in May 1933: “What struck me throughout the entire trip was the difference between Ukraine’s villages and fields and those in the neighboring TsChO [Central Chernozem Oblast of Russia], and even the unfertile vicinities of Moscow.

 

"The Ukrainian villages are in a significant state of decline, emptiness, decay, and misery waft from them, houses are half-collapsed, often with their thatched roofs torn off; no new farmsteads are visible; children and old men resemble skeletons... Later, when I arrived in the TsChO (first of all, the outskirts of Kursk and Orel), I had the impression that I had just arrived in Western Europe from the Country of Soviets ...”

Aware that the secret of Bolsheviks’ successes was their total disregard of means and sacrifices, a Polish intelligence officer writes, “The realization of all this has been made possible by engaging huge numbers of freshly trained communists, who, first of all, have no connection to the local populace, or those who have been brainwashed to such a degree that they have become almost fanatics, who carry out all sorts of instructions, shutting their eyes to all consequences that will affect the population.”

A female intelligence officer, who worked as a typist at the Polish consulate, left extraordinary realistic accounts of her conversations with people with whom she was in contact, as well as an analysis of the current situation. We see a similar analysis in the reports prepared by heads of voivodeships adjacent to Soviet Ukraine. People were fleeing there to escape the famine in the “socialist paradise,” and they recounted what they had experienced.

Together with our Polish colleagues, we are publishing mainly materials that are meant for administrative use, not for the general public. This fact alone provides grounds for stating that together we are taking another step toward the establishment of a realistic, unbiased view of the Holodomor, what it really was.

In addition, our visit to Warsaw was another step toward understanding that political life is flourishing in both Ukraine and Poland. The only question is how to place it within a certain framework so as not to drown in its violent current. And all of a sudden we heard the “melody” of Lech Walesa, the ex-president of Poland, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983.

LECH WALESA
On TV we watched the official tribute to Lech Walesa, which was held at the Royal Castle in the oldest part of Warsaw, marking his 65th birthday and the 25th anniversary of his receipt of the Nobel Prize. Walesa, as people commonly say, is a remarkable figure, so I will briefly recap his biography.

He was the fourth child born into a peasant family in 1943. At a vocational school specializing in training mechanics for rural areas, he was known for his bad behavior and marked lack of talent. After finishing school, he worked as an electrical mechanic at an enterprise similar to a Soviet Machine and Tractor Station (MTS). He later served in the army and then returned to his native village. He did not obtain a higher education, and did not try to get one.

In 1966 he decided to move to Gdynia, but en route he stepped off the train in Gdansk to buy some beer, missed his train, and ended up staying in Gdansk, where he soon found a job as an electrical mechanic at the Lenin Shipyard. It is anyone’s guess what course Polish history would have taken had he not gone to buy beer.

Poland is not Ukraine, so when the Polish government boosted food prices in December 1970, the shipyard went on strike. The next 10 years marked the period of Walesa’s greatest activism. In August 1980, he headed the shipyard’s strike committee and soon became the leader of Solidarity, a federation of workers’ trade unions that was established in place of the government-controlled labor unions.

Walesa became the informal leader of the entire country, a person whose views had to be reckoned with in party-state, labor, and intellectual circles.
Solidarity provided support to strikes and protest actions until December 1981, when its activities were banned, and Walesa and other opposition activists were arrested. It was during this stormy period that Walesa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

A new wave of strikes engulfed Poland in 1988, forcing the government to start talks with Solidarity and set the date for free parliamentary elections. In June 1989 Solidarity won the elections, and then Walesa showed his character. He refused to form a cabinet together with the communists. The government was headed by his comrade in arms Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

In October 1990 President Wojciech Jaruzelski resigned, and in December Walesa won the early presidential elections, the ultimate result of his love of electricity. As the head of state, Walesa maintained a political course aimed at market reforms and the creation of a strong presidential republic. The new president was an authoritarian leader. At the same time, he followed a conspicuously pro-Western political course.

Walesa sought to consolidate his country because a rift had appeared in Polish society. In September 1993 he helped the coalition of leftist parties gain a majority of seats in parliament and form the cabinet. He wanted to unite the left— and right-wing forces under his “patronage.” This was a fatal mistake. Walesa started being criticized by both rightists and leftists. The presidential campaign in November 1995 resulted in the election of Alexander Kwasniewski as the new head of state.

The West, however, remembered Walesa. During the Olympics in Salt Lake City he was asked to raise the flag of the Winter Games. He is also remembered in Poland, as evidenced by the official ceremony at the Royal Castle and the gala concert that was held in the evening.

 

The next day Walesa once again found himself in the limelight when a collection of documents reflecting Wa­lesa’s special relations with the secret police of communist Poland started being discussed on television. Once again people were seeing Walesa, Kwasniewski, IPN’s new head Janusz Kurtyka, and other public figures.

I watched it all and realized that the Poles remain Poles. They are not afraid to engage in public discussions of the acutest topics. As for Walesa, there is no doubt that he will not be thrown to the wolves because he was too important a figure during the toppling of the Polish communist state. However, this does not mean that people will ignore what Walesa did or keep silent even about certain unpleasant things.

Unfortunately, we don’t know how to do this yet, nor are we eager to learn how. Although we may hit out at politicians, we love them as though they are a priori devoid of any shortcomings. But they have them in spades. So, let’s not create any political idols for ourselves — no idols whatsoever — just like the Poles are not turning Walesa into one.

As always, the city of Warsaw impressed us. We have been traveling there every year since 1996, and sometimes a few times a year. We saw how life has begun to change, not without difficulty, but the main thing is that laws are working. The conviction that everyone is equal under the law has become stronger.

Do you know what struck us about Warsaw this time? It was the cleanliness and neatness. We so want there to be less dirt in our country, both political dirt and the other kind.

 

LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/255952

 

UkrInform - Ukraine News, Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, October 13, 2008

 

KYIV - Monuments to the victims of the Famine of 1932-1933 have been erected in the villages of Pavlenkove and Trembacheve in Luhansk region (East Ukraine).

The shooting of a documentary about the famine was considered during a meeting of the coordination council at the Luhansk regional state administration. Following the meeting, a decision was taken to form a working group on revising several episodes from the film taking into account remarks made during a draft preview of the film.

The opening of the monuments and the shooting of the film were organized in Luhansk region as part of events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine.
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10.  KYIV SCHOOLCHILDREN TO PRODUCE DRAWINGS OF THE HOLODOMOR 

Agence France Presse (AFP) Strasbourg, France, Thursday, October 23, 2008

STRASBOURG - The "artificial" famine that killed millions in Soviet-era Ukraine in 1932-33 was "cynically and cruelly planned" by Moscow, a European Parliament resolution said Thursday.

The European Union's parliament stopped short of labeling the regional outcome of the communist policy of collectivization of agriculture "genocide," the term used by a 2006 Ukrainian parliament law.

However, its resolution said the deaths of between 4 and 10 million people, according to census and statistical estimates, were "an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity."

The stance is likely to trigger deep irritation in Moscow, which has argued that drought was a pivotal factor. The text "strongly condemns these acts, directed against the Ukrainian peasantry, and marked by mass violations of human rights and freedoms."

Lawmakers also called on former Soviet states to open up their archives so that "all the causes and consequences" can be studied. Other areas and their ethnic groupings, including Kazakhstan, were also badly affected by the famine.

The Holodomor - understood as "murder by hunger" in Ukrainian - has been recognized as genocide by a small number of governments around the world, with Kiev campaigning for years to have the U.N. apply the strict legal definition.

Pro-Russian Ukrainians say it resulted from ideological error, with historians divided as to all the circumstances behind it and the 2006 law in Kiev passed by only a slim majority.

The program of forced collectivization saw the produce of Ukrainian farmers confiscated with the Soviet authorities also blocking food supplies into Ukraine in what some historians have argued was an attempt to crush a drive for independence. Ukraine gained its independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

 

From: Roman Serbyn [email protected] To: [email protected]

Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 8:46 AM

UNIAN, Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, October 23, 2008

The European Parliament has recognised the Ukrainian famine of 1930s as crime against humanity, according to the EP official web-site.

In a resolution on the commemoration of the Holodomor, the artificial famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933, MEPs describe it as "an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity".

According to the resolution, the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933, which caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, "was cynically and cruelly planned by Stalin`s regime in order to force through the Soviet Union`s policy of collectivisation of agriculture against the will of the rural population in Ukraine".

[WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! LEMKIN HAD THE RIGHT REASON: “... The Soviet plan was aimed at the farmers, the large mass of independent peasants who are the repository of the tradition, folklore and music, the national language and literature, the national spirit of Ukraine”.

& the Communist activist Prokopenko was exact when he admitted: “Starvation in Ukraine was brought about in order to reduce the number of Ukrainians, resettle in their place people from another par of the USSR, and in this way kill all thought of independence.” Roman Serbyn]

MEPs believe that "recalling crimes against humanity in European history should help to prevent similar crimes in the future" and they stress that "European integration has been based on a readiness to come to terms with the 20th century`s tragic history and that this reconciliation with a difficult history does not denote any sense of collective guilt, but forms a stable basis for the construction of a common European future founded on common values".

 The resolution therefore makes a "declaration to the people of Ukraine and in particular to the remaining survivors of the Holodomor and the families and relatives of the victims".

 It "recognises the Holodomor (the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine) as an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity".

 The text then "strongly condemns these acts, directed against the Ukrainian peasantry, and marked by mass annihilation and violations of human rights and freedoms".

 It also "expresses its sympathy with the Ukrainian people, which suffered this tragedy, and pays its respects to those who died as a consequence of the artificial famine of 1932-1933".

 Lastly, the resolution "calls on the countries which emerged following the break-up of the Soviet Union to open up their archives on the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933 to comprehensive scrutiny so that all the causes and consequences can be revealed and fully investigated".

 

LINK: http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-280220.html

15.  THE TRUTH PREVAILS
European Parliament unanimously adopts resolution commemorating the Holodomor

By Mykola Siruk, The Day Weekly Digest in English, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tue, Oct 28, 2008

With its vote this authoritative legislative body, comprising 785 parliamentarians from 27 EU member states, has joined the circle of countries and international organizations that have already recognized the 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine. The joint resolution was agreed upon by members of the European People's Party, a group of liberals, the Greens, the Union for Europe of the Nations, and the socialists.

[1] The first point of the resolution recognizes the Holodomor as an "appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity" and "strongly
condemns these acts, directed against the Ukrainian peasantry, and marked by mass annihilation and violations of human rights and freedoms." It also
"expresses its sympathy with the Ukrainian people, which suffered this tragedy, and pays its respects to those who died as a consequence of the artificial famine of 1932-1933."

Finally, the resolution "calls on the countries which emerged following the break-up of the Soviet Union to open up their archives on the Holodomor in
Ukraine of 1932-1933 to comprehensive scrutiny."

[2] The second point of the resolution proposes that the President of the European Parliament send the text of the document to the Council of Europe, the European Commission, the government and parliament of Ukraine, as well as to the UN General Secretary, the OSCE General Secretary, and the General
Secretary of the Council of Europe.

On July 3, 2008, despite protests from Russia and Kazakhstan, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution on the Holodomor in Ukraine, which "strongly encourages all parliaments to adopt acts regarding recognition of the Holodomor."

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly also "supports the initiative of Ukraine to reveal the full truth of this tragedy of Ukrainian people, in particular,
through raising public awareness of the Holodomor at international and national levels."

On Sept. 23, 2008, the US House of Representatives condemned Stalin's 1932-1933 Holodomor in Ukraine and commemorated its victims in connection
with the 75th anniversary of the tragedy. "In 1932 and 1933, an estimated seven to 10 million Ukrainian people perished at the will of the totalitarian Stalinist government of the former Soviet Union, which perpetrated a premeditated famine in Ukraine in an effort to break the nation's resistance to collectivization and communist occupation," says the document.

So far, Ukraine's attempts to get the UN to recognize the Holodomor have not been successful. On July 11, 2008, the plenary session of the UN General
Assembly refused to put the Holodomor issue on the current session's agenda, thereby denying the request of Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs to
recognize the events of the 1930s as genocide against the Ukrainian people.

The great importance of the European Parliament's resolution is discussed in an article by one of its authors, MEP Charles Tannock. [article 14 above in the AUR]

COMMENTS: Confirming we are right

Andrii VESELOVSKY, Ukraine's representative to the EU:

"Above all, the resolution is important for Europeans in general because Europe is our region and our Motherland. We are telling the truth about what
happened in the past, and on this foundation we can build our future. This is what our children will be raised on. If our parents, or even we, do not
agree with all this, our children need to be taught this. And these children will be totally different; they will be children with a truly European mentality.

"How much do we need this resolution right now? There are still living survivors of the Holodomor. In the afterlife they will not need either recognition or remembrance. They need these things today. They also have children and grandchildren to whom they will convey this.

"When things like this happen, when something that our society had a hard time dealing with is recognized in Europe and the entire world, this helps our society realize that the step we took at a certain point in time was difficult but the right one to take. It is a confirmation that we are right, and this helps us make the transition from a complex and obscure past to a normal and open future.

"As for the reports in the mass media that the Holodomor has not been acknowledged as genocide, I think this is a completely misguided message. For us, Ukrainians, this was genocide in the sense that we were destroyed. If, say, the Kazakh people feel that this phenomenon had the same forms and proportions and affected their nation in a similar way, let them talk about it and promote their cause. For us, this is genocide, as stated in the Verkhovna Rada ruling, and that is the main thing.

"The European resolution comes close to ours because it contains references to the Convention, which mentions genocide. However, we should not twist
these words to suit our interests. Each tragedy has its own dimension and specific features. The Holocaust was an act of genocide against the Jewish
people, and it is called the Holocaust. The Holodomor was effectively an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people, and its name is the Holodomor.

"All talk of whether we were given the word 'genocide' is a violation of memory and in the conditions of current political life - petty politicking. In five years from now no one will be talking about this. Everyone will have forgotten these inconsequential details. The important thing is that this black page in our history has been recognized and respect has been paid to the memory of our victims. And we are confirming that to which we are entitled."

LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/255930

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16.  HOLODOMOR 1932-1933 EVERBURNING CANDLE

Ukrinform, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, October 21, 2008 

KYIV - Within events devoted to the 75th anniversary of commemorating the victims of Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine, a ceremony of giving the Everburning Candle of memory from Russia to Armenia as well as the meeting-requiem were held in the Yerevan philharmonic. The action was initiated by the Federation of Ukrainians of Armenia under the auspices of the Ukrainian Embassy in Armenia.

Participating in the event were representatives of the Ukrainian community, other national communities of Armenia, politicians, parliament's deputies, diplomats accredited in Armenia, in particular, US, Brazilian, Polish and Georgian ambassadors, diplomats from other countries, students of the Yerevan branch of the Ternopil National Economic University as well as staff of the Armenian presidential administration.

Ukrainian Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Armenia Oleksandr Bozhko addressed his speech at the meeting. He noted the international character of the action and urged to preserve the historical memory in order to prevent from future tragedies like Holodomor.

Head of the Federation of Ukrainians of Armenia R. Yavir told the audience about tragic events in the history of Ukrainian people during Holodomor 1932-1933. Vocal ensembles of the Ukrainian community performed Ukrainian songs at the event.

The Everburning Candle is supposed to stay in Armenia till October 25, 2008. After that a solemn transfer of the candle to Georgia will be held at the Armenian-Georgian border, the Ukrainian Embassy in Armenia told UKRINFORM.

As UKRINFORM earlier reported, in 2008, on the initiative of the World Congress of Ukrainians, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of Holodomor 1932-1933, Ukrainians from all over the world are holding the action Everburning Candle.

 

Its route goes through all continents and countries where Ukrainians live and everywhere it is a symbol of commemorating the innocent victims of Holodomor, a symbol of sorrow and prevention from such a tragedy in future.
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Despite the fact that preliminary consent had been given to hold the ceremony of welcoming the flame to Moscow, the Russian authorities did not allow the Remembrance Flame on Russian territory.

So the participants of the Moscow leg of this international action gathered on the territory of Ukraine, in our embassy in the Russian capital. Some of them talked to The Day and explained why Moscow rejects Kyiv’s arguments about honoring the famine victims.

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY, Holodomor researcher and deputy director of the

Institute of Ukrainian History at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:
“This event was held at our embassy; in other words, on the territory of Ukraine. Among those present were the embassy staff and representatives of the Ukrainian community in Moscow. There were quite a few people. Comparing this event to the way it was held in the United States (Washington, New York, Philadelphia) I must say that everything looked different in the US.

 

"There were no Americans present, but it was not, in fact, intended for Americans but for Ukrainians who live in that country. The Ukrainian Americans came dressed in national costumes: for them, it was a solemn ceremony, and some of them had not seen each other in years. It was very moving.

“Since the Russian government has a different view of the Holodomor, here in Russia we were forbidden to hold a public event, although during the negotiations we emphasized that there is nothing anti-Russian about the Holodomor Remembrance Flame.

“In the final analysis, we have done much to research the Holodomor. There can be no claims against modern Russia. The Russian people were not responsible for the Holodomor because it was engineered by Stalin’s people to enable Stalin to retain power. I said this to the Russian side, and my statement was accepted with understanding, but the Russian government still banned this action on its territory. So we held it at the Ukrainian embassy, where Russia could not interfere.

“Nothing is going to change in Russia in the nearest future. Perhaps, to some extent, we are to blame for this. Some Ukrainians often say, ‘Look what the Muscovites did to us!’ No responsible political figures in Ukraine, no matter to which camp they belong, should make such extremist declarations. There is a serious political conflict in Ukraine, but the Holodomor problem has nothing to do with this.

“When he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York, President Yushchenko said that we have no claims against Russia. Nevertheless, the situation remains the same. This is why other countries take Russia’s position into account.

 

" I do not think that this year we will succeed in persuading the UN to classify the Holodomor as genocide. But we should not interrupt our work, and it is academics that will have the last word. One way or another, we should publicize this subject and prove with documents what happened in reality.”

Oleh VOLOSHYN, spokesman of the Ukrainian Embassy in the Russian Federation:
“The Ukrainian Embassy in Russia hosted the Moscow stage of the International Holodomor Remembrance Flame, a global action that has taken place in dozens of countries. We invited representatives of the Ukrainian diaspora in Moscow and various cultural associations.

 

"There were also some ethnic Ukrainians, who holding high positions in Russia’s Council of the Federation and other public administration bodies. They came to honor the victims of the 1932-1933 Holodomor.

“Also present at the ceremony were Kostiantyn Hryshchenko, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Ukraine in the Russian Federation, and Yurii Kostenko, Acting First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was on a working visit in Moscow. Both Hrysh­chenko and Kostenko delivered speeches, which were followed by a minute of silence and a symbolic rite of remembrance.

Everyone in the embassy drank a symbolic 100 grams of vodka to the memory of those who perished in that most terrible famine by far. The Holo­domor Remembrance Flame is now going on to St. Petersburg.

“Naturally, this was an extremely important event for us, although we wish that it could have been held in the desired format, more openly and publicly. Many civic organizations in Russia had submitted a number of initiatives.

“Unfortunately, Moscow is not prepared to take serious steps toward compromise. Its vision of the problem differs from ours, although the Ukrainian side keeps saying that nobody is trying to put the blame for the Holodomor on today’s Russia. On the contrary, we admit that the Russians were by far the main victims of the Stalinist repressions. We hope that the Russian Federation, as a country that positions itself as a democracy, finally understands the Ukrainian standpoint.

“In general, the Moscow action was a day to honor the memory of the five to six million people who perished during the famine, although historians are still arguing over this figure. This day is a signal to humankind to prevent the emergence of regimes that place people’s lives below state interests.”

 

LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/255517

 

Ukrainian World Congress (UWC), Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Monday, October 13, 2008

 

TORONTO - The Ukrainian World Congress condemns the blatant abuse of human rights by Vladimir Putin’s Russian government which has successfully stopped events planned to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor – famine genocide in Ukraine of 1932-33. 
 
Prior to the arrival of the International Remembrance Flame in Russia, the Ukrainian Embassy received notice on October 6 from Russia’s Foreign Ministry that commemorative events must fall in line with the Russian position on the famine or be cancelled.   Russia continues to claim that the Holodomor was not a genocide and that Ukraine’s effort to secure such recognition is “a political matter that is aimed against Russian interests.”
 
It has been confirmed that Ukrainian community activists in Orenburg, Tumen, Ufa, St. Petersburg and Krasnodar have been subjected to undue pressure and scare tactics by government officials in the region resulting in the cancellation of planned events.
 
Russia was the next scheduled stop on the itinerary of the International Remembrance Flame – a symbol which has traveled through 29 countries since April of this year.  Events in conjunction with the arrival of the Flame honour the millions of victims of Stalin’s deliberate attempt to eradicate the Ukrainian nation through starvation.  The Flame will be received in Ukraine in November for nation-wide commemorations.
 
The international Ukrainian community is appalled by Russia’s continuing disregard for basic human rights, among them freedom of speech and expression.  Ukrainians in Russia, as in every other country of the world, have every right to maintain their national identity with respect for history, culture and traditions. 

 

In 2008, the fact that such rights are so easily dismissed, is unacceptable.  Russia must understand that the global community will not tolerate such actions which clearly demonstrate that the country has not shed its past. 
 
The Congress urges every citizen of every democratic country to join the Ukrainian community in this protest.  Contact the Russian Embassy in your country. Let them know that human rights abuses in 2008 will not be tolerated.  Let them know that, this time, the world is paying attention.

For further information contact Stefan Romaniw, Chair, International Holodomor Committee.

 

Orysia Tracz, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, Monday, October 20, 2008

WINNIPEG - Dr. Roman Serbyn will give the 16th Annual J. B. Rudnyckyj Distinguished Lecture in Winnipeg on Friday, November 7, 2008.  The topic of the lecture will be "The Holodomor: Reflections on the Ukrainian Genocide."

 

Dr. Serbyn is a distinguished historian who for over 30 years has been documenting and publishing books and articles on the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933, the Holodomor. He also organized the first international conference on the Holodomor in 1983 at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

 

Among his published works are: "Holod 1921-1923 i ukrains'ka presa v Kanadi= The Famine of 1921-1923" and the "Ukrainian Press in Canada" (2002); and "Famine in Ukraine, 1932-1933" (Co-edited with Bohdan Krawchenko, 1986).

Dr. Serbyn's lecture will focus on the Holodomor, and the devastation that it brought to the Ukrainian nation. He will use the United Nations Convention on Genocide's definition of genocide, to argue the case for the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide. The lecture will commemorate the 75th anniversary of this tragic event.

Date & Time of Lecture:  Friday, November 7, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Admission:  Free, with reception to follow.
Location:  Archives & Special Collections, 330 Elizabeth Dafoe Library, Fort Garry Campus, University of Manitoba.

Parking free; do not park in 24-hour reserved.
          
Sponsored by: The University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections; the Slavic Collection, Elizabeth Dafoe Library - University of Manitoba; and The Department of German & Slavic Studies, University of Manitoba. For further information, please contact the U of M Archives & Special Collections @ 474-9681.

This year's Rudnyckyj lecture is being held in conjunction with the Famine -Genocide (Holodomor) in Ukraine (1932-33) Symposium at the Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre, Oseredok (184 Alexander Avenue East, Winnipeg) on Saturday, November 8, 2008,  sponsored by Oseredok and the Centre for Ukrainian Canadian Studies, University of Manitoba.

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22.  "OUR DAILY BREAD" HOLODOMOR EXHIBITION IN CHICAGO OPEN UNTIL NOVEMBER 30

 

International Holodomor Coordinating Committee (IHCC), Ukrainian World Congress (UWC)

Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Monday, October 27, 2008

 

UKRAINIAN WORLD CONGRESS: International Holodomor Coordinating Committee (IHC)
International Holodomor Awareness Week; November 16 - 23, 2008
Ukraine Remembers – The World Acknowledges !
 
On the 75th anniversary of the famine genocide in Ukraine 1932-33:
 
Seventy five years have passed since famine raged through Ukraine eradicating the lives of millions of children, women and men from one of the world's most bountiful lands.
 
Holodomor – one of the most heinous crimes in the history of mankind, was the result of a deliberate political strategy masterminded by Stalin and his totalitarian communist regime.   By sheer magnitude, losses during the Holodomor surpassed those of the Ukrainian nation during the Second World War.  Ukrainians worldwide continue to suffer the consequences of this merciless act.
 
The International Holodomor Coordinating Committee, Ukrainian World Congress is launching the first International Holodomor Awareness Week on November 16-23.  The goal is to annually unite Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians alike in remembering the victims and raising awareness of this tragedy.
 
In cooperation with the secretariat of the President of Ukraine, Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, the International Holodomor Coordinating Committee developed initiatives dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932-33 guided by the motto "Ukraine remembers – the World Acknowledges."
 
Throughout the year Ukrainians successfully engaged politicians, researchers, journalists and citizens in a discussion of this often forgotten genocide.  The International Remembrance Flame successfully toured 34 countries ending its journey in Ukraine beginning November 1.  The Holodomor was recognized as an act of genocide by 13 countries. 

 

In Ukraine, the Security Service (SBU) opened its archives and published a list of perpetrators of this crime; a National Memorial Book will include a registry of Holodomor victims and testimonies of survivors; a memorial complex and museum is being erected in the capital city of Kyiv.
 
There is, however,  a great deal of work still to be done.  We must continue working with our ministries of education to ensure that all students learn about the Holodomor. 

 

We have a moral obligation to ensure that the personal stories of our survivors are documented and preserved for future generations.  Internationally, the United Nations must recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide.
 
Let us remember together –
 
(1) On Saturday, November 22,(or in days around this date)  in solidarity with Ukraine, honour the memory of the victims with a moment of silence and light a candle of remembrance in your home.
 
(2) Participate in memorial services which will take place in your local churches
 
(3) Participate in events organized by your local community

This is the bare minimum which we, as Ukrainians should do not only for the millions of victims, but more importantly, for our descendants who must always remember the Holodomor and heighten the international community's sensitivity to the reoccurrence of similar tragedies. 
 
Let's reveal the truth about the Holodomor to the world!
 
On behalf of the IHCC UWC
   

Stefan Romaniw                                                                
Chairman

 

Irka Mycak

Secretary  
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25.  HOLODOMOR COMMEMORATION AT PENN STATE UNIVERSITY

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26.  COLUMBIA UNIV CONFERENCE TO COMMEMORATE THE HOLODOMOR-GENOCIDE
"Visualizing the Holodomor: The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 on Film"

Yuri Shevchuk, Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University
Columbia University, New York, NY, Wednesday, October 1, 2008

NEW YORK - On Tuesday, December 2, 2008 the international conference "Visualizing the Holodomor: the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 on Film" will be held at Columbia University in New York. This event is organized by the Ukrainian Studies Program of Columbia and co-sponsored by the Harriman Institute and the Department of Slavic Languages.

Held in a string of other academic forums around the USA and Canada to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine, the Columbia
conference will offer a novel approach to raising awareness worldwide of this largely unknown human calamity; it will focus on film, and filmmaking
as a means to understand the consequences of this tragedy for Ukraine and the world.

Meant to appeal to the widest possible audience of scholars, students and the general public, the conference will bring together academics and filmmakers and investigate analytical and theoretic, as well as empirical, perspectives on the Holodomor.

This uniquely Columbia format became possible thanks to the fact that over the last four years, with generous community and Ukrainian Studies Fund
support, the Ukrainian Studies Program has gained international recognition as the leading center of Ukrainian film studies in North America.

The conference will consist of three panels.

(1) PANEL ONE: "What Happened in 1932-1933. Facts of the Tragedy" will feature opening remarks by Dr. Yuri Shevchuk (Department of Slavic
Languages, Columbia University), who will speak on the role of Ukrainian film in visualizing the Holodomor within Ukraine, and a presentation by Dr.
Roman Serbyn (Professor of History, Emeritus, University of Quebec at Montreal), a leading expert on the Holodomor in North America, who will
recreate the historical context and provide facts of the man-made famine.

The panel will start at 1:30 PM and will take place in Room 1512, International Affairs Building, 420 W 118th Street, New York, NY.

(1) PANEL TWO: "Unearthing the Great Famine by Filming It" will feature a short documentary Kolky by Natasha Mikhalchuk, a film student from Parson School of Design of the New School for Social Research.

Natasha, who was born and lived till her early teens in Odesa, Ukraine set out on a journey to trace the history of her father's family. She visited his native village of Kolky in the Podillia region, south-western Ukraine.

Meeting and talking on camera with the locals, she unearthed the memories of a continuous chain of disasters visited upon Ukrainian peasants by foreign
invaders: the earliest being the Holodomor of 1932-33 and concomitant collectivization, followed by World War Two, Nazi occupation and slave work
in the Reich, and another famine after the war.

Kolky is a moving story of discovery of the Holodomor as well as other dramatic aspects of recent Ukrainian history that remain largely outside the
collective consciousness of Ukrainian society?even though their eye-witnesses are still alive.

Ms. Mikhalchuk's deeply personal experience assumes larger dimensions of a moral imperative to make the recording and investigation of oral history of
the Great Famine and other historic events that took place in Ukraine a first priority for historians and society at large.

It is the tragic logic of human suffering that one orchestrated mass murder appears in unexpected ways connected with another. In this case the Ukrainian Holodomor which, alongside ethnic Ukrainians, also effected Jews, Germans, Russians, and other ethnicities who inhabited the Ukrainian countryside at the time, became connected with the Jewish Holocaust. This little known fact is witnessed by hundreds of those who survived both tragedies and lived to testify of them on camera.

Dr. Crispin Brooks, archivist of the Shoah Foundation Institution, University of South California in San Diego, discovered a considerable corpus of eye-witness accounts of the Holodomor in the massive documentary holdings of Jewish Holocaust survivors at his institution.

The video documents of the Visual History Archive were gathered by the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, an organization
established by film director Steven Spielberg in 1994 to preserve on videotape the accounts of surviving victims and witnesses of the Holocaust.

By 2001, the Foundation had recorded close to 52,000 testimonies in 56 countries and 32 languages. In Ukraine alone, the Shoah Foundation conducted
around 3,400 interviews over a four year period, 1995-1999, in 273 locations all over the country.

Dr. Brooks will give an overview of the archival holdings with reference to the Holodomor and bring to light new perspectives drawn from the
testimonies. His presentation will be accompanied by video footage of these eye-witness testimonies.

(3) PANEL THREE: The last conference panel will feature a new film, the feature documentary The Living (Zhyvi) by Serhiy Bukovsky from Kyiv.  Mr. Bukovsky is internationally recognized as one of the best documentary filmmakers in Ukraine today. He was awarded the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine for his nine-part TV documentary series "War.

A Ukrainian Account" (Viina. Ukrainskyi rakhunok), 2002. In it, he makes an earnest attempt to examine what happened in Ukraine during World War II. The film deeply resonated with the Ukrainian public as it discussed, in an impartial manner, the Ukrainian national resistance, and, in particular, the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

In 2005, Bukovsky's name was again in the press as the teacher and mentor of Mr. Ihor Strembytsky, the first Ukrainian filmmaker ever to win the
prestigious Palm d'Or du cour metrage for his short documentary Wayfarers (Podorozhni) at the Cannes International Film Festival.

Over his 25 year film career, Mr. Bukovsky has demonstrated time and again a readiness to take up the most difficult, at times unpopular, subject and
treat it in a way that brings a new light to what seemed exhausted and well known.

He also has shown civic engagement and a sense of responsibility that often put him on a collision course with the powers-that-be. His documentary
Tomorrow Was a Holiday (Zavtra bulo sviato), 1987 , a film openly critical of the Soviet system, is a celebrated classic of the perestroika era.

It was a sign of recognition that Mr. Bukovsky was invited by the Ukrainian oligarch-turned-Carnegie Viktor Pinchuk to direct Spell Your Name, (Nazvy
svoie im'ia) a feature documentary about the Holocaust in Ukraine and, in particular, the Babyn Yar tragedy.

The film was produced by Steven Spielberg, who traveled to Ukraine to attend its premier in Kyiv in October, 2006. In it, Serhiy Bukovsky tells another
largely unknown story?the story of how, during the Nazi occupation, many Ukrainians risked their lives to save their Jewish neighbors, acquaintances,
as well as strangers from sure death.

Shortly afterwards, Mr. Bukovsky was approached by the International Charitable Fund Ukraine-3000 run by Kateryna Yushchenko, Ukraine's first
lady, to direct a feature documentary on the Holodomor for its 75th anniversary.

Mr. Bukovsky put together a crew of people which include film writer, critic and historian Serhiy Trymbach, cinematographer Volodomyr Kukorenchuk, a slew of history consultants, in particular Yuri Shapoval, Ivan Dziuba, and Myroslav Popovych (Kyiv), Viktor Listov (Moscow), Oksana Pakhliovska (Rome), Andrea Graziosi (Naples) and others to produce The Living.

This new film will be presented in person by the director, Serhiy Bukovsky, and by Victoria Bondar, his wife producer, and co-author of the script, at
the Rosenthal Auditorium, Schemerhorn Hall at 7:30 PM, one of the best film screening auditoriums on Columbia's campus.

The film authors describe their effort:

"It is equally important to stress that our film about the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 aims at finding a new approach to some very painful and sensitive
historical material. It is about not just remembering the facts but also understanding the causes and effects of the tragedy and evoking an emotional
response in the audience.

 

In a broader sense, this film is not about the Holodomor alone.

"First and foremost, it is about THE PRICE OF LIBERTY. Ukraine is an unloved but obstinate child of History. For centuries, her people fought a desperate struggle for something that other nations obtained in a much easier way: the right to be themselves, speak their own language, and be called Ukrainians.

"This conception defines our approach to selecting material for the film. Compositionally, the film will have a nonlinear structure. The events of 1932-33 serve as the basis of the plot. They are its hub - the central station where all "trains" of the plot arrive and from which they depart. It is necessary to understand (and show) the train of events that caused the tragedy of the Holodomor and its consequences.

"Tentatively, we are talking about a period spanning the year 1917 (the February Revolution in Russia, the patriotic awakening of Ukrainian
frontline units, and further events in Ukraine till 1921) and the outbreak of World War II in 1939. These events weave into the fabric of the film. The
basic intonation of the film will be free of newspaper rhetoric and TV patter. Ours is a story told in a soft, quiet voice."

Conference attendees will have a unique opportunity not only to be the first on this side of the Atlantic to see The Living (its Ukrainian premier in
Kyiv is slated for November 22) but also to discuss the film with its makers and with history and film experts participating in the conference.

A few weeks prior to the international conference, the Ukrainian Studies Program will mount a photo exhibit of works by Volodymyr Kukorenchuk, the
cinematographer of The Living. Some forty beautiful photographs taken by him in the course of shooting in the villages where tragedy unfolded 75 years
ago will be shown in the Lehman Library of the International Affairs Building at Columbia University.

The pictures are a celebration of the beauty, poetry, and vitality of Ukraine, all of which come through with a quiet and captivating force in portraits of farmers who lived to tell about their experience of the Great Famine.

For further information about the International Conference "Visualizing the Holodomor: the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 on Film", call the
Ukrainian Studies Program office at 212-854-4697. ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

For more information please contact Yuri Shevchuk; [email protected].

 

LINK: http://www.columbia.edu:80/cu/ufc/cinenews.html

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