Better access to James Mace’s works

Last week the newspaper donated copies of the book Dzheims Meis: “Vashi mertvi vybraly mene...” (James Mace: Your Dead Chose Me) to the Verkhovna Rada’s Library and the National Parliamentary Library. The Day before the newspaper received a letter from these libraries with a request for this book. The letter read that “the newspaper is making a great effort to preserve the scholarly heritage of James Mace, an outstanding Ukrainist. He made a great contribution to the research into the 1932–33 Holodomor and facilitated international recognition of this crime against the Ukrainian people as genocide.”

Neither of the two libraries receives money to purchase more books—only for subscriptions to periodicals. They receive books only as a result of the Cabinet of Ministers’ decree under which publishing houses have to send a compulsory copy of each book they publish to these libraries. They also expand their collections by accepted books as gifts from their authors or publishers. The Day always responds to these kinds of letters. So it did this time, too, but this was a special case—a request and especially this time as it was all about National Parliamentary Library!

The books were presented by Tetiana Onyshchenko, our development manager. “When people learned that the book Dzheims Meis: “Vashi mertvi vybraly mene...” (James Mace: Your Dead Chose Me) had been published, they often asked us about it, especially during the memorial week,” said Iryna Rudenko, chief consultant at the Verkhovna Rada’s Library.

“Right after the president’s decree on honoring the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor was published, we started preparing two exhibits “The Black Confession of My Fatherland” (one of which was virtual),” continued Halyna Kyrychenko, deputy director of the National Parliamentary Library. “The exposition included 400 documents of different years, diaspora editions (provided temporarily), and books published in Ukraine, in the particular books from The Day’s Library Series – Pochemu ON NAS unichtozhal? (Why Did He Destroy Us?) by Stanislav Kulchytsky and the already mentioned collection of works by James Mace. The exhibition made quite a stir, especially among young people who continue to show great interest in Ukrainian history. We have received one copy of each book from you according to the above mentioned decree, but we would like to have more copies because James Mace’s point of view on the Holodomor in Ukraine is an unbiased viewpoint of a scholar from the free world. That is why I am so certain that the collection of his works Your Dead Chose Me will be constantly in demand among our readers. Moreover, not everybody can afford to buy this book now, so people will look for it in libraries. Our library serves 80,000 patrons per year.”