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A CELEBRATION TO REMEMBER

17 February, 00:00

Prof. James Mace, Consultant to The Day

Having retained all the old Soviet holidays and recognized the traditional religious and national ones, Ukraine leads the world in terms of official holidays. And yet, real cause for celebration often goes unnoticed. One such event happened on February 11, when members of the Association of Independent Researchers of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide, relatives, and friends met in the Ukraine Society to mark the eightieth birthday of Dmytro Zakharevych Kalenyk, affectionately called Grandfather Kalenyk by one and all.

Grandfather Kalenyk's history is a mirror of his generation. 12 members of his immediate family starved to death in the man-made famine of 1933, leaving him and his sole remaining his brother to go their separate ways as homeless children. What he had lived through earlier was officially forgotten or referred to as "temporary difficulties." But in the late 1980s he became one of the first to step forward and say publicly what he had seen and survived, giving others the courage to do so also. This not only enriched history but was therapeutic for a whole generation long unable to utter a word about the greatest trauma of their lives.

I first met him in February 1990. The Communist Party had just officially admitted that the man-made famine had happened and blamed Stalin and those around him. Kalenyk had phoned from his native village of Ryzhavka (Uman district, Cherkasy oblast) saying that a memorial observance he had planned had been banned and the participants threatened with arrest. The late Volodymyr Manyak turned to me: "If there's a foreigner present they may take a different attitude. Want to go?" I did. We wanted to set up a small monument donated by a prominent sculptor but were met by 12 policemen, two from the village and ten from Uman. No monument, but after negotiations, we were allowed to walk to the burial pit, say a few words, and then hold a public meeting in Uman. The air was electric. Still banned blue and yellow national flags appeared. People thought the police would try to seize them. Through it all Kalenyk remained the calm and wise patriarch.

Ukraine is in many ways the victim of its own history with results that should be clear from Yuri Andrukhovych's column in this issue. Dmytro Kalenyk has helped those who want to understand how it happened. His courage to speak the truth is one bright spot in this tragic land.

 

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