The Great Ukrainian from Oklahoma, or “The Verkhovna Rada Basements”

Born in the western US state of Oklahoma, James Mace dedicated his whole life to Ukraine. He became the Great Ukrainian of American origin, one who was not just a well-known and talented historian. He had a unique ability to feel human pain and suffering, and he helped Ukrainians feel that they were “somebodies” (provided they wanted this to be done). So on this mournful fortieth day after his death, when the magnitude of this figure stands out far more clearly and you are more keenly aware of the loss that Ukraine has suffered, it is natural to raise the question of naming a street or a journalism prize after him.

Meanwhile, a roundtable at The Day’s editorial office, dedicated to the memory of this outstanding historian, journalist, and public figure, raised a number of other, no less serious, questions. Is it not a crime, according to Roman Krutsyk, chair of the Kyiv branch of the Vasyl Stus All-Ukrainian Organization Memorial, that 300 unique videocassettes of interviews with people who lived through the 1932-1933 manmade famine were demagnetized in the basements of Verkhovna Rada (James Mace and his colleagues had given these cassettes to parliament leaders back in 1993, so a considerable proportion of them must have had irreparable damage inflicted on them). Who will answer for this? Why are researchers being denied access to these unique materials? Why is the President’s edict on creating a Holodomor research center being ignored? How can we solve the problem of establishing the Manmade Famine Museum, monuments to millions of the dead, a related foundation, and a research center? What should be done to duly venerate the memory of James Mace?

Those who are seeking to resolve these and other problems were recently guests of The Day: the writer Natalia Dziubenko-Mace, James Mace’s widow; E. Morgan Williams (USA), chair of the Manmade Famine in Ukraine program committee and exhibition; Professor Stanislav Kulchytsky, a well-known historian; Yevhen Proniuk, chairman of the All-Ukrainian Association of Political Prisoners and Repressed Persons; Dr. Oleh Bily, Institute of Philosophy, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; and Roman Krutsyk. More details about the ideas and proposals that were put forward during the roundtable discussion will be featured in an upcoming issue of The Day.