New book by the late James Mace

At the ceremony to launch the book James Mace: Your Dead Chose Me, held during the 15th Lviv Forum of Publishers, the American scholar’s widow, Natalia Dziubenko-Mace, said her husband was eager to publish this book in Uk­raine. “Unfortunately, I am the one who is launching it, and he is gone. But I think this is James’s second arrival in Ukraine – through these books, his work, his colleagues, through the fact that he has finally reached your hearts and minds.”

The Lviv launch is the first in a series taking place in many cities of Ukraine, timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Holodomor. The Day has already reported that the 670-page book is the first collection of scholarly and journalistic works about the Holodomor and lingering sociopolitical issues by James Mace, the renowned US academic and researcher of the Ukrainian Holodomor. According to Mace’s widow, however, this is not a complete collection of the author’s immense legacy.

The Day is planning to have the book translated into several languages, and government agencies and NGOs in every region of Uk­raine have already placed orders for it.

During the launch it was correctly noted that publications about the Holodomor are no longer a novelty. The situation was different in the 1990s, when few people wanted to know about the Great Famine. In his articles for The Day, Mace was the first to blaze a trail with his research on this tragic page in Ukraine’s history.

Mace was well known in Lviv, the city where his widow was born and which the couple frequently visited. Many of Mace’s colleagues from this western Ukrainian city attended the launch. Among them was Oleh Romanchuk, the writer and editor of the journal Universum, the well-known Lviv entrepreneur Oleksandr Dziubenko, the writers Yaroslav Pavliuk, Yurii Hurhula, and Vitalii Protsyk, who is researching the period of Soviet repressions.

Stanislav KULCHYTSKY, historian and author of the book:

“As an historian, James ap­proached research problems from a historical viewpoint. This was interesting and convincing. This book now contains his total legacy. The publication was funded by The Day, which sells these books but, more often than not, gives them away to interested organizations. I hope this book comes out in English.

“In his report on the Holodomor to the US Congress, Mace said, ‘The use of food as a political weapon by despotic regimes is not a thing of the past.’ When he was trying to persuade the world to recognize the Holodomor, he meant that this was a lesson for Ukraine. This lesson is also useful for Russia, Venezuela, and other countries. Unfortunately, the 4th session of the UN General Assembly postponed the question of the Ukrainian Holodomor for one year. And although there will be no round date to time this question to, we will do our utmost to tell the world about what happened in Ukraine in the winter of 1932-1933. We will be able to do so thanks to this collection of political articles that James Mace contributed to The Day.”

Petro KRALIUK, professor and pro-rector, National University of Ostroh Academy:

“We have a lot of phony Heroes of Ukraine now, while the man who is truly a hero of Ukraine was not awarded this title, much to our regret. When we talk about James Mace, I remember the 1990s. Ukraine was in a deep crisis and nobody knew if we would ride it out. An American arrived in Ukraine, settled here, and began working for the benefit of our country. It is a shame that we failed to raise the problem of the Holodomor. The first to study it was a person of non-Ukrainian parentage. Thanks to Mace, the subject of the Holodomor began to be discussed in the media and became a subject of research. To most Ukrainians at the time this was nonsense. The truth is that even today many of our compatriots do not accept the fact that the Holodomor took place. Ukraine was Mace’s life, and this book is our modest tribute to a true Hero of Ukraine.”

Oleksandr DZIUBENKO, close friend of James Mace:

“As long as the Soviet Union existed, the Americans were interested in studying the Holodomor. Once the USSR broke up, the US no longer needed Mace’s research. James was not a rich man; he came to Ukraine with very limited finances. But he brought his knowledge of the Holo­do­mor. To our bureaucrats, James was like a pesky fly. He persistently published articles on the Holodomor. I clearly remember how many parliamentarians became indignant about his articles. It is primarily his doing that the Holodomor has been recognized in Ukraine. Restoring our historical memory is what unites Ukrainians. Mace worked on this topic in the US and he continued to work on it in Ukraine. It was his life’s vocation.”