On Ukrainian islands

The Day recently visited Dnipropetrovsk at the invitation of National Mining University. This newspaper and the university are good friends, and the faculty and students are our regular readers and authors. A year and a half ago at this university we presented the first books from The Day’s Library Series: Ukraine Incognita and Dvi Rusi. Since then, says Viktor Pushkin, director of the NMU’s Institute for Humanitarian Problems, Dnipropetrovsk has been closely following the various projects and publications of our newspaper. In fact, information about the successful debut of Day and Eternity of James Mace and Klara Gudzyk’s Apocrypha was found on the pages of The Day. Representatives of the paper were invited to visit the city, especially since people in Dnipropetrovsk are familiar with the publications of the American scholar James Mace, who revealed the tragedy of the Ukrainian Holodomor to the world. They also know the prominent journalist Klara Gudzyk.

The launch of our books drew a lot of attention. Afterwards our editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna was invited to meet with the students of NMU’s Faculty of Mass Communications Systems and to visit the Svitlytsia mini-museum. A visit to the house-museum of Dmytro Yavornytsky, the collector of Cossack antiquities and author of the noted History of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, was a long-cherished dream.

The book launch was held at National Mining University, considered by many the hub of student cultural life. Among the guests were lecturers and students of National Railway Transport University and Dnipropetrovsk National University.

Presenting the new books, Ms. Ivshyna said: “James Mace worked at the English bureau of The Day. He was not only one of our writers but also our teacher and guide. Together with Mace we wrote a letter to The New York Times, urging the editors to strip Duranty of his Pulitzer Prize for the pack of lies that he told about the Holodomor. Jim launched the Candle-in-the-Window project, so the last Saturday in November is now our Holodomor Remembrance Day. James once wrote, ‘Your dead have chosen me.’ This statement testifies to a very high level of humaneness. I have written that his arrival at our editorial office was tantamount to the opening of a ‘second front.’ James’s work for The Day and Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and generally his life in Ukraine rate a separate study. This book is our monument to him. We wanted to show that Ukrainians can be grateful...This year we published another book, a collection of articles by our columnist Klara Gudzyk. The author is a very well educated individual. To me she is living proof that intellect knows no age limitations. Ms. Gudzyk took up journalism at the age of 60, but as I often say, her views of the world make her one of the youngest. “

During the course of our conversation it became clear that The Day’s new books have become a godsend to many people. “As I was reading Day and Eternity, it occurred to me that this publication should serve as a handbook for future journalists,” noted Volodymyr Demchenko, dean of the Faculty of Mass Communications Systems. “I was particularly impressed by the article ‘The Tale of Two Journalists.’ I would describe its key idea by quoting from a popular poet: ‘The times are not to be chosen, / Only to be lived through and then to depart.’ We know that one can live one’s life — and then die — in a variety of ways.” Other speakers said that they had placed their copies of the Mace book on their bookshelves next to the Bible and a faded Kotliarevsky book printed at the beginning of the previous century. They remember that their grandfathers and great-grandfathers died during the famine or survived the tragedy. “I brought a copy of Day and Eternity all the way from Lviv, just to make sure I would have it if I couldn’t find one here. The Holodomor subject is very close to my heart, because my father was a peasant in the Poltava region, who died in April 1933,” said Hryhoriy Ivashchenko, a lecturer at the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at National Railway Transport University.

Prayers for the innocent victims should be said every time there is a Mass for the dead. One must pray and light candles, especially on Nov. 26, the last Saturday of the month, marking Holodomor Remembrance Day.

Below are some comments by university lecturers and cultural figures concerning The Day’s Library Series, particularly Day and Eternity of James Mace and Klara Gudzyk’s Apocrypha.

Ihor KOCHERHIN, Associate Professor, Chair of History and Political Theory at NMU:

In Klara Gudzyk’s book we find ruminations on the religious situation in Ukraine, particularly the lack of confessional tolerance, the disunity of the Orthodox churches, and the language situation in the church, which you don’t often come across in any other national papers. The topic seems to be a familiar one, but unfortunately it is rarely discussed. Ms. Gudzyk, who obviously has an encyclopedic knowledge of the topic, knows what she is writing about when she digresses into history, drawing parallels with the religious situations in neighboring countries...For me the Apocrypha must be read and reread. Almost every essay, every feature makes me ponder the nature of simple and global problems, most of which we cause by ourselves. The romantic mood of her series of essays “Seasons of the Year” makes one drift away from the daily routine. Despite the variety of the subject matter, all her works are united by a philosophy of understanding, charity, accord, and faith in people’s better sentiments and good deeds.

Svitlana IHNATIEVA, Associate Professor, Chair of History and Political Theory at NMU and director of the Oles Honchar Center for Ukrainian Language Culture:

I think that most women have their favorite little volume of prose or collection of poems by Lina Kostenko, Marina Tsvetaeva, or Anna Akhmatova. My favorite book is Klara Gudzyk’s Apocrypha. When I was reading it, I realized that the author is an extraordinary personality. Her works reveal that she is genuinely interested in everything she writes about. Obviously, she has experienced a lot in her life, yet Ms. Gudzyk has retained a positive world view.

I love her “Seasons of the Year” series. I read and reread these articles. Apart from everything else, they make perfect dictations for students. As a philologist, I can assure you that any fragment from this book is good for practicing syntax and orthography.

Natalia KOSTIUK, Senior Lecturer, Chair of History and Political Theory at NMU:

For me Day and Eternity of James Mace was a revelation. This American scholar was suddenly so close and dear it was as though he were born and raised here. How else could he have sensed our pain, considering we ourselves often fail to understand it fully? He was indeed one of us. After focusing wholeheartedly on the Holodomor tragedy, Mace could not disown the Ukrainians. He wrote, “Your dead have chosen me.” We know that the will of the dead is always carried out.

My family from the village of Ripna in Volochyske raion, Khmelnytsky oblast, survived the 1933 famine. My father told me that a cow and some millstones saved them from dying of starvation. The cow gave them some milk, not much, which they mixed with water and gave to their ir five children. After stealing a handful of wheatears from the collective farm field, my granny ground them with the millstones during the night (so that no one would see) and mixed the flour with pigweed and baked bread. The millstones are still in the barn. No one will touch them. They are a symbol. They are part of our memory.

Lesia STEPOVYCHKA, head of the board of the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization of the National Writers’ Union of Ukraine:

Volodymyr Vynnychenko said that you cannot read Ukrainian history without a sedative. I too couldn’t read Day and Eternity of James Mace without taking some drops for my nerves. The subject of the Holodomor is very close to me. My grandmother lived in Mohyliv, a village in Tereshchansky raion in Dnipropetrovsk oblast. She told me how she used to dry knot-grass, grind it, add water, and make pancakes to feed the family. Out of 12 children only three survived. I lived in Germany for some time. I was often asked why Ukrainians have a cult of bread. I think that our grandparents and great-grandparents’ experience of surviving the horrors of the Holodomor has been transmitted to us on the genetic level.

The book Day and Eternity is extremely topical. In 2007 the question of recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people will be publicly raised in the UN.

Hryhoriy IVASHCHENKO, lecturer, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at Dnipropetrovsk National Railway Transport University:

I remember I had an opportunity to be in Kyiv from February to June 1990. That was when I heard one of Mace’s speeches. I remember that as soon as he started speaking in Ukrainian, someone in the audience shouted, “Speak Russian!” Several minutes later an interpreter materialized beside James. Mace was a principled, but most importantly, a selfless personality. Many people point to his American Indian parentage, saying that this is what made him focus on the Holodomor in Ukraine. However, I believe that the famine in Ukraine is a problem that concerns not only Ukrainians; it is a matter of universal human concern. Mace realized this because he was a free man.

Just like Volodymyr Maniak’s book (Famine ‘33 — Ed.), I can read only several pages at a time of some of Mace’s articles, there is so much pain! Mace died so prematurely perhaps because he had burned himself up with this pain, which he must have physically suffered every time. “We have salvaged all we could, but sometimes it is difficult to understand for whose sake,” he wrote. The publication of Day and Eternity of James Mace is a response of sorts to his desperate statement.

Bohdan HAL, doctoral candidate, Chair of History and Political Theory at NMU:

Reading the book Day and Eternity of James Mace, I recalled the early 1990s, when everybody was expecting the arrival of foreign investments in Ukraine, the influx of Western intellectuals, who were supposed to help us overcome the economic and political crises. We tried to turn our country from a backwater cultural province of one world into a cultural province of another world. Unfulfilled expectations. That was probably why the silent majority of Ukraine failed to appreciate the deeds of people like Mace. It seems that for this caliber of individual our acknowledgement is not an aim in itself. I found an explanation of this phenomenon in Day and Eternity: awareness of one’s own mission and a consistent effort to carry it out. Some may describe this as a Quixotic spirit. People like Don Quixote and James Mace depart from this world, leaving behind books about a Spanish hidalgo, about two journalists’ books that are raising boys. What is left to us, witnesses of others’ attainments and moral declines, onlookers observing other people’s virtues and vices? After reading this book, I knew I would light a candle on the last Saturday in November to commemorate the millions of victims of the Ukrainian Holodomor, and in memory of an American Indian professor, who is buried in Ukraine.