A person of integrity and encyclopedic knowledge

James Mace Civic Stand Prize was founded on the initiative of Larysa Ivshyna, editor-in-chief of The Day, in 2008 on the 75th anniversary of the Great Famine of 1932-33. Last year the first prize was awarded. Ihor Losiev, Ph.D., renowned publicist, reporter of the Fleet of Ukraine newspaper and our regular contributor, became the laureate. “It is important that this award was not an award for a year of writing followed by a year of silence. If the author has a civic stand, the reader will definitely feel it. It gives a chance to the civil council of the prize to be proud of their choice,” noted Ivshyna, the civil council member, during an unostentatious award ceremony in the editorial office of the newspaper. This year the civil council, which consists of Yurii Shcherbak (it’s head), Larysa Ivshyna, Stanislav Kulchytsky and Natalia Dziu­benko-Mace, looked for consistency and high culture while selecting amidst several worthy candidates. According to Kulchytsky, the laureate showed great growth in the last few years. It was Ihor Siundiukov, publicist, scholar, editor of The Day’s “History and I” column. He has been working for the newspaper for 12 years and combining journalism with work in the Institute of History of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine. “It was Ihor Siundiukov, who wrote about the Holodomor so piercingly as nobody else. Many wise words were written about James, but no one wrote with such warmth, openness and frankness,” Natalia Dziu­benko-Mace, a writer and James Mace’s wife, noted. However, according to the idea, the James Mace Prize is not to be awarded only to those, who write about the Holodomor, but also to people who work on overcoming the post-genocidial symptoms of Ukrainian society. “I suppose that James was much deeper,” Ivshyna says. “This year, while compiling Extract +200, we included a sketch by Anatolii Kazansky, another man of genius, who worked for The Day. A difficult choice is depicted: to help in struggle or go to School. It seems to me that we were struggling in the wrong way, and the great issue is lack of edu­cation.” “When we awarded Ihor Losiev, I did not think that there would be a second time,” Shcherbak confessed. “The circumstances can be different. And a second prize is already a tradition.” On the eve of the ceremony we talked to the laureate.

Ihor, why did you choose history?

“I made my choice when I felt that history is a study of real people, who lived just like me and you, not so much intellectually as subconsciously. That is why history lessons and conclusions are vitally important as many situations took place before. Certainly, we are not talking about reconstruction, but the models of social development repeat themselves from time to time in an altered way. It is necessary to learn them, think and make conclusions. There is nothing more harmful than supposing that we were here first, that there was nobody before us, and no problems were solved earlier. On the contrary, we should take advantage of the experience of previous generations. Once I felt it, I made my conscious choice: it is my path in life.”

The power of your writing is not only in profound knowledge but also in strong convictions. What came first: knowledge or conviction?

“You cannot oppose one to another. Everything is important. Views on facts without any background are fanaticism. On the other hand, knowledge without principles is something ephemeral and it does not last long or deserve respect.”

You have worked with James Mace, Serhii Krymsky, and now you work with Ivan Dziuba and Myroslav Popovych. You were lucky to work with many great people. What is the most important lesson you learned from them?

“These people think about eternal things much more than you and I do. Certainly, I think that a living person cannot think only about it, it contradicts human nature. But compared to average people they constantly come back to very important thoughts, every day, again and again. It is their life, it is air for them. While communicating with Serhii Krymsky I felt it. This person was very often in another world, not the one where we live. That is the difference. The same with Ivan Dziuba. In spring of 2006 I encountered Lina Kostenko in the street. It was after the Chornobyl round-table (it was the 20th anniversary of the tragedy). We talked for a while, she reproved some aspects of the round table but then, muted, she unexpectedly said, ‘I understand Shevchenko, who wrote:

Maybe ten summers have passed
Since I gave the Kobzar to people,
And it seems that their mouths are sewed,
No one barks or scolds,
It seems that there was no me.’

“Lina Kostenko sighed heavily, and I felt that she was the only one, or there could be two, three people in the entire Ukraine who could feel Shevchenko’s emotions in full. I am so grateful to fate, and I want to emphasize that only thanks to The Day have I had an opportunity to talk to people of such scale. I am incredibly sa­tisfied with my talks with such people as Volodymyr Panchenko, Yurii Shapoval and other wonderful authors.”

You have just received a notice that you have become this year’s winner of the James Mace Civic Stand Prize. What do you feel?

“It was a real surprise! I did not think I was worthy of it. I bow down before James Mace’s memory. He was an outstanding and eminent person, and to be honored with such award is incredible.”