James Mace and Chernihiv oblast

“What do you need this for?” James Mace asked me as we stroled down Chernihiv streets in June 2002, after a meeting with the students of the Chernihiv Training Center for the Employees of Government Agencies and Local Government. That year the 70th anniversary of the 1932–33 Holodomor was marked in Ukraine, even if not on a scale matching that of 2008. In fact, this was the reason why Mace, a noted US scholar who laid down his life for Ukraine, was invited to come to Chernihiv.

At the time, the Center regularly hosted roundtables involving well-known Ukrainian historians. They would first address an academic audience, then hold a press conference, and have a get-together with colleagues in the evening. This was also the public initiative of Serhii Lepiavko, director of the Siversky Institute for Regional Studies. We believed that we would thus attract public attention to the complex problems of the past — some of these problems for various reasons have remained topical until now. Chernihiv was visited by Natalia Yakovenko, Vladyslav Verstiuk, Stanislav Kulchytsky, Yurii Mytsyk, Roman Serbyn, Volodymyr Kucher, and Yurii Pinchuk. Whenever possible, the organizers tried to mark certain historical dates. Remarkably, on each such occasion experts voiced their personal, rather than official, views, which was a risk, considering that such matters involved civic and government structures. I must give the local authorities their due for their pronouncedly tolerant attitude.

Not surprisingly, when making plans, we eventually considered the possibility of inviting Mace, considering that he was then living in Ukraine. I first came across his name in samizdat newspapers that were proliferated at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University, back in 1989–90. In 2002, it took me some time to I muster the courage and get his telephone number and make the call. I was acting on my own and the whole thing then looked a bit adventurous. A total stranger calling Mace and inviting him to visit Chernihiv to deliver a lecture before an audience made up of public servants and then join an unofficial roundtable with local historians.

My first attempt to get in touch with Mace at Kyiv Mohyla Academy was not successful. I learned that he was a part-time lecturer and that there were no lectures scheduled at the time I called, but people at the department gave me the address and telephone number of the newspaper Den. They said he was working there on a full-time basis. After that everything was easy. I called, he answered, I introduced myself and explained why I was calling. I asked if we could meet, he said sure and invited me to visit the editorial office.

I pictured a modern European-style office with first-rate equipment, his business costume, and stuff like that. Once I stepped in, the picture was clear: a typical American with his careless attitude to his workplace and his clothes (as long as it was comfortable), a man for whom his job came first. It is hard for me to picture how I acted during our meeting — perhaps as one reporting to his boss for the work done. Probably to help me come out of this unnatural condition, Mace told me softly: “OK, I’ll come.” He quickly overtook the initiative and started talking — surprisingly not about the Holodomor, but about current realities in Ukraine.

His assessments were strikingly clear: Ukraine was experiencing a tragedy, with political power wielded by bandits and bribers. He was translating and editing translations for The Day to put it all across in English. He spoke his mind on President Leonid Kuchma and a number of other ranking officials. The thing was not even the sharpness of his criticism, because anyone can criticize anyone behind one’s back. Mace was actually writing about this in the newspaper (although there he did not mention the culprits by name. Toward the end of our conversation I tried to remind Mace that I was also a public servant and asked him to bear this fact in mind when addressing the audience in Chernihiv. He assured me he understood the situation and asked if I would mind if he came with his wife, Natalia Dziubenko-Mace.

Sometimes the important thing was left unsaid. In our conversation none of us raised the matter of a car being sent for Mace. He just said they would use a fixed-route taxi and only asked me for advice on which one was the best. Quite often when working for the Chernihiv Center, I had to make arrangements for Kyiv-based Ukrainian university lecturers to visit Chernihiv. One of their first questions would be, “How do I get there?” In other words, would there be a car waiting to pick him up and then bring him back. Another question was, “How much will you pay?” This one implied that the lecturer in question expected to be paid more than he was due to receive officially. In the case of Mace, such considerations must have been simply nonexistent.

He and his wife arrived in Chernihiv. Much to our shame, we failed to meet the couple in front of the Ukraine Hotel. We met them on their way downtown. Both were happy about the easy, quick, and convenient way from Kyiv to Chernihiv. Dziubenko-Mace added that she had thought it would be a long road, but the time it had taken was about the same as when traveling from Troieshchyna, Kyiv’s residential district where they lived, to the center of Kyiv.

Dziubenko-Mace would later note that their trip to Chernihiv was a peculiar experience. James was not eager to travel anywhere but suddenly agreed to visit Chernihiv. He may have wanted to have a break, considering his incredibly tight schedule. For a long while he was practically the only one who kept The Day going. He also wrote newspaper/magazine articles, engaged in public activities, taught at Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and collaborated and corresponded with colleagues. He had not learned to say no to anyone, and so he spent The Day working at the editorial office and conducting university classes and the night hours in front of his PC at home.

In Chernihiv, Mace addressed the heads of the departments for domestic policies in the structure of Chernihiv’s raion state administrations. These departments specialize in social processes. The visiting scholar chose a topic that sounded somewhat strange, considering his line of scholarly pursuit — “The main historical stages of state construction in Ukraine.” However, this is what the curriculum required. Mace’s impromptu lecture in Chernihiv was original and nonstandard. Unfortunately, no video recording has survived, because the existing tape was erased.

Two months later I was fortunate to hear Mace address the Fifth Congress of Ukrainists in Chernivtsi. His presentation was strongly reminiscent of the one in Chernihiv in terms of topic and even certain statements. In Chernihiv he may have voiced what he had written and what he would write, some of the conclusions he would make. Apart from the Holodomor, Mace stressed that having a European standard of living depended primarily on the Ukrainian people’s will, desire, and awareness of their national identity.

There was something else that would long stay in the audience’s memory — Mace’s straightforward unequivocal statements concerning current realities, although he did not mention names. This is a kind of cultural phenomenon inherent in society in which he grew up, and it was multiplied by his special character and upbringing. Mace could not remain silent. The impossibility to say publicly everything that was on his mind clearly depressed him.

Traditionally, after his public lecture in Chernihiv Mace participated in a press conference. There was no great stir among the media. A local newspaper even wrote, “The only shameful thing was the absence of journalists from any state-owned Chernihiv periodical.” The actual situation was not that bad. Mace’s visit was covered by Sivershchyna, Prosvita, Bila khata, Visnyk Ch, and Chernihivski vidomosti.

Mace explained to journalists that he was studying the consequences of the Holodomor for Ukraine’s current political realities. (He called Ukrainian society ‘post-genocidal’.) In his opinion, most current problems of the Ukrainian people were rooted in the Holodomor, because this was when its foundation was undermined. Mace made it perfectly clear that the current Ukrainian political leadership was equally responsible. He believed he was a Ukrainian historian, saying, “I had to become Ukrainian, even if in spirit.” He cared about Ukraine as though it were his homeland, unlike so many native-born Ukrainian politicians.

While on a sightseeing tour of Chernihiv, Dziubenko-Mace scolded her husband, “Jim, you let yourself get carried away again.” To which he replied contritely, “Yeah, I did it again.” Years back in the US, his unwavering stance in the capacity of the executive director of the US Commission on the Ukraine Famine cost him his career, because he insisted that the Holodomor was recognized as genocide. At the time, Mace was swimming against the current. Professional Sovietologists, experts on Russia, and Slavists did not forgive him his findings. While in Chernihiv, Mace explained their response to the Ukrainian people’s tragedy, the man-made famine, saying that one of the reasons behind this sad phenomenon was the feeling of guilt in the US ruling and intellectual quarters over the fact that the US government established diplomatic relations with the USSR in 1933, even though it knew about the Holodomor in Ukraine.

Listening to Mace, I noticed that the audience was growing stiff, scared to hear what would come next. And then, at a certain unexpected point, people relaxed, probably reminding themselves that they were listening to an American who could speak Ukrainian. I later asked someone in the audience about his impressions. The man smiled: “Well, he is a man from a free country.” Indeed, speaking your mind in public at the time was weird. The better part of Ukrainian society was accustomed to a different kind of public conduct. Mace offered his own example that demonstrated the fallacy of this concept and that there was a different option — exactly the way he had done in his home country, whenever he believed the US government was wrong. We met several months later in Kyiv and exchanged our views on what was happening in Iraq.

In response to my critical remarks about Washington’s policy, Mace surprised me by saying that the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake verging on crime. He later made his point of view public knowledge, much to the chagrin of the US embassy in Kyiv. At the time, Ukraine agreed to send its contingent and thus became involved in the conflict zone. Naturally, years later there are people who cannot forgive Mace his straightforward statements and his stand of a citizen which was dangerous for an authoritarian model of state administration. He was uncomfortable for the government, any government.

On a tour around Chernihiv, Mace asked me the question I quoted at the beginning of this article. Apparently our first meeting had left him interested. That was probably why he visited Chernihiv after all. I told him something about this kind of work being interesting and satisfying, for it boiled down to popularizing national history among local bureaucrats. Also, it was a unique opportunity for historians to rub elbows. Add here media coverage. Eventually, we were joined by Oleksandr Kukharuk, a university lecturer, and explored Chernihiv’s historical sites together.

That evening we attended a roundtable with Chernihiv’s historians. The topic was “Issues in studying the 1932–33 famine in Ukraine.” Mace was joined at the roundtable by Tamara Dymchenko, Serhii Butko, Nadia Molochko, Tetiana Onyshchenko, Oleksandr Kukharuk, Dmytro Hryn, Hanna Morozova, and others. For the most part the roundtable dealt with current problems. The context remained the same, but the participants felt at home.

Later Mace and his wife invited me to their place, even to stay overnight. Frankly, for a long time all this seemed unreal (that was probably why I didn’t visit often). There I was seeing and talking to a living legend, using his PC, asking him to look through a manuscript of mine, watching his daily routine, without any media presence, so there was no playacting for the sake of publicity, where everything was for real.

Mace could be described as a hospitable albeit not very skilled host, and he was absolutely helpless in terms of housekeeping and other chores. I could see he enjoyed living in a new apartment because he finally had what he had long lacked: his own place which he could arrange the way he liked. He was happy to show me their apartment on my first visit and seemed oblivious to the place being a bit of a mess, as is often the case with creative personalities. I was impressed by the multitude of books (now property of Kyiv Mohyla Academy). Honestly, I had never seen a larger private collection. This, it turned out, was only part of it, the rest being in America.

Mace must have sensed that I was somewhat ill at ease in our conversations, so he encouraged me to continue our discussions. Eventually, I realized that his habit of using direct speech and making straightforward statements remarkably combined with his polite and attentive attitude to the interlocutor, whatever the circumstances.

I called him at home in early 2003 and was shocked to learn that Mace was in the intensive care unit of an ordinary Kyiv hospital (not in Feofania where Ukrainian VIPs get medical treatment) and that he was on the critical list. I remembered his mentioning health problems in September 2001, but I could not imagine things were so bad. That same evening Dziubenko-Mace and I visited him at the hospital. He was barely alive, and his wife said he had been like that for several weeks. He needed constant blood transfusions and other procedures. Blood was being donated by friends — primarily his colleagues at The Day — and other people who knew him. So Mace became Ukrainians’ blood brother in the literal sense. As we approached his bed, he greeted us, although he could barely speak. I found myself mumbling about our having yet to visit Chernihiv to explore St. Anthony’s Caves. He said we surely would so.

He proved as good as his word. Half a year later, feeling better, he visited our ancient city on a business trip to take part in the discussion of a project with the regional state administration, namely the book Chernihivshchyna Incognita, a sequel to The Day’s Ukraine Incognita series. The book told about little-known events in the history of Sivershchyna and was published in early 2005 — after Mace’s departure but with approval and perhaps even blessing. After that meeting we never saw each other again, but on that occasion he was eager to take a stroll down city streets. Naturally, we visited the Training Center where he had once spoken. He must have wanted to make this visit specifically to see people he knew.

Books are not the only initiative that link Mace with Chernihiv oblast. In the spring of 2003, Dziubenko-Mace told me about his idea that was published by Den on Dec. 18, 2003, in the column “A Candle in the Window.” He suggested that every fourth Saturday of November be marked as The Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the 1933 Famine and that the time be determined when every member of this nation — in which almost every individual lost his/her close and dear ones in the Holodomor — will light a candle and place it on the windowsill to pay homage to the dead. Dziubenko-Mace asked me to spread the word.

Similar messages and requests were forwarded to almost all training centers in the other oblasts, but to no avail, from what I know. Chernihiv-based newspaper Visnyk Ch published this message, thanks to its editor in chief Serhii Narodenko. There were other people who supported the idea. In the fall of 2003, official measures were taken to mark the Holodomor’s 70th anniversary. Before the designated date I met with Viktor Tkanko, head of the regional state administration. He liked the idea of lighting candles and they were actually lit during the main session in the local council’s assembly hall. Therefore, there is every reason to say that Chernihiv was Ukraine’s first city in which Mace’s project was supported by the local authorities. I should point out, however, that for him the main thing was the personal motivation of Ukrainian citizens. Mace never accepted sympathy ordered from upstairs.

I was fortunate enough to be one of his acquaintances for less than two years. Dziubenko-Mace called me late on May 3, 2004, to say, weeping, that Jim had passed away and asked my help with funeral arrangements. I spent the next two days in their apartment in Troieshchyna. I had my work schedule, so I made arrangements to make my absence appear as a “business trip” to Kyiv. I do not know whether I was much of a help. I answered the phone, accepted offers of assistance, welcomed TV crews and visitors, taped TV channels’ news releases, and did some cooking.

In a word, I tried to help the family as best I could. In fact, the only official visitor was an aide of the then Defense Minister Yevhen Marchuk (there may have been others, but I never saw them). As for the opposition, there was a phone call from Kateryna Yushchenko. The next morning Dziubenko-Mace took me and several other men to the morgue. This was my last meeting with Mace.

The funeral ceremony was held at the Teacher’s Home. There was a crowd in front of the entrance. People kept coming to pay their last respects: colleagues, historians, journalists, writers, members of parliament (among them Viktor Yushchenko), government officials, including Markian Lubkivsky, spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. No protocol was observed there and later at the Baikove Cemetery. People attended the sad ceremony simply because they followed a calling in their hearts. This is precisely the way Mace wanted us to light memorial candles.