Turning the pages back... October 6, 1933 (10/04/98)

Turning the pages back...

October 6, 1933

Sixty-five years ago, on October 6, 1933, The Ukrainian Weekly published its first issue, appearing as an English-language sister publication to Svoboda, then a daily Ukrainian newspaper which was already marking its 40th anniversary.

The periodicals' publisher, the Ukrainian National Association, was moved by the need for outreach to an increasingly English-speaking younger generation, and by anguish about news of the unfolding horror of Stalin's genocidal famine raging in the Ukrainian SSR.

And so, content matched purpose. The front page carried an editorial by Stephen Shumeyko, The Weekly's first editor-in-chief, in the form of an address "To Our Youth," a youth which "dreams, and then goes to work and makes the dreams come true." The front page also included a statement from UNA President Mykola Murashko about the opportunities presented by the appearance of such a publication, and Mr. Shumeyko's brief survey of the history of Ukrainian immigration to the U.S. titled "Progress of Ukrainians in America."

Inside, an item titled "Ukrainians protest deliberate starvation of Ukraine by the Bolsheviks," made plain the outrage at "the barbaric attempts of the Bolshevik regime to deliberately starve out and depopulate the Ukrainian people in Ukraine," and suggested that the outside world was aware of what was going on: "Practically all of the leading press of England and the [European] Continent has been filled for the last four or five months with descriptions of the pitiful scenes throughout Ukraine."

The article noted the Soviet regime's attempts to "screen this deliberate starving by declaring that poor crops are responsible for this great famine," and that while "Ralph B. Barnes of the Herald Tribune, W. H. Chamberlain of the Christian-Science Monitor, [Malcolm Muggeridge] the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, and many other leading correspondents," had been barred from the stricken republic, "only a few extreme Bolshevik sympathizers such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times are permitted to [gain entry]. Even Duranty has admitted that the famine has decimated the Ukrainian population." He did so, it must be noted, after at first denying that there was any famine, and only after others had already reported on its consequences.

In The Weekly's maiden issue Mr. Shumeyko inaugurated a survey of U.S. press references to Ukraine and Ukrainians. "The motive which has inspired me to prepare these articles is to make the young American Ukrainians realize that the Ukrainian people and their never-ceasing struggles for freedom are not unknown among the American people, as some of our pessimists are inclined to believe at times. On the contrary, the Ukrainian cause has many sympathizers, particularly among the so-called intelligentsia," the editor wrote.

Mr. Shumeyko's activism was highlighted in an article by Marian Adams, detailing a meeting of the Ukrainian Youth League of North America, of which The Weekly's editor was president.

1933 was also the year of the "Century of Progress" world's fair in Chicago, where Ukrainians set up a pavilion. It was, as chronicled by The Weekly's coverage, visited by former U.S. President Herbert Hoover.

Other items included a description of the ongoing "pacification" campaign directed at Ukrainians in Poland; an odd diptych about the arrival of two individuals in Hollywood - Ukrainian choreographer Vasily Avramenko and Sholom Schwartzbard, the man who assassinated Ukrainian National Republic President Symon Petliura; a notice of a certain John Bilinsky's intentions to run for public office in Cleveland; and articles about the establishment of a Ukrainian theater ensemble and an opera troupe.

The paper was already "previewing events," including a "Lithuanian Day" at the aforementioned Ukrainian pavilion and a youth rally organized by the Ukrainian Institute in Philadelphia.

Last but not least, it could hardly go without mention that The Weekly carried its first "Turning the Pages" (although not under that rubric) in its first issue - an account that marked the 150th anniversary of "one of the greatest events in the entire history of Europe": how the Ukrainian Kozak Yurii Kulchytsky saved Vienna from Turkish forces in 1683.

Source: The Ukrainian Weekly, October 6, 1933, Vol. I, No. 1; from our website at http://www.ukrweekly.com.

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