Kyiv remembers 1932-1933 Famine-Genocide (11/30/03)

Kyiv remembers 1932-1933 Famine-Genocide

by Roman Woronowycz
Kyiv Press Bureau

KYIV - Candlelight filled the evening on one of Kyiv's main squares on November 22 where earlier in the day thousands of people held a peaceful rally and commemorative march as Ukraine remembered the victims of the Famine.

Observations of the 70th anniversary of the artificially created famine occurred in Kyiv in splintered fashion. It was far from the atmosphere of solidarity and unity that its leaders had called upon to remember the 7 million to 10 million victims of Stalin's genocide of the Ukrainian population in 1932-1933.

Official celebrations were simple, consisting of a wreath-laying ceremony by government leaders at the Great Famine Memorial that stands before St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral on Mykhailivskyi Square and a requiem concert attended by hundreds of school-age children - but nearly no government officials.

The most extensive and most widely attended memorial event occurred at the same Great Famine Memorial after government leaders had left, where one religious leader stated that a lack of historic unity by the Ukrainian nation - in addition to the brutal and murderous policy towards the Ukrainian nation by the Soviet leadership in Moscow - was a reason for the nation's tragic plight.

"Something is missing here," noted Cardinal Lubomyr Husar, head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, during a prayer ceremony in honor of the victims, which he concelebrated with Patriarch Filaret, head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

"Today as we stand staring at the representation of death, remembering our compatriots," Cardinal Husar continued, "there should be others here. We should all be here: government officials, all the political parties and representatives of all religious confessions."

"Perhaps this would not have happened if we would have stood together as one nation as we should be doing before this memorial to those whose lives were taken from them 70 years ago," he continued.

"This was a chance to show our unity. It would have been better if all of us had been here together in the heart of Ukraine. We could have all remained silent. There would have been no need to say a word. Then we could have said we properly honored the victims," Cardinal Husar said.

The hierarch spoke to some 2,000 people who had gathered on Mykhailivskyi Square about an hour after Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, Verkhovna Rada Chairman Volodymyr Lytvyn and Kyiv Mayor Oleksander Omelchenko had driven up in their black European limousines and in silence placed wreaths before the simple granite monument to the victims of the mass murder planned and executed by Stalin and his henchmen - Lazar Kaganovich, Pavel Postyshev and Stanislav Kossior - and then driven away.

President Leonid Kuchma did not lead the official delegation because he remains hospitalized recovering from emergency intestinal surgery last week.

An hour after the state and government leaders had quickly left, National Deputy Viktor Yushchenko, chairman of the Our Ukraine political bloc, which organized the memorial service, told the gathering of his grandfather, who succumbed to starvation in 1933.

"My village paid with 600 lives," said Mr. Yushchenko. "When I come to visit my mother, she has five or six bags of dried bread in the kitchen at all times. I tell her they are no longer needed, but I know they will always be there."

The 70th anniversary commemoration began during a damp late autumn morning in St. Sophia Square, where people from all parts of the country gathered to take part in a memorial demonstration and prayer service. As the column of marchers approached the site of the Great Famine Monument, a recording of women and children alternately wailing and then gently weeping filled the square, accompanied by the tolling of a single bell in the St. Michael's Cathedral bell tower.

Over loud speakers, a solemn baritone voice offered a narrative and reminded the crowd, "We are not only a post-Communist society, we are also a post-genocide nation," and, "We must ask ourselves: 'What happened to us? Who is to blame?' "

Among the individuals given an opportunity to speak after the 30-minute prayer service - in addition to the political and religious leaders - was Kateryna Marchenko, a witness to the famine.

"We watched as dead people were dumped into open pits without a proper religious burial or commemoration," said Ms. Marchenko, who was then 7 years old. She added, "I heard of incidents of cannibalism."

She finished her remarks with a statement describing the state of contemporary Ukrainian society: "In the 13th year of our independence our people do not have a worthy life. The genocidal famine of 1932-1933 led to the spiritual famine we have today," Ms. Marchenko explained

As the hourlong ceremony, which proceeded under the slogan "Light a Candle," came to its climax, composer Myroslav Skoryk's "Requiem" began to play. Mr. Yushchenko led a group of his fellow politicians to the commemorative monument, at the foot of which the group placed votive candles in colorful candleholders. Mr. Yushchenko, who was present at the service with his wife and youngest child, then urged others to add their candles to create a huge memorial.

By nightfall, when Mr. Yushchenko reappeared on the square, thousands of green, red, yellow and blue translucent candleholders held lit candles flickering in the night wind.

Mr. Yushchenko said he would like to see the practice become an annual event, so that eventually 25,000 candles light up Mykhailivskyi Square each November 22 in honor of the like number of Ukrainians who died daily at the height of the genocide.

In the afternoon, the Ministry of Culture and Art held a requiem concert at the Shevchenko Opera Theater, where Prime Minister Yanukovych and other government leaders had been expected. The highest-ranking government official on hand, as it turned out, was Minister of Culture Yurii Bohutskyi who attended with a handful of his underlings.

The hall was filled for the most part with school age children who had been given free tickets and ordered to attend as part of a school assignment. It wasn't any easy task for them - the performance was the first-ever playing of Oleksander Yakivchuk's "33rd Symphony," an unnerving and difficult piece performed by the Ukrainian Pop Symphony and sung by the Pochaina Chorus of the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. One high school student in the second row spent the better part of the concert dozing.

The 70th anniversary commemorations began the previous evening with the opening of an exhibition of 70 years of artwork and posters on the subject of the Great Famine featuring more than 100 objects. The exhibit included paintings and murals, with works by Edward Kozak and Mykhailo Dmytrenko, two well-known artists from the Ukrainian diaspora, on display. A poster released by the Ukrainian Youth Association (SUM) on 1948, commemorating the 15th anniversary of the Great Famine, was on view, as was one published by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America from the October 2, 1983, a mass demonstration in Washington during the 50th anniversary commemorations of the Famine. A Polish poster, also on view, pleaded in four languages - Polish, Ukrainian, German and Russian - for help to "save the starving people of Russia in Ukraine."

At the center of the exhibition was a display of domestic and agricultural tools and instruments from the Famine period, part of a larger collection owned by National Deputy Yushchenko.

United States Ambassador John Herbst joined Canadian Ambassador Andrew Robinson at the opening. Mr. Robinson also attended the memorial service on Mykhailivskyi Square the next day.

In honor of the victims of the Great Famine, the Ukrainian Postal Service issued a special edition commemorative stamp on November 21. Marka Ukrainy, the stamp publishing arm of the postal service, issued the series, which features a traditional Ukrainian cross with the image of a starving child's face imprinted on its center. The dates 1932-1933 in red type and a few shafts of wheat are found on the left, and the word "Ukraina" is emblazoned on the right side.

The new series was rushed into print to replace one that had to be withdrawn after individuals in the Ukrainian diaspora had discovered and informed Ukrainian postal officials that a photo that was to be reproduced as part of the first Famine stamp was in fact a Russian photo from the 1921 Soviet famine. (For the complete story of this commemorative stamp see story on page 13.)

On November 24 Interfax-Ukraine reported that Pope John Paul II had sent a letter to the Ukrainian nation through Cardinal Husar on the 70th anniversary of the Great Famine in which the pontiff urged Ukrainians not to forget the tragedy in which "millions of people died in cruel suffering."

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