“Whenever asked why the newspaper Den instituted the James Mace Prize, I answer very simply: I want his cause and ethicality to live on and prevail in this country and the profession of a journalist to be respected again,” Den’s editor-in-chief Larysa Ivshyna said, opening the seventh award ceremony. This year the prize was conferred on Ivan Kapsamun, editor of Den’s politics section, compiler of the book The Trap, or A Case without a Statute of Limitations, “for a civic stand in political journalism.”
It will be a good idea to explain some important points. The James Mace Prize is in no way limited to the “framework topic” of the Holodomor (especially the way it is presented in schoolbooks) because emphasis is placed on a different thing here and it is no accident that the words “civic stand” are used. Mace spoke of the Holodomor when everybody (in Ukraine, Russia, and the rest of the world) preferred not to hear this, for it was too thorny a subject for them. For there had been Walter Duranty who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. In spite of numerous calls, his prize was never revoked.
It is now possible to speak freely about the Holodomor in Ukraine (and gradually all over the world after a memorial was unveiled in Washington) only because there were some solitary voices, such as James’s, that defended the truth. That was a topic of national importance at the time, as the Gongadze case is today. Like James Mace before him, Ivan Kapsamun is in fact speaking in a “journalistic vacuum” about the things that are markers of a situation in this country.
“This country is in such a difficult condition today partly because Ukrainians have failed to learn the lessons James spoke and wrote about,” says Larysa Ivshyna, editor-in-chief of Den and the prize initiator. “James said in his first articles that the problem of Ukraine was that independence had in fact came to the Ukrainian SSR. To what extent is Ukraine still Soviet? Have we replaced this with a higher-quality government and life? We won’t be able to reach a new height unless we address this problem as closely as possible. It is a very urgent political task to reeducate the country and write new school programs that will mention the Holodomor and genocide, but there is no idea how to overcome this lag. And many of the James Mace Prize winners have made serious efforts in various walks of life to help Ukrainian society convalesce.
THE JAMES MACE PRIZE AWARD CEREMONY AT DEN’S EDITORIAL OFFICE WAS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR AN OPEN AND FRIENDLY DEBATE AMONG THIS COUNTRY’S BEST POLITICAL JOURNALISTS / Photo by Ruslan KANIUKA, The Day
“This year I read in Facebook a popular Donbas blogger who said: ‘I must confess that I did not believe in the manmade famine and thought it was a fabrication.’ They did not think, did not want to know, and a misfortune came again. The current ethnocide in the Ukrainian Donbas is a real retribution for unwillingness to know. The state has done nothing to make this knowledge compulsory. This new ethnocide is an ocean of blood. James wrote that the ground had not yet absorbed all the blood. Whenever he spoke of Ukraine, he knew for sure that, as long as Russian dominated here, we would be in danger. We should have viewed it as a sign of alarm that Russia had not apologized or accepted our truth and was thus capable of doing this again in more horrible, hybrid, and Jesuitical forms. James warned us, and we want these warnings to be taken into account immediately. I want James’s cause to live on and everybody to light a candle sincerely. The memorial month we are speaking about should become a pole of force for us. It is not only the memory of a tragedy – it is a duty to become strong and wise,” Den’s editor-in-chief concludes.
“This prize perhaps was not conceived as a high-profile and a national-scale award, but it became one, owing to James Mace’s personality,” Yurii SHCHERBAK, chair of the James Mace Prize public board, a diplomat, writer, and political journalist said, handing the award to Ivan Kapsamun. “There is also his sheaf of wheat ears on a wall of the newly-opened Holodomor monument in Washington. James Mace Prize winners are the pride of the intellectual elite and journalism, the people who go down in the history of journalism in their own way.”
“I got acquainted with James Mace through his intellectual heritage which he had left to Ukrainians so they could think over the Holodomor tragedy,” Ivan Kapsamun said in his award ceremony speech. “Working at Den on the high-profile Gongadze-Podolsky case, I often recalled Mace because he was one of the few models of scholarship, erudition, and character, which Ukrainian journalism lacks so badly to be able to spotlight crucial topics. James bore the flag of the truth about a post-genocidal Ukrainian society, which needs to be seriously healed. He diagnosed the nation’s problems and ‘prescribed’ remedies to solve them. However, instead of ‘treating’ the Soviet Union’s legacy, Ukrainian politicians began to parasitize on our society’s sore points in the 1990s. They added their own – post-Soviet – problems to post-genocidal and post-colonial ones. Corruption, crime, family ties, amorality, personal interests, contract killings – this rather incomplete set was an attribute of those times. It is during Leonid Kuchma’s presidency that the groundwork for an oligarchic clan system was laid in Ukraine. The year 2000 was the peak of the government’s permissiveness, when there was an attempt on the life of the 2nd and 3rd convocation MP Oleksandr Yeliashkevych, the savage beating of public activist Oleksii Podolsky, and a heinous murder of journalist Georgy Gongadze. In the six years that I have been looking into these crimes, I saw that the rotation of individuals in power did not cause the system to change. The Gongadze-Podolsky case has long become a marker for all politicians, journalists, and public activists. And, unfortunately, far from all can pass this test. Today, in the difficult conditions of frequent misunderstanding in journalism and artificial obstacles on the part of crime organizers, we have to struggle for a fair end in this case, as James Mace once did in the Holodomor question.”
So, the James Mace Prize is about a handful of people who are trying to change destiny in their own way. The fact that the Holodomor was recognized, albeit half a century later, gives a chance that the ultimate truth will also be found in the Gongadze case.
COMMENTARIES
“THE JAMES MACE PRIZE MAKES AN INTERESTING GEOGRAPHY”
Volodymyr BOIKO, historian political journalist:
“I congratulate Ivan on this high and well-deserved award. Unfortunately, our journalists not always think over what they write. Very rarely can you see one writing knowledgeably. There can be various topics, but you should know them. Only if you, a journalist, have a serious background, your work can be profound and cause a stir. Whenever I read Kapsamun, I recall Serhii Yefremov – he also knew how to get absorbed in a theme. His articles – either very small or, on the contrary, very large in size – are always interesting. This is the eighth James Mace Prize. In the past few years, it has been won by representatives of Luhansk, Sevastopol, Chernihiv, Ostroh, and Kyiv. This year, an Odesa oblast representative won it. This makes quite an interesting geography, which is good because the same events always look slightly different by force of regional particularities. Each can see what others may not have noticed. At the same time, this creates a common understanding.”
“A HIGH ACT OF A CIVIC STAND”
Ihor SIUNDIUKOV, editor of Den’s “History and I” section:
“A well-earned award has found a deserving winner. Ivan Kapsamun’s book has a message to us all – let us call a spade a spade. Let us not call capitulation a compromise and a monstrous feudal system – reforms. One must not disguise shameful societal regress with suave words. Kapsamun sets modern-day political journalism the example of a precise choice of adequate and truthful words. It is a chronic disease of our politicians to camouflage failures as good reforms. The main ‘hero’ of the book The Trap… is Ukraine’s second president. Once he came to power, he delivered a huge speech on the necessity of systemic reforms in Ukraine. It was October 1994. The political ‘trap’ of which Ivan wrote and whose fruits we are reaping now in fact began to be set at that time.
“It is a high act of a civic stand to search for what is hidden behind masks, see the truth, and show adherence to principles. We are going through an extremely difficult stage now, with due account of shifts in the world’s geopolitical situation. It is outrageous that the main ‘hero’ of Kapsamun’s book represents Ukraine in Minsk.
“I have heard allegations that the James Mace Prize should be exclusively awarded for research into the Holodomor. I beg to remind you that Mace was not only a prominent Holodomor researcher, but also a brilliant contemporary political writer and analyst who splendidly saw and analyzed all the ‘ulcers’ of Ukrainian society. From this angle, Ivan Kapsamun aptly continues the cause of James.”
“TAKING A CIVIC STAND BOTH IN TEXTS AND IN LIFE”
Valentyn TORBA, journalist at Den’s politics section:
“Ivan is special in knowing how to ‘tune’ a team’s atmosphere like a violin, where each string makes a sound of its own. He is also a brilliant political writer. Whenever I enter Den’s conference room, which often hosts meetings with all kinds of people, including the politicians on whom this country’s future depends, I always recall James’ eyes that look at us from the portrait. The problems we are now reaping in Ukraine were conceived back in the 1990s. This genius of political journalism warned us about some of them, particularly when he researched the post-genocidal nature of Ukrainian society. Today’s winner is continuing this cause. I am grateful to the prize jury for choosing no other than Ivan. It is a special pleasure that the company of the winners of such a prestigious award now includes a principled, honest, and skilled journalist who has always been taking a civic stand both in texts and in life.”
