Holodomor Remembrance Week began in Ukraine, culminating in the project “Light a Candle” which was launched in 2003 by our colleague James Mace. One is reminded of those who were the first in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world to raise the matter of the Holodomor: Volodymyr Maniak, Lidia Kovalenko, Robert Conquest, and James Mace.
This Remembrance Week is special and, in a way, resembles the Holy Week. On this occasion, too, people offer up prayers, ask for forgiveness, and think things over. They ponder the gift of life and the need to pay homage to those who are no longer among the living. People ponder that invisible, inscrutable connection between the living and the dead, for as one remembers the dead, so he will fare in life.
Prior to the Remembrance Week, MP Olha Herasymiuk suggested to Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky that a memorial plaque dedicated to Volodymyr Maniak and Lidia Kovalenko be unveiled on a wall of the building in which the family lived, considering that they were the first in Ukraine to reveal the horrifying truth about the genocidal famine of 1932–33. “They founded the Association of Holodomor Researchers and the Ukrainian Historical-Educational Society ‘Memorial’ (now known as the Vasyl Stus KMO Memorial). Both were laureates of the Taras Shevchenko State Prize and authors of a book of people’s memories about millions of Ukrainians who died in the 1932–33 Holodomor in the Ukrainian SSR. This volume is a comprehensive reference source on the issues of the genocidal famine. It is a collection of eyewitness accounts, historical documents, scholarly comments, journalist articles, documentary photos, and works of art. Maniak and Kovalenko carried out an extremely important civic mission by creating the People’s Memorial Book. They dedicated their life to exposing this crime of the Stalinist regime against the Ukrainian people and having it acknowledged internationally,” Herasymiuk wrote in her letter.
COMMENTARY
Natalia DZIUBENKO-MACE, writer, James Mace’s widow:
“They were the first in Ukraine to convey the message of hundreds and thousands of victims of that heinous crime. The book of people’s memories Holod-33 (The Famine of 1933) was the first to stir the people’s memory. It showed that nothing had been forgotten and that this wound, which had been inflicted on the Ukrainian people, was still raw. This book was the first to use the terrible word ‘Holodomor.’ Lidia Kovalenko and Volodymyr Maniak were the first to define the Holodomor as an act of genocide.
“They were in a hurry and put aside all other journalist projects and creative plans. Their friends remember Lidia as a gifted journalist and editor and Volodymyr as a kind-hearted and sagacious writer. They were the first to step into the deadly inferno of the Holodomor and emerge from there with the horrible truth about the victims and the executioners. They were the first representatives of the people’s tribunal, considering that the trial of people’s memory over the perpetrators of this crime and it is still underway. It is being heard not in a courtroom but in people’s hearts and minds.
“The truth is forcing its way to the international community of nations through all obstacles and falsehood. This means that the effort made by this dedicated couple was not in vain. Thanks to Maniak’s uncompromising, principled approach, the first ray of light was cast on the truth. We will always miss Lidia’s generous heart and industrious nature.
“We need this memorial plaque on a wall of the building in which they lived, lest their names and dedicated selfless effort sink into oblivion. We also need a monument to them, new editions of their books, and many other things. People who knew and loved them need these things so badly, and they are even more necessary for those who are only starting to explore this world, trying to find their paths in life. May their names be the bright guiding stars in this process of self-cognition and maturation!”
