LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (08/22/04)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

UCCLA on revoking Duranty's prize

Dear Editor:

The President of the Ukrainian World Congress has used this page to share his opinion of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the undersigned, and the campaign to have Walter Duranty's ill-got Pulitzer Prize revoked. A reply is warranted. I must immediately add that I have no intention of being disparaging. Instead, just like the little fellow in the fable about the emperor who has no clothes, my only intention is to be truthful.

Calls for the revocation of Duranty's Pulitzer certainly did not originate with the UCCLA, nor did they begin in February 2003 with the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, nor have I, or the UCCLA, claimed otherwise. Anyone who reads The Ukrainian Weekly would know these facts.

Just before May 2003 the UCCLA did, however, initiate a campaign on Duranty and the great famine cover-up which, unlike previous efforts, attracted international attention, lasting into 2004. Although we were courteous enough to pretend otherwise, the Ukrainian World Congress did not contribute a penny in support, nor did it do anything to help publish or promote a record of that effort, "Not Worthy: Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize and The New York Times" (Kashtan Press, 2004). Nevertheless, that book is now available through public and university libraries, from London to Lviv to Los Angeles. I think that is useful.

Those who contributed to inserting a pro-Ukrainian message into the international arena were acknowledged in "Not Worthy", including the UCCA. As there are no index entries for "do nothings" and/or "talk a lots" not everyone made the cut, but readers will find three references to the Ukrainian World Congress. Those perpetuate the polite fiction mentioned in the third paragraph of this letter.

Lubomyr Luciuk, PhD
Kingston, Ontario

Duranty and OUN-UPA issues

Dear Editor:

I would like to clarify a couple of matters related to letters and a column by Myron Kuropas that have appeared in recent issues of The Ukrainian Weekly. Ian Hunter's paean to Lubomyr Luciuk (August 1) contains the following statement: "When snippets of the truth began to leak out, Duranty coined the phrase: " 'You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.' "

Duranty did not coin that phrase. Nor, as is sometimes asserted, did Stalin. The originator may have been British Colonial Minister Joseph Chamberlain (speaking circa 1900), who declared: "You cannot have omelettes without breaking eggs: you cannot destroy the practices of barbarism, of slavery, of superstition ... without the use of force."

More seriously, both Dr. Kuropas (July 25) and Leo Iwaskiw (letter, August 8) take issue with Karel C. Berkhoff's alleged attack on the OUN-UPA, and his use of a source from Harvard Ukrainian Studies (HUS). Mr. Iwaskiw makes a sweeping attack on the journal for publishing an article that purports to criticize the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and praises Dr. Taras Hunczak for refuting that article.

However, if one reads the Berkhoff book closely, the reader will see that the actual source for the Banderites concluding that Jews "must be killed" is not the said article by Prof. Berkhoff and Marco Carynnyk in HUS, but a book published in Munich by Mstyslav Z. Chubai in 1952. The HUS article is cited in its entirety as providing a general portrayal of OUN-UPA's attitude toward Germans and Jews.

In fairness to Prof. Berkhoff also, the controversial section that irritated Dr. Kuropas includes citations from the Central State Archives of Civic Organizations of Ukraine and the Archive of Higher Administrations of Power of Ukraine, Litopys UPA, as well as Polish, Ukrainian and English secondary sources (such as Timothy Snyder's recent book and article in Past and Present). One may disagree with his conclusions, but one cannot dispute his knowledge of the available material.

David R. Marples
Edmonton

The letter-writer is professor of history at the University of Alberta.

The Ukrainian Weekly welcomes letters to the editor and commentaries on a variety of topics of concern to the Ukrainian American and Ukrainian Canadian communities. Opinions expressed by columnists, commentators and letter-writers are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of either The Weekly editorial staff or its publisher, the Ukrainian National Association.

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