Ukrainians Protest Deliberate Starvation of Ukraine by the Bolsheviks
This article appeared in the premiere issue of The Ukrainian Weekly, dated October 6, 1933.
A series of mass meetings are being held by the Ukrainians throughout America and Canada, protesting against the barbaric attempts of the Bolshevik regime to deliberately starve out and depopulate the Ukrainian people in Ukraine.
The purpose of this international starvation by the Bolsheviks is to forever quell the Ukrainian struggle for freedom.
Since the overthrow of the Ukrainian National Republic by the Bolsheviks fifteen years ago, the latter have used every conceivable terroristic weapon to stamp out the Ukrainian attempts to free themselves. Thousands of Ukrainians have been summarily shot for the slightest political offense; other thousands were sent to certain death to Siberia and the notorious Solovetsky prison Islands. But to no avail. The Ukrainian spirit of independence still burned on.
The Reds therefore finally hit upon the most inhuman plan ever conceived, in order to achieve their end: and that is the deliberate carrying out of Ukraine practically all the grain and other foodstuffs, with the result that over five million Ukrainians have died during the past year from starvation.
The Ukrainian Weekly’s first editor, Stephen Shumeyko (1933-1959).
The Bolsheviks are trying to screen this deliberate starving by declaring that poor crops are responsible for this great famine. This excuse is rather a grim jest when we consider that Ukraine, the home of the famed “chornozem,” is one of the most fertile lands on this earth.
Scenes of extreme horror are described by eyewitnesses. There is absolutely nothing to eat. Even the rodents have all been eaten up. People die in their tracks, and are left to rot. Many instances of cannibalism have been reported.
Dr. Ewald Amende, secretary of the Congress of National Minorities at Bern, Switzerland, has recently described this famine in Ukraine as the “shame of the twentieth century.” His Holiness Pope Pius XI has recently expressed his deepest sympathy and an offer to help. Cardinal [Theodore] Innitzer, Archbishop of Vienna, issued on August 19 a protest against the Bolshevik barbarity and an appeal for help for the Ukrainians to the International Red Cross. The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andrew [Andrey] Sheptytsky, together with Ukrainian Archbishops and Bishops, has issued a protest against this persecution of unprecedented and inhuman character.
At the present time the Bolsheviks have forbidden Ralph B. Barnes of the Herald Tribune, W. H. Chamberlain of the Christian Science Monitor, the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian and many other leading correspondents to enter Ukraine. Only a few extreme Bolshevik sympathizers such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times are permitted to do so. Even Duranty has admitted that the famine has decimated the Ukrainian population.
Practically all of the leading press of England and the Continent has been filled for the last four or five months with descriptions of the pitiful scenes throughout Ukraine.
Appeals are being made to the Red Cross to establish a base in Ukraine in order that all Ukrainians can send their aid through this base. At the present time such aid is impossible, as the Bolsheviks will not permit it.
Further appeals are being made to the U.S. Government not to recognize this Communistic dictatorship, as it is founded upon principles that are contrary to all rules of humanity and civilization. Appeals are also being made to the Government to send a Special Mission to Ukraine in order to study the conditions under which the Ukrainian people are living under this tyrannical and oppressive Bolshevik dictatorship.
Our tenth anniversary
This editorial appeared in The Ukrainian Weekly’s
issued dated October 2, 1943.
Ten years ago, on October 6, 1933, The Ukrainian Weekly made its first appearance. The 18th Regular Convention of the Ukrainian National Association, held in May of that year in Detroit, had decided that in the development of Ukrainian American life the time had come when our younger generation, born and raised here, had to have, in addition to the Svoboda, a weekly organ of their own, published in English and dedicated completely to their special needs and interests. And thus The Ukrainian Weekly was born.
Since that time The Ukrainian Weekly has endeavored to fulfill its function as such to the best of its ability. Primarily it has devoted itself to the problems and issues confronting our young people in relation to their Ukrainian background and their American environment. In this connection it has, first of all, striven to make them good and loyal Americans. Likewise it has endeavored to make them worthy descendants of the freedom-loving Ukrainian race. At the same time it has constantly inculcated them with the idea that as native-born Americans of Ukrainian descent they are duty-bound to help their blood kinsmen in foreign-occupied and oppressed Ukraine to win the national freedom for which they have been fighting and sacrificing for many centuries.
The Ukrainian Weekly Editor Zenon Snylyk (1962-1978).
These then have been the main objectives of The Ukrainian Weekly. To attain them The Weekly has (1) propagated among its readers the inspiring principles of Americanism; (2) given them at least a rudimentary knowledge of their Ukrainian cultural heritage and also of the centuries-old Ukrainian struggle for national freedom; (3) supported, and at times inspired, their organizational efforts; (4) impressed upon them the necessity of their becoming active members of the UNA – the chief bulwark of Ukrainian American life; (5) acted as a forum for their views on the various important problems and issues facing them; (6) kept them abreast of the latest developments in Ukrainian American organized life; (7) kept them informed on the current events in the land from which their parents emigrated; and (8) generally provided for them a type of inspiration, information and reading which they cannot get elsewhere.
How far the Ukrainian Weekly has advanced towards its objectives is not for us to say. However, we would like to point out a fact long-recognized by impartial observers, that no other younger generation of Americans of old world background is as group-conscious as is the Ukrainian American younger generation, and that no other such generation has shown as much interest in its old world cultural heritage and the valuable role it can play in the development of American life and culture, as has the younger generation of Americans of Ukrainian descent. We like to think that The Ukrainian Weekly deserves some credit for this. In any event, if thus far The Ukrainian Weekly has succeeded in serving our younger generation as well as the Svoboda has served the older generation, then certainly it may be said that The Weekly has done more than well enough.
Today, of course, The Ukrainian Weekly devotes its main efforts to our country’s war effort. In every way possible it strives to make the Ukrainian American contribution to this war effort as great as possible. It is prompted to do this not only by a sense of duty, but also by the realization that only a victory of the American cause and arms, as well as those of their allies, will ensure the future existence and development of the “American way of life,” and, at the same time, provide at least an opportunity for the Ukrainian people in their native but enslaved land to establish a free, independent and democratic state of Ukraine.
Our Ukrainian Weekly
The commentary below appeared in the September 26, 1953, issue of The Ukrainian Weekly.
by Theodore Lutwiniak
The Ukrainian Weekly will soon enter upon its 21st year of service to the Ukrainian American youth. Faithfully, every week for 20 years, it was delivered to our young people in all parts of the United States and Canada.
That The Weekly has been of service cannot be doubted. Several thousands of pages of worthwhile material about the Ukrainian people, their history, culture and aspirations, much of which required research and painstaking translation, have been published during the years. The Weekly has publicized the activities of numerous youth clubs and leagues. It has proven itself to be an important part of our youth life in that it has treated youth problems thoroughly and in an unbiased manner.
At the time when The Ukrainian Weekly made its initial appearance, October 6, 1933, there were not many Ukrainian American youth clubs or organizations; as a matter of fact there, were not too many active young people. Although we do not claim The Weekly is responsible for all the progress and activity credited to the youth today, we nevertheless believe that it had much to do with it. One need but glance through back issues of the paper for confirmation of this statement. The growth and development of the Ukrainian youth movement in all its phases can be traced in The Weekly.
Svoboda Editor-in-Chief Luke Myshuha (1933-1955).
The Weekly has benefited not only its readers but its publisher as well. The Ukrainian National Association has made the facts concerning itself generally known, and this publicity has resulted in bringing many new members into the organization. UNA youth branches also received much Weekly space, which helped increase their membership.
The Weekly first appeared in tabloid form, four pages. With the increase in the number of youth branches and youth membership figures, the UNA increased the size of the paper to six pages (tabloid). Today it appears in four full-size pages, eight columns to the page. It is the only periodical devoted to Ukrainian American youth which has enjoyed uninterrupted publication from the very beginning.
The Weekly is available to UNA members for only two dollars annually, non-members – three dollars annually. These rates would be considered as bargains even in prewar years! The small rates barely pay the cost of printing and circulation in these days of high prices. Readers have the UNA to thank for this. It is another indication that the UNA has the interests of its members in particular and the youth in general in mind at all times.
In one week The Weekly will have its 20th birthday. Stop to think about that for a moment… 20 years. For the youth to maintain a publication for so many years is an accomplishment in itself! We have every reason to be proud of our Ukrainian Weekly.
Let us continue to support our paper with even greater enthusiasm than we have shown in the past. We all like the paper and we all like to receive it every week. Let us contribute to it, help circulate it, and boost it whenever we can.
The Ukrainian Weekly is born!
This article by longtime columnist Myron B. Kuropas, Ph.D., was published in the October 6, 2013, issue of The Ukrainian Weekly.
by Myron B. Kuropas
When Luke Myshuha became Svoboda’s editor-in-chief in 1933, a new era in UNA history was born. A visionary, he was particularly concerned about the ethno-national identity of the next generation.
“We must always stress the joy, beauty, and excitement of Ukrainian history, culture, music and literature to our youth,” Mr. Myshuha declared at the 1933 UNA convention. “But we should also be aware of the fact that every generation must develop its own Ukrainian identity.” To help it do that, he argued, a news forum that is written and edited exclusively by youth is needed. Convention delegates agreed. The Ukrainian Weekly was born.
From its inception, the new UNA organ focused on Ukraine. As Stephen Shumeyko, the indefatigable first editor, wrote on December 9, 1933: “We write about Ukraine” because The Ukrainian Weekly “must serve as a guide to our American- Ukrainian by pointing out, in its own inimitable language and style, the road to the goal which is dear to all Ukrainians – a free and independent state of Ukraine.”
Much of what appeared in The Ukrainian Weekly in its early issues focused on politics. On November 17, 1933, the new UNA gazette urged youth to protest President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposed recognition of the Soviet Union and to participate in the planned protests. “We should bring to America’s attention… the fact that Soviet Russia… is a conglomeration of enslaved alien nationalities who desire their own independent lives but are prevented from doing so… by the Bolshevik rule of brutal force and terror. These subject nations, including the Ukrainians, do not recognize Soviet Russia as their government…”
When some readers protested that opposing American foreign policy was somehow unpatriotic, The Ukrainian Weekly explained on November 24, 1933, that Ukrainian Americans are loyal American citizens, but “are forced to wage an unremitting campaign of protests against the Soviets for their barbarism having caused, by means of deliberately fostered famine in Ukraine, the death of millions of Ukrainian lives during the past year…”
On May 28, 1934, Congressman Hamilton Fish Jr., a New York Republican, introduced H.R. 399 condemning the Soviets for, among other crimes, creating “the famine as a means of reducing the Ukrainian population and destroying Ukraine’s political, cultural and national rights.” On June 8, The Ukrainian Weekly urged its readers to “concentrate their energies in provoking… public opinion in the favor of the Ukrainian cause.” The Soviet Embassy condemned the effort as “wholly grotesque.”
During the remainder of the decade, The Ukrainian Weekly reported on denationalization in partitioned Ukraine, the trials in Poland of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, Hitler’s designs on Ukraine, the national aspirations of Carpatho-Ukraine, Polish repression, and the gross ignorance among American academics and the press regarding Ukraine.
Shumeyko and other Weekly contributors believed that since Ukrainian American youth grew up in a free country, they, unlike many of their parents, were able to communicate well in English and it was their duty to assist Ukraine. Others disagreed.
One early dissident was sociologist Stephen Mamchur who penned a regular column under the nom de plume “Burma Capelin.” In his commentaries he criticized the older immigration for not allowing young people into positions of organizational leadership and for urging the youth to resist the “mania of Americanization.” But he was also critical of certain social trends in the United States. On July 25, 1936, Burma Capelin went after those, primarily progressives and Communists, who “seeing in the family the depository and the whole vehicle of tradition, sedulously sets out to ‘shatter it.’ ” He concluded that whenever individuals were “stranded on the shoals of crime… the circumstances can be traced to the malfunctioning of the family.” It was a prescient column, one that should be heeded today, especially on the south and west sides of Chicago.
Political concerns were not the sole focus of The Ukrainian Weekly’s Ukrainianization campaign. Cultural issues such as Americanizing one’s surname, celebrating according to the Julian or Gregorian calendar, and dating non-Ukrainians also came up for lively discussion. On March 21, 1936, The Weekly offered some modest suggestions regarding home decoration. “A little touch here and there would slowly but surely give the home its Ukrainian character… Take, for example, the walls of your home. What do you see there? Perhaps some fine portraits of great Ukrainians, on a background of Ukrainian design? Or perhaps there is a picture of some famed scene drawn from the pages of Ukrainian history.” Between 1935 and 1939, other editorials addressed topics such as developing literary talents, Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Jews, working for greater harmony in the community and proper conduct at Ukrainian events.
A significant contributor to The Weekly’s growing appeal was John Rosolowicz, an accomplished 22-year professional artist whose cartoons were a regular feature. His cartoons also appeared regularly in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, The Literary Digest and The Saturday Evening Post.
On December 1, 1938, The Weekly addressed the reticence of the older generation to step aside for younger people. “The ‘ins’ always try to keep out the ‘outs.’ ” However, this is the way things have always been, The Weekly concluded. The true leader shouldn’t despair since “leadership is rarely handed down… It has to be won, and won only after a hard struggle and a great deal of self-sacrifice.” The message to aspiring young leaders was clear: stop whining.
Shumeyko served as Weekly editor until 1954, a span of 21 years. There were other editors in the next 80 years, including Zenon Snylyk, who served for 18 years. The present editor, Roma Hadzewycz, has served a total of 33 years, a brilliant and dynamic heir to the Shumeyko tradition.
UNA publications have always played a vital role in the development of our community. Svoboda was instrumental in the Ukrainianization of the first Ukrainian American generation. Its work continues. The Ukrainian Weekly played a vital role in the Ukrainianization of the second and third generations. We still need its wisdom, now more than ever! Ask yourself: Where would we be without the UNA and its publications?