Sixty years ago, on July 17, 1959, the inaugural Captive Nations Week proclamation (July 19-26, 1959) was signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The proclamation designated the third week in July as Captive Nations Week with similar proclamations to be issued in subsequent years “until such time as freedom and independence shall have been achieved for all the captive nations of the world.”
The proclamation, which designated July 19, 1959, as the start of the week, underscored the “imperialistic and aggressive policies” of Soviet communism that denied people their “national independence and individual liberties.”
President Eisenhower stated: “I invite the people of the United States of America to observe such week with appropriate ceremonies and activities, and I urge them to study the plight of the Soviet-dominated nations and to recommit themselves to the support of the just aspirations of the people of those captive nations.”
A joint resolution was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 5, 1959, by Rep. Michael A. Feighan (Ohio). The resolution noted: “…the enslavement of a substantial part of the world’s population by Communist imperialism makes a mockery of the idea of peaceful coexistence between nations and constitutes a detriment to the natural bonds of understanding between the people of the United States and other peoples; since 1918 the imperialistic and aggressive policies of Russian communism have resulted in the creation of a vast empire which poses a dire threat to security of the United States and of all the free people of the world; the imperialist policies of Communist Russia have led, through direct and indirect aggression, to the subjugation of the national independence of Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Romania, East Germany, Bulgaria, mainland China, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, North Korea, Albania, Idel-Ural [Bashkortostan, Chuvashia, Mari El, Mordovia, Tatarstan and Udmurtia regions of Russia], Tibet, Cossackia [Kuban region of Russia], Turkmenistan, North Vietnam and others; …it is vital to the national security of the United States that the desire for liberty and independence by the part of the peoples of these conquered nations should be steadfastly kept alive.”
Dmytro Halychyn, chairman of the Conference of Americans of Central and Eastern European Descent, acknowledged the work of both chambers of Congress in passing the Joint Congressional Resolution and thanked President Eisenhower for issuing the proclamation and signing the resolution designating Captive Nations Week into law.
The resolution, he said, “constitutes a great and significant event in our relations with the enslaved nations languishing in the tyrannical slavery of Communist Russia, because it clearly and definitively states that the United States government and the American people as a whole have not forgotten the victims of Soviet Russian despotism and slavery. …It will remind both worlds, the free and the enslaved, that it still is a champion of freedom and independence of all the enslaved and persecuted, and a bastion and ultimate hope of mankind as a whole. …Only a bold stand against Communist Russia would enable us not only to maintain our precious freedom and security, but eventually it would help the 23 enslaved nations, enumerated in the Joint Congressional Resolution, to regain their own freedom and independence to which they, as God’s creations, are fully entitled.”
Critics of the Captive Nations law, including the Congress of Russian Americans and some members of Congress, pointed to the fact that Russia was not listed among the Captive Nations and, accordingly, Russia rather than the Soviet regime is presented as responsible for the enslavement.
This year, according to the resolution, the week of July 14-20 (as the third week in July) should be designated by the White House as Captive Nations Week 2019.
Source: “Captive Nations Week by the President of the United States of America,” The Ukrainian Weekly, July 22, 1959.