Less than two weeks ago, the 10,000-pound, 6-foot-high-by-35-foot-long “Field of Wheat” bas-relief that is the main component of the Holodomor Memorial in Washington was hoisted into place on a triangular plot of land near Union Station, a short walk from the U.S. Capitol building. Finally, we could all see – thanks to Yaro Bihun’s photos in our August 9 issue – that this long-awaited, and long-overdue, project was becoming reality.
Much more work remains to be done at the site, located where Massachusetts Avenue, North Capitol Street and F Street meet, before the memorial’s official dedication on November 7. But our community is already excited about this upcoming historic event, judging by reaction to Mr. Bihun’s news report, countless posts and shares on Facebook, and phone calls to our offices seeking more information. (For details about the upcoming dedication ceremony and related events, we direct readers to the new website www.ukrainegenocide.com that was unveiled just this week by the U.S. Committee for Ukrainian Holodomor-Genocide Awareness 1932-1933. More information on the November schedule of events will be posted there as it becomes available.)
The memorial is the work of architect Larysa Kurylas, who won a design competition for the Washington memorial to victims of the Holodomor back in 2011. Her “Field of Wheat” design was hailed as elegant, respectful, aesthetically pleasing, not overly symbolic and one that could successfully speak to the general public. As described on The Kurylas Studio website, the bronze bas-relief sculpture depicts “a monumentally scaled field of wheat which transitions from high positive to deep negative relief. The negative treatment of the wheat, with the gradual emergence of the Ukrainian term ‘Holodomor’ [followed by the years of the genocide, 1932-1933], underscores the deliberate nature of the Famine – secretly engineered in Ukraine by the Soviet government, mainly through the confiscation of grain.” The text panel’s message, like the artwork itself, is simple, direct: “Famine-Genocide in Ukraine. In memory of the millions of innocent victims of a man-made famine in Ukraine engineered and implemented by Stalin’s totalitarian regime.” (The text appears also in Ukrainian.)
It’s been a long road for the Holodomor Memorial – which, it was hoped, would be unveiled in 2013 on the occasion of the genocide’s 80th anniversary. The House of Representatives passed a bill in 2005 authorizing a memorial to victims of the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933 on federal land in the District of Columbia, the Senate did so in 2006, and President George W. Bush signed it into law on October 13, 2006. In 2008, the site for the memorial was approved and subsequently blessed by Ukrainian Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox hierarchs and clergy. In 2009, the government of Ukraine earmarked 5 million hrv (about $625,000 U.S. at the time) for the monument’s construction, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism announced an international design competition. The five finalists were selected from among 52 submissions in December 2009, but the winner was not announced until 2011. The final design plans were approved by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission in 2012. A construction permit was issued in 2013, and the groundbreaking took place on December 4 of that year. With the installation of the principal portion of the memorial, we are well on our way to its completion.
But still we must remain vigilant, as there are those who deny that the Holodomor happened. The Russian government’s Sputnik International news agency was quick to react to the “Field of Wheat’s” installation. “Playing into the hands of Ukrainian nationalists, a monument to the so-called Ukrainian ‘Holodomor,’ one [of] the 20th century’s most famous myths and vitriolic pieces of anti-Soviet propaganda, has been erected in the U.S. capital,” Sputnik reported. “Unsurprisingly, Washington supports the myth as a part of its recent Cold War-style anti-Russian campaign,” Sputnik commented. We needn’t go on – you get the picture…
The foregoing is yet another attestation that this memorial to the millions killed in Stalin’s Holodomor is crucial and that it is indeed a significant component of our ongoing endeavors to share the truth about our nation’s genocide.