Lasting Truth

Dr. James Mace, a Native American by birth and true Ukrainian by spirit and by his devotion to our national memory, passed away on May 3, 2004. He had dedicated the remaining years to a quest for historical facts, for truth and justice. His newspaper features were an eye-opener for many Ukrainians, revealing the truth about a hair-raising tragedy that had befallen them, caused by the Stalin regime. A tragedy known as the Holodomor that killed one-third of the Ukrainian population. Most importantly, Dr. Mace proved that the 1932-33 famine wasn’t a tragic coincidence, but an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. He died in 2004, when few could’ve predicted Russia’s aggression, shelling Ukrainian territory with Grad truck-mounted multiple rocket launchers, destroying Ukrainian towns and villages and killing Ukrainians. His features conveyed an alarming message; he seemed to sense the next turn of the flywheel of fate that would bring destruction to our nation.

“His legacy appears to be gaining momentum, rather than fading as years pass. This is especially obvious now that we’re fighting a war started by the Russian occupier. James Mace always urged the Ukrainians to resist the occupier. His prophetic features, concerning the Holodomor and the resistance to it on the Ukrainian part, are, regrettably proving very topical today,” said Yurii SHCHERBAK, writer, diplomat, chair, James Mace Award Civic Council, back in 2014.

Stanislav KULCHYTSKYI (Ph.D., History), member of the James Mace Award Civic Council: “After Mr. Mace, a number of researchers used archives he’d never had access to and continued his quest, providing documented evidence that the Holodomor was an act of genocide.”

Den/The Day turned out to be both home and rostrum for Dr. Mace; now he could share his ideas and results of his quest as front page features, on a regular basis. After his passing, Editor-in-Chief Larysa Ivshyna established a prize and named it for him. It is awarded every year and is meant for journalists with a meritorious, crystal clear public stand. Remarkably, this lack of clear cut public stand is why we’re suffering; [at one time] we forgot our national history, the cause of our problems, and further events were a prologue to another round of the tragedy we’ve been suffering since 2014. James Mace titled his collection of articles Your Dead Chose Me. It addresses the Ukrainian people, but the big question is whether this people will accept the truth Mr. Mace conveyed to them.