Russia And Ukraine Clash Over 350-Year-Old Battle

A 350-year-old cavalry battle has become the latest irritant between Russia and its neighbour Ukraine after Russia's foreign ministry on Tuesday accused Kyiv of using the clash to foment anti-Russian feeling.

Oh, what else is new today in Russia. It is hard for the moskalyi to accept the fact that Ukraine does have it's own history and as well won it's share of battles, Konotop being one of them. We can name other's, but this will come in future postings. For now feel free to read the following article on Russia's dismay.

The Konotop battle was with a few exceptions an abandoned topic in Russian Imperial and in Soviet historiography. This attitude towards this event is explained by the fact that it dispelled some Russian propaganda positions about the unity of East Slavs, in particular the ones about "eternal friendship of Russian and Ukrainian peoples" and about "natural desire of Ukrainians for union with Russia". For all the skill and the bravery of the Cossacks — especially those defending Konotop — it still remains a bitter victory. A victory that did not have any significant impact on the course of Ukrainian history, where fratricidal war of the Ruin and personal ambitions of treacherous hetmans prevailed. As such, the Konotop battle remains a classic example of the battle won and a war lost.

Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the horrors of the holocaust

Many historians acknowledge the sacrifices the Soviet Union made to defeat Nazi Germany in the Second World War. However, a film released in Latvia is suggesting that the Soviet Union helped Nazi Germany instigate the horrors of the holocaust. The move has been condemned by many as an attempt to rewrite history.

President visited Solovetsky Monastery

In Russia President Viktor Yushchenko visited GULAG Museum situated on the territory of Solovetsky Monastery (Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian Federation). President's press office reports.

Staying at Bolshoy Solovetsky Island President put flowers near the Monument to GULAG victims and near the statue of the last Koshovyi Otaman of the Zaporozhian Host Petro Kalnyshevsky.

Then President Yushchenko took a tour of the monastery and took part in a liturgy commemorating establishers of it.

Ex-KGB Thugs Ruining Russian Legacy

Here is an excerpt I found in th St.Petersburg Times, about the lovely situation that is bearing fruit in the former Soviet Union. Or at least calling the Soviet Union's collapse the "biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," by some long forgotten president. I wonder whom the author of this article was referring to?
"The former KGB thugs who now control the country are stomping Russia’s last historical chance into the dirt. They are doing everything to show the world that Russia is led not by civilized, respected leaders, but by a street gang from Lubyanskaya Ploshchad."
Click here to view the article.

Another Good way of de-russifying Ukraine

Here is the lastest from InfoUkes bulletin. Once again Ukrainian publishers have beaten the Russian in translating and releasing a foreign bestseller– this time it’s “The Children of Hurin,” the latest novel by iconic writer J.R.R. Tolkien
Kateryna Onyschuk from Lviv who translated the novel said that while working on Tolkien’s book she dreamt of elves and gnomes, helping her come up with the best translations.
http://www.kyivpost.com/guide/general/29052/

Way to go Kateryna!!!
2:0 for the good guys/gals..... Kateryna's I mean!

President`s wife sues member of parliament

Kateryna Yushchenko, wife of President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko, will sue member of parliament Leonid Hrach (the Communist Party faction) for his slanderous statements about the President’s family.

Click here to view article.

Also very interesting article here, time to turn the the table around, I would say!!!!

Marsha Singh - British Labour MP Tables Motion to Recognize Holodomor as Genocide

*MP calls for genocide ruling*

Telegraph & Argus
By Anika Bourley

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/newsindex/
display.var.2322162.0.mp_calls_for_genocide_ruling.php

A Bradford MP is calling for the Ukrainian famine of 1933
to be officially recognised as an act of genocide.

Marsha Singh, the Labour MP for Bradford West, has tabled
an early day motion in the House of Commons and is hoping
to get the backing of fellow MPs.

There is no international consensus among scholars or
politicians on whether the Soviet policies that caused the
famine fall under the legal definition of genocide.

Mr Singh said: "The Holodomor was an appalling act of
inhumanity and immense tragedy which lead to the death
by starvation of seven million Ukrainians.

"I have asked for the Government to officially recognise
it as an act of genocide.

Chernihiv pays tribute to James Mace

I can keep publishing the many articles that James Mace had written in his living days, and I can keep re-reading them, each time a different perspective comes to light. How much we miss you dear James. It is if you are still with us, guiding us all through these trying times. Ukraine still has so much to do to recognize and bring the world to recognize the tragedy of the Holodomor.
I post this article in your memory. My mom was born in Chernihiv and survived the Holodomor, a child, four years old who was one of the lucky ones to come out of this alive. I remember her talking about this horrific happening and for me it was not conceivable that such a thing could really happen. And here you come into the region of my mother's birth and people honor your memory and we honor the memory of the 10 million who died.

I was chosen by your dead - Legacy of the Famine: Ukraine as a postgenocidal society

As we are on the topic of Holodomor, I certainly would like to add one of the best articles I ever came across on this topic. This would be by the late Jame Mace. Here is a little caption.

"Ukrainian history of the period, along with documents,
speeches, and editorials carried literally every day by the
official press of Soviet Ukraine, the main features of the Soviet
official policy toward Ukraine became completely clear to me.
At this point a digression is in order. Why should I, a born and
bred American, take up such a topic? What did I need it for? I
have been asked this question very often and I have often
been tempted to ask in turn: Why should millions of Russians,
Jews, Armenians, and Ukrainians travel across the ocean to
that faraway godforsaken country, my America? I did it
because Ukrainian Americans required such research, and
fate decreed that the victims chose me. Just as one cannot
study the Holocaust without becoming half Jewish in spirit, one
cannot study the Famine and not become at least half
Ukrainian. I have spent too many years for Ukraine not to have
become the greater part of my life. After all, Martin Luther said,
"Here I stand, I can do no other."

Click here for full article.

Mace died in Kyiv at age 52. He is survived by his wife, Natalia Dziubenko-Mace, one son from a previous marriage, William, and two adult stepchildren.

The Order of Yaroslav Mudry, 2nd Class was awarded posthumously to Mace by President Viktor Yushchenko, in 2005. A monument in his memory will be established in Kiev in 2008.

World forgets, Canada remembers

'If we keep demanding that Germany and Japan atone for their wartime crimes, is it not time for our governments to finally recognize and atone their alliances with the biggest mass murderer in history, Stalin? His crimes exceeded those of Adolf Hitler by a factor of at least four times.'

It is certainly refreshing to see Canada's media outlet, Toronto Sun and in particular, Eric Margolis exposing the truth about soviet propaganda and the Holodomor issue.

Click here to read Eric's full article.

Also few outstanding pieces by Eric Margolis:

• Time to hear an apology for the Great Terror in the Soviet Union

• Famine of 1932-33 - RememberinUkraine's Unknown Holocaust

• Seven million died in the 'forgotten' holocaust

Ukraine must pursue perpetrators of Holodomor

by:Lubomyr Luciuk

Only as the Soviet Empire exfoliated could the truth about the Holodomor be addressed openly. By 1991, however, many survivors had died. And, to this very day, some in post-Soviet Ukraine defend the Soviet past, so obfuscating their own complicity in the many crimes of Communism.

Nevertheless, efforts have been made to recover Ukraine's true historical memory. The fourth Saturday of every November is now a national day of mourning in Ukraine. And President Viktor Yushchenko's government has sought international support for the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide, a campaign furthered during his recent Canadian visit when our Parliament passed a bill doing just that.

This is all good but also off-point. For Kyiv is ignoring a far more pressing duty. Just as Holodomor victims remain alive, so do some of the perpetrators. If Ukraine allows those real liars to pass away unpunished, then all of the above is nothing but an unforgivable hoax, a falsehood that could never be forgiven.

Click here for full story.

---

World forgets, Canada remembers

Canada's planned recognition of the 1932-1933 genocide, or Holdomor, in Ukraine is very significant, even if long overdue. It was also apropos for this week's visit of Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko, who remains that troubled nation's best hope for democracy and continued independence.

Ottawa's decision was motivated as much by ethnic politics as historic justice, but Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government deserves kudos for doing the right thing.

For eight decades, the greatest mass murder in modern history has been shamefully covered up or ignored. I was shocked to receive letters from young Ukrainian-Canadians saying they had known nothing about the Holdomor until reading about it in my columns. Hopefully, more now will know.

Click here for full story by Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun

Ukrainian famine not a genocide

Alexander Solzhenitsyn is back at it spreading misinformation, read his latest outburst on Ukrainian famine not a genocide, and becoming another mouth piece for Vladimir Putin and his cronies.

After being such an ardent fighter for telling the truth and exposing the atrocities inflicted by the Soviet Union, in such works as, "The Gulag Archipelago." he has changed directions quite drastically.

Being awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970, he has not received much acclaim since then.

The first sign of Solzhenitsyn turning to the dark side, speaking in terms of Star Wars, came after President Bush visited Ukraine and paid tribute to the victims of the Holodomor 1932-1933, he launched a memorably waspish attack on George Bush.

Solzhenitsyn's later statements have demonstrated an increasingly nationalist anti-western tone, and he appears to be a fan of President Vladimir Putin, who gave him a literary award last summer.

Funny how people can switch sides for the prizes they receive. I have a cracker jack surprise myself, which I would like topresent to this nobel literary laureate for his absconding from reality. To read more about the true facts of the Holodomor, please click here.

To finish off here is a self proclaimed quotation from the same man who seems to have changed his orientation and objective in life, go figure.........

"I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn -

Ottawa moves to recognize 1932-33 Ukrainian famine as genocide

OTTAWA — The Canadian government moved yesterday to become one of the first in the world to recognize the 1932-33 Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor, as a deliberate act of genocide.

On a day when Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government marked the visit of the leader of the Orange Revolution, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, with elaborate pomp, it also took a historic step to acknowledge the millions who died in one of the darkest chapters of Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.

Click here for full story.

Remembering the Holodomor horror

Ukraine's quest to tell the world how its citizens suffered during Stalin's genocide comes to Ottawa. Catherine Lawson reports.

The Holodomor International Remembrance Flame (Montreal)

The Holodomor International Remembrance Flame is traveling around the world.
Its Canadian itinerary includes a stop in Montreal.

It was very sad and discouraging to see the few people turn out for the ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Holodomor (Great Famine 1932-1933), in Montreal. This must be the first time I really felt such discouragement and questioned the fact of who was organizing this event. Who ever was involved did a disservice to the the whole Montral Ukrainian community.

The ceremony took over 2 hours and people who were speaking (invited speakers), all kept repeating themselves. The people who were there all knew what was the story and history behind the Holodomor. The goal of such an event would be to reach out to the people who knew nothing of this tragic event and educate them on this. The saddest part was the media coverage which was not evident at the scene of the ceremony. The coverage of this event after the fact was not heard of in print media or radio and tv. :-(

There were two bright spots to this event, the young students who put on a mise a scene and explained the whole story of the Holodomeor better than any of the speakers who performed before them. Too bad more than half the people left before their presentation, something that should have been first on the menu.

Also, a bright spot in the ceremony was 87-year-old Holodomor survivor Stefan Horlatsch who travelled with the International Holodomor Remembrance Flame throughout Canada. After being received by Premiers of the western provinces and finally reaching the final destination in Ottawa in front of Prime Minister Harper and President Yushenko of Ukraine, who was out there to greet him in Montreal from an official capacity, nobody!!!! Very sad indeed........

More to follow!!!

Estonia tries Soviet war figure

An elderly Soviet war hero, Arnold Meri, has gone on trial in his native Estonia on a charge of genocide over deportations to Siberia in 1949. It is time for Ukraine and Ukrainian government to follow suit. There certainly are many NKVD and SMERSH members living on fat pensions in a country they pillaged and raped. Just go out on May day and they can be herded up and brought to justice.
Click here for full article on heroic steps taken on by Estonia. BRAVO!!!!

Canada to recognize Ukrainian famine as a genocide

Tuesday, May. 13 2008 6:27 PM ET

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA -- Canada is poised to formally recognize as a genocide the 1930s famine in Ukraine that claimed millions of lives.

A senior government official tells The Canadian Press that Conservative MPs are planning to support a private member's bill introduced by Manitoba Tory MP James Bezan.

It's a shift from last fall when a government official said they had no plans to recognize the deaths as a genocide.

Liberal and NDP members have pledged support for the bill, which would also set aside an annual memorial day in November.

More than a dozen countries, including the United States, already formally recognize the famine as a deliberate attempt by the Soviet regime of Josef Stalin to eliminate ethnic Ukrainians and end their aspirations for independence.

But some academics -- and many Russians -- disagree.

But what else is new with Russia which remains in a state of denial about the horrific crimes their predecessors inflicted on millions of people throughout Eastern Europe and Asia, click here to see why.

Passing the Holodomor Remembrance Flame - Stefan Horlatsch

Passing the Holodomor Remembrance Flame

May 3: 87-year-old Holodomor survivor Stefan Horlatsch holds the International Holodomor Remembrance Flame, as members of Edmonton's Ukrainian community commemorated the 75th anniversary of the famine-genocide of 1932-33, at the Alberta Legislature.

Ukraine’s International Remembrance Flame 2008

Canadian Tour - April 18 - May 3, May 22 – 26, 2008

Keep the Flame Alive

An International Remembrance Flame to raise awareness of the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian genocide known as Holodomor, or extermination by famine, and to gain formal Canadian and international recognition of this atrocity arrives in (Winnipeg on Sunday, April 20.)

The Flame tour honors the estimated 10 million Ukrainian men, women and children who were subjected to starvation and death in 1932 -33 by the communist regime of Joseph Stalin as part of his effort to eradicate Ukraine as a country

The Flame, visiting 33 countries, arrived in Canada from Australia on April 18.

The Canadian journey of the Flame entitled Keep the Flame Alive is being organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress in cooperation with the Embassy of Ukraine. Events will honour the victims of this horrific tragedy while ensuring that the story of the Holodomor is passed along from generation to generation.

Keep the Flame Alive will also launch a national campaign urging the Canadian government to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide.

The Flame will be escorted throughout Canada by Holodomor survivor and Toronto resident, 87-year-old Stefan Horlatsch.

The International Holodomor Remembrance Flame will visit the following Canadian centres: Winnipeg, Yorkton, Regina, Saskatoon, North Battleford, Vegreville, Calgary, Red Deer, Edmonton, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.

More information on Montreal event to follow....