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By William Gleason, Professor of Ukrainian Area Studies
Alexandria, Virginia, Monday, October 27, 2003
----- Original Message -----
From: Gleasonb1@aol.com
To: publisher@nytimes.com
Cc: morgankiev@starpower.net
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 10:19 AM
Subject: Walter Duranty and the Pulitzer Prize
Dear Sir/Madam:
Like so many others lately, I am writing to implore the New York Times to
take back the Pulitzer Prize that was awarded Walter Duranty in 1932 for
his reporting from the Soviet Union.
It is not only the travesty of Duranty's falsification of history here -- a
process that left millions of innocent people without a voice in the West at
a time of extreme repression and violence against Ukrainians and Russians
by the Soviet regime during the Stalin era. Of course that alone should be
sufficient reason for the long overdue revocation of the Pulitzer by the
Times.
But an equally valid reason for this action lies in the nature of history
itself. History is what we choose to remember from a body of facts and
data. Perhaps no other people in Europe have suffered as much from the
distortions of history -- from the fact, for example, that history is often
written by the "winners" to obscure their travesties against the
"losers" -- than modern Ukrainians. Over and over their story has been
slighted, distorted, left out in the cold so to speak, or just plain glossed
over in silence by others, and not just the Soviets.
As one who has taught history in Ukraine, including Ukrainian history to
students who badly need to understand who they were in order to move
forward with the business of building a strong society and state, I was
constantly amazed at the gaps in knowledge in some of the best universities
in Ukraine.
That gap in turn comes from Soviet distortions coupled with the willingness
on all too many occasions by Western writers to cuddle up to the Soviet to
ensure their access to Soviet sources.
Duranty was the worst in that regard and his complicity in the murder of
millions of innocent people at a critical moment -- the 1930s and rise of
Hitler and the consolidation of the Stalinist dictatorship -- stands exposed
as one of the worst violations of historical truth in the 20th century.
I hope that the New York Times, long (and justly) regarded as the best
newspaper in the world, now sees fit to act accordingly in bringing to an
end this singularly miscarriage of justice.
Sincerely,
William Gleason
Professor of Ukrainian Area Studies
Alexandria, Virginia
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