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America has been active in efforts to bring world attention to a tragedy that must never be forgotten. One organiza tional initiative was to encourage our members, their families, and friends to visit local libraries to see if those li braries carried literature pertaining to the Famine. Many of you participated in this mission, and your participation has made a long-lasting and significant difference. At its meeting in March of this year, the UNWLA Executive Committee voted to continue the project. It is hoped that by the 75th anniversary of the Great Famine not one li brary will be without literature on this topic. The year 2004 has been designated the “Year of Poland in Ukraine.” Formal commemoration of this often contentious history will begin on March 30, 2004, during a three-day series of symposia at the New York Univer sity and Columbia University, which will feature eminent presenters from academic and political circles of Poland, Ukraine, and the United States and focus on the future significance of the Polish-Ukrainian relations. In connection with this theme, we have selected for this issue letters from 1944 that poignantly underscore the nature of the historical relationship between Poland and Ukraine and the work of our enlightened and hard working predecessors. On May 3, 1944, Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce (Rep. Conn.) delivered a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, honoring the anniversary of Poland's constitution. In the days following the speech, the congresswoman and the first editor of Our Life , Claudia Olesnycky, exchanged a series a letters on the theme of the speech, on the issue of Ukrainian-Polish relations, and on the prospects of future peace in Europe. The letters were published in Our Life in 1944, and we are pleased to share them with our readers in the magazine's anniver sary year. Clare Boothe Luce and C. Olesnycky on Ukraine and the Soviet-Folish Dispute May 8,1944 letter from C. Olesnycky to Representative Clare Booth Luce Dear Madam: Being active in journalism and social work within a group of American women of Ukrainian birth or de scent, I strive to bring to their attention the accomplishment of American women. In this work, observing the ca reers of the topmost women of America, like you, is very helpful. Your activities and utterances are inspiring not only for their brilliance and high level, showing it is possible for a woman to rise in this country, but also especially notable for your championship of decency in national and international affairs. The press reports of a few days ago on your speech in Congress on behalf and in honor of Poland aroused my special interest, because of the proximity of the subject to my own Ukrainian peoples’ fate. Not being familiar with the full text of your speech of May З, I may have arrived at some erroneous conclusions about it, but from reports which appear in the newspaper, it seems to me that in your speech the problem of Ukraine and its people, which is the keynote to any analysis of relations between Poland and Soviet Union, had been omitted. Your honoring Poland and assertion of Poland’s right to independence was proper and timely, as anyone not entirely blinded by flashes from Moscow will realize and acknowledge. Even those Ukrainians who have had their fill of suffering at the hands of Poland wish that Poland may become and remain free from domination either by Berlin or Moscow. But insistence on Poland’s rights and freedom cannot be made co-significant with Poland’s right or special privilege to rule other people without their consent. To oppose any changes in the structure or boundaries of Poland as they existed prior to September 1, 1939, means to hand over to Poland again the right to trample upon, at her whim, several million non-Polish people, the greatest bulk of whom are Ukrainians. Poland should not be partitioned again. That is a very neat phrase, but there is more than a phrase to it. Would Poland have ever been partitioned at all if it had not been for her predilection to rule over people not her own? If a subjugated and partitioned Poland is incompatible with decency in international affairs, so is, by the same token, a subjugated and partitioned Ukraine. To make the matter quite clear, please understand that no Ukrainian who is not a traitor to his people wishes the “eastern half of Poland” to be lopped off at some Curzon Line and arbitrarily added to the Soviet Union for its greater size and greater glory. Ukrainians want to be united, free and independent, just as much as the Poles do. Ukrainians want their country to be independent of Russia, Germany, Poland, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Tur key, and Czechoslovakia. Each of these eight nations have for centuries been guilty of coveting the rich lands of Ukraine, of having oppressed Ukrainians and denied them freedom at different times in history, and finally of hav- Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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