Canada’s foreign minister has been the subject of a peculiar smear. No one questions her competence or qualifications. In fact she is perceived almost as a hero by many having been blacklisted by the Russians for her efforts and outspokenness on such noble issues as human rights and the sovereignty of countries. For some reason, that I personally cannot understand, recently she has been disparaged in the Western press because she is the granddaughter of one, Michael Chomiak, her maternal grandfather. The alleged sins of her forefather have been ascribed to her genetically by no less noble an accuser than Russia.
This is somewhat troubling not from the Russian end but from the Western side. Svetlana Alliluyeva aka Lana Peters, the daughter of one of history’s worst mass murderer Josef Stalin had never been disparaged for her father’s egregious crimes. In fact she was perceived as being heroic for having overcome her demonic paternal influence. But she led a troubled life. Chrystia Freeland is an accomplished writer, journalist and politician.
Frankly, I should apologize to Minister Freeland and her late grandfather for the comparison. Sometimes its takes hyperbole to manifest how ludicrous some accusations can be. Svetlana Alliluyeva was no Chrystia Freeland and Michael Chomiak was no Josef Stalin.
For some reason no one bothers to address the veracity of the accusations leveled against Michael Chomiak despite the fact that Russia is the source. When Russia accuses, the presumption always should be that it’s disinformation subject to the presentation of legitimate (non-Russian) evidence. In this case, the revelation of the source should have ended the debate which, in fact, should have never been initiated in the West.
Nonetheless, as long as there is a smear campaign resulting from innuendo, let’s ask who was this Michael Chomiak? The consensus is that he was the editor in chief of a Ukrainian language newspaper “Krakivski Visti” published in Nazi occupied Poland and then briefly in Vienna. The unsubstantiated accusations are that he was somehow responsible for articles in that newspaper glorifying the Nazis and attacking the Jews.
Ivan Kedryn-Rudnytsky was a colleague of Michael Chomiak, having worked with him in several periodicals, “Dilo” in the Polish occupied Ukrainian city of Lviv, then in the “Krakivski Visti”. Kedryn-Rudnytsky wrote about both Michael Chomiak and “Krakivski Visti” in his memoirs of more than 700 pages published in 1976 in the United States. Here are several passages. About “Krakivski Visti” he wrote:
“My side earnings came from writing for “Krakivski Visti”, whose editor in chief was Michael Chomiak, my younger colleague from `Dilo`. Writing articles on Ukrainian or international topics was impossible totally under German occupation if the writer did not wish to write in the official tone of of German press political propaganda. It was also forbidden to write anything about or against the USSR, because from September 1939 until June 21, 1941, the Soviets were allies and our German communicators became angry when they heard from Ukrainians doubts about the longevity of German-Soviet friendship. The only theme was Poland…”
About Michael Chomiak, he wrote from an earlier time when both worked at “Dilo”:
“Michael Chomiak – later the editor in chief of the daily “Krakivski Visti”, now in Edmonton, (a nice person, a first rate journalist, who earlier would send us under a pseudonym given the then circumstances in Lemkischyna – wonderful reports from Lemkivschyna working as a candidate to become an attorney from the office of his uncle Blavatsky in Sanok.)”
And then about the later period Kedryn-Rudnytsky wrote about his colleague:
“Living in Warsaw over five years 1925-1930, and later traveling there almost monthly and staying for several weeks at a time during important meetings of the Sejm, I became like a specialist in Polish relations. This came in handy when after fleeing on foot from Lviv on September 18, 1939 to Krakiv, at the request of Michael Chomiak, a former younger member of the editorial board of “Dilo” where I had been the editor in chief, a person with a law degree, but a professional journalist and the editor in chief of the founded in Krakiv “Krakivski Visti”. I wrote for “Krakivski Visti” a whole series of articles which appeared as a book in 1940 entitled `The Reasons why Poland fell`”.
Ivan Kedryn-Rudnytsky was born of a Ukrainian father, also Ivan and a Jewish mother, Ida. Inasmuch as his father died when Ivan was ten years old, he was raised by his mother. Michael Chomiak did not have any problem working with this Ukrainian-Jewish journalist on more than one occasion. In fact as editor-in-chief of “Krakivski Visti” he employed him seemingly at his own peril since the Nazis most assuredly would not have approved of such a hiring. They remained friends long after the war.
If there were articles in “Krakivski Visti” glorifying the Nazis and disparaging the Jews, I doubt very much that Michael Chomiak penned them. Ivan Kedryn- Rudnytsky, a Ukrainian-Jewish journalist certainly would have mentioned that in his memoirs.
Nonetheless, all of this has absolutely nothing to do with Chrystia Freeland’s qualifications as Canada’s Foreign Minister or her ability to do her job for the people of Canada.
