I wrote an article a while back about the advertising campaign that set out to popularize the Holodomor. We all agree that the Holodomor was a terrible tragedy resulting in millions of deaths by the sadistic whims of a Communist regime hell-bent on subjugating the Ukrainian nation as well as any independent economic forces outside of their control.
But I cast doubts on whether billboards were really the best way to raise awareness of this issue.
In fact, I wrote that if the Ukrainian government really wanted to assist in raising awareness about the crimes of the Holodomor, they would do much to open the archives which contained the real history of the crimes of the Holodomor which had been hidden and denied by the Communist regime for decades. (orginal blog can be found on https://archive.kyivpost.com/blogs/bloggers/jedsunden/5062).
Surprisingly, several weeks later, a letter from the State Security Service of Ukraine — known by its Ukrainian SBU acronym (Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny) — arrived at our office addressed to me.
Normally, letters from the Ukrainian authorities are not received with enthusiasm around the office. Over the years, we have received warnings about a new tax that would be imposed for using the Kyiv city symbol on our masthead. We have been informed of upcoming fire inspections and requests for private meetings to discuss the new regulations.
Government officials have threatened legal actions of different types for reprinting their words. Members of parliament have taken us to court for printing photos of the rather expensive apartments they received as presents.
To my surprise, the letter was written by Volodymyr Viatrovych, a top official with the state archive of the SBU. While he declined to comment on my opinion about the Holodomor ad campaign, he wanted to respectfully correct the record as to the archives. Though the archives had been sealed for decades, the new SBU has recently opened up its archives for all to see. A new program to digitize the archives was under way. In fact, there was a new reading room open to the public and perhaps I would be interested in viewing it.
This clearly was too good an invitation to turn down. So the week after that, I met with Viatrovych. He looked much more like a recent doctoral student he turned out to be than my image of an SBU heavy. In fact, his specialty was the history of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in World War II.
He showed me around the archives which, after decades of being hidden away, were being slowly catalogued and digitalized for future use. He acknowledged one of the big problems of trying to document the Holodomor is the large amount of archival material housed in the archives in Moscow in the central offices of the KGB and the Communist Party, during the years of the occupation of Ukraine.
An additional problem is Ukrainian legislation which grants individuals the right to privacy for 75 years. But he also proudly showed some recent books published in part by the SBU to document some of the crimes committed by the KGB in Ukraine.
Then we went across the street, where he showed me the new digital archive. A row of 10 computers was proudly arranged. We viewed a bunch of documents, listing the dead from the Holodomor as well as information on the murderers.
In describing the program, Viatrovych said it was the work of Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, new head of SBU, who was the locomotive of the drive to make the information free. In fact, Ukraine now has a version of a freedom of information act. Simply write a letter to the archives and they will respond to your query within 30 days.
I left, impressed by the meeting, and with a feeling of optimism about Ukraine. In this area, in reference to its past, Ukraine truly is moving towards Europe, with its government security forces designed to serve its citizens.
The next day, I sent a letter of thanks to the head of archive and included my first freedom of information request to find out why the SBU declared me persona non grata from Ukraine back in 2000.
Jed Sunden is the publisher of the Kyiv Post.
