{"id":4270,"date":"2020-12-16T01:22:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-16T08:22:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barglow.com\/ukraine\/?page_id=4270"},"modified":"2025-03-03T11:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T18:54:07","slug":"home-2-2-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/barglow.com\/ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

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OUR MISSION IS SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

The sponsor for this event was the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>

We have received from the Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre crew an inspiring video message<\/a> thanking us for our support of their humanitarian work.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Liberty, holding a torch, sits on a ledge on the dome of the Museum of Ethnography, Arts, and Crafts in Lviv, Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

This theatrical reading is narrated by Ukrainian Professor Nataliia Goshylyk (visiting scholar at UC Berkeley) and enacted by the Ukraine Solidarity Actors Ensemble<\/a>.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0We are raising funds for the work being done by the Ivano-Frankivsk Drama Theatre<\/a> in Ukraine.\u00a0 The Theater is not only serving as a bomb shelter, community center, and food distribution point, but is also continuing to perform.\u00a0 View their message to us here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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The Narrative Script<\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/div>

As an introduction to the performance that we present on stage, we offer below the narration that weaves its parts together:<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you for attending the performance this afternoon of \u201cUkrainian History on Stage.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 Our aim is to raise funds for the Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre in Ukraine.\u00a0 In the midst of this war, the company continues to perform Shakespeare, Chekhov, and a wide range of classical and contemporary plays.\u00a0 The Ivano-Frankivsk Theatre is also serving as a bomb shelter, a community center, and a temporary home for refugees.\u00a0 Your donations will help the company continue to make these contributions.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s performance will focus on two turning points in Ukraine\u2019s history: first, the famine that occurred in the early 1930s, and second, the Maidan Revolution in 2014.<\/p>\n

Although Russian leaders say that Ukraine belongs to Russia \u2014 is and always has been part of Russia \u2014 the truth is that a distinct Ukrainian identity and culture has existed for centuries.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Lesia Ukrainka (1871-1913). Poet, playwright.\u00a0 Advocate for feminist causes and for Ukraine\u2019s freedom and independence<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861). Writer, artist, and folklorist who is considered the founder of modern Ukrainian literature<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>

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One of the 20th<\/sup>-century Ukrainian advocates for the country\u2019s independence was the Jewish writer Vasili Grossman, whose.\u00a0 novel Forever Flowing<\/em> is about life in a Ukrainian village during the famine in the 1930s.Ukrainians call this time in their history the \u201cHolodomor,\u201d derived from the words for hunger (holod<\/em>) and extermination (mor<\/em>).\u00a0 About four million people died during the famine, because of the Communist Party\u2019s five-year plan to collectivize Ukraine\u2019s agricultural economy. \u00a0To implement the plan, Soviet soldiers and police went from one farm to the next, requisitioning amounts of food far above what the fields were capable of yielding.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Soldiers confiscate grain from peasants in Novokrasne, Ukraine, in 1932.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ukrainians call this time in their history the \u201cHolodomor,\u201d derived from the words for hunger (holod<\/em>) and extermination (mor<\/em>).\u00a0 About four million Ukrainians starved to death in a famine that resulted from Stalin\u2019s five-year plan to collectivize Ukraine\u2019s agricultural economy. \u00a0To implement the plan, Soviet soldiers and police went from one farm to the next, requisitioning amounts of food far above what the fields were capable of yielding.<\/p>\n

\"\"Ukrainian children during Holodomor<\/span><\/p>\n

In Moscow, Stalin proclaimed that Ukrainians were starving themselves in order to discredit the Soviet Union. \u00a0And he refused to accept food donations from elsewhere.\u00a0 Historians Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder explain that what happened during the Holodomor famine was not inevitable, but resulted from Soviet policy.\u00a0 “Simple measures,” writes Snyder, “could have kept the death toll to the hundreds of thousands rather than the millions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now to our reading.<\/p>\n

[reading of adaptation of <\/strong>chapter 4 of Grossman’s novel Forever Flowing<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the years 1931 and 1932, the Soviet leadership in Moscow responded to the devastating food shortage in Ukraine by issuing new declarations.<\/p>\n

[reading of December 1932 declaration<\/strong>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Soviet policy did nothing to alleviate Ukraine\u2019s conditions of famine.\u00a0 About 4 million people in the country starved to death.\u00a0\u00a0This loss is remembered in Ukraine: every year, on the fourth Saturday of November there is a national minute of silence at 4 PM, followed by the lighting of candles at memorial sites and in the windows of homes.<\/p>\n

Our next reading is about the Maidan Revolution of 2014.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n

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But first, briefly, Ukraine\u2019s history following the Holodomor famine: The Nazis invaded Eastern Europe in 1941.\u00a0 About 6 million Ukrainians died during the war.\u00a0 When the war was over, the Soviet leadership in Moscow sought to stamp out what they regarded as Western influence in Ukraine.\u00a0 Communism, as defined by the Kremlin, called for cultural as well as economic integration of all the Soviet Republics.\u00a0 Hence the Russian language had to be taught in Ukrainian schools; questioning of Soviet policy was made illegal and punished.<\/p>\n

All of this came to an end with the fall of the Soviet Union and Ukraine\u2019s formal declaration of independence in 1991.\u00a0 However, the leaders of the new Ukrainian nation proved to be hardly less dishonest and corrupt then the Russian authorities who preceded them.\u00a0 Following the “Orange Revolution” of 2004, the Maidan protest movement began in the fall of 2013.<\/p>\n

For over a decade, Ukrainians and their government had been considering, a closer relationship with the European Union, for political as well as economic reasons.\u00a0 We believed that association with Europe would help Ukraine move in the direction of honesty in government and protection of human rights.\u00a0 But these expectations were dashed in November 2013 when President Yanukovych, bowing to pressure from Moscow, rejected an association agreement with the European Union.\u00a0 Street protests began in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.\u00a0 Police violently dispersed crowds who gathered in Kyiv\u2019s central Maidan Square.\u00a0 A police force called \u201cBerkut\u201d was especially brutal in arresting and killing protestors.<\/p>\n

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\"\"Protestors building a barricade<\/span><\/p>\n

This repression was unable to put an end to the protest, and in February 2014, the ruling regime collapsed.\u00a0 By that time, though, more than a hundred protestors had lost their lives.\u00a0\u00a0In subsequent years, Ukraine made progress in reducing corruption and democratizing government \u2013 aims that were fundamental to
\nthe protest movement.<\/p>\n

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Gathering in Maidan Square to mark the first anniversary of the demonstrations in 2014 that left over a hundred protesters dead.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

[reading of \u201cMaidan 2014\u201d]<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Maidan protest was successful in overthrowing a corrupt government and inaugurating a process of democratic renewal.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t mean, though, that Ukrainians had established control over their own country. \u00a0In February and March 2014, Russia annexed Ukraine\u2019s southernmost region, Crimea, and also gave military support to the campaign launched by separatists in the eastern part of the country. This campaign was met with a Ukrainian counter-offensive, and the violent conflict continued for the next eight years, resulting in over 14 thousand deaths and forcing 2 million Ukrainians to relocate. Then in February 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Russian forces did not<\/u> quickly take control of Ukraine, as had been widely anticipated.\u00a0 Our country has mounted a remarkably effective resistance.\u00a0 Ukrainians are risking everything in order to push tyranny back and live in a free, democratic society.\u00a0 The ultimate aim that we all share is, of course, to end all<\/u> militarism and war, to live in peace.<\/p>\n

We will conclude today with an adaptation of\u00a0 Ukrainian poetry that draws on the work of Iya Kiva, Halyna Kruk, Kateryna Kalytko, Serhiy Zhadan, and other contemporary Ukrainian poets.<\/p>\n

[poetry reading]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ukrainians are risking everything in order to push tyranny back and live in a free, democratic society. Will Ukraine succeed in repelling the invasion and making good on the promise of Maidan 2014? \u00a0The answer to that question depends in part on the support given by people like us.\u00a0 This is our fight too!<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 The aim of this benefit reading is to raise funds for the Frankivsk Drama Theater.\u00a0 This theater company understands its mission as political and educational as well as artistic, and it performs not only in its hometown of Ivano-Frankivsk but also in other towns and villages in Ukraine.\u00a0 The theater also serves as a shelter for refugees and a community center.\u00a0 Your contribution will help the company continue this valuable work.<\/p>\n

We will<\/u> survive this war and win our freedom!\u00a0 Slava Ukraini.<\/p>\n

(Return to top of page.)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Poetry Excerpts from the February 2023 Performance — Video Recording<\/h2>\n<\/div>

Holodomor<\/a><\/p>\n

Maidan Revolution<\/a><\/p>\n

Maidan When Our Lives Began<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>