Representatives from the Museum visited the graves of Lidiia Kovalenko-Maniak and James Mace

To mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of Holodomor researcher and journalist Lidiia Kovalenko-Maniak, we visited her grave at the Baikove Cemetery, laid flowers and lit a symbolic candle in her memory. The lives of the Maniaks were tragically cut short: on 15 June 1992, Lidiia Borysivna and Volodymyr Antonovych were returning from the unveiling of a monument to the Holodomor victims in the Cherkasy region when the truck hit their bus. Volodymyr Maniak died instantly; Lidiia Kovalenko, having lost her husband and comrade-in-arms, passed away six months later, in January 1993. To this day, doubts remain: was the accident a coincidence, given that the couple were researching a subject that was highly ‘inconvenient’ for the Soviet authorities, and which until recently had been completely banned?

We also brought flowers and a remembrance candle to another grave at Baikove Cemetery that is significant to us – that of the American historian James Mace, who died on 3 May 2004. His life, too, was cut short at the age of 52. Most of the scholar’s creative and personal journey had ties to Ukraine, beginning from the moment, whilst still a student at the University of Michigan, when he first heard about the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine and… could not believe it. For how could a tragedy of such magnitude be concealed and its losses hidden? He subsequently devoted his entire academic career to researching this crime.

We are grateful… We remember…💔

We would like to remind you that today, the museum will host an Evening of Remembrance dedicated to the 90th anniversary of Lidiia Kovalenko-Maniak’s birth. We invite everyone who can join us! It starts at 16:00.