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Date: Monday, 12 May 2003
To: pulitzer@www.pulitzer.org
From: Natalia Pylypiuk, natalia.pylypiuk@ualberta.ca
Subject: Walter Duranty
Committee on Pulitzer Prizes
Columbia University, 709 Journalism Building
2950 Broadway, New York NY, USA 10027
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Seventy years ago, Anna Wlasenko, a twelve year old girl from Kaharlyk
(Kyiv oblast, Ukraine) was thrown into a mass grave designated for those
of her townsmen who had died of famine. The Soviet officials in charge of
collecting and burying bodies did not think that the child would make it,
and thus were ready to bury her alive. Thanks to the kindness of a
relative who gave up her meagre savings to bribe the official in charge,
Anna was retrieved from the pit.
Unlike most of her relatives (and millions of her countrymen), Anna
survived the man-made famine of 1933. She subsequently lived through
Stalin's terror, served as a nurse in the Soviet army, became a prisoner
of war in Stalag No. 13, was liberated, and then taken as a slave laborer
to Berlin In short, history was extremely brutal to her and her entire
generation.
One of the many unkind acts heaped upon Anna and her coevals was the
mendacity of Walter Duranty, a reporter for The New York Times, who
perpetrated lies about the situation in the then USSR and actively
covered up the famine. Duranty was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, at
a time when the forced collectivization that had begun in 1929 was
already beginning to show its tragic results.
The Committee on Pulitzer Prizes has it in its power to revoke the prize
that should have never been awarded to Mr. Duranty. I beseech the
Committee to do so. Anna Wlasenko is my mother. As my family sits down
in October to celebrate her 82-nd birthday and to commemorate all those
grandparents, uncles, and aunts who did not survive 1933, there could be
no greater gift than being able to announce that, finally, Mr. Duranty's
unworthiness has been acknowledged by the Pulitzer Committee.
Sincerely yours,
Natalia Pylypiuk
Dr. Natalia Pylypiuk, Associate Professor and
Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies
Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
200 Arts, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada T6G 2E6
Voice mail: (780) 492-3498, http://www.mlcs.ca
President of the Canadian Association of Slavists
http://www.ualberta.ca/~csp
EDITOR: We strongly encourage you to write you own letter to the
Committee on Pulitzer Prizes and ask them to revoke the Pulitzer Prize
they gave unfortunately to Walter Duranty. Send your letter by e-mail to:
pulitzer@www.pulitzer.org or by postal to: Committee on Pulitzer Prizes,
Columbia University, 709 Journalism Building, 2950 Broadway, New
York NY, USA 10027
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