At the Embassy of Ukraine in the U.S.A. world famous historian and journalist Ann Applebaum was honored with the Omelan and Tatiana Antonovych Foundation Award for her coverage of Ukraine in international media and the pursuit of historical truth. This Award is the first since a recent book by Anne Appelbaum "Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine" has been published in October, 2017.
Ambassador of Ukraine to the U.S.A. Valeriy Chaly has emphasized that Ann Appelbaum's book on Holodomor (Great Famine) of 1932-1933 in Ukraine is very timely because this year we observe the 85th anniversary of this tragedy. He urged the U.S. Ukrainian community to support diplomatic efforts on promoting the idea of the need of Holodomor recognition by the U.S. Congress as genocide. The Ambassador highlighted also Ann Applebaum's significant role in revealing the truth in the world media about Russian aggression against Ukraine and the "hybrid" war.
Guest of Honor, Deputy Prime Minister on European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze expressed gratitude to the Award laureate and other historians and publicists who attended the ceremony for help with bringing Ukraine back to the cultural and historic map of the world and Europe.
Ann Applebaum noted that Ukraine's decision to open up archives of the Holodomor years made her book possible. She has also said that Kremlin's fear of Ukraine's current progress in building civic institutions along with pro-European choice echoes Stalin's dread of loss of control of Ukraine that could challenge communist power. Nevertheless, as the laureate has stressed, Ukraine survived and preserved its identity in spite of everything and is doing well in healing the wounds of the past.
To honor the contribution to the development of Ukraine-U.S. cooperation, Ambassador Valeriy Chaly presented to Anne Applebaum as well as to members of Foundation's Board Roman Sloniewsky and Andrew Lewicky and Foundation's Nominating Committee's Chair Marta Bohachevsky-Chomiak Ukrainian watches of special edition dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between Ukraine and the U.S.A. that is observed this year.