Walter Duranty
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Walter Duranty (1884–1957), born in Liverpool, England, UK won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories he wrote in 1931 as The New York Times' Moscow correspondent, covering Joseph Stalin's Five-Year Plan to industrialize the Soviet Union. Duranty, who died in 1957 (having married on his deathbed), enjoyed a lavish lifestyle during his 12 years in Moscow, and is seen by some as an apologist for Stalin. He is the subject of a 1990 biography called "Stalin's Apologist”.
The New York Times hired a professor of Russian history to review Duranty's work. That professor, Mark Von Hagen of Columbia University, says Mr. Duranty's reports were unbalanced and uncritical, and they far too often gave voice to Stalinist propaganda.
In his New York Times articles, Duranty repeatedly denied the existence of the 1932 Ukrainian famine, which killed between five million and 10 million Ukrainians according to some estimates, even though he knew of its existence, as testified to British intelligence. Because of this, several organizations have called on the Pulitzer Board to revoke his prize, but no action has been taken.
External links
- The Artificial Famine/Genocide in Ukraine 1932-33 (http://209.82.14.226/history/famine/)
- The section of articles regarding the campaign to revoke Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize (http://www.ukemonde.com/duranty/index1.html)
- The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain - Duranty Protest Site (http://www.augb.co.uk/Durantyprotest/)
- Ukrainian Congress Committee of America official site about Walter Duranty and "Holodomor" (http://ucca.org/famine/gordondispatch.html)
- The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) - W.Duranty Protest Site (http://www.uccla.ca/issues/genocide/)
- Crimes of Soviet Communists (http://www.angelfire.com/de/Cerskus/english/saitai.html)