THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
Dear colleagues! Dear family of journalists!
Sixty-five years ago, the countdown to the history of the largest journalistic organization in our country began. It happened on April 23-24, 1959. The first constituent congress of the Union of Journalists of Ukraine was held.
Of course, the then Union could not but be a part of the propaganda machine of Soviet ideology. At the same time, the events of 65 years ago were and remain a reference point in the annals of the 18,000-member organization, which, despite all the challenges and trials, was and remains the largest and most respected journalistic community in Ukraine. Our Union.
“Journalism is not a profession, but a blood group,” said Anatolii Moskalenko, the first director of the Institute of Journalism. “It is this blood group that unites us, so different, but at the same time so united, in the ranks of the Union with a 65-year history. Traditions and innovation, the experience of veterans and the energy of youth, respect for the past, and a critical look at what is worth taking with you into the present and the future — this is the alloy that our organization is based on. Therefore, today’s date is not nostalgia for the Soviet past but a tribute to the experience of journalism veterans, on whose shoulders the current generation of media workers stands. To move forward, you need to remember what happened. But at the same time, live today and look to the future.”
Our future is a future without the so-called russian world and the remnants of the Soviet Union. This is the journalism of a strong and free nation, which chooses its European choice in the crucible of war with the Moscow aggressor.
Therefore, today is a moment for memories but no moment for celebrations. Let’s celebrate – victory. And now all the activities of the Union are aimed precisely at its approach. In support of colleagues who are on the front lines. And to help those who were hit hardest by the war.
Meetings for military journalists, documenting russian war crimes, constant communication with international donors to attract the greatest possible help to Ukrainian media and especially front-line newspapers – this is what the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) lives by now. And veterans of the press, who became members of the Union even before Ukraine gained independence, are now side by side in this important matter with their younger colleagues, with the generation of social networks.
An honest rethinking of the lessons of the past is important to build a conscious future. We pay tribute to the experience of those who sought to work honestly in the profession even during the time of Communist Party censorship. We resolutely get rid of everything that hinders forward movement, which serves as a marker of that Sovietism that Ukrainians resolutely rejected.
It is no accident that the press card of the NUJU does not and will never have text in russian — there are English and French as the languages of free Europe, as evidence of the inevitability of the civilizational choice of the Ukrainian people.
It is not by chance that in Izium, Kharkiv Region, where Ihor Lubchenko once worked, our unforgettable head of the Union, the “advocate of Ukrainian journalism,” the indomitable Kostiantyn Hryhorenko energetically continues his work. And the Obrii Iziumshchyny newspaper, which he edits, became the only media in this region that resumed work after the russian occupation. The current team of the Union advocates Ukrainian journalism on all available international platforms — from the International and European Federations of Journalists to the Council of Europe. Everywhere, the voices of Ukrainian journalists should be heard. And they hear it; they listen to it. Right now, during the greatest trials in our history, through superhuman suffering, to the sounds of sirens and the roar of bombings, the journalism of a free country is emerging to its full height — a full-fledged member of the family of nations of the civilized world. A world of democratic values, not totalitarianism, a world of humanism, not terror, light, not darkness.
We are building such a Union. This is exactly the direction we are going. It is these signposts that we take with us into a new time period in the history of our journalistic fraternity.
And today, on the day of the 65th anniversary of the Union, we first of all bow our heads in mournful silence to the memory of the Heroes who give their lives every day in the defense of Ukraine…
Ukraine, in which the word of journalists will be heard with weight. Ukraine, in which there will be freedom of speech and freedom of choice. In which the golden stars on the flag of the European Union will fly proudly on our squares next to the blue-yellow flag of our state. And in which there will be no trace of russian evil.
In a newspaper column and the express format of a text message, on the air and live, offline and online, in Uzhhorod and Kramatorsk, in Lviv and Kharkiv, in the heart of the capital and in the regional center in the Cherkasy Region, we all say one thing:
Journalists are important!
Eternal memory to Heroes!
Glory to the Armed Forces of Ukraine!
Glory to Ukraine!
Sergiy Tomilenko,
President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine
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