Moscow’s Anti-Ukrainian Hatred Targets Kids’ TV Program

It’s hard to imagine for us in the free world that the cancelation of a children’s television program could signal a deep, sinister, pathological hatred of a people. But when you consider Russian policies regarding Ukraine for more than a millennia, then you comprehend it quite clearly.

We of my generation – baby boomers – in the American diaspora did not grow up with the affable television personality Did Panas (Grandfather Panas). His career was yet another striking example of Russia’s wide-ranging, never ending efforts to destroy everything Ukrainian. And if Moscow couldn’t do it with a bullet, it would devise other methods of burying Ukrainians.

This example also shows the age-old degree of Ukrainian national awareness that is most threatening to Russia because it reemerges like the proverbial phoenix. The annals of Ukrainian independence are not only filled with battlefield freedom fighters and human rights dissidents, but also Captain Kangaroo type characters who entertain and enlighten children.

Did Panas, dressed in a Ukrainian embroidered shirt, narrated a 15-minute Ukrainian-language goodnight children’s program at a time when it was frowned upon to speak Ukrainian in public. For 24 seasons, from 1964-1988, he told Ukrainian folk stories to kids who were glued to their TV sets, listening, learning and laughing at his tales. To borrow from Mykola Mikhnovsky, the late 19^th century Ukrainian national ideologue, his program was highly popular from the Karpaty to the Kavkaz. Consequently, Did Panas and his program were targeted for cancelation by the Kremlin junta. Speaking Ukrainian to children who would then speak Ukrainian to their classmates and so on and so forth was deemed a surreptitious way of fostering Ukrainian nationalism.

A Jew by heritage who was born Pinchus Chayimovych Veskler, Did Panas stubbornly refused to learn to speak Russian, feigning intellectual inability to master the language.

Despite pulling the plug on the show several times, nationwide clamor by Ukrainian viewers forced the programmers to bring it back. But Moscow can’t be beaten when it sets its mind to a mission regardless of how diabolical.

Its technicians in the audio editing room inserted a vulgarity into his parting lines and it went on the air. Did Panas was accused of corrupting the morals of minors and his Ukrainian-language program immediately cut to black.

Moscow won that round, but, fortunately, it ultimately lost the match.