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 19th 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.
