Seventy-five years after a Soviet-engineered famine took the lives of millions, Ukrainian society is coming to terms with last century’s darkest episode
Seventy-five years after a Soviet-engineered famine took the lives of millions, Ukrainian society is coming to terms with the darkest episode from the last century.
A taboo topic in Soviet times, today more than 60 percent of Ukrainians want to make Holodomor-denial a crime and think that the United Nations should recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
A nationwide campaign to collect eyewitness and survivor testimonies has helped increase awareness and will continue through 2008 – designated as the year to honor the victims of the Holodomor of 1932-33.
Ukrainians endured three manmade famines in the 20th century, with the Holodomor of 1932-33 considered the deadliest. Twenty-five thousand people lost their lives every day at its peak, according to President Viktor Yushchenko.
Yushchenko led the country in honoring victims on Nov. 24, when thousands gathered in Kyiv’s St. Michael’s Square to light 33,000 candles. They were joined nationally and globally in the “Light a Candle” initiative that encouraged people wanting to honor the memories of the dead to simply put a lit candle on their windowsills.
International appeal
“We appeal to the world to recognize the Holodomor of 1932-1933 a genocide against the Ukrainian nation and believe that such recognition is inevitable,” the president said in his address on St. Michael’s Square.
Efforts to secure international recognition of the Holodomor of 1932-33 as genocide have produced mixed results.
Parliaments of 14 countries have recognized the Soviet-engineered famine as genocide, but a recent UNESCO resolution on the tragedy stopped short of using the word. Instead, 193 signatory countries agreed that the “Great Famine” was a “national tragedy of the Ukrainian people caused by the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime.”
Efforts to secure international recognition have been stonewalled by Russia, whose Foreign Ministry stated earlier this month that Ukraine’s recognition of the Holodomor as the genocide is “a unilateral distortion of history” and may be interpreted as a sign of disrespect to other nations that suffered famine.
The statement followed an attack on a Holodomor exhibit in Moscow by Union of Eurasian Youth activists two weeks ago. The activists and Russian officials, including Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, accused Ukrainian politicians of inflaming inter-ethnic hatred between Russians and Ukrainians by insisting the Holodomor was an act of genocide.
“The time has come to proclaim the request and the appeal for universal condemnation of Communist terror, which has been killing us and other nations on this land – Russians, Crimean Tatars, Belarusians, Jews, Poles, Bulgarians, hundreds of nationalities,” Yushchenko said in his 14-minute address.
“We are not doing so out of a desire for revenge or to make a partisan political point. We know that the Russian people were among Stalin’s foremost victims. Apportioning blame to their living descendents is the last thing on our minds,” Yushchenko wrote, explaining Ukraine’s striving for international recognition of the famine as in an article to Wall Street Journal, published Nov. 26.
As for Ukrainian opponents of genocide recognition, they appear limited to Communists and other marginal leftwing parties. The Party of Regions did not support the Yushchenko-sponsored genocide bill in the parliament last year, but Regions leader and acting premier Viktor Yanukovych did attend a memorial service for the victims at St. Sophia Cathedral on Nov. 24.
Opponents of recognizing the Holodomor as genocide argue that the tragedy was due to poor harvests or was aimed at wealthy farmers as a social class, rather than at Ukrainians as a separate nation.
Valeriy Khmelko, the president of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KMIS), said that “sociocide” may be a more palatable term, but stressed that the UN has no definition concerning what constitutes “sociocide.”
Polls show progress
More than 72 percent of Ukrainians think that the Holodomor was caused by the Soviet government, according to a poll conducted by KMIS at the beginning of November.
That number is up compared to the 65 percent who responded the same way last year.
In the country’s heavily-industrialized and Russified eastern regions, the number of respondents who said the Holodomr was the Soviet government’s fault jumped more than 10 percent from 46 percent a year ago to 57 percent in 2007.
Only 12 percent said that the Holodomor was caused by natural circumstances in the poll of more than 2,000 respondents.
In 2007, more than 63 percent of Ukrainians supported or were inclined to support parliament’s designation of the Holodomor as genocide. In November 2006, only 38.5 percent supported the immediate adoption of the genocide resolution.
In most regions, more than a half of respondents expressed support for genocide recognition. In the industrialized east, only 35 percent said they support the measure, while 44 percent said they did not.
According to the most recent poll, 60 percent of Ukrainians think that the United Nations should recognize the Great Famine as an act of genocide of the Ukrainian people.
“Generally speaking, a certain level of consensus has been reached,” Khmelko explained.
“There are some differences across Ukraine, but they are not critical.”
“The majority of Ukrainians in all parts of the country agree on the causes of the Holodomor.”
Khmelko said that the changes in opinion are due to an active media campaign that has increased awareness of the artificial nature of the famine.
Stanislav Kulchytskiy, deputy head of the Institute of History at Ukraine’s National Academy of Science, said KMIS’ poll findings show that historical awareness is still lacking among Ukrainians and that informational and research campaigns need to proceed further.
Laurels to Yushchenko
Vladyslav Verstiuk, a historian and department head at the Institute of National Memory in Kyiv, attributed increasing awareness to President Yushchenko’s consistent policy on Holodomor recognition and information campaigns.
“Yushchenko is a ‘molodets,’” said Roman Krutsyk, director of the Museum of Soviet Occupation in Kyiv.
“He’s done a great job and there can be no turning back.” Krutsyk and his museum are currently working on an exhibit of the peasant revolts of the 1920s and 30s.
Holodomor survivor Ivan Brovko, 92, expressed thanks for the efforts to get the truth out.
“Yushchenko has shown the world the truth and now the world will understand that genocide really happened here.”
Testimonies sway opinion
The dynamics of how Ukrainians’ opinions can change with increased information, including hearing firsthand testimonies from survivors, were illustrated by the popular Svoboda Slova political talk show that aired on Ukraine’s leading television channel Inter Nov. 24.
During the show, an audience of 200 people selected by KMIS to represent the national demographic, voted on various questions posed by host Savik Shuster.
Prior to the show, 91 percent said that they require more information about the Holodomor; nearly 60 percent said they had lost family members in the Soviet famine. Members of the audience were asked whether they support making Holdomor denial a crime. Before the show, only 49 percent supported the measure. After the show, which featured live testimonies from survivors and eyewitness, was over, 85 percent of the audience voted to support criminal liability for Holodomor denial.
Last year, Ukraine’s parliament passed a law designating the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people and introduced minor administrative fines for denying the forced famine. Yushchenko wants parliament to go one step further and introduce criminal responsibility for Holodomor denial, similar to Holocaust denial laws in Austria, Germany and Israel.
Students meet survivors
On Nov. 23, Yushchenko presented awards to the finalists of a national contest that encouraged students to collect testimonies from Holodomor survivors. More than 50,000 schoolchildren took part in the contest that saw 237 films, articles and other projects qualify for five categories during the contest’s final stage. The government approved Hr 60,000 ($12,000) for 15 prizes within the framework of the contest.
Yushchenko’s presidential secretariat has spearheaded efforts to collect eyewitness and survivor testimonies. In Mykolayiv Region, one of the hardest hit by the Holodomor, the names of 12,000 victims were established by 600 groups working in the region.
Yushchenko said that nationwide, 10 percent of those who provided testimonies refused to sign their names out of fear of being persecuted.
Access to archives
In November 2006, the SBU state security service completed a four-year program of declassifying archives from 1932-33. The documents include government orders, statistical reports and criminal case files – more than 5,000 pages in total.
The documents clearly showed that the forced famine was unique within the borders of what was the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. They showed that the predominantly Ukrainian rural population was targeted, agricultural produce was requisitioned, property was seized, and valuable possessions (gold, icons, and the like) were exacted in exchange for grain through a network of state-owned pawnshops.
“There were Holodomor ghettos long before Hitler,” Yushchenko said on Nov. 24.
Holodomor researchers hope that other law enforcement agencies, including the Internal Affairs Ministry, will follow the SBU’s example.
Former KGB colonel and SBU head Yevhen Marchuk urged researchers to look into the archives of the “convoy army” that was responsible for transporting grain requisitions in 1932-33. Speaking live on national television on Nov. 24, Marchuk said that “a huge mass of documents is in Russia,” but efforts to gain access have proved fruitless.
A government order has instructed the Foreign Ministry and the State Archive Committee to hold talks with Russia on granting archive access by February of next year.
Mace memory
The “Light a Candle” initiative was the brainchild of the late professor James Mace – a US Holodomor researcher who lived and taught in Ukraine before his death in 2004. President Yushchenko gave the initiative nationwide impetus while an opposition political leader in 2003 when he called on Ukrainians to honor the millions of victims of forced Soviet famines by placing lit candles on their windowsills.
Mace led a US congressional investigation into the famine. He conducted more than 200 interviews with Holodomor survivors and told Ukrainians, “Your dead chose me,” to explain his commitment to ensuring the world knows the truth about the Holodomor. Plans to erect a monument to Mace in Kyiv are expected to be realized next year.
