Ukrainians around the world attended ceremonies, lit candles and prayed together on Nov. 23 in commemoration of the victims of three mass famines which Ukraine endured throughout the 2oth century.
Ukraine suffered mass famines in 1921-1923, 1932-1933, and 1946-1947, but the Stalin-era Holodomor of 1932-1933 was the most devastating, claiming an estimated four million lives. Other death toll estimates reach as high as seven million.
Holodomor is largely blamed on Soviet policies in the early 1930s. Many experts and multiple governments worldwide consider it an act of genocide targeted at rural Ukrainian communities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his wife Olena Zelenska have laid flowers-and-wheat bouquets at the Holodomor Monument on Mykhaylivska Square in Kyiv, while other state and city officials participated in a remembrance ceremony at the National Holodomor Museum. Other memorials are taking place across Ukraine and around the world.
Epiphanius, the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox church, also commemorated the victims of the famines: “Eternal memory and eternal peace to the souls of the dead from the Holodomor Genocide,” he wrote, as part of a statement.
Western diplomats, leaders, and officials, as well as other partners of Ukraine, have offered their condolences and support to Ukraine throughout the day.
“Millions died, and countless others were arrested, deported, or executed during the Holodomor. Today, we remember them, and reaffirm our support for the people of Ukraine,” wrote Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a statement shared on Twitter.
Stewart McDonald, a Scottish member of the U.K. Parliament, wrote: “86 years have passed since the famine-genocide in Ukraine. As we mark the anniversary of one of the 20th century’s most monstrous crimes – the Holodomor – we should honor the memory of the victims by learning and teaching more about this too often forgotten tragedy.”
The tradition to officially commemorate Holodomor came about in 1998 under then-President Leonid Kuchma, who supported the initiative of civil society and state authorities to better recognize the tragedies.
A common ritual to commemorate and pay respect to victims of the devastating famines is to hold a minute of silence at 4 P.M and to light a candle in a window.
Most experts now agree that the famines in Ukraine were organized on the orders of the top Soviet Union and Soviet Ukraine authorities in a drive to resolve state finance challenges at the expense of the rural poor, who were robbed of their last reserves of grain, resulting in mass starvation.
The collected grain was then sold on the world markets for hard currency. In 1932-1933, the policy of industrialization, which was ongoing throughout the Soviet Union at the time, demanded massive amounts of capital so the state could purchase more Western technologies.
One of the consequences of the 1932-1933 Holodomor was the suppression of the national cultural life in Ukraine and its submission to the overarching Soviet system, something that the authorities in Moscow pushed for at the time.
The Ukrainian parliament, the U.S. Senate and the parliaments of 14 other UN member-states recognize the Holodomor of 1932-33 as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
According to the Rating sociology group, 82% of Ukrainians consider Holodomor to have been an act of genocide.
MORE ON THE HOLODOMOR
Watch the video about Mykola Onyshchenko, another Holodomor witness, here.
Find out more about Holodomor in Kyiv Post’s explainer.
Read about the expansion of the Holodomor museum here.
Read excerpts of Anne Applebaum’s book “Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine” and a Kyiv Post interview with the author published Nov. 24, 2017.
