[Ohio UZO News] Ukraine: AP; RFE/RL

[Deychak, Orest]

AP

Ukraine marks anniversary of great famine 

By MARIA DANILOVA 

Associated Press Writer

22 November 2008

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - Church bells tolled, candles flickered under
falling snow and national flags, adorned with black ribbons, flew in the
Ukrainian capital Kiev Saturday as the country marked the anniversary of
the start of a Soviet-era famine that killed millions.

But the solemn events were overshadowed by fierce opposition from
Russia. The Kremlin is resisting Ukraine's campaign to win international
recognition of the 1932-33 tragedy as an act of genocide against the
Ukrainian nation, saying other ethnic groups also suffered.

The anniversary of Holodomor -- or Death by Hunger as it is known here
-- is traditionally marked in late November, when the food shortages
began.

The famine was orchestrated by dictator Josef Stalin to force peasants
to give up their land and join collective farms and Ukraine, known as
the breadbasket of the Soviet Union, suffered the most.

The death toll is disputed, but there is no question the tragedy was
devastating. Top Ukrainian historian Stanislav Kulchitsky believes 3.5
million perished, while President Viktor Yushchenko says that Holodomor
claimed the lives of up to 10 million.

Yushchenko insists that the famine was aimed at rooting out Ukrainian
nationalism, targeting the heart of the nation, its peasants, and thus
is an act of genocide.

"This was not death through hunger -- this was murder of people through
hunger," a black-clad Yushchenko said in a speech. "Hunger was selected
as a tool to subdue the Ukrainian people."

In the fall of 1932 authorities confiscated grain, livestock and other
food in villages across the Soviet Union, after peasants failed to meet
grain quotas that exceeded crop yields. The Soviet Union exported the
grain to build factories and arm its military.

Residents were prohibited to leave their homes -- effectively condemning
them to starvation and survivors say that people ate dogs, grass and
that cases of cannibalism were widespread. The famine was a closely
guarded secret in the Soviet times.

Several hundred Ukrainians braved snow and cold to light candles outside
the golden-domed St. Michael cathedral in Kiev in memory of those who
perished.

"It is the pain and wound of the Ukrainian people," said a sobbing
Valentyna Mayboroda, a 57-year-old retired government worker whose uncle
Ivan disappeared and was believed to have fallen victim to cannibals.

Scholars in Ukraine, Russia and the West are still debating the tragedy.
Most Ukrainian scholars, including Kulchitsky, are convinced Holodomor
was an act of genocide, or deliberate and systematic destruction of a
racial or ethnic group, as it is defined in international law. Others,
like Heorhiy Kasyanov, a top historian with the National Academy of
Sciences, say the issue is more complicated and says there was no
clear-cut ethnic component.

But few debate that Russians are unwilling to properly honor the victims
of Soviet-era purges, reconsider the dark pages of the country's history
and acknowledge that the Soviet regime was guilty of grave crimes.
Critics say that reluctance to face Soviet crimes is rooted in the fact
that the Kremlin is increasingly moving away from democracy and
reverting to authoritarian practices.

Ukrainian lawmakers, along with their counterparts including the United
States, already labeled Holodomor an act of genocide and Yushchenko is
pushing for other countries and international bodies to follow suit.

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty

November 21, 2008 

Ukraine Marks 75th Anniversary Of Great Famine 

by Claire Bigg 

KYIV/PRAGUE -- Kindrat Murzak was born in 1925 in Sarny, a village in
the heart of what was then Soviet Ukraine.

She was only 7 years old when the Great Famine swept across her country,
driving millions into starvation.

But the memories of these terrible times haunt her to this day.

"I remember 1933. A woman next door ate her two children, a 7-year-old
boy and a 6-year-old girl," she says. "Once my grandmother, Ustia, was
visiting us and she heard this woman call me: 'Kindrat, come here, I
will offer you a treat.' My mother and grandmother rushed to prevent me
from going into her house. Later we saw bones in her oven. Another
neighbor, Yakiv, called some people from the village council and in the
oven they found a head and legs from which meat had been carved out.
This woman was driven away from the village the same day. There were
other such cases in other parts of the village. There were families in
which everyone died. In our part of the village, almost half of the
people passed away."

Ukrainians today remember one of the darkest chapters in their country's
history -- the so-called Holodomor, or death by starvation, of 1932-33. 

Josef Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture, which resulted in
massive food shortages, claimed an estimated 14 million lives across the
Soviet Union. 

Unsettling Truths

But most of the victims died in Ukraine, the USSR's "bread basket,"
where farmers saw their harvest confiscated by Soviet authorities.
Death-toll estimates vary wildly -- from 3 million to 10 million. About
one-third of the victims were children. 

The Great Famine is therefore widely viewed in Ukraine as a man-made
famine engineered by the Soviet regime to crush an independence movement
in one of the Soviet Union's most fertile regions. 

The Soviet regime covered up the extent of the tragedy; it is only after
Ukraine and other Soviet republics gained sovereignty in 1991 that the
truth began to emerge. 

Today, independent Ukraine is intent on setting the historical record
straight. 

Both officials and civil groups have been waging a campaign to have the
world recognize the fame as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian
people. In 2006, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a bill officially
recognizing the famine as genocide. 

Speaking this week at a school in the city of Kharkiv, President Viktor
Yushchenko called on schoolchildren never to forget the Great Famine:

"The tragedy of 1932-33 is a sad page in our history; but, excuse me,
this is our history," Yushchenko said. "We can draw lessons from it if
we know it. That is why I call on you, all Ukrainian schoolchildren, to
research your own family history. How did your great-grandparents die?
How did they live in 1932, in 1933? How did they meet to this challenge?
Our nation came out as a winner. We suffered huge losses, but we came
out as an undefeated nation."

Souring Relations

Not all countries see eye to eye with Kyiv on the issue. Ukraine's
genocide claim is hotly contested by Russia, which insists the famine
indiscriminately affected many ethnic groups across the Soviet Union.
The State Duma this year passed a resolution that firmly rejected
recognizing the famine as genocide.

The Holodomor has grown into a major irritant in already souring
relations between Kyiv and Moscow; every year, Ukraine's commemoration
of the famine sparks a bitter war of words between the two countries.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week accused his Ukrainian
counterpart of distorting the facts about the famine for political
purposes. "To suggest that the main aim was to destroy Ukrainians is to
fly in the face of the facts and paint a general tragedy in nationalist
tones," he wrote in a letter to Yushchenko.

Yushchenko, in turn, criticized the Russian leader for snubbing this
weekend's commemorative events, calling his decision not to attend
"anything but appropriate."

So far, 14 countries have recognized the Great Famine as an act of
genocide against the Ukrainian people.

The United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) have all denounced the famine
as a crime against the Ukrainian nation but have fallen short of
branding it genocide.

Ukrainian historian and philosopher Miroslav Popovich says the Holodomor
hasn't been more widely recognized as such because of the legal
definition of genocide.

"The formulation defining the notion of 'genocide' is to blame,"
Popovich says. "The United Nations' definition of genocide is
exclusively the mass killing of people on the basis of their nationality
or ethnicity. So formally, one can regard [Holodomor] as a massive
tragedy rather than genocide. But in actual fact, one can regard it as
genocide."

Yushchenko was scheduled to launch the November 22 memorial events in
Kyiv with the unveiling of a monument to the victims. A Mass was then
due to be held, followed by an international forum expected to be
attended by delegations from 40 countries. 

A candle-lighting ceremony was also scheduled, as well as a minute of
silence in memory of the victims.

RFE/RL's Ukrainian and Russian Services contributed to this report

 

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