There is a museum in central Kyiv called the Holodomor Museum. As I’m writing this, I hope it’s still there.
It documents one of the most horrific events in history: the deliberate starvation—via famine--of the people of the Ukraine. Who were the perpetrators? The Stalinist regime that controlled the then Soviet Union.
What I’d like you to do is to take a look at as many of these sources as you are able on the Holodomor:
- The website of the Holodomor Museum. Let’s hope that the Kremlin has not disabled it before you have had a chance to examine it.
- A 2-minute film by Radio Free Europe on the Holodomor.
- A slightly longer film—12 minutes—created by the Holodomor Museum for an English-language audience.
- “Holodomor: Memories of Ukraine’s silent massacre,” BBC News, 23 November 2013
- Dmytro Dzhulay Coilin O’Connor, “ ‘A Gift to Posterity’: Four Men Who Risked he Wrath of Stalin to Photograph the Holodomor,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 8 March 2021.
- And if you want to read the best journalist on this subject, read Anne Applebaum, who wrote a book called Red Famine about the Holodomor. For a shorter version, see Anne Applebaum, “How Stalin Hid Ukraine’s Famine from the World,” The Atlantic, October 13, 2017.
And then, using the readings and what you know, let’s post on this:
- What does the Holdomor show us about the relationship between Russia (the former Soviet Union) and the Ukraine?
- What do these events reveal about using food and deprivation as weapons to destroy a population?
- How do you think these events factor into the legacy of the Russian role in the Ukraine today, 90 years after the fact?
- And what are you left wondering about with respect to Russia and Ukraine in 2022 and beyond?