Victoria Malko

This study focuses on the first group targeted in the genocide known as the Holodomor: the Ukrainian intelligentsia, or the “brain of the nation,” to use the words of Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide and enshrined it in international law. The study’s author examines complex and devastating effects of the Holodomor on Ukrainian society during the 1920–1930s. Members of the intelligentsia had individual and professional responsibilities. They resisted, but they were eventually forced to serve the Soviet regime. The Ukrainian intelligentsia was virtually wiped out, including most of its writers and a third of its teachers, and the remaining cadres faced a choice without a choice if they wanted to survive. The author analyzes how and why this process occurred and what role intellectuals, especially teachers, played in shaping, contesting, and inculcating history. Crucially, the author challenges Western perceptions of the all-Union famine that was allegedly caused by ad hoc collectivization policies, highlighting the intentional nature of the famine as a tool of genocide, persecution, and prosecution of the nationally conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia, clergy, and grain growers. The author demonstrates the continuity between Stalinist and neo-Stalinist attempts to prevent the crystallization of the nation and subvert Ukraine from within by non-lethal and lethal means. The book is the recipient of the Translation-in-Progress Grant from the Peterson Literary Fund and financial support from the Danyliw Foundation Freedom Heart Ukraine.

The commemorative album includes an art history essay by Dr. Daria Darewych, past president of the Shevchenko Scientific Society of Canada. Her analysis of representations of the Holodomor by Ukrainian artists suggests some reasons for the absence of portrayals of the victims in the 1930s. She discusses the works of the Boichukists, Kazymyr Malevych, and introduces a few of the growing number of works of art evoking the Holodomor that were created recently in Ukraine and the diaspora. The album also features artworks of Lydia Bodnar-Balahutrak who bears witness to the Holodomor. Selected artworks were exhibited at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church of Los Angeles in November 2023. Since the majority of the artworks are in private and museum collections, this exhibition was a unique opportunity to see these artworks gathered into one presentation. This art album prepared for the opening of the exhibition includes selected works from the Fragments and Another Kind of Icon series along with contemporary canvases.

In 1932, the Soviet leadership with the support of the secret police began the systematic genocide of the Ukrainians, a targeted group that had opposed denationalization and political subjugation for decades since the Bolshevik occupation in the 1920s. In the 1920s, Moscow began attacks on Ukrainian intellectual and cultural elites, most of whom were exterminated. The second prong of the attack was aimed at the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. Its autonomy was liquidated, churches destroyed, and clergy arrested, exiled or executed. The third prong of the genocide targeted the farming population, backbone of the Ukrainian nation. By 1933, the farmers with their dependents were deported to labor camps in the Russian Far North and Siberia or deliberately starved to death when grain and everything edible was confiscated, and travel in search of provisions was banned, the borders of Ukraine being sealed by the military and special security forces. The exact number of victims may not be known because the perpetrators deliberately destroyed evidence. While estimates vary, some Soviet, Russian, and Ukrainian historians and demographers suggest a range of 3 to 5 million victims; however, recent research by Ukrainian scholars indicates that as many as 10 million Ukrainians became victims of the totalitarian regime. It was the most devastating genocide of the twentieth century, perpetrated by Joseph Stalin and his henchmen. The Kremlin covered up the crime and denied it for over half a century. The Ukrainian people today are again facing the threat of genocide as a result of Vladimir Putin's military invasion of their homeland. Forced out of their homes then and now, Ukrainians built lives in exile in all corners of the globe. Millions have made the United States of America their home. Today, the grandsons and granddaughters of Holodomor survivors bravely defend their country’s sovereignty and national identity in the face of unimaginable violence and destruction. It will take generations to recover from this historical trauma.         

In this textbook, the history of the Holodomor is approached from two perspectives: through a macro history of Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s intertwined with a micro history of Holodomor survivors. Links to historical documentaries, video recordings of interviews with witnesses, museum exhibitions, and historical maps are embedded in the text. The materials can be used in lessons on the history of Ukraine of the early twentieth century, special history courses that focus on the study of totalitarianism, twentieth century dictatorships, as well as courses in genocide studies, sociology, psychology, criminology, ethics, and philosophy.

Russian disinformation warfare poses challenges to democratic institutions in Ukraine. Putin’s history war has become part of his hybrid war against Ukraine, the parallel and synchronized use of both military and non-military means in an attempt to weaken and subdue Ukraine from within. The war in the information space is part of a concerted strategy of total war that encompasses the use of economic, political, diplomatic, religious, legal, security, cyber, along with military instruments. This chapter focuses on the case of the Holodomor and the attempts by Russia, as the successor to the former Soviet Union, to deny the responsibility by engaging in disinformation warfare. Since 2006, Russian political leaders, diplomats, and historians have engaged in denial by challenging the legal definition of the Holodomor as genocide, reinterpreting the genocide against the Ukrainian nation as the “all-Union” famine, and covering the true extent of the death toll. Russia has criminalized the Holodomor studies and closed Ukrainian associations on the territory of the Russian Federation. Inside Ukraine, Russia has actively supported historians, schooled in a Marxist thought in its Sovietized version, who are attempting to subvert Ukraine’s historical narrative. Ukraine’s success at countering Russian disinformation depends on the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide by the international community. If the genocide against the Ukrainian nation, perpetrated by Joseph Stalin and his accomplices, goes unacknowledged by Russia, which is likely given the resurgent cult of Stalinism, the risk of further violence remains. To counter Russian ideological influence, Ukraine has to put its narrative in a broader international context that underlines the central role of the country in European history, especially Ukraine’s experience at the epicenter of twentieth century totalitarianism. The outcomes have far-reaching implications not only for Ukraine, but for Europe and the world at large.

This book examines the Soviet genocide against Ukrainian intellectual elites in the 1920s and 1930s, from its Marxist-Leninist roots to its subsequent cover-up and denial. The author analyzes the role intellectuals–especially teachers–played in shaping, contesting, and inculcating the history of the genocide.

Within five years of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, ethnic conflicts spilled throughout its territory, most of them in the Russian Federation. An analysis of scope and intensity of a conflict with one of Russia’s two hundred ethnic minorities is the focus of this book. The conflict in Chechnya erupted into two full-scale wars, fought during the decade of Russia’s turbulent transition from communism toward democracy. Using a variety of sources–governmental documents, monographs, diaries of military and political leaders, reports, and contemporary periodicals–the author examines the roots of the conflict and responses to the wars from the media, political parties, and diplomatic circles in Russia and the United States. The Chechen wars have demonstrated the limits of the concept of self-determination for an abused minority population. The military operation in Chechnya has eroded Russian democracy and strengthened those within the military and security forces who call for a return to the old ways. For many in today’s Russian elite, the restoration of the lost Soviet empire might be the ultimate objective. The developments in the future deserve the world's attention.

For the third time in history Ukraine has become a battlefield in the geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West. While Woodrow Wilson made "the world safe for democracy," his principle of self-determination did not apply to Ukrainians; thus, Ukraine's independence was sacrificed for the sake of "Russian unity." The consequences were the Red Terror and Lenin's famine of 1921-1923 in Ukraine that drowned in blood its national liberation movement. Lenin's disciple, Joseph Stalin, consolidated the totalitarian system and implemented his predecessor's policy toward Ukraine that led to physical, biological, and cultural genocide against the largest non-Russian captive nation. Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration not only did nothing, but also never acknowledged publicly Stalin's crimes. American journalists along with politicians participated, albeit indirectly, in the Holodomor denial. The rehabilitation of Stalinism in Russia, revision of the past, and Holodomor denial have led to further escalation of violence on the eve of the ninetieth anniversary of the crime. President Joseph Biden has called Russia's actions in Ukraine a genocide. The next step is to draw a parallel to the Holodomor and respond to that denial by bringing the perpetrators of today's genocide before an international tribunal to restore the rule of law and justice.

Ukraine's struggle for the affirmation of the Holodomor as genocide faces the challenge of Russia's denial which protects its self-image. The Holodomor denial is one of the key components in Russia's hybrid war against Ukraine. The hybrid war involves mass media (print, radio and television), social media, the Internet, paid propagandists, subservient to the Kremlin historians, and the fifth column and agents of influence in Ukraine – supporters of the "Russian World," who suffer from the Homo Sovieticus syndrome,  the inability to think critically outside the prescribed narrative. All these forces follow the Russian demarche to aggravate the situation in Ukraine. Thus, Ukrainian historians and scholars, civil society and the media in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian diaspora are called upon to continue telling the truth about the Holodomor as genocide and to oppose the Kremlin's propaganda aimed at downplaying the extent of the Holodomor losses among the Ukrainians, persecuting the Holodomor scholars for "extremism," paying foreign scholars and journalists to falsify the narrative about the Holodomor, and discrediting the Ukrainian science.

The author presents an overview of the historiography of the Holodomor as genocide, highlighting a paradigmatic shift in conceptualization that has occurred during the fourth chronological period, which coincided with the Revolution of Dignity. Whereas earlier studies focused on Soviet agricultural policies and examined the criminal mastermind's intent, recent studies have reoriented the focus on the conflicting roles of ordinary citizens-the "true believers" in Communist ideology, resisters, and bystanders-who were building a "brave new" Soviet civilization. The paradigmatic shift has spurred an equally energetic backlash from critics who accuse historians of politicizing memory. The author addresses the implications of the debate for the teaching of history.

The author argues for a paradigm shift in studying history of the Holodomor based on Gregory Stanton's Ten Stages of Genocide. Stanton analyzes genocide not only as an act, but as a process, which encompasses the following stages: (1) Classification, (2) Symbolization, (3) Discrimination, (4) Dehumanization, (5) Organization, (6) Polarization, (7) Preparation, (8) Persecution, (9) Extermination, and (10) Denial. The proposed model allows scholars who contest the notion of the Holodomor as genocide to resolve several methodological challenges. First, it interprets the legal concept of the Holodomor in both narrow and broad terms. Second, it delineates the scope of the historical period beyond one year at the peak of extermination by hunger to a decade during which genocidal policies were institutionalized. Third, it honors all the victims of the Holodomor, not only urban and rural dwellers who died of starvation in 1932-1933, but also teachers, writers, the clergy, and political leaders arrested and exiled to the Gulag before and after the Great Famine. Fourth, the proposed model shifts an emphasis away from the implementation of the Soviet agricultural policy of the first five-year plan in Ukraine and foregrounds the role of intelligentsia. Ultimately, it allows historians to use theoretical tools from the genocide studies to analyze the Holodomor. In Ukraine, victims and perpetrators lived side by side; they were neighbors and even family members. The proposed paradigm allows us to write a comprehensive social history of the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian nation.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the evolution of the United States policy toward Ukraine vis-à-vis Russia during three presidential administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D.  Roosevelt, and Joseph Biden, with an emphasis on the genocide of Ukrainians.
The scientific novelty of the research consists in the analysis of the genocide of Ukrainians within the context of the century-old Cold War between Russia and the West using primary sources from the American military intelligence archives.
Methodology. The author used historical research methodology to collect and triangulate primary and secondary sources and applied critical analysis of the content of governmental reports, archival documents, newspaper articles, and scholarly monographs.
Conclusions. For the third time in history Ukraine has become a battlefield in the geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West. While Woodrow Wilson made «the world safe for democracy», his principle of self-determination did not apply to Ukrainians; thus, Ukraine’s independence was sacrificed for the sake of «Russian unity». The consequences were the Red Terror and Lenin’s famine of 1921–1923 in Ukraine that drowned in blood its national liberation movement. Lenin’s disciple, Joseph Stalin, consolidated the totalitarian system and implemented his predecessor’s policy toward Ukraine that led to physical, biological, and cultural genocide against the largest non-Russian captive nation. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration not only did nothing, but also never acknowledged publicly Stalin’s crimes. American journalists along with politicians participated, albeit indirectly, in the Holodomor denial. The rehabilitation of Stalinism in Russia, revision of the past, and Holodomor denial have led to further escalation of violence on the eve of the ninetieth anniversary of the crime. President Joseph Biden called Russia’s actions in Ukraine a genocide. The next step is to draw a parallel to the Holodomor and respond to that denial by bringing the perpetrators of today’s genocide before an international tribunal to restore the rule of law and justice.