The 81st anniversary of the great tragedy

This year is special for Ukraine. Never before since the independence have we felt so deeply about our freedom, sovereignty, and human life. The Euromaidan’s victory over Viktor Yanukovych’s regime, the Kremlin’s war against the Ukrainian state, the occupation of Ukrainian territory – these events have opened a lot of our old wounds. We are especially passionate as we commemorate one of the largest traumas to ever hit the Ukrainian people by marking the 81st anniversary of the Ukrainian genocide of 1932-33 this year.

We must give Viktor Yushchenko his due, as under his leadership the issue of the Holodomor genocide was first raised at the state level. Before, it was rather the efforts and achievements of individuals or communities. Den has played a special role, as we were among the first to offer the public knowledge and memory of the Ukrainian Holodomor genocide, because it was our publication that had as its contributor James Mace, the well-known US-Ukrainian researcher of one of the greatest tragedies to befall the humankind in the 20th century. Unfortunately, he is no longer with us, but his books are still proving the genocidal nature of the Holodomor to everyone. It was very fitting for President Petro Poroshenko to mention Mace during his speech on November 22.

Under the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, the genocide issue receded into the background. The regime generally avoided the word “genocide” and limited itself to formally commemorating the dead, and they do even that apart from the public, even though the Verkhovna Rada legally classified the Holodomor as genocide back in 2006. Parliaments of dozens of countries recognized it as such as well. Moreover, a Ukrainian court convicted of the crime of genocide seven top leaders of the USSR and the Ukrainian SSR – Joseph Stalin, Lazar Kaganovich, Pavel Postyshev, Vyacheslav Molotov, Stanislav Kosior, Mendel Khatayevich, and Vlas Chubar – in 2010. According to investigators, the total number of the Holodomor casualties stood at 3,941,000 persons, with 6,122,000 births lost as well.

The genocide issue and honoring the people killed by hunger has returned to the state level once again. For the first time in five years, the authorities and the public held commemoration activities together, under the slogan: “They used the hunger to kill our freedom. As we stayed unconquered in 1933, we will be invincible now!”

“It was as genocide that the Holodomor has finally been imprinted in our historical memory. According to the latest sociological research, three quarters of the Ukrainians firmly believe that the Holodomor was genocide directed against the Ukrainian people, and the number of those who do not recognize it as genocide is rapidly falling,” the president said in his speech. “As aptly defined by Mace, this prominent researcher of the Holodomor, Stalin sought to ‘eliminate the Ukrainian peasantry, Ukrainian intelligentsia, Ukrainian language, Ukrainian spirit, Ukrainian culture, and Ukrainian history, destroy Ukraine as such.’”

COMMENTARY

Valentyn NALYVAICHENKO, Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine:

“The memorial day of the Holodomor victims is very important for all of humankind, so that it understands that Ukrainians were destroyed only because they wanted to be freed from the yoke of Bolshevism. It is important for the humankind also because this crime against humanity, a genocide, was committed against Ukrainians, despite all norms, rules, and the Christian faith. Therefore, we must come to feel and to know, where our parents went. Personally, I am eastern Ukrainian, and many easterners have no relatives who remember the 1930s. For example, I cannot find the information and people that could tell me where my grandfather and great-grandfather lived and how they died. Den’s work, especially that of your editor-in-chief, is very important, for you are at the fore front of modern scholarship, especially the modern understanding of the crime of genocide. Larysa Ivshyna put it all the best, and every Ukrainian must read her words closely.

“The Donbas is now consumed by looting, destruction, intimidation, terror against the civilian population. There are indications of new crimes against humanity there. Furthermore, the enemy blocks access of food and medical workers. There are people there who get sick just like us, but where are they to get doctors and medicines? We as authorities still cannot get them there, because the enemy shoots at people, tortures and kills them. The volunteers who come to help people get to the terrorists’ underground prisons: why? We are forced to negotiate, in the 21st century, with armed beasts for release of volunteers and doctors who came to help the common people there. There are indications of the crime of genocide in these events.”