AFP: Ukraine remembers victims of Stalin-era famine
Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine on Saturday held a day of mourning for the millions of victims of a Soviet-era famine, with President Petro Poroshenko describing it as an episode in the "war waged by Russia against Ukraine."
Poroshenko, accompanied by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and hundreds of Ukrainians, laid symbolic wheat ears and lit candles before the Holodomor -- or "death by hunger" -- monument in central Kiev.
The 1932-33 famine happened as harvests dwindled and Josef Stalin's Soviet police enforced the brutal policy of collectivising agriculture by requisitioning grain and other foodstuffs.
Update: Ukraine pays tribute to victims of 1932-1933 famine which claimed some 4.5m lives (Ukraine Today)
WNU Editor: My father .... who lived (and survived) the Ukraine famine at the age of 12 .... would strongly object to this characterization .... Poroshenko: Russia's centuries-old hybrid war against Ukraine led to 1932-33 famine (Ukraine Today). The Communists under Stalin did not care if you were Ukrainian, Russian, Belarus, or any other ethnic group in the then Soviet Union .... the goal was Soviet farm collectivization, and it was to be implemented regardless of the consequences (and it was implemented at the cost of millions in Ukraine, Russia, and throughout the Soviet Union). But in today's Ukraine .... deeply divided along linguistic/cultural/and religious lines .... the focus among the leadership in Kiev is to blame Russia, while ignoring the role that Ukrainian Communists themselves had in implementing this genocide 83 years ago.
Yup, you hit the nail on the head. Also Stalin was from Georgia so wonder why they blamed Russia, since it,s more the leader than the location if I worded it right.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has especially suffered. It is the in thing. When looking for attention, special privileges, or money it is beneficial to be a victim. It is also helpful while covering one's tracks to project crimes elsewhere
ReplyDeletePast that, after the ritual lamenting of the horror of the Holomodor (and by extention, communism), I wonder when an accounting will be performed on those who went hungry since the fall of the USSR--or before the revolution-- or simply passed on due to the effects of the geeat "transistion".
I wonder how many are going hungry this very minute in post- Maidan Ukraine?
Will it take a "de-capitalizing" or "de-restorizing" to recognize that holocaust?
Did the communists or Russia for that matter, ever do anything of merit?
Some famines get less attention than others.
ReplyDeleteWhy?
http://www.tehelka.com/2014/06/remembering-indias-forgotten-holocaust/
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ReplyDeleteRespect to your family that paid with their suffering in this historic event.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that current interpretations beat on the unfolding politics in the now.
History is always now--never written in stone and unassailable.
Power bears on the narratives that dominate--and though this is the case, it doesn't mean that competing historical perspectives are defeated, and cannot come to the forefront the is the horizon of our common future.