Every year, on the fourth Saturday of November, Ukraine, as well as the world community, commemorate the victims of the Holodomor, a famine orchestrated by the Soviet authorities. This year, the Day of Remembrance is observed on 25 November. This date marks the events of 1932–1933 when, as a result of the Soviet Union’s policies on grain procurement and the so-called collectivisation, millions of people in Ukraine perished in a devastating famine.
Ukrainians experienced three famines throughout the 20th century – the famine of 1921-1923, the Holodomor of 1932-1933, and the famine of 1946-1947. The famine of 1932-1933, which is now recognised as the genocide of the Ukrainian people perpetrated by the Stalinist regime, was the most devastating one. Following an earlier bloody purge of the Ukrainian intellectual elites and clergy in the 1920s, Ukrainian peasants were quickly picked to be the next victims of the Soviet regime.
A number of events preceded the mass famine in Ukraine. On 18 November 1932, the Central Committee of the Soviet Ukraine Communist Party issued a resolution titled “Regarding the Measures to Strengthen Grain Procurements,” which outlined punishments for failing to meet grain procurement plans. Rural households were penalised with the so-called ‘natural fines’, which meant confiscation of a 15-month stock of meat. Later, the list of ‘compensatory foods’ was expanded to include potatoes and lard, and by the end of the year, long-lasting food items were included as well. Additionally, the resolution “On the Elimination of Counter-Revolutionary Nests and the Annihilation of Kulak Groups”, passed on the same day, allowed grain confiscation from Ukrainian peasants charged with the so-called “counter-revolutionary crimes”.
A few days later, on 26 November, the Soviet People’s Commissariat of Justice and the Prosecutor General issued an order, emphasising that “repressions are one of the powerful means to overcome class resistance to grain procurements”. Thus, the artificially created famine became a well-thought-out and punitive operation.
Very soon, Ukrainian peasants had all of their harvested grain confiscated, and then, through numerous ‘natural fines’ and searches, their last remaining food reserves were also taken away. In December 1932, Soviet authorities prohibited selling and buying food products in 82 Ukrainian districts. Deliveries of industrial goods were also halted. In early 1933, Societ authorities issued a ban on leaving the famine-stricken Ukraine, depriving peasants of their last hopes for salvation. Left without bread, starving Ukrainian families consumed various surrogates: corn cobs and stalks, sifted chaff, dried straw, rotten watermelons and beets, potato peels, acacia pods, crushed bark, and tree leaves.
For decades, the topic of the Holodomor was taboo. While the communist regime in Ukraine was in power, talking about the famine of those years was strictly forbidden. Academic research on this tragedy began only in the late 1980s. Now, in modern Ukraine, according to the legislation “On the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine”, issued on 28 November 2006, the famine of 1932–1933 is recognised as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. Its “public denial […] will be considered as an insult to the memory of millions of Holodomor victims, a humiliation of the dignity of the Ukrainian people, and is illegal”.
This year, Ukraine commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on all Ukrainians in Ukraine and those abroad to light a candle in memory of the Holodomor victims on Saturday, 25 November 2023, at 16:00. “As long as Ukrainians light candles, the memory of ancestors who were deliberately and cynically pushed into the arms of hungry death because they were Ukrainians will not fade away”, said the president.
Zelensky added that millions of Ukrainians were pushed into the arms of hungry death because they posed an ideological threat to the imperial formation, being spiritually free people and, therefore, considered dangerous to the regime and its geopolitical intentions.
In his speech, Zelensky noted that 90 years ago, the world could not fully see what was happening. Today, on the other hand, during the brutal Russian war against Ukraine, there are no excuses for those who choose not to see and acknowledge the events. “90 years ago, the world could not fully see what was really happening. Now, there are no people who do not see. There are only those who choose to ignore it. There are not many of them, and there will be even fewer. The truth paves its way. On this path, the world must unite and condemn the crimes of the past. The world must unite and stop the crimes of today,” emphasised Zelensky.
Also, this year, The Ukrainian Institute of National Memory initiated the campaign “Remember the victims of the Holodomor. Support those who fight for Ukraine.”, encouraging people to donate and support Ukrainian soldiers on the front line. The campaign’s symbol is a trench candle, similar to the ones used by Ukrainian defenders on the front.
Holodomor has been recognised as genocide against the Ukrainian people by Ukraine and nearly 30 other countries worldwide. On 24 November, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, announced that a Ukraine-initiated UN declaration to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 1932-1933 Holodomor was signed by 55 member states and the EU delegation, which marked a dramatic increase since the previous similar declaration signed in 2018.
