Over the past decades, the Ukrainian Holodomor has been recognized by reputable Western historians. Besides Robert Conquest, James Mace, and Andrea Graziosi, I would also like to mention the French author Bernard Bruneteau, less known in Ukraine, who paid attention and interpreted the 1932-33 tragedy of the Ukrainian nation in his book The Century of the Genocides. However, we have to admit that the Holodomor is not conspicuous in the mass consciousness of the Western nations.
On the eve of the Holodomor Remembrance Day, we asked Giovanna BROGI, well-known Slavic culture researcher, professor at the University of Milan, and president of the Italian Association for Ukrainian Studies, to speak on this matter.
“During the 50 years of the post-war period, intellectuals treated the USSR in a specific way and were influenced by Soviet propaganda. First bits of information on the Holodomor, as well as on other Soviet crimes, which surfaced only during the 1980s, were reported by few high-level historians.
“I think that the psychological factor should also be taken into consideration: common people do not like to worry about tragedies. The well-being of the 1970s-1980s promoted entertainment and leisure first of all, leaving no place for interest in a tragedy that happened in such a remote country so long ago. People (especially Italians!) can be imbued with tragic events that are happening today, but they forget about them in two days. Let alone tragedies that happened 80 years ago!
“It should also be kept in mind that there was no significant Ukrainian emigration to Italy. It was in Germany instead, and that is where the Holodomor was covered the most. And of course, in the United States and Canada too. France’s knowledge of the Holodomor is not as scarce, as Italy’s, but it is still incomplete. France is under a great cultural influence of Russia.
“Over the recent five or six years, each European country has faced serious economic and social problems. Usually people are concerned with their own hardships, with what is going on in Western Europe. They think very little about the countries that entered the European Union not so long ago (such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, or Poland). And even less thought is given to the countries farther east, beyond the borders of the EU. It sounds distressing, but Ukraine does not have much of interest to offer an ordinary Italian or just EU citizen.
“Unfortunately, Russian influence is prevailing in Europe, in particular because Europe depends on Russia in political and economic ways, and especially in this period, difficult for European economy, business is more important to them than historical or moral problems.
“Despite everything, the number of people who possess any knowledge of the Holodomor increased during the past 20 years, even though the level of knowledge is still general and quite low.
“The most recent observation: the Ukrainian government always did very little to promote Ukrainian history and culture. I know that one Ukrainian Institute in Paris is functioning, but the Ukrainian Embassy in Italy is doing absolutely nothing. Some Italian historians, joined by Ukrainian communities on certain occasions, carried out a few initiatives, but it is just a drop in the bucket.”
As we can see, some reasons of the European community’s lack of knowledge about Ukrainian tragedy are of objective nature, and it is extremely hard to cope with them. However, the passiveness of the Ukrainian government and its institutions also are among Brogi’s remarks. There is no ways Ukrainians can consider this factor to be something that does not depend on them. We have to rally our forces for the sake of millions of innocent people, who were tortured, if we do not want the memory of them to be relegated to oblivion.
Is any awareness of the Holodomor taking shape in Russian society? How should we respond to the Russian federal agency’s preparation for publication of a three-volume book, which disproves the “exceptional nature” of famine in Ukraine in the 1930s and says that this is a mere distortion of history created to harm Russia? The Day asked Ihor CHUBAIS, Doctor of Philosophy, director of the Russian Study Center at the Peoples’ Friendship University to comment upon this.
“Those who make no difference between ordinary Russian citizens and the government, make a serious political mistake. Today, our government does not express our society’s interests. Starting from 1917, when the Russian Constituent Assembly was destroyed, we have not had free and fair elections in our country. Some 70 or 80 years have passed, and people now understand what the USSR really was. So, the sentiments of common people and the government’s behavior should not be considered identical.
“Concerning the Holodomor, our government is inadequate and illegitimate, that is why it has to pervert their world outlook, as well as distort our own history, and our neighbor’s.
“The problem of the Holodomor is not that simple because, unfortunately, Ukraine has lost the information war. There are plenty of people in Russia who have a clear understanding of what the Holodomor was. If those who understand the problem were given one hour of air time on one TV channel a month, we would have had a country of a totally different quality.
“Comrade Stalin enjoyed killing not only Ukrainians, but Russians and Belarusians as well. But in this case, Ukrainians suffered the most. Russia went through an artificial famine as well, but it was not as horrible. The Russian army could not do in their country what they did in Ukraine, and Stalin did not gain such awful result because he had no leverage.”
COMMENTARY
“FOR UKRAINE THE HOLODOMOR IS ONE OF THE EVENTS THAT HELP BUILD THE NATIONAL IDENTITY”
Semen NOVOPRUDSKY, independent journalist, Moscow:
“Two things, the attitude of ordinary people and that of the government, should be treated as separate entities. This topic was very important for the Russian official political agenda in their relations with Ukraine under the previous Ukrainian president. Russian government was trying to demonstrate their attitude and did not accept Yushchenko’s attempts to achieve the recognition of the Holodomor as genocide. By doing this, our government revealed themselves as supporters of Stalin. Nowadays, this topic seems to have disappeared from the Russian political agenda. However, the Kremlin’s attitude towards the matter has not changed a bit. Concerning the public, in order to make the conclusions, we need to conduct social studies of the problem. In my opinion, the quality of historical knowledge in Russia is in such a state that a large part of the public, especially the young, have no idea whatsoever what this is about. In this sense, the Russians’ knowledge of both Soviet and pre-Soviet history is equally insufficient. And so is their knowledge of what the Holodomor is. Anyway, if Russia and Ukraine keep to the present-day direction in their relations, this problem will be perceived as a tragedy only by some Russians with either a Soviet background and experience, or a profound knowledge of history. It seems that the Russian government is a great obstruction to Russia itself in the first place. The Kremlin cannot think of the principles to base Russian identity on. For Ukraine, the Holodomor is one of events that help shape national identity. Indeed, this is a large-scale national tragedy, which should be present in every normal written history of the nation. Of course, this page of history is not the same for Russia, and it will not boast of the then government while compiling history textbooks. I think the Russian government will apply much effort to stop Russian people from knowing about this event. At the moment, there is no data on the Russians’ attitude towards the Holodomor. And I do not think any research has ever been carried out in this area.”
Interviewed by Ihor SAMOKYSH, The Day
