The Holodomor’s Impact on Ukraine

Kristina Hook - 2014 

The Holodomor (“killing by hunger”) was a Soviet-orchestrated famine that artificially created mass starvation through the seizure of food, seeds, agricultural equipment, and other property in 1932-1933 Soviet Ukraine. The Holodomor occurred during Soviet collectivization, meaning, the state confiscation of private property, such as family farms. Along with their property, the owners were stripped of their rights to make individual decisions and forced to join large government-run farms. 

Even within the broader context of other famines that occurred across the Soviet Union, as well as other famines in 1920s Ukraine, the Holodomor is shocking for its devastatingly short time span. In less than two years, at least four million people in Soviet Ukraine perished. 

The deaths of at least one in every eight Ukrainians to slow, dehumanizing hunger had a severe impact on Ukrainian health, demography, independence, social organization, cultural heritage, and more. The physical and psychological consequences of the Holodomor would ripple across Ukraine for multiple generations. 

Unlike many other mass crimes with millions of victims, a limited number of people outside of Ukraine knew what was happening. During this time of Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian rule, the Soviet Union was very successful with informational blockades. Authorities hid information, told falsehoods about what was happening, and worked hard to discredit a few brave journalists who published stories about the Holodomor. 

Internally, the Soviet clampdown was even worse. Draconian treasons laws would punish entire families for any activities that the authorities deemed subversive, like telling about the Holodomor. These laws—along with fear and coping mechanisms—led to further traumas. Some Holodomor survivors have shared that their parents never told them about the existence of their older siblings who died in the Holodomor until they were old enough to handle this “dangerous knowledge.” Even to the final days of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Holodomor was never officially acknowledged. 

Moscow and Ukraine: Enduring Genocidal Dynamics 

With the Holodomor suppressed for many years, even scholars had much to learn about these terrible events when the Soviet Union collapsed. Across the former Soviet Union, different countries began to de-classify their once forbidden archives. In 2015, Ukraine’s parliament passed legislation simplifying the public’s ability to access extensive Soviet Union records stored in these archives. 

Such documents have contributed to sea change in the academic study of the Holodomor. Today, many scholars interpret the willful nature of the Holodomor and the Soviet targeting of Ukraine as genocidal. 

Stalin and his inner circles’ targeting of Ukraine was likely a response to Ukraine’s long-standing independent streak. Even after Ukraine’s independent state movement failed, Ukrainians would account for 30% of all rebellions to Soviet collectivization in 1930. 

Stalin recorded his fears of “losing Ukraine” and its resources as a justification for his murderous actions during the Holodomor. But he never succeeded in completely destroying Ukraine, its people, or its independence. Later, Ukrainians would constitute the highest number of political prisoners in the Soviet Union—still asserting their dignity and freedom. 

Today, we are witnessing eerily similar dynamics again. Moscow’s current authoritarian leader, Vladimir Putin, is again waging a harrowing campaign of sustained atrocities, violence, and death against a Ukrainian society that will not surrender their hard-fought freedoms. 

Despite the many differences in their lives and historical context., Maria and Yehor’s lives have both been shattered by Moscow dictators targeting them because of the values of freedom and independence 

that are woven into their national identities. In short, Maria and Yehor are both fleeing genocides. 

Genocide: The Collapse of the World 

Genocide is a short word for a massive crime. While the topic of genocide can sometimes be politicized, understanding what we mean by this word is essential for protecting victims like Maria and Yehor, for ensuring justice and accountability, for honoring victims who were hurt and murdered, and for making sure other victims no longer have to flee for their lives. 

But what do scholars mean when they talk about a genocide? The best way to answer this question is through a story, one that took place just before the Holodomor. 

In the 1920s, a young Polish law student—not much older than Maria and Yehor—learned about the systematic massacres that had been inflicted on Armenians during the 1920s. Adding to his horror, he soon learned that no international law existed that could have prosecuted the Ottoman authorities who coordinated and perpetrated these abuses. 

In his autobiography, he would later ask a haunting question: “Why was killing a million people a less serious crime than killing a single individual?” But this young man did more than ask hard questions: Raphael Lemkin would go on to dedicate his life to preventing such group crimes. 

Himself of Jewish ancestry, Lemkin would watch again with horror as Nazi Germany pursued extermination policies against Europe’s Jewish population, claiming forty-nine of his 

own relatives. Even as the Nazi atrocity machine continued rolling across Europe, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill lamented this “crime without a name.” 

Lemkin relentlessly advocated for public outrage in response to the atrocities unfolding in Axis-occupied Europe, including suggesting a new word to describe and punish them: genocide, combining a Greek word (genos: people, tribe) with a Latin suffix (caedo: the act of killing). Lemkin described this neologism (new word) as “the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group,” with religious group targeting also added in later. This idea of group targeting was central: that people would be targeted purely on the basis of their identity as members of a particular group. 

Did you know that Raphael Lemkin wrote and spoke about the type of violence that Maria experienced during the Holodomor? In 1953, Lemkin spoke at a 20th anniversary commemoration remembering the Holodomor, which he called the “classic example of Soviet genocide, its longest and broader experiment in Russification (that is, efforts to strip Ukrainians of their national identity, language, and culture).” “As long as Ukraine retains its national unity,” Lemkin said, “so long as its people continue to think of themselves as Ukrainians and to seek independence, so long Ukraine poses a serious threat to Moscow.” 

These words foreshadow the violence that Yehor also experienced, as Moscow sparked armed conflict in Ukraine in 2014 and escalated with a full-scale, nationwide invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Again, Ukrainians fought back, rebelled, and asserted their dignity and independence. Again, Moscow escalated its violence against ordinary people in ways that are difficult for most people to imagine. And again, another child like Maria had to flee to stay alive. 

This is the harrowing and destructive power of a genocide, that one’s group identity—not their individual actions—is the reason why perpetrators begin to target them to destroy their way of life. 

Imagine yourself in Maria or Yehor’s shoes, holding their rucksacks yourself. Suddenly, everything you take for granted about how a stranger on the street might treat you may no longer be true. You ask yourself if it is just your imagination or is this person coming to hurt you and your family. 

You glance down at your clothes. If you are Ukrainian in the 1930s like Maria or even in the 2020s like Yehor, you might see yourself wearing a beautiful embroidered outfit called a vyshyvanka. This is often an outfit for a special occasion. 

Normally, you feel proud to wear it. But suddenly you feel fear. This part of your heritage that brings you feelings of pride, belonging, roots, and safety may be marking you as a threat. What should you do? What should you wear? Should you stuff your beautiful outfit in your rucksack? 

The butterflies in your stomach now help you to understand why your parents are telling you that you must leave your home, your favorite nature spot, and the birds that used to sing every morning in your favorite tree. Will your memories of these places fade away? 

Time to go, says your family. We will leave silently. But we won’t go quietly. We won’t fade away. 

We won’t fade away.